Gardens (Balboa Park)

   Balbao Park is brimming with vegetation. Trees planted for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition have grown tall and spread their branches. Over a dozen small, themed gardens fill the spaces around the buildings and flowers add color along the paths. The Botanical Building, built for the Exposition, is home to 2,000 cycads, ferns, orchids, other tropical plants and palms. It’s free to visit and has wide, accessible walkways.

     

  The Japanese Friendship Garden is the only garden that has an admission fee. It sits in a hollow and is small but nicely designed. The path down is paved and the grade is gentle but wheelchair users should take the longer path and return the same way rather than using the short but steep path to completing the loop.

The large lot on the east side of Park Blvd and the zoo lot are good spots for RV parking. The sidewalks and curb cuts are in fairly good condition.  32.73014, -117.15002

Science Center & Natural History Museum (Balboa Park)

  Neither museum is very big and they’re close together so it’s easy to see both in the same visit.

  The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center features many hands-on exhibits suitable for older kids and adults. There’s also a section just for kids under 5.

  Most of the museum is accessible but some of the hands-on exhibits can not be used from a seated position.

  The San Diego Natural History Museum exhibits cover the animals and plant life of southern California plus dinosaurs and fossils displays. I liked the format of the exhibit signs which encourage deductive reasoning.

 

  There are two accessible entrances to the museum. One has a push button door, the other has a call button and a pull door that is unlocked remotely. A small section on the four floor is accessed by a keyed lift which requires the assistance of museum personnel. The exhibits are accessible.

The parking lots near the museums may fill but the large lots on the east side of Park Blvd and the zoo lot are a good spots for RV parking. The sidewalks and curb cuts are in fairly good condition.

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Art Museums (Balboa Park)

  There are four art museums in Balboa Park – the Museum of Photographic Art, theTimken Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Mingei International Museum. All are worth a visit.

   The Museum of Photographic Art is small with three galleries of changing exhibits. Admission is by donation.

The Timken Museum of Art holds a small collection of European old masters, 19th century American art, and Russian icons. The museum was started with paintings donated by Anne and Amy Putnam, sisters who had inherited a large fortune from their father and uncle. Admission is free.

         

The San Diego Museum of Art was built in Balboa Park in 1926 with a Spanish Colonial-style architecture to match the existing buildings constructed for the  1915 Panama-California International Exposition. It’s a beautiful building with many galleries and a wonderful and diverse collection of artwork.

 

        

  

The Mingei International Museum is my favorite. It has six galleries that feature changing exhibitions of folk art, craft, and design from all cultures of the world.

             

             

  All of the museums are accessible.

The large lot on the east side of Park Blvd and the zoo lot are good spots for RV parking. The sidewalks and curb cuts are in fairly good condition.

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San Diego Museum of Man (Balboa Park)

       

The California Building, with its elaborated carved Spanish-Colonial façade, was built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition to house an anthropology exhibition featuring collections from around the world. Some of these artifacts, like the casts of huge Maya monuments which sit in the main lobby, are still on display.  Other exhibits cover human evolution, ancient Egypt, and native Californians.

  

The museum is accessible but a few of the exhibit cases are too high to fully view the contents from a seated position. A lift accesses the “Adventure Kids in Egypt” section. A key is provided to operate the lift after a driver’s license is handed over to insure the return of the key.

The parking lot near the museum may fill but the large lot on the east side of Park Blvd. or the zoo lot are good spots for RV parking. The sidewalks and curb cuts are in fairly good condition

Museum   32.73168, -117.15243

San Diego Automotive Museum (Balboa Park)

    Balboa Park boasts 1,200 acres of gardens and green space plus 17 museums and a variety of other attractions including a large zoo. We’re planning on exploring as much as possible. Our first stop was at the small automotive museum which has an assortment of cars without any unifying theme. 

  The most interesting display is Louie Mattar’s 1947 Cadillac. Louie, a gregarious and inventive man, owned a garage in San Diego. After working for four years and a spending a ton of money he had converted the Cadillac into a rolling apartment complete with an electric stove, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a chemical toilet, a shower, an ironing board, a medicine cabinet, a kitchen sink mobile telephone, a tape recorder, a bar, and a public address system. In 1952 he and two partners drove the car 6,320 miles across country and back without stopping. Fueling, oil changes, even tire replacements were done as the car was in motion. It’s an amazing piece of equipment!

 

The museum is accessible.

The parking lot near the museum may fill but the large lot on the east side of Park Blvd. is a good spot for RV parking. The sidewalks and curb cuts are in fairly good condition.

Museum   32.72737, -117.15343

San Diego Botanic Garden

  Over 25 small themed gardens, including two children’s play areas, are filled with plants and trees from all over the world. This is very well tended garden with a large variety of beautiful and unusual plants.

 

        

       

The terrain is very hilly so the gardens are not accessible without assistance. About half of the paths are paved, the rest are hard packed sand.

  If the main lot is filled RVs can be parked in the overflow lot.

Garden    33.05211, -117.28051

Dixon Lake Recreation Area

  The campground sits on a high hill overlooking the lake on one side and the city of Escodido on the other. It’s so high that we could watch birds soaring below us as they rode the wind currents in the valley. Our campsite, #18, had a large living area, a great view of the city and, a rare thing for us, full hookups. Update 3/2019 - revisited and stayed in site 25 which is large but not level. We had enough room to get fairly level but probably won't work with a larger RV.

  Only 10 of the 45 sites are full hookup, the rest have no hookups. The hookup sites have paved parking pads. The website gives very good descriptions of each site. None of them are listed as accessible but the ground is hard packed and the tables have a bit of an overhang so many are usable. The park also has an accessible cabin for rent.

  The main activities in the park are fishing and hiking. Due to the rugged terrain neither is accessible.  Park    33.15712, -117.04727

Harrah's Casino Rincon

  The official oversized parking lot is at the south end of the casino property near the gas station. This is where the buses and trucks park. We didn’t want to be surrounded by all of the noise and fumes so we parked in lot 33. This lot gets little use, is very quiet, and fairly close to an entrance.

  The casino is accessible with easy to move chairs and easy to reach card and money slots.  Casino   33.27044, -116.95596

Soboba Casino

   RV parking is in the lot farthest from the main entrance. Employee parking is on the right and RV parking is on the left. The lot is very big with plenty of room for everyone.

   The walk to the casino is level but a bit of a trek. It may be possible to get a ride on the employee shuttle (not accessible).  We also saw an accessible shuttle but it didn’t seem to make regular rounds. The casino is accessible with easy to reach card and money slots and easy to move chairs.   Casino   33.7772, -116.91969