> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.raincrossgazette.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Downtown Staycation - URL: https://www.raincrossgazette.com/downtown-staycation/ - Published: 2026-10-23T11:59:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T11:58:59.000Z - Description: A monthly stroll through Riverside's everyday neighborhoods, one step at a time. - Author: Larry Burns - Tags: #herald-3abef165-d2ee-81f8-9a2d-f1fb26223119 I usually begin these walks by deciding where to park. This time I’m looking for somewhere to sleep. My family had to leave our Canyon Crest home for three nights, driven away by a terrific (using the British emphasis) termite infestation. I’ve moved around Riverside since I arrived in the '90s, but I’ve never lived Downtown. Relocating to the Hyatt Place at Fifth and Market gave me a chance to see Downtown from another side. I’ve spent plenty of time Downtown, even written two books about things to do here. Now I have a different assignment: find out what it feels like to have all those things mere steps from my door. Impressions and experiences shared in this month’s walk came together in a series of short walks from the hotel, often accompanied by Boots, our red-nosed pit bull. Boots is friendly, occasionally skittish, and stronger than she realizes. I give her room to investigate smells and let people decide for themselves whether they want to meet her. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b3/b2/b3b29e3b-298e-485f-86ca-3034c21e3784/content/images/2026/10/Boots-at-rest.jpg) Boots, Larry Burns’ red-nosed pit bull, rests between short walks during the family’s three-night stay in Downtown Riverside. | Larry Burns/Raincross Gazette Walking with a dog influences what you notice. I spend more time looking down, considering the sidewalk from her perspective. There is apparently quite a lot happening down there. Boots’s low slung approach lets me appreciate the yard art and thoughtfulness put into these postage stamp front yards, privately enjoyed but publicly visible. Fencing, trees, signs, and paths all help people who live here co-exist with neighbors, and visitors like me. Downtown earns good marks from both of us on the hospitality front. Dog bags and trash cans appear regularly, and people generally seem comfortable sharing space with pets. Dodging traffic, pedestrian and mechanical, becomes automatic by my second day “living” Downtown. My sense of which drivers don’t notice pedestrians came in handy multiple times this trip. For quieter outings, we favor residential stretches along Fourth, Fifth and Sixth streets. A few blocks make a considerable difference. Market Street supplies a running soundtrack; rhythms of traffic tires and melodies of voices raised in greeting and celebration, and a few times, in alarm. Back toward Main Street and the pedestrian mall, I begin to appreciate how little planning an outing requires. In Canyon Crest, walking to a meal or shopping can involve enough distance and sweat that I usually drive first and walk afterward. Here, getting there is part of the walk. I can look for dinner, browse storefronts, or take in a new gallery show or city supported cultural event. All without having to figure out parking. At least on this trip! Over the past two decades, Downtown has made more room for people to linger and live. The restored Fox Performing Arts Center (aka The Fox), the durable Riverside Municipal Auditorium (aka RMA) and the more intimate stages of our bars and clubs give locals and visitors a reason to come out at night. Imperial Hardware Lofts, and similar live/workspaces built in the last decade here, kept most of the classic (some even say historic) storefront façades. This gives a walk along the pedestrian mall a few elements of nostalgia to mix with all that is new. In the last five years alone, we built a new Downtown library and attracted a one-of-a-kind world class Chicano art museum (The Cheech) to move into the old building it left behind. And later this season, the new local owners of the Historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa will ring in a celebration of our most popular annual cultural tradition: The Festival of Lights! I saw plenty of examples to help me see how this cultural renaissance is not a fluke but a larger creative aesthetic and sensibility flowing across our city. New faces, new storefronts, new tastes, and new traditions; many influenced by, or presented alongside, our more storied histories and heroes. On Saturday evening, I follow Market Street to White Park for the Riverside Art & Music Festival. I catch the last few bands and window shop the artist booths. The city’s oldest park fits more wandering into its rectangular boundaries than seems geometrically possible. Its paths meander and branch, creating spaces for the unexpected. The surprise for me is a booth with regional raptors. Owls and hawks, close enough to study, with knowledgeable people available to answer questions. Now I finally know what kind of owl was screeching from my neighbor’s date palms every night for six straight weeks (winner if you guessed barn owl) earlier this year. I came for art and music and found birds I’m usually lucky to glimpse overhead or identify with my Merlin app. Riverside’s wild neighbors have made it Downtown, too. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b3/b2/b3b29e3b-298e-485f-86ca-3034c21e3784/content/images/2026/10/screech-owl.jpg) An owl perches on a handler’s glove at a regional raptor booth during the Riverside Art & Music Festival at White Park. | Larry Burns/Raincross Gazette The encounter reminds me how much of this city exists alongside places we haven’t paved. Even here, surrounded by streets and buildings, there are opportunities to learn something about the creatures sharing our region. Boots has her way of investigating the neighborhood. I have mine. The festival leaves me wanting more art, and a little more walking helps build an appetite. From White Park I can take the “arcade route” to the quintessential nexus of art and food: Tio’s Tacos. I take the alley alongside Riverside City College’s Center for Social Justice and Civil Liberties, hang a right at the parking structure, and cut through the open arcade of the Riverside Main Library. I catch a break, no wait at the counter when I order my chicken fajitas and pineapple agua fresca. By the time I’ve eaten and got my selfie in the Glass Bottle Chapel, the ordering line stretches out the door, along Mission Inn Avenue. Later, food trucks along Market are still serving people who apparently have no intention of leaving Downtown before nine pm, my typical bedtime. I’m sure I am a product of my habits and my environment. Staying Downtown makes it easier to understand the appeal of staying up and staying out. Taking lots of short walks across several days and nights allowed me to witness some of the changes a neighborhood experiences across a day, or a decade. A Downtown staycation has been on my bucket list for some time. I could get used to walking Boots around this busier neighborhood, finding entertainment without driving, and occasionally a midnight snack past my curfew. I’m a bit grateful for this nudge out of my comfortable confines. But next time I won’t choose Terminix as my travel agent.