The Point Loma Lighthouse

TC's class went on a field trip a few days ago - Bert and I volunteered to go as chaperones. I'd done my "time" in the past, accompanying her past classes to the SD Zoo, Sea World, and Old Town...In 4th grade, they study the Missions and also the Spanish/Portuguese explorers, aka colonial invaders who spread their diseases to the local Native Americans, plying them with liquor, cheap trinkets and killing them off in large numbers due to their lack of immunity all the while convincing them to abandon their gods for their own superior god. But of course the kids get the sanitized version of California history...

And that is why the chosen destination was the Cabrillo Monument and the Old Point Loma Lighthouse in Point Loma, which overlooks San Diego Bay and Coronado Island. More info here, here, and here!

Luckily we were not given a "group" or "set" of students to actually "supervise". Rather, TC's teacher wanted the whole group to stay together, so our actual "overseeing" of the kids was minimized. Thank God! No offense, but I really can't stand being around a lot of young kids, especially unruly hellions...I exaggerate - most of the kids weren't that bad, but there were a few that made me mutter obscenities under my breath.
The Point Loma Lighthouse sits atop a hill overlooking San Diego Bay. There is a statue of Joao Cabrillo (Hispanized as Juan Cabrillo) on another lookout point. There is also a series of rooms containing exhibits, a place to watch films, and another housing the gift shop...When I was young, my parents would take any out of town visitors to the Lighthouse. They loved to show their friends and relatives from the Philippines or wherever how beautiful San Diego was. It was always an adventure for us kids when our family made the drive up the winding roads (Canon Street) which meandered past rows and rows of white gravestones at Fort Rosecrans military cemetery. It used to be free to visit this national landmark. Then, sometime in the late 80's or early 90's they started charging fees to enter the park. Damn them! Damn them all to hell! (shakes fist skyward)

Today, our entry was free - thanks 4th grade teacher. Otherwise, it would have been $5 a car. View of the Lighthouse from the statue (not pictured):

Historical marker:

Full frontal view of the Lighthouse. The teacher was only letting in groups of 5 kids at a time. With 24 kids in the class plus a dozen adults, it took a longass time to see this place. Bert and I had taken TC here before in the past. This was nothing new to her. She's been to so many museum exhibits, landmarks and whatnot...Some parents and students hadn't been here before so it was all very exciting to them...We could hear kids whispering, "It's haunted in there" and another squealed, "I saw a ghost in there!"

Little do they know that the Lighthouse is purportedly a haunted place...Check out this site here... I am SO GLAD I didn't read this before we went. Whew, I am relieved I didn't encounter any cold spots while climbing the narrow spiral staircase. The view below is from the window on the bottom floor. The white concrete slants downwars into a cistern, which caught and held rain water.The kitchen and dining area...you can see the reflections on the glass. Of ghosts?

I believe this was the living room. The Lighthouse keeper's wife made all of the shell frames that you see hanging on the walls. You know, because she was crafty like that!

One of the bedrooms...a bit dark here...When I went, I was all by myself...or was I?

Here's the view from either the top or the middle of the spiral staircase. It's so damn narrow here, I felt like one wrong move would send me stumbling downwards to a painful face plant.

Another bedroom...

Here is the original beacon used by the Lighthouse...quite amazing actually, seeing all of the different prisms and how they reflected the light from miles away.

A mannequin of the Lighthouse Keeper looking like a sad reject from the Robert Stigwood musical disaster known as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band(the film)...Where's Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb when you need them? Their wardrobe will turn this dudes out! OMG, that film's soundtrack was all over the place with highs from Earth Wind and Fire funkifying of "Got to Get You Into My Life" and Aerosmith's relatively faithful cover of "Come Together" to the nadir of all nadirs, George Burns' croaking rendition of "When I'm Sixty-Four" and Alice Cooper's twisted yet tenderly creepy version of the somnabulous ditty "Because". Play THAT at a party and I guarantee that you will clear the room in ten seconds. Either that or people will stay and listen in mortification, much like an aural version of the "deer in the headlights" feeling. But I digress...

Back view of the Lighthouse...

And if you turned around from that back view, here is the opposite view of the Pacific Ocean as well as a staircase that leads to a really really old and dank bathroom and a path called the Harborside Trail...There are tidepools down below but you must pay an extra fee to go there. That's something we actually haven't done as a family so I made a mental note for us to go there one day.

Here is an explorer sporting chain mail and a man corset. Okay, that's not really what it was called, but I'm calling it that for fun. Oh yeah, his fingers were broken. Probably by bored teenagers. One was dangling at a disturbing angle.

Bert next to another House of Wax looking explorer mannequin. The hands of this particular mannequin were actually whole. Several other mannequins' hands, or rather their fingers were broken off at odd angles, which was kind of freaky especially since the silicone or plastic "flesh" was so lifelike . I half expected to see bits of phalangeal bones and veins and tendons popping out of the ragged breaks in the finger joints.

Here's the happy family...note that I am trying to suck in my gut! And dude, it's time for me to get a hair cut again!

Two haunted places in a month...maybe we WILL check out the Whaley House, or even the Marston House or the William Heath Davis House! Hmmmm....

El Campo Santo Cemetery - Old Town

This excursion was the same day we went to Rancho la Lena and got my newly refurbished wedding ring back. Like the Six Million Dollar Man or like the nose of Jocelyn Wildenstein
(or her eyes, cheeks, chin, boobs, ass, or spleen for that matter), the prongs were melted down or taken apart and rebuilt so it could be better... faster ...and stronger than ever! Since the diamond place was in Old Town, one of San Diego's tourist attractions, street parking was awful. We parked high up on hill on Juan Street, past Acapulco restaurant. As we headed down for lunch, we passed by what is billed as the Most Haunted House in the U.S....
(cue creepy music here)...The Whaley House!

I've never been in it, but read about it online. They say sometimes, you can smell cigar smoke in the back yard even though no one is there. You can buy tickets next door to take a self-guided tour in the house. The rooms are non accesible to tourists, obviously and get this, they do not do any Night Tours during the last week of October!!! I'm sure it's to deter those gorehounds or people who get their thrills from seeing ghosts or whatever! Guests have often remarked that they have the feeling that they are being watched. Sometimes a few have encountered a few "spirits" in the Whaley House. There are docents there sometimes in period dress. Wouldn't it be really wierd if you thought you met one, but they were really an apparition? I just scared myself there! Another bone chilling story I read was that one of the bedrooms looked like it had been slept in, but no one was in there and the bed was fixed a few minutes before....Oooo...

A few blocks away is this place...El Campo Santo Cemetery (The Holy Field):

I figured, WTF, let's all go, me, Bert and TC! It was broad daylight and there were other tourists there (see Asian tourists in picture above)...This was one of San Diego's oldest cemeteries. It used to be a lot larger, but when the area started to become more developed, houses and businesses were built on top of the old burial grounds, which are now reduced to a small plot of land along San Diego Avenue... Here's another blogger's photos here.

I am SO GLAD I read about El Campo Santo AFTER we visited. I got chills reading some of the stuff online there (referenced in my Rancho la Lena post). See the diagram below of the graves? They are under the street. Sometimes people who parked by the cemetery remarked that their car alarms would mysteriously go off even if no one touched their cars. Or sometimes cars engines would fail to start...

This place is a historical landmark as well...

See the blue van? I wonder if the owners had problem starting that car? The cemetery is rather small, with lots of wooden crosses scattered throughout. There were also some graves that were also enclosed by white picket fences.

Here's the grave of a notorious denizen of old San Diego, Yankee Jim Robinson. He was hanged in the backyard of the Whaley House and it took 45 minutes for him to die. He is known to haunt the Whaley House...Read more about his story here and here .

Grave of an "Indian Babe"

Here's another geranium covered marker of an "Indian Maiden"

The placards here are kind of grungy since they're exposed to the elements.

There's a huge tree in the middle of the cemetery. There was also a portion of the site which had that yellow police tape on it. I didn't venture into that area, although it would have been easy to do so.

This was kind of sad. It says "Anita Gillis - A Little Girl". When I read about this online, turns out that this grave is quite popular with guests. As you can see, some people even leave "gifts" for her (small toys, marker pens, coins). TC and I offered a few pennies.

Here are those picket enclosed graves...

There's that yellow tape...

OMG, I'm so glad I didn't encounter any "cold spots" in the cemetery. I'm also relieved that my photos don't show any ghost orbs or any shadowy figures...It was still an interesting excursion seeing this place and it provided an opportunity to discuss death with my daughter, who remarked that people didn't seem to live that long back then (she was looking at the dates of birth and death). Not pictured in this post is the grave of the caretaker, also known to "haunt" the cemetery.

So, if you want to check out one of San Diego's creepy places, this is one of the places to go! Bring the whole family!