Photo Essay: Returning to the Pueblo Mágico of Tio's Tacos, Riverside

[Last updated 6/1/23 3:37 PM PT—Video player embedded at the bottom of this post.]

Last September, I spent the day in Riverside, California researching one of my SoCal Wanderer articles for KCET—and while I was in town, I made sure I returned to Tio's Tacos.

 

No, it wasn't my lunch stop—I wasn't there for the tacos.

Photo Essay: Riverside's Historic Weber House, Hiding In Plain Sight In a Hotel Parking Lot

Riverside, California has got plenty of historic architecture—from Victorian to Mid-Century Modern—but one of its most intriguing historic homes defies definition when it comes to architectural style. 

 

And what's more, it's located in the most unexpected of places: in the parking lot of the Courtyard by Marriott Riverside UCR/Moreno Valley Area hotel on University Avenue (a.k.a. Old Highway 395), in a former orange grove.

Photo Essay: Chasing Millard Falls After a Rainy LA Winter

I can still feel my ankles and legs aching from the short hike to Millard Falls yesterday morning. I'm so out of shape—and in such constant pain—that it's gotten to easy for me to decide to just not hike.

      

Photo Essay: The Making Of Burbank's Gravity-Defying 2023 Rose Parade Float

After freelancing for our local LA public media station KCET since 2015, in July of last year I took an inhouse position there—one that may or may not be temporary. While working as a digital producer there, I've gotten to write, edit, and even help produce a digital short video. This is the story of the making of that video.

As I posted earlier this week, I started the year off right by attending the Rose Parade in person—and I hinted that I had more to say about the Burbank Tournament of Roses float.

 

If you saw the parade, it was the float that kind of looked like Utah—with a guy hang-gliding off of a red-rocked cliff.

Photo Essay: The First Monday of 2023 at the Pasadena Rose Parade

The last time I'd gone to the Rose Parade, it was 2020—and the year had already started off weird, even before the COVID-19 pandemic had taken hold. 

In 2021, it was canceled because of the pandemic. And in 2022, I'd had such a good time celebrating New Year's Eve the night before, I couldn't bear to get up early enough to make it to the parade on time. 

 

 Parade sponsor, Honda

But this year, New Year's Day once again fell on a Sunday—as it did in 2017—so the Rose Parade took place on Monday, January 2, giving me a one-day buffer/recovery day.