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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Family Photographs - Post 39: the Point Loma House

I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Rather than pictures of ancestors, I want to post a picture of one of the major players in my ancestry - my city of San Diego. My great-grandparents, Henry Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer came to San Diego in 1887, and four generations of descendants were born here. In 1951, my grandparents, Lyle and Emily (Auble) Carringer, built a house on Point Loma with a postcard view of San Diego Bay and city.



I took this picture on Saturday from the corner of Golden Park Avenue and Lucinda Street, looking east toward downtown San Diego. The house at the bottom of the hill is the house my grandparents built in 1951 and their grandsons sold in 2002 after our mother died.
The house had large picture windows and a wooden deck on the east side, with a panoramic view from Cabrillo National Monument and the bay entrance on the right, and the airport on the far left. I sat there for hours as a boy watching airplanes take off from North Island Naval air Station across the Bay, and watching ships leave the Bay for places to the west.
In the middle of the picture above are the boat marinas on the Bay, then Shelter Island (hotels, restaurants, marinas), then the Bay, then North Island to the right, and the San Diego downtown skyline in the center of the picture. In back of the skyline is Mount San Miguel, and off to the right is Otay Mountain. With binoculars from the deck, I could see the area of Chula Vista where I live (likewise, I can see this area of Point Loma from my back yard - if the weather is clear!).
Once or twice a year, especially in January, the high pressure system sits over Utah and the San Diego sky and air are so clear that it seems like you can see forever. Saturday, 17 January, was one of those days I look forward to be able to take pictures of my city. I went to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery to take pictures (see yesterday's Tombstone Tuesday post), tried to get out to Cabrillo National Monument on the tip of Point Loma (but couldn't because of traffic), drove by and took pictures of the house, and then to Shelter Island and Harbor Island to take more pictures.
From the cemetery, I was able to see the snow-capped San Bernardino mountains about 120 miles off to the north, just to the right of Palomar Mountain (about 50 miles north). The broad shoulders of Cuyamaca Mountain rose clearly above the cityscape over 40 miles to the east. Table Mountain in Mexico was clearly visible to the south, about 40 miles away.

The view is gone today - we have low clouds today and a rain storm coming on Thursday - very welcome in this parched city in a parched and fire-scarred state. Now if it would only snow (while I'm here with my camera)!

2 comments:

  1. I don't know how you could bare to part with the house. The view is absolutely fantastic!

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  2. Hi fellow San Diegan, the view from Pt. Loma looking out at the S.D skyline is breathtaking. My husband worked in Pt. Loma for years and his family owned a TV shop in Pt. Loma for abt. 35 years. We live in a great place, and yes we need the rain even though San Diegans don't like that! Beautiful photos Randy, thank you.

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