The familiar......

 6:32 am - Friday - November 19th - Fontana, CA - 48° F 77% humidity, wind - CALM.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 75° F. On this date in 2015 TLE and I were watching our 8th Rincon Parkway sunset in succession....still one of my favorite dry camping places anywhere......↴

Another reason for moving to the Riverside Elks Lodge was to be nearer to some of our favorite places, and things to do, one of those being to hike the Mt Rubidoux loop. It's about a 25 minute drive from where we are to the base of Mt. Rubidoux from the Fontana/Rialto Elks Lodge, but less than 5 from the Riverside Elks Lodge.  Nonetheless, we decided to drive over and do the hike Thursday morning.  We left Fontana around 9:30 am, and were beginning our hike about 30 minutes later.  There are two main entrances to the Mt. Rubidoux trail....we prefer the one on the north (below)......

.....the land upon which Mt. Rubidoux sits was originally owned by Frank A. Miller, the same the same man who built the world famous Mission Inn in downtown Riverside.  The land was donated to the City of Riverside in 1955.  We have been doing this hike since we spent a year as camp hosts at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park, which sits in the shadow of Mt. Rubidoux, since 2011.  It is an amazing local resource, and whenever we are in SoCal long enough we always hike this trail at least one time.....

.....the view changes continuously as you gain altitude, and follow the spiraling road to the top.....

....the first thing you see as you round the last bend in the trail is the famous Serra Cross, which sits at the highest point of Mt. Rubidoux.  Mt. Rubidoux is also the home of the original, and oldest Easter Sunrise service in the nation.  One year there were 30,000 people in attendance for the annual event.....

.....there are several ways to the top of Mt. Rubidoux, but the loop we walk is about 3.70 miles in length.  On this day we covered the distance averaging 3.2 mph in 1 hour and 9 minutes of moving time.

From Mt. Rubidoux we drove about a mile over to the Mission Inn area to have an early lunch at another of our favorite Riverside institutions....Simple Simon's, located in the walking mall next to the Mission Inn.  We arrived just after 11:30 am just beating the lunch hour rush, and managed to snag an alfresco table in the process.  After a pleasant lunch we proceeded over to the local Trader Joe's to pick up a few things we only buy there, and were home by 1:30 pm.  

There is something about revisiting the familiar that makes us happy.  Whether it be dry camping on Rincon Parkway (where we were on this date in 2015), or walking the Mt. Rubidoux trail, or eating at Simple Simon's.....these are some of the constants in our life which ground us, and can never be repeated too often.

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