Vacation -- Day 1

Yeah! Yesterday was the first full day of vacation from work. S and I decided to take a day trip into Riverside.



Beautiful architecture.



We spent part of our day at the UC Riverside botanical gardens. I have to admit we were underwhealmed with the gardens, except...



yep... plants in the cactus garden bigger than your head... and if fact, bigger than a person.



The views also weren't so bad.









Plants like this make us think about putting alot more cacti and succulents in our gardens. They are pretty amazing plants.

In addition to the gardens, we did spend a little time driving around town and taking in the sights. S was kind enough to take me by two (yes two) yarn stores in Riverside -- Closeknit and Knit n' Stitch. Both very nice stores with very helpful staff. I was a bit amazed that Riverside had so many yarn stores (3 according to the yellow pages online).

We also managed to eat two good meals. First, we had lunch at Chico's Mexican Food. We were drawn here because we could get vegetarian and vegan mexican food. Gotta love that. The meals were delicious.

For dinner we went to a tapas bar... the Seville. This was one of the best meals we've had since we moved to California. Yummy cheeses, delicious marinated mushrooms, wonderful sauteed shrimp... everything was just great. Who knew there'd be so much good stuff to do for a day in Riverside!