Located only minutes from downtown, Balboa Park has been viewed as the crown jewel and cultural heart of San Diego. It contains more than one thousand acres and over a dozen museums. The park also houses an assortment of gardens, theaters, and meandering trails. Many of the buildings were originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and fashioned in the Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style. This National Historic Landmark hosts many community events throughout the year.
Each Tuesday, a few of the museums offer free admission to San Diego residents. There’s a regular rotation each week of the month. When they were younger, I often dragged my kids to the free museums. I’m always in search of a good bargain, and you can’t get much better than free.
The Fleet Science Center was probably their all-time favorite. It’s both a science museum and planetarium. My kids liked the hands-on interactive exhibits. They were a mother-approved alternative to Nintendo and computer games. Sometimes we’d splurge and watch the 3-D movies in the IMAX theater. The dinosaurs and meteorites appeared lifelike and headed right towards us.
Coming in a close second was the Natural History Museum with its’ giant T-Rex. My boys were always big dinosaur fans, and so was I. Their bedding sported a dinosaur motif, which admittedly may have spawned a few nightmares. The Natural History Museum is featured in a chase scene in the second book of the series.
The kids also enjoyed the Air & Space, Automotive, and Model Railroad Museums. However, they visited the art museums under protest. It was my thing, not theirs. Since damages caused by bored roughhousing children could force me to take out a second mortgage, art museum visits were kept short.
Although my children vociferously complained about being forced to go to the museums, now they escort their own kiddos to the exhibits. Ironic.
