Whirlwind!

In keeping with our efforts at consistently exercising we drove to the Mt. Rubidoux trailhead to do what turned out to be a 3.6 mile roundtrip hike, which we finished in 59 minutes and 57 seconds averaging, of course 3.6 mph.  After a brief stop at the local Stater Brothers supermarket to pick up some 'Snap-E-Tom' we headed for home.

To back up just a bit in the recap of Thursday, just before we went on our walk we got a text message from our daughter, Kate, that the escrow closing date had been moved up from April 7th to March 31st!  Well, that really kind of threw our plans into a tizzy.  We had tentatively planned to spend a week at Rincon Parkway beginning the 10th of April, and return to Riverside and Rancho Jurupa Regional Park on the 17th where we planned to spend our final 10 days before heading for South Lake Tahoe.....now we were having to look at finding places to say for almost a month before we leave.  About that same time I remembered that beginning April 1st the longest you can stay at the Rincon Parkway is 5 days....down from the off season maximum stay of 14 days.  Suddenly we were having to find places to stay for a week here and there......then it occurred to me that we have our application in at the Fontana Elks Lodge for membership, so we called our friends Candy and Steve who are sponsoring us to see if they could get us in as guests for a month, and were advised they could......our monthly rate would be $350!  Perfect, and we don't have to move every week, or so.  Once that was resolved we headed out for our walk.

Thursday was also the official beginning of March Madness which begins with 64 teams all playing single elimination games.....by Sunday evening we will be down to 16 teams, also known affectionately as the "Sweet Sixteen" teams.  The first game was at 0915, and once the temperature got comfortable I set up the outdoor TV.....at one point I had 3 of my 4 TV's tuned to a March Madness game.

Now that everything is seemingly coming together on the sale of their house, and them taking over our house, we suggested to Kate and Nick that we go out to dinner Thursday to have a small celebration......we opted to eat at a new place in Riverside called El Patron which serves Mexican cuisine.  Yelp gives them 4 stars on 151 reviews, so it seemed to be a perfect place to go.  The ambiance is very nice, and they have outdoor dining, which we always prefer......especially on a balmy evening.  We met Kate, Nick and Charlise there at 1815 and were seated in their alfresco section within minutes.  I ordered their 'Los Rellenos' dish (Chile Relleno), which I liked, but no one else seemed to like their food.  To top it off the service was poor......not poor in the sense of being slow, which it was.....I normally do not mind slow service if the food is exceptional.  The problem was that even though they have been open for about 6 months it seemed like it was their first night.  The servers all seemed to be inexperienced, or had not been trained very well.  At any rate the best rating we could give them is a disappointing 2.5 stars.  Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable time talking about the next few weeks which will be a whirlwind!

Thanks for stopping by!