Riverside - 2/14/11

In the morning we said our goodbyes and headed out to UCLA so that Tricia could talk to the admissions office at the school of information science.  We drove around and around in circles looking for parking lot 5.  Tricia had to pull over, take the iPad away from me, and figure it out herself.  She's the better navigator between the two of us.  Once we finally found it, we learned that visitors need to pay $10 to park.  So, Tricia ran off to find her building while I stayed in the car and kept a wary eye out for traffic patrols.  Three times I got scared out of my spot by a white traffic golf cart.  Once I collected Tricia again, I learned that the first parking space where she'd gotten out had been directly in front of the building she needed, but neither of us noticed, and she instead got a circular tour of the pretty campus, ending up right back where she'd started (I'd already been run off by then).

Gayley! Click for pics.  :)

Later, we drove up and down and around Gayley street (this reminds Tricia of her mother's nickname). We were looking for a Mongolian restaurant that Leslie and Jed had recommended.  We drove past the spot the gps specified three times, but to no avail.  Tricia kept finding  great reviews online as she tried to google more information about its whereabouts.  We finally gave up and continued on our merry way to riverside.

My friend Phil moved to riverside this past fall to do his post-doc.  We met up with him for lunch and decided on pizza.  We went to a Chicago style deep dish pizza place and ordered My Sister's Favorite - a large pizza stuffed with three kinds of cheeses and then covered in sauce.  We gorges ourselves, eating all but one slice. 

Next we drove in the waning daylight hours to an orange grove - california citrus state historical park.  we ran around the giftshop and museum and took pictures and talked to the curator.  He was supposed to make us pay $8 for our car but took pity on us since the grove was about to close.  We walked through the groves for a while and enjoyed the tiny trees and different types of oranges and other citrus.

We then decided we needed frozen yogurt, since we'd passed three places in the 10 minute drive to the grove.  The yogurt place we decided on let you make your own and then charged by the ounce.  Phil's was a respectable 9 ounces, while Tricia and I had more like 16 ounce each.  We had red velvet cupcake batter yogurt, chocolate coconut yogurt, and cookies and cream yogurt.  We topped it off with tons of fruit including kiwis, strawberries, and blueberries, and lots of candy including chocolate chips, brownies, heath bars, and girl scout cookies.

Phil then blew up his awesome air mattress / air bed.  It had a separate frame and mattress and was super comfy.  Phil's cat emma liked it too.

PS. If I ever spell its as it's, blame the fact that the iPad automatically autocorrects that word. I just noticed now, so I'm going to assume I've been a sore offender of its and it's misuse.