Yuma to Utah

My Mom is on my case to post something, so I guess I better get writing.

After three weeks in sunny Yuma, we drove the 700 miles to Salt Lake City to spend Christmas with our daughter, son-in-law, grand kids and friends.  We've been in Salt Lake since December 11. This is the fourth year in a row that we've driven our tow car from Arizona to Utah for the holidays. Usually we put the motor home in a storage lot, but this year we paid for a campsite at the Yuma Proving Ground RV Park, left the RV hooked up to electricity, and gave the keys to some neighbors just in case.  It was so much easier than draining the tanks, taking the tire and window covers off, driving the rig to storage, putting the covers back on, etc. etc. Instead, we just packed and left.

We would not rank Yuma as an exciting town, but it's a great winter place. It's warm, the people are great, and Jim and I got into a comfortable routine that was fun for us but didn't give me much to write about.  (Except the Ohio State Buckeyes!  I should have done a post on them.  Never did I think I'd be happily yelling "We're number four!  And then Jim's team -- the Oregon State Beavers or the "other OSU" as I call them -- actually he calls the Buckeyes that, too -- lost their long time coach to Nebraska so we've been following that.) We go to the military base gym every day, read, watch some TV, socialize a bit, drive the 25 miles into town to Yuma, and generally take it pretty darn easy.

Now that we're home in Salt Lake, we have a little more to do but it's hardly a tough life. As I'm writing I'm drinking my daughter's wine and eating chocolate truffles.  Like I said, life is not tough. However, I get up about 6:15 to help get my grand kids ready for preschool. Jim and I finished our Christmas shopping and did some errands -- doc appointments, car to the shop, hair cuts, stuff like that. I had to go to the Apple store today because I downloaded something I should not have and ended up with ad ware that changed my search engines and we couldn't get rid of it.  But I think Apple succeeded.

Anyway. We will celebrate Christmas with our Salt Lake family and friends. And we're having a nice time.

Arizona sunsets are amazing.  They can color 360 degrees of the horizon.

Typical scenery near the Yuma Proving Ground.  The day after I took this photo some folks in a big Class A motor home drove in the same location and got stuck.  It took a tow truck three tries to pull them out of the sand. 

I was walking from the commissary to our campground when I saw this soft looking branch over a sidewalk and pushed it aside with my hand.  I should have remembered a ranger's advice that everything in the desert "sticks, stings, or stinks" because this tree has thorns. Ouch. 

We've had nice visits with our neighbors at the Yuma Proving Ground RV Park.  Several couples have standing "everyone come on over" times in the late afternoon.  The gathering above was held at our neighbors Mike and Carol, who are from Wisconsin and have a rig directly across from us on the campground road. The guys were all outside (that's Jim in the third chair from the right) ...

...While the women chatted in Mike and Carol's tent.  We also played a card game called "Sequence" where teams try to get five chips in a row on a board.  I am not a game person at all, but this was fun.

Jim loves the burros that roam near the Yuma Proving Ground and occasionally (more than occasionally last year) make their way onto the military base.  This one was at the side of Imperial Road, the road to the base.

Back in Salt Lake, grandchildren Mia and Marshall work on a gingerbread house. It looks like Mia may have part of it in her mouth.

Jim and Bev with our friends John and Debbie.  John is the library/media specialist at a Salt Lake City elementary school and Deb is the deputy director of the Salt Lake City Library  They are both from Ohio (like Bev is) and I've known them for 40 years. We'll have Christmas dinner at their house.