Fairmont Park

Today I went to Fairmont Park with a friend and her daughter. I haven't been to this park in a long time. It has a lake with a boathouse where you can rent paddle boats, a place to play horse shoes, basketball courts, tennis courts, a playground, and a lot of other stuff to keep anyone busy. First we went to the playground because her daughter wanted to go on the slide - about 100 times... on the same slide. After that we walked around the lake. There's a road that goes over the lake where you can walk to the other side. An ice cream truck drove by while we were walking, so we got ice cream. On the other side of the lake is a huge playground with an area that has a water playgound, which is awesome for summer! This park definitely has a lot more to offer than I remember.

TGI Friday's

Last night, after finding out that some of the bars we wanted to go to were closed, we ended up at TGI Friday's. It was pretty busy, and we made friends with the people sitting next to us. Friday's has a good friendly vibe, and some of the bartenders will practice flair if they aren't too busy. The best part of the night is that one of the bartenders was showing us his phone, filled a glass of water and dropped his phone in - on purpose! It still worked and even when I called it the phone lit up and vibrated the glass! Apparently it's a new phone from Verizon that can be in water up to 1 meter deep. I think I want to get that phone just because it is an amazing bar trick! :) Needless to say, we had a great night, and Friday's is a good place to make friends on a Saturday night.

Citrus City Grille, The Auld Dubliner

Last night while trying to decide what to do we found out that both Citrus City Grille in the Riverside Plaza and The Auld Dubliner in the Galleria are both closed! What is happening to all of the bars in Riverside?? :( The Auld Dubliner is being replaced by a Mexican Restaurant. I don't think they have a new business moving to where Citrus City Grille was yet.

Heritage House, Riverside Airport, UCR Botanic Gardens, Benedict Castle

I'm working on a website, so I went to a couple places today to take pics. First we went to the Heritage House, which is on Magnolia. It's free admission and is one of the oldest landmarks in Riverside. Unfortunately we found out that it's closed in July and August. :( It's still really pretty to look at from the outside. We're going to go back when it opens again to see the inside and see what it's really about.

Next we went to the Riverside Airport... just because we could. I've lived in Riverside my whole life and have never even attempted to go there because I figured that there really wasn't anything there. It wasn't like LAX or the other big airports at all. There is an old WW2 plane (I think) that was pretty cool to look at. It was closed when we went, but apparently when they're open you can go in the hangar and everything. We decided to eat lunch there since we found out that they have a diner we never even knew about. The food there was very affordable and really good. From inside the diner you can see the Cesna's taking off or you can sit outside and get a better view. Inside the diner there are model airplanes hanging everywhere and pictures of different aircraft on the walls. It's a really good place to just have a relaxing lunch. After lunch we went up to the patio and watched a couple of the planes- including an impressive private jet -take off from the runway.

After leaving the airport we headed to the UCR Botanic Gardens. These are really beautiful. There's open grassy areas, a rose garden, a koi pond and many other beautiful areas. It's a very peaceful place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

On our way back we passed the Benedict Castle. Apparently this is not open to the public, but the people there are extremely nice. They do a tour of the Castle, and you can book events here. The grounds are beautiful. They showed us around to the fountain, the chapel, and showed us the view of a Cross at the top of a ravine that is illuminated by different colored lights at night.

Overall today was very enlightening. I've lived in Riverside my whole life and have never seen any of these places. It's amazing what you can miss when you take things for granted.

Oishii Sushii

Oishii sushi is in the Ralph's shopping center on the corner of Magnolia and Jurupa. It doesn't look very big, but they have a whole section that you can't see from the main restaurant area that is set aside for private parties. My friend and I sat at the bar and did the all you can eat. They brought out miso soup and edamame before we even ordered, so that was nice. All the sushi was very good, and sushi is really easy to mess up, so we were both happy about that. My favorite for the night was the green mussels. They're cooked mussels with sauce on them... Amazing! I love just the plain sushi and don't like the rolls as much, but that's personal preference. I got the avocado roll, which was good. The crab sushi came out and they did some as sushi and some as sashimi (sushi without the rice). That was a nice surprize since most restaurants don't usually do that for the all you can eat. This is definitely one of my favorite sushi restaurants. I've been here a few times and the food has always been good, while other places have varying quality of sushi. Definitely a place to check out if you haven't been there before.

Hangar 18 indoor rock climbing

Indoor rock climbing is something I've seen at amusement parks as something you can pay $15 to go up one time and not learn anything, so I had no idea what to expect when we decided to go to an indoor rock climbing gym. Going into the gym was interesting. In the middle is a huge rock looking structure, and on all the walls are climbing grips and ropes hanging from the ceiling. The gym is in a warehouse, so it has extremely high ceilings. At first it was like going to a members only club where we stuck out like a sore thumb and everyone else seemed to know each other and what they were doing. It took a little while to get someone to help us, but once they did they were extremely friendly and very knowledgeable.

First of all, there is bouldering, which is climbing the wall with no harness or belay. The part of the gym that the bouldering is done on is in the very middle and is only about 20 ft tall with mats under, so there's cushion if you fall. Then there's rock climbing with a belay. We did the first timer's lesson where they teach you how to be the climber, and how to be the belayer (?), which is the person on the ground. There are different difficulties of climbing, which are determined by the size of the rocks you can grip, and how much of a hand hold you can get on them. Some you can grab pretty easily while others are nearly flat and are extremely hard to grip.

I'm not as sore as I thought I would be and it was a lot of fun! All 3 of the friends I went with got memberships. I already have a gym membership, and way too many other things I want to try before I commit to one. :) I'm definitely going again, though!

Yard House

Last night we went to the Yard House in the Riverside Galleria. It's in a large building with high ceilings. The parking lot was busy, but I found a spot pretty easily. Inside it is dimly lit with a large bar in the middle. I sat at the bar and waited for my friend. They have around 80 beers on tap, which is impressive. (The location in Long Beach has around 180 beers on tap!) The music selection was really random. There were some popular songs that most people probably know the words to, and some other songs, which I had never heard before... and never wanted to. When my friend got there we ordered drinks. Because it's such a big franchise the bartenders have to pour drinks to standards- so we ordered beer. My friend ordered the Mac & Cheese². They have the kids Mac & Cheese, and the Mac & Cheese² is the adult version with better cheese and chicken. She got the chicken on the side, and the meal was actually amazing for being so basic! The bartenders were friendly, which made for some good conversation. Overall it was a good, relaxing night.

Hiking up Mt. Rubidoux

This morning I went hiking up Mt. Rubidoux. We met at the base of the mountain at around 7:45am and started our hike. Apparently there are a couple trails that you can take up to the top. The one we took was off San Andreas Ave. We parked on the street and headed towards the trail. It's a pretty wide asphalt paved trail that winds up to the top. Once you get to the top there's an auditorium style setup. There's an open area with stadium style seats carved into the rock. If you walk to the top of the seats there is a large cross and an amazing 360 view of Riverside and Rubidoux.

I think it's been around 10 years since I walked up Mt. Rubidoux and I forgot how much of a walk it is. We went early enough so that it was still cool, but I would also recommend bringing water, which we forgot. I've never been a runner/walker/hiker, so I was totally out of breath by the time we got to the top. It's a couple hours later and I'm a little sore, but I'm definitely going again because I don't like not being able to do something well!

Back to Gerard's

I love this place! We went back here for my birthday. There ended up being 4 people who came with me and we pretty much had the place to ourself. One thing I noticed this time is that they have oil paintings throughout the restaurant that you can buy. They are originals and depict various scenes. Anyway, most of us got drinks to start out with. They have beer and wine. I got the Lindeman's Raspberry Frambois (my favorite!), and since I got the last bottle my friend got the Lindeman's Peach, which is really good as well. Another friend got a light beer and another got a white wine. Most of us got the escargot as an appetizer, but one of my friends got the stuffed mushrooms. They were really good, but I do love the escargot there! All of the entree's were amazing as well. One of my friends got the soup and salad. The salad was a hot salad, which means that they brought out spinich, and other ingredients on a cart. They took a pan and cooked bacon and other ingredients to put on top of the cold spinich, which looked really good.

The best part of the meal was when they brought our desserts! We ordered 4 different desserts that we each tried. I ordered the creme brule, which had a strawberry on top. One friend got the Cherries Jubilee, which was hot cherries cooked in liquor and sugar poured over vanilla ice cream. It was amazing, and I'm going to get that next time. Another friend got the crepes with orange carmel sauce. They had vanilla ice cream inside, but the sauce absolutely made the dessert. Another dessert was a light vanilla mousse with strawberry sauce, which was a great light dessert. Overall it was a good night with amazing company and fantastic food!

Monark Asian Bistro and Romano's

Last night I went to Monark Aian Bistro in the Canyon Crest Towne Center. The windows are tinted, so from the outside it looks closed, but inside it's very private. We ordered food and appetizers. For the appetizer we ordered the Crab Rangoon, which is like a won-ton. Then our meals came, and we could have just split one because the plates were big enough for one person. Each entree came with a bowl of white rice as well. I got the Monark Steak and my friend got steamed beef with vegetables. Both meals were fantastic, and we even got fortune cookies after our meal.

Afterwards I went to Romanos to meet up with some other friends. Apparently they have open mic night on Wednesdays, but they hadn't started by 10:30 when I left. Romanos has an open bar area, but also has separate rooms for private parties. They have a great outside patio area with tables, a covered area, and heat lamps. I'm planning on going back again when they have their comedy night.