Peggy and I both woke up early and initially had no idea why until we noted that the wind had come up and was creating rocking motions of the Invader along with little plopping noises from vegetation being separated from the trees and dropping on the Invader’s roof. The wind must have been doing about 25 or 30 miles an hour and, as a bonus, picking up massive amounts of soil from the surrounding farmland and depositing it elsewhere.
Yuma is a city of some 90,000 persons and the primary and maybe only activity around here may be farming. There are some low rock mountain ranges visible in the distance but most of the land around our RV park is dead flat. Where crops are not currently being irrigated and growing, the fields are bare dirt and those not recently watered have taken to the skies in the breeze. We took a long time to get going today because we really had nothing to do except make it to a store to pick up a half gallon of milk.
Once we finally got on the stick, we drove first to the Yuma Territorial Prison parking lot. The then-territory of Arizona housed some 3500 prisoners here back before 1900 although they must have been here at different times because the facility is very small. It is a masonry structure built by the inmates and looks like it could not hold more than maybe 150 people at any one time. It must have been a bleak existence being sentenced and doing time here.
From there we drove to a strange store called the Peanut Patch. This place apparently serves those with a liking for nuts of almost any variety along with peanut brittle, trail mixes, some chocolate candies and religious books which are prominently displayed right inside the front door. We picked up some nuts, shot glasses that look like Saguaro cacti and some Roadkill Chicken Rub. I have no idea what the last item might be used for unless it is to revive fowl hit by cars.
We made short stops at a Fry’s grocery and diesel station before returning to our RV park for cocktail hour. Yuma has been found to be slightly less than fascinating so far. We noted that Arizona must get their share of the Colorado River water because most of the irrigation here is by inundation from large irrigation canals. Some folks have sprinkler arrays which in today’s breeze seem to force water into the air to have it evaporate in the low humidity. There is a lot of water going to waste here although Yuma is the largest producer of winter veggies (mostly lettuce) in the U.S. The folks in California would love to have the water going into the sky here.
For some pix of this horrible, unremarkable place, go to here