March into Riverside

We headed into March Air Reserve base near San Bernardino and Riverside. It took us a while to find the main gate. It looks like the base has shrunk half its size – we guess as it downsized, land was sold to develop homes. We got to the base and found the RV park which we’d seen through 3 fences and 2 barriers (yes, we had to turn around twice). It didn’t help our confusion that services like commissary and the exchange were off base.

The base had nice character. The buildings reminded me of MCRD San Diego. We walked to the gym and around the base a few times. Because it’s a reserve base, there’s not much going on during the week. We didn’t stay over a weekend, but I bet it gets busier during the week.

It was a small RV park, looked mostly like people were there a while. We liked that laundry was free – they even had a washer dedicated to pet stuff! So we washed everything including Cody’s beds. It rained the first two days we were there, so I used that time to catch up on work. We did errands, hit the gym, walked Cody when the rain was light.

We finally had a nice day Thursday. We planned to head toward the San Bernardino mountains and find some hikes. There’s a scenic drive we found; however, it was all closed due to the weather. So instead, we headed to Riverside, CA. We headed to the Riverside Food Lab for lunch because it sounded interesting and got great reviews. It’s like NYC’s Chelsea Market or DC’s Union Market but on a smaller scale. We got pizza and had some good beer.

We then walked to the UC Riverside art museum and checked out a photography exhibit I was interested in. Two exhibits there were pretty cool. One was a collection of old cameras someone had lent to the museum. The other was one on fake photos called Fauxtography. It displayed several social media posts beside the real image and gave background on each. Both Ben and I found it very fascinating. The entire collection is online.

We walked through the other exhibits in the museum. The top floor housed a collection of old cameras borrowed from a local couple. It was impressive to see the how many cameras they had collected.

As we parked, we saw a sign advertising a Festival of Lights that began each evening at 5pm. We wandered around Riverside until then, and it was worth it. The lights were at a beautiful inn, and we were able to walk around inside and outside.

I’m sure this is a set they bring out each year, but it’s the largest gingerbread house I’ve ever seen! Appropriate since I was just at Marissa’s house in December making gingerbread houses. Ours was way cooler. =)