"The Newest Landmark in Riverside, CA" (Tio's Tacos)

What started as a taco shop became a folk art landmark. 

Folk art wonderland at Tio's Tacos in Riverside, CA

I attended a law librarian conference in Riverside, California this weekend.  And since I registered late, there was no room at the inn (that would be the famous Mission Inn, where the conference was being held).  So I got a room at another inn - America's Best Value Inn - down the street.

On my walk to the conference, intent on finding a fish taco for lunch,  I stumbled across the most amazing folk art wonderland.  It surrounds Martin Sanchez' restaurant, Tio's Tacos, and takes up almost an entire city block.  Martin Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant, grew up so poor he had no toys as a child.  He also never threw anything away. After starting his restaurant, he realized he wanted to play, to create a childhood he never had.  He took junk and made it into art.  He fashioned chicken wire into giant people and filled the forms with cans, bottles, oysters shells (from his restaurant), shoes, sponges, everything. He recycled his daughters' Barbie dolls and bikes.  He built a chapel (since consecrated by the Catholic church) for his wife.  He created fountains, sculptures of saints, and mosaics.   As KCET described it, the grounds are "part Watts Tower, part Gaudi fantasia."  You could visit every day and still see something new each time.  

The chapel walls are recycled bottles .  Weddings have been held here.  

Can you see the millions of oyster shells and hundreds of bottles in this 20' acrobat? Amazing.

And the fish tacos are quite flavorful too.  Tio's Tacos is located at 3948 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, California.

For more details on this amazing, I-can't-believe-this, not-to-be missed attraction, check out KCET's article:

Tio's Tacos: Riverside's Folk Art Wonderland

Point Defiance Park, Tacoma

Benjamin, Samuel, Roger and Mary in front of moss covered cedars.

Samuel poses by the Point Defiance Marina sign on a rare sunny day in January.

In January, Samuel and I flew back to Seattle with Benjamin to return him to his second semester at University of Puget Sound.  It gave us an opportunity to visit with my parents and brother and sisters. After a typical downpour, the sun peeked out, and my sister Alyce decided we should drive around Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, the largest urban park outside of Central Park in New York City. The sun came with us as drove around the park. We stopped for vistas over Puget Sound and marveled at the size of the old growth forest.  And we visited Fort Nisqually, the original outpost of the Hudson Bay company in the Seattle/Tacoma area.  I have been to Fort Nisqually several times and always learn something new from the volunteers that dress in period costume and talk about life in the mid 1800s in the untamed Pacific Northwest.

Alyce at base of huge old growth cedar