To Yuma

We arrived at Augie’s Quail Trail RV Park in Gila Bend, AZ after about a four hour haul from Benson on Saturday, November 3rd. There is very little to Gila Bend, but the campground is nice with long and wide spaces. This we liked. We quickly discovered that there was no TV reception here. Oh, there was suppose to be three or four channels one could get, but we got nothing. They do have a recreational hall with a large screen TV with satellite service, but the first one there chooses the programming. We wanted to see Dancing with the Stars Monday night, so we went early and got lucky. No one else was there.

The first picture above is the view out our bay window. Two Palo Verde (green stick or pole in Spanish) trees and a view of the desert. The Palo Verde is the State Tree of Arizona. It seems to be named such because the trunk and limbs are green and has fern-like leaves. In the Spring it has bright yellow flowers. We’ll have to wait to see those.

After we arrived on Saturday we discovered that the town was having a “Sweet Shrimp” festival. We decided to go check it out. There was a good sized crowd and lots of “carnival” rides, and venders selling this and that. They also had a shrimp eating contest. We didn’t participate. Since it was a “shrimp” festival, they were also selling cooked shrimp meals. We got some very tasty coconut shrimp. Gila Bend is the home of a “sweet shrimp” farm. Something to remember for the future.

We discovered that John, the owner of the RV Park, had a unique “lawn mower.” What is there to mow in the desert?, you may ask. Well, not much. A sprig of weeds here and there up from the sand and between the rocks, something one had to hunt to see. So, John has attached a tube and some sort of nozzle to a 20 gallon propane tank creating a “blow-torch.” This he uses around the many acres of the Park to burn off the grass and weeds, for days, walking and riding his four-wheel cart.

Gila Bend, about 65 miles south-west of Phoenix, has only a little more than 2,000 population. One can’t expect much from a town of this size. It has a grocery, a few eateries, a Post Office, school and a few assorted businesses. The nearest town of any size is Buckeye, 35 miles north on highway 85 on the way to Phoenix. We checked it out also and found a little city of some 15,000 people. It seemed to have all the services and shopping one would want. It also has a Walgreens and Quest Laboratory for our medical needs. This is important because since Augie’s RV Park is so nice, we are considering making it our home for the winter. We have made tentative arrangements with them, and if we don’t find anything better during our remaining two weeks in Arizona that we like, we will return there after a couple weeks in California. We’ll let you know about that later.

We checked out of Gila Bend on Thursday the 8th and made our way to Yuma, only about a two and a half hour drive. Yuma is another location we are checking out places to “winter.” On the way in we saw numerous RV Parks along the highway. They all seemed crowded. Our destination was in town at the Riverfront RV Park along the Colorado River, looking across to California and the Quechan Indian Reservation. This park also seems over-crowded with many who seemed to have already sat down for the Winter. A little too “close living” for us.

Yesterday, our second day in Yuma, we visited The Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park. It was the Arizona Territory’s first prison. The Prison was built in 1876 and closed in 1909. You see a picture of the cell units above. An interesting point is that when the prisoners started to arrive here there were no buildings or cells. The prisoners themselves had to build the prison. Anything a prisoner could not make himself, or barter for, he had to do without. Each small cell was shared by six inmates. During its thirty-three year history a total of 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, lived within the walls. After the prison was closed in 1909, the hospital and other building were leased to the Yuma School District for $600 a semester and used as a High School. During the Depression, homeless drifters moved into the cells, which were later used as a dog pound. Following the 1916 flood in Yuma, building materials from the prison were salvaged to rebuild the city. The picture you see above of Carolyn standing beside one of the giant saguaro (pronounced suh-WAH-ro) cactus was taken in the prison yard. Judging by its height, it was probably growing there when the location was still a prison.

We will be leaving Yuma on Tuesday the 13th for Quartzsite, some 85 miles north and just 20 miles east of Blythe, CA. We will catch up with you again, or you with us, before we leave Arizona