Coronado Part:2...

This second half of our morning in Coronado has a little history and some fun, too. It was just a spectacular day to stroll.

Part of our Island wanderings found us on Ocean Blvd, home of some of the most amazing of Coronado's mansions.

Though in 1934, the street was far from complete.

It's a good day when one can hug a huge tree. The island is home to six heritage trees. The Moreton Bay Fig, Ficus macrophylla, is #5 on the list.

The Moreton Bay Fig was much more common in Coronado during past decades, but the tree requires a considerable amount of space and Coronado is a small densely populated beach village. Ficus macrophylla, native to northeastern Australia, has heavy buttressing trunks that spread to support a massive crown that can grow to more than one hundred feet in diameter. I can't even guess how big this guy is. So very, very cool.

The Old City Hall, located on the end of a residential street, served its purpose there from 1918-1953.

I appreciate its architectural embellishments.

The main street here is Orange Ave, a mile long stretch of road lined with shops and some amazing homes. It got its name because the manicured, flower-filled median that exists today was once lined with orange trees. Unfortunately, the native Jack Rabbits found them too delicious so they had to be uprooted. This massive Neoclassical is the Spreckels Building. Harrison Albright designed this reinforced concrete building for the John D. and A.B. Spreckels Company in 1917. The leaded glass windows were designed by Tiffany & Co. The business complex originally included a bank, shops, a motion picture theater, justice court and apartments. It is still amazing, 103 years later.

Who knew that history was stamped on Coronado sidewalks. It is actually a pretty common phenomenon. I was first aware of it when my friend, Brady did a post about Oceanside's sidewalks. If one slows down, what one sees are the “marques" of the construction firms who laid the sidewalks in a town. Stamps in solid concrete tell us when and by whom they were laid. As we meandered, we discovered, underfoot, the oval nameplate of J.F. Over, Contractor, 1910 State St., which dates from 1898 and is one of the oldest pieces of sidewalk history here. Makes one wander differently!

This was a cool find and a nice tie-in to a very important part of Coronado’s history, both past and present- aviation and the military. In 1911, Glenn Curtis opened an aviation camp in what is today the Naval Air Station North Island. During World War I, the Spreckels family sold it to the Navy for $5 million. In 1927, Col. Charles Lindbergh took off on the first leg of his journey to St. Louis, New York and Paris from North Island. Today, North Island homeports two aircraft carriers, making the military the top employer in the community. For me personally, my big brother spent his last tour of his long Navy career here, giving us some amazing military memories.

The remaining images were captured because they either surprised or delighted. I'll let you decide which is which.

I have a thing for weather vanes, an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word vane comes from the Old English word fana, meaning 'flag'.

Although partly functional, weather vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows and horses. Not all weather vanes have pointers. When the wind is sufficiently strong, the head of the arrow or cockerel (or equivalent depending on the chosen design) will indicate the direction from which the wind is blowing.

The weather vane was independently invented in ancient China and Greece around the same time during the 2nd century BCE. How about that history! And I just thought they were cute.