My Town Monday: OnStage Playhouse, Chula Vista

A shot of downtown Chula Vista, taken with my Blackberry, from the car. Photo credit: Child #3

Yesterday afternoon, Child #3, Child #4 and I headed about 20 miles southwest to Chula Vista (means "Beautiful View" in Spanish), a city of about 230,000 located seven miles from downtown San Diego and seven miles from the Mexican border.



Our destination: OnStage Playhouse to see Into the Woods.

The OnStage Playhouse is a non-profit community theatre that's been around for about 30 years, although not always at this location. They usually produce six plays/musicals per year. This is the third play I've seen here. I also saw Cabaret and A Taffeta Christmas. All three were UBEREXCELLENT. Into the Woods runs until May 1. If you live in the vicinity and are looking for some great entertainment, I'd highly recommend it.



See this guy? It's our very own Mr. Cameron Williams. You might remember him from a couple of years ago when he guest-blogged here. He posted a My Town Monday about the Star of India. Also, he's a fifth-grade teacher extraordinaire at Child #3 and Child#4's school with an award-winning class website.

And Mr. Williams has a huge part in Into the Woods. He can sing and act like there's no tomorrow. The entire cast is very talented.

This jar of beans sits in the lobby. Whoever comes closest to guessing the number of beans wins two free tickets to the next show, To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd really like to see this show. So, if you do make it to Into the Woods, please don't enter a guess.

And guess what scary thing happened right after we'd all returned to our seats following intermission? Earthquake!!! Yes, it registered 7.2 with an epicenter in Mexicali, Mexico (roughly 130 miles southeast of the theatre). The tremor lasted about 45 seconds. This is a very long time, the longest quake I've ever felt. We all trudged outside to the sidewalk to wait for aftershocks. I called home. Mr. Summy reported that the water was sloshing around in our pool and some almost sloshed over the edge. Ack.

Please check out the posts by the other My Town Monday participants by clicking here. If you have a MTM post, leave a comment on the My Town Monday blog, and a link to you will be added. Actually, you can even leave a comment at the bottom of this post, and I'll hop over and link to you from the MTM blog.




sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chula_Vista,_California
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978151544
http://onstageplayhouse.org/location.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStage_Playhouse

My Town Monday: The Star of India, San Diego

Guest Blogger Alert! Thank you Cameron Williams for writing today's My Town Monday's post.


There’s not much that the United States can say, “We have the oldest one.” When you consider buildings, documents, artifacts… just about everything we have is considered in its infancy by comparison. At least in California, we consider a house built in the early 1900s to be ancient.


The Star of India, docked in San Diego and owned by the S.D. Maritime Museum, is the oldest active sailing ship in the world. It was built in 1863 and still sails in San Diego harbor at least once each year. We can just ignore the fact that it was actually built in the Isle of Man. After all, it has been an “American” for a vast majority of its life.



The Star of India was originally named the Euterpe after the Greek goddess of music, and circumnavigated the globe 21 times before being sold by a London firm to Americans in 1898.



Now, I wouldn’t be writing about this ship unless I had some sort of personal connection. I may not have ever sailed on this ship, but I have spent the night on it… twice. For the past eight years, I have taken my fifth grade students on a field trip to the Maritime Museum, and it always includes a tour of the Star of India.


We do an overnight on a different ship now, but several years ago we did the Star. Students acted as sailors in the 1870s transporting bat guano (truly). They raised the sails, swabbed the deck, prepared the food, hauled cargo with a block and tackle, searched for rats in the bilge, and even served their night watch time in the middle of the night.


There are many port towns around the country that do similar living history field trips aboard ships, but how many can claim the oldest active sailing ship? Not to mention perfect weather all year, beautiful sunsets…


Click here for the S.D. Maritime Museum.

Cameron Williams, fifth grade teacher extraordinaire, was born and bred in San Diego. He attended elementary school here AND high school AND college. Which pretty much makes him a San Diego afficiando. Also, he's been teaching for about TEN years. Which makes him an expert on all sorts of stuff. Like fractions and spelling and how to deal with difficult parents. (I so am not one!)

Thank you, Cameron for today's post. Please come back and visit again. As in, how about every day until I hand this next book in?

Cam has a great class website which has even won awards. Click here to see it.

My Town Monday is the brainchild of the brilliant (I used it again, Travis!) Travis Erwin. Visit Travis' blog for a list of participants.