Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge theme is metal. I didn’t think I would participate since none of the photos I have on file contain any metal (at least not that I can remember). I also couldn’t think of any place I would go and take photos of metal without the images looking ordinary or simply boring.

That was until yesterday afternoon, when I took my kids to the Cabrillo National Monument / National Park. We originally went to visit the tide pools. After waiting in line for over 30 minutes just to roll through the park entrance and paying $5 for our visit, we waited another 20 minutes going downhill trying to reach the tide pool area. Why that area is only accessible by car and there are no paths from the main parking lot area is a mystery to me. A park ranger finally told us to turn onto a road on the right hand side that said “no outlet”. When we reached the end of it after another few minutes, we found a secondary parking lot where we could have parked… if there had been a parking space available! But of course there was none. Why the park ranger sent us there in the first place instead of telling us to turn around is another mystery to me. So we could do nothing else than give up and drive back up the hill, park in the main parking lot and view the tide pools from very, very far away. Needless to say, I’m not ready to go back to the Cabrillo tide pools any time soon.

The view of the city of San Diego and the ocean from Cabrillo is quite impressive (I’m saving a few photos for a future post). The on-site museum consists of one large room describing the Spanish explorers in the 1500s, and that’s about it. Fortunately there’s also a lighthouse you can visit. That lighthouse is famous from having operated for a very short amount of time, finding itself in thick areas of fog at the times of the year it would be most needed. Oops…

Here’s what the Cabrillo lighthouse looks like as you walk towards it.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal - Cabrillo lighthouse
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal – Cabrillo lighthouse

Here’s a closer view of the Fresnel light part from the other side of the lighthouse as the sun was setting down. And yes, my photo is a little crooked but I wanted to show you how ridiculously cold and windy it was when I took this picture. Brrrrrrr…. Still, notice the metal railing, as well as the metal light cover and ladder. Yeah, metal! Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal? Checked!

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal - top of the Cabrillo lighthouse
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Metal – top of the Cabrillo lighthouse

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is illumination. The first photo that came to mind for this theme is one I took last weekend during our outing at Coronado Beach, in San Diego, California. I found this beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the large and historical lobby of the Hotel Del Coronado. Gorgeous!

Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination

You can view more of my photos of Coronado Beach from last week here.

When I think of illuminations, I can’t help but remembering the beautiful Christmas lights we saw this past holiday. I posted many Christmas light photos a few weeks ago, but here are a couple of my favorite.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination - Penguin Christmas lights
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination – Penguin Christmas lights
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination - Christmas lights
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Illumination – Christmas lights

More rain in San Diego means more raindrop photo opportunities

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

We seem to be enjoying a pretty rainy winter in San Diego. Besides the seven days of almost continuous rain we had before the holidays, we also had some rain just before and after Christmas, and again this past weekend and a couple of nights ago. The good thing is, most of this rain is steady but not overabundant, so the ground is soaking it up nicely and floods are few around the county. Another good thing is, we’re starting to see new green growth on our hilly landscape. Of course, it will all turn brown by May but we’ll probably have a green spring before then. I can’t wait!

I like taking photos of raindrops after the rain. I’ve found them on spider webs, and again on more spider webs. After the latest rain, I noticed a large amount of raindrops on the netting I put around my garden. This netting is there to protect my produce from the darn squirrels that try to eat it. So far, the squirrels have won every time.

Here’s what I saw when I stepped out in the garden. You can click on an image for a larger view. I like the wavy patterns the raindrops make because of the loose netting.

And yes, it’s my bougainvillea in the background, not faring well with all the frost we’ve had. I guess it will need a good trimming when spring comes. Talking about frost, I took a few more photos of frosty leaves last weekend, so I’ll be working on a post with lots of frosty photos. Brrrrrr….

Enjoying the Pacific Ocean at Coronado Beach

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I apologize if you’ve seen some of these photos in a previous post, but I want to add one to the lot and keep them all together in one post about our San Diego beaches. My next post will probably feature more frost photos so I need images of the beach to keep my bones warm a little longer.

Last weekend, I did something I haven’t done in a very long time: go to the beach with my kids. I live less than 30 minutes away from it and I don’t go very often. Why? Mostly because of the sand. It gets everywhere, especially with kids! Between your toes, in your clothes, your hair, your mouth, argh… But we’ve been talking of going to look at tide pools for months, and the winter’s low tides occur more often at times when we’re awake. Coronado Beach, just across from downtown San Diego is my favorite beach in town and it deserves its “best beach in the USA” status.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see many tide pools there but I’m planning to go to another beach soon for that. Instead, we spent the morning enjoying the ocean breeze (I love that iodine smell!), looking for shells and writing in the sand. The weather was beautiful and Coronado beach looked like this (remember to click on each image for a larger view):

Coronado Beach, San Diego, California
Coronado Beach, San Diego, California

The waves were a decent size and quite noisy. The boys loved to look at them and I enjoyed taking pictures of the big rolls coming in. Look how pretty!

Beautiful waves at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California
Beautiful waves at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California

The day was perfect to take the sailboats out and they were lined up coming out of the San Diego Bay by Point Loma.

Sailboats out of the San Diego Bay
Sailboats out of the San Diego Bay

After our walk on the beach, we went back to the sidewalk to walk to the Hotel Del Coronado (I love that place!). On our way, I snapped this picture showing the mild weather you can find by the beach in San Diego. A perfect January day!

Pacific ocean in the background, Coronado, California
Pacific ocean in the background, Coronado, California

I signed up for Project 365 – 2013

Project 365 - 2013 challenge
Project 365 – 2013 challenge

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

A few days ago, I decided to participate in the Project 365 – 2013 challenge. This is  an interactive one-photo-a-day challenge that provides you with daily inspiration / themes. The project is flexible enough that you don’t have to participate every day if you think taking one photo a day is too much, and you don’t have to stick to the daily themes if you are already inspired by something else.

My biggest personal challenge was to figure out how to take part in Project 365 exactly. Should I create a post for this every day on my website, or dedicate an individual page, or something else? So I opted for the something else by doing this:

This will be a fun way to share my photos with others, besides on this blog, and see what photos other people are taking as part of this project. Later today, I’ll share a few photos of my weekend morning at Coronado Beach, in San Diego, California, where the weather was beautiful and the waves were impressive.

If you’re not part of the Project 365 – 2013, it’s never too late to join. Here’s their quick start guide on how to getting going.