Asta Visits!

This weekend, our friend Asta came to visit! She did her PhD with Mitchell in Nottingham, and is now at a University in Texas, so is a lot closer than all our other friends! 

She arrived Saturday lunch time, and we picked her up from the airport and went straight to Downtown Riverside. We went to the foodlab (where I tried the tacos for the first time) and then showed her around the prettier areas of town. On the way home, we took a slight detour to see the World's Largest Paper Cup. It's very big and very bizzare and close to absolutely nothing, just round the back of some warehouse. But, it's a Riverside tourist attraction, so we went. 

Once we'd gotten back home and dropped off Asta's bags, we then got changed and went on a little hike through Box Springs Mountains. It was very green, but there were still some trees around and some wild flowers. You also get great views of Riverside from up above, and we were there in the setting sun, so it was very pretty. 

Once we were at the top, we reached the little parking area where there are sometimes donkeys hanging out, and we did see some on the side of the road, but by the time we'd had a little sit down and waited for the ranger to leave, they'd started to walk away. We made the trek back down to the bottom and although we heard plenty more donkeys, we didn't see any.

That evening, we ordered kimchi-changa (our favourite) and then watched a movie. 

Sunday morning, we were up (relatively) early. We stopped at Mundial, a very cute cafe with fancy coffee and plants everywhere for breakfast, and then went on to the main event of the day, a pumpkin patch! 

Apparently, this one is the largest in Southern California and it was pretty big! The parking was across the road in a separate field, and we followed the stream of people into the farm. The first thing we saw was rows and rows of tables filled with all sorts of pumpkins for sale. They were somewhat sorted, so there were tables with big pumpkins, tables with white pumpkins (which Asta and her monochrome aesthetic enjoyed), tables with lumpy gourds (which are my favourite) and tables with perfectly round orange pumpkins, for boring people. 

We then walked around to see what else there was. We found a pumpkin cannon range, where people were shooting pumpkins out of cannons at targets, a sweetcorn cannon range, a sandbox filled with corn, gardens with flowers and hanging gourds, and plenty of photos ops like pumpkin houses, tractors, scarecrow picnics, and haybales. 

We stopped for some photos and then went to go and see the actual pumpkin patch. They had some sunflowers growing around then edge, but then whole fields full of pumpkins. There wasn't very clear pathways through the fields and people had obviously just been pushing their way through, so some of the stems were a bit crushed, but there were lots and lots of pumpkins around in all sorts of colours and sizes. 

There was more to do, like a petting zoo, a train ride, and a corn maze, but you had to pay extra, and we'd already paid for entry, so we didn't do these. We stopped at the food court and got some strawberry lemonade and and fresh corn. We got the corn street style, which is in a cup, with mayonnaise and crushed cheetos on top. It was definitely interesting! 

After eating, we started to head back, but kept getting distracted by more photos ops and small gardens. We eventually made it out and then were on to our next destination. 

We reached the beach about 4pm, which gave us plenty of time to play in the sea before it got too cold. It was still warm, although the rest of the week has been quite cold, so this may have been our last weekend to swim! 

The waves were really big, and fun to play in once you got past the bit where the land dipped away. To get to this bit though, you had to push your way through the knee high waves, and they were so strong they actually knocked me over! I grazed my hip quite badly, but I washed it off in the sea and went straight back in! 

We had lots of fun chasing about in the waves, and then got out and laid on the towels. I was lying on my front, when I heard Mitchell start to say something and got back up to hear him better, but it turned out he was warning me about a wasp which had landed on the back of my knee, so when I sat up I crushed it and it stung me!

Now, I've been stung multiple times before, so I wasn't too worried about it once Asta had managed to pull out the stinger, but it did start to hurt quite badly and swell up around the sting site. Luckily, Asta had some anti-histamines in her bag, so it really was Asta to the rescue that day!

Smiling through the pain

We sat on the beach for a little while as we watched the sun go down, and when it started to get cold, we went in search of ice-cream. Ice-cream had been the plan all day, and I'd picked out a chocolate shop that did ice-cream I wanted to try last time we were at Laguna Beach, but when we walked into the shop in the dark and smelt all the fresh chocolate, we decided to get some treats instead. Mitchell got some toffee, and Asta and I got chocolate caramel apples. We ate these as we discussed what to do for dinner, and decided to try a place in Irvine on the way home. 

We picked it at random on Google Maps because it was on the way and was an all vegetarian restaurant, but it was so good! It was a huge menu of Thai and Chinese food, with beef, shrimp and chicken options, but everything was plant based! It took us forever to choose, but we did eventually, and it was very very tasty. 

The next morning, we went to go and get coffee and breakfast in the town area by us, and then went to go and visit the UCR botanic gardens. I got to show Asta all the good plants and the good routes around the garden, including the turtle pond and the popcorn cassia. 

After the garden, it was a quick stop for lunch, and then to the airport :( 

A busy long weekend for us all, and we can't wait to go and visit her in Texas!

Lots of Love,

Emily and Mitchell (and Asta)

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