Riverside ... Land of ...........

Cough ... cough ... sneeze!!  No, I'm not allergic and it's not the smog.  It's the SKUNK!!!  I'm in the beautiful downtown city of Riverside where you keep your doors locked and your purse tied to your body.  Okay ... parts of it really aren't that bad!

The trip down was uneventful, except I kept having arguments with my GPS the entire trip.  I've traveled this way a lot, so I kind of knew where I was going, plus I wrote down specific instructions on a post-it attached to my steering wheel AND programmed my phone.  No one wanted to go where "I" wanted to go.

I thought it was pretty simple, just follow 215 South.  About 30 miles before the destination, my GPS had me going off on a side street into San Bernardino.  I think she told me to turn around about 34 times.  I stayed the course that was in my head.

Pretty soon traffic was horrible with six overhead signs I tried to speed read as I drove under them.  Driving and navigating my phone at the same time didn't help, but at long last I found the turnoff .. although the name wasn't quite the same.  That landed me in the middle of the Festival of Lights.

I squeezed between the rows of parked cars, taking up the entire road.  At long last, I crossed the river, which I knew to be a good thing.  Stress makes my hair fall out by the handful.  I think that wig I bought last year is going to come in handy.

Amazingly, out here in the land of freeways, highways, roads, cars and a million houses, there is a huge County Park named Rancho Jurupa.

They open up their summer reservations six months in advance, which is when our illustrious leader signed up for 15 spaces.  Everyone arrived safely, but there were horror stories about the traffic they encountered.  Our next rally is scheduled for San Diego.  I told them "don't even send me an invite".

Directly across from me is a big empty space with the river in the distant tree line.  We all have 50 amp service, which is really nice since the daytime temperatures have risen into the 80's.  I'm finally WARM!!!!!  

Up early as usual, I tried to keep the dogs from barking and waking the neighbors.  As soon as I opened the door, I smelled it.  SKUNK!!  Really?  Right here in downtown Riverside?  (It just dawned on me how they named the city.  I never knew!)

I gingerly took one dog at a time outside, but didn't see any skunk.  He surely has been close because the smell is overpowering.  I got hit by a skunk once a very long time ago, something I never want to repeat ... but that's a story for another day.

It's going to be a long day of museum hopping and navigating the streets of Riverside, so I better get my act and my post-it notes together.