Balboa Park

To an escapee from a cold, snowy northeast winter, January in Balboa Park, San Diego, was a flight from the Arctic to Eden. Why, surprise of surprises, there actually were flowers blooming, and outdoors too ! The world was not white and black but rather shades of GREEN.

And up in the sky was this bright, glowing, warm, wonderful thing called the sun. Back home we already had had 120 inches (305 cm) of snow and our gloomy winter season was far from over. This was a dramatic and pleasurable change.

I am always in a mood of wonder and excitement when I visit a place like Balboa Park. The trees and shrubs seem so exotic to me no matter what the season, so very different from back home. Plants that are grown indoors as pot plants at home are head high shrubs here. Things that could not survive a first winter in my north country thrive in this more clement clime. And the transition from the dead of winter makes it even more spectacular. How about a sign outside the Botanical Building "Caution  Falling Figs"? I knew I was not at home.

The Aloe and Bird of Paradise were in bloom. The only person I know to have cultivated a Bird of Paradise to bloom indoors was my mother. I may have inherited a bit of green thumb from her.

Flowering Bird of Paradise seemed to be everywhere in San Diego, not restricted to the park. Residential areas were replete with plants I would have given almost everything to be able to grow back home (Kay refuses to be traded for a plant, or anything else for the matter).

I remember my first business trip to San Diego an eon or so ago. The fellow worker I was with wept when he saw immaculate cars going by our hotel that were older than his but with not a spot of rust. (My nearby city is known as Salt City. Brine wells produced prodigious amounts of salt starting back in the 1800's. Salt is currently used with abandon on the roads during the winter with dire effect on car bodies.) I, on the other hand, was most impressed with the greenery. I still am.

The Botanical Building is not an enclosed conservatory with the glass roof I

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