Whales and Yoga

 This week I signed up for some yoga classes in Downtown Riverside. I drive over after work to a nice studio little studio filled with plants and *good vibes*. I'm enjoying it and think I'll continue as they have different classes every day. It's a membership system, so I pay monthly and can then go to as many as I want to. I've done some yin yoga which is very stretchy and relaxing and some power yoga which was challenging and a pretty hard work out, but satisfying and exactly what I wanted from it. (I still hurt two days later!) When I was driving back on Wednesday though, there was thunder and lightning in a short summer storm.

On Tuesday this week, we went for a bike ride with our friends. It was a 13 mile trail, but paved the whole way and relatively flat. It was very pretty cycling with the sun setting over the mountains and a cool evening breeze starting to pick up. It was pretty tiring for a first outing on my bike, but we all went for food afterwards to refuel. 

On Saturday, we drove out to Newport Beach for our adventure. It was a very busy town, with cars fighting for parking spots everywhere. We couldn't get a space in the large city lot we'd planned on, so we had to drive down the road, all the way into the residential area before we were able to find a parking spot. We then had to rush back down to the harbour, as the traffic and the mile walk had almost made us late! 

But, we made it and hopped onto the boat, ready for our whaling adventure. We set sail out of the harbour, which at Newport beach is between two long spits of land, with fancy houses along each side. We sailed for about an hour, getting far out to sea. Once we'd gone that far, we were joined by a huge pod of common dolphins. Apparently they love to play with the boat and surf alongside it. We even saw a few jump in pairs, which means one of them was a baby!

They came up so close to the boat and were playing around all sides. We stayed out there for a while, but we didn't see any whales, which was disappointing, as it's blue whale season! The boat headed back to port (where it was a lot warmer) and we disembarked. 

We were pretty hungry at this point, as it was half past four by this time, and all we'd had were some pancakes for brunch. We found a little shop that did New York style pizza slices that were absolutely huge, so we got a big cheesy slice each and made our plan for the afternoon. 

After pizza, we went out to the pier (which was called Balboa Pier, but it's not anything to do with Balboa Park in San Diego). It was very busy in the town and the beaches were packed, even though there didn't seem to be a lot to do there. We only stayed long enough to get some ice-cream before heading back to the car, which was actually a very nice walk along the boardwalk and then through some nice houses, between shady trees. 

On Sunday, I was up early to do some more yoga, but this class was at the top of Mount Robidoux. I hiked all the way up to join the class, which was quite a small one, as it was already so hot at 8am. It was nice and intimate though and they run them each month for the community. I finished very sweaty and a bit dusty, but it was fun to do it overlooking the city in the sunshine.

Until next week,

Emily and Mitchell

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