5th Annual Women's History Month Street Painting Festival @ SWC Day 1 & 2

Although this event happened a few weeks ago, I am finally posting on it. The 5th Annual Women's History Month Street Painting Festival was held at Southwestern College. Bert ended up checking it out during his lunch hour...so I guess you could call this a guest post of sorts.

Set up near Mayan Hall...

Bert took shots of some of the art work. The theme was Women's History Month. This was one rendition of "Rosie the Riveter".  This was the first day of the Fair which had unusually warm weather.  It ended up raining later that night but was clear the next day.

Not sure what this was supposed to be..

Wonderwoman...

Another version of Rosie the Riveter, except she is pregnant.

More chalk art...


There were some food booths there...


Now this one caught Bert's attention, Bosnian Grill.

He picked up a combo plate from here. Turns out that they are normally at the Otay Ranch farmer's market on Tuesdays.

Bert got the Cevapi plate with tzatziki sauce as well as a "hot sauce" (which he said wasn't very hot). Cevapi are the sausages.

He also tried a piece of their baklava which looked sizeable but thought it wasn't flaky enough. Plus, it was soft which he didn't like either.

Turns out that this chalk painting of Georgia O'Keefe won the first prize in the festival's art contest. Looks pretty good!

I want to say this is "supposed" to be Molly Ringwald but something about her chin seems off, a bit Jay Leno'ish.

This looks like a pseudo Diego Rivera.

More chalk art...

Bert brought home some food the 2nd day of the Festival. Since he went tothe food booth at the tail end of the day, they unloaded ALL of the Cevapi on him! Score! Sucks for the guy who was behind him. The owners threw in some pitas and some free croissants as well. Nice!

He also bought a spinach pie from the same place.

Lastly, this was the Black Forest Ham crepe from the Bella's Crepes booth which we all enjoyed. There was garlic and some herbs in there that Bert really liked.

Here's another look at those Cevapi sausages...

Other times we've had Bosnian food:
Ziba's Pitas food cart in Portland, Spring 2009
Restaurant Sarajevo in Chicago, Fall 2009

Chula Vista Heritage Museum

[The museum was damaged two years ago as of 2016 and subsequently torn down]

Talk about an oldy moldy post. This one's from a few months ago (from when we went to the Chula Vista Lemon Festival) and it got lost in the queue. I believe I posted on the food already.

This was the first time we'd been to the Chula Vista Heritage Museum even though we drive by it everytime we're in downtown CV. Admission is free, so yay. This on on Third Avenue in the historic downtown area, near Memorial Park and down the street from La Bella Pizza Garden.

The ongoing exhibit was farming in the South County.



Funk's Hybrid Corn?

Farming implements...

The area near us, Otay Ranch used to be a huuuge cattle/sheep ranch and until recently, you could still see the cows grazing there. No more. Just a ton of homes now. Foreclosed ones. Wut????

Vegetable labels on display and photos from the past.

There used to be a farm at the foot of Main Street in Chula Vista (right before you reach Palm Avenue). The junk yard used to be there too. Now it's a strip mall with Kohl's, Baby's R Us and Petsmart.

I love these vegetable label with their vivid color scheme and bold graphics.


Next up, Fred Rohr's Anvil Drop!

Chula Vista Lemon Festival - Part 2

But wait! There's more!  Ooh, garlic onion rings and garlic fries!

Here's TC's frozen lemonade

Here was another booth selling pupusas. They were giving free samples too. Their pupusas were also cheaper - the first place was selling them for $4 each! That's highway robbery! It was $3, which is cheaper but still kinda pricy for pupusas especially when you can get them for just $2 at El Salvadoreno. But hey, we wanted pupusas today and they there right there!

I ordered three pupusas to share - they were filled with pork, cheese and beans. It was fun watchin the women pinch off the masa dough, stick in the filling and then flatten it onto the griddle...


The pupusas were served with curtido on the side...

Here's another view...

I heardthis place was pretty good, Comal. Check out their sign - "Birria  y Barbacoa"! I think I'll go back for the Barbacoa.

This place used to be an educational supply store. Then it changed to an Italian place, Manga Bene. Now it looks like it's still an Italian place but with a different name.

These looked pretty good by the line was waaaay too long to stand in! It was so hot that day!

More food booths...

Here's a taco place...

Here's a booth that was selling custom made light plate switches....Pretty cool. I want one with Rick James on it. Or better yet, Don Knotts. Or Clarence Rutherford from "Leave it to Beaver".

Not...TC was disappointed because there were none with a horse or horses on them.

Here's a live band playing some classic rock...

If you ever go to the Lemon Festival, it's usually the 2nd weekend of August and it's held in downtown Chula Vista. You can park for free in the parking structure behind Marie Callender's (from F Street) or if you're coming from the other way, near Futtbuckers Fuddruckers. Park your car for free and in the shade and just walk less than a block to the festival.
Here's the Black Crowes with Jimmy Page on guitar (man, he looks so old now!) doing their rendition of Zep's "The Lemon Song":

Squeeze this...

Chula Vista Lemon Festival Part 1

Hey there everyone - just trying to get some older posts out. This was last month...The Chula Vista Lemon Festival. Here's an older post I did 4 years ago in 2006, "Squeeze My Lemons". (That's a Led Zeppelin reference for the non rockers out there).

We hadn't been to the Festival since then...ooh, pupusas!  And check out the sign, "F Street". Heh, "F Street Bookstore"! Actually there is one on 3rd Avenue near KMart and Long John Silvers. The only reason I know this is because back in '97, Bert and I were driving  up on 3rd to get to La Bella Pizza Garden and a damn cop had us pull over, which ended up being right next to F Street Bookstore. Turns out I didn't have my registration sticker on my license plate. At that time, we were living down South to save money to buy a house. The registration information was sent to our old apartment and never got to us. We had to go to the DMV the next day (back when it was still in Otay Mesa), explain the situation and get the fine waived, which they did. So, yeah...F Street!

Ha ha - "Fresh Squeezed Lemonade"...

Vintage trucks. See that tall tower in the back? That's the Congregational Tower - it's where old retired folks live and it's right next to a church. Awhile ago, a dude went crazy and shot and killed a bunch of people there, including himself. It was all over the news. I was at the dentists office one street down, not knowing what all the commotion was (cop cars, sirens, etc).

Bert had his eye on this booth:

As he waited for his Philly Cheesesteak, TC and I sat on the grass in the median watching people go by. We saw someone dressed up as a lemon. There were also lots of people campaigning for the upcoming elections.

I've never tried these...

I like this sign...Downtown Chula Vista's gotten nicer over the years. It still has that small town feel to it.

In addition to food and craft booths, they also had small scale amusement type rides, as well as llama rides (animal exploitation), rock climbing, bungee plunging, etc...

Back to the Philly Cheesesteaks:

Here are the dudes making them:

And here it is...nice!!!

Back to those pupusas...

At the pupusas booth, I ended up getting a bacon-wrapped hot dog for TC. Kinda over priced, $4!

We went to this booth to buy the frozen lemonade...

More to come!