Back in Yuma, AZ

We babysat the grand kids New Years Eve, went to bed early (20-month-old Marshall woke up inconsolable once, but if you can get him distracted with any type of ball, you can eventually get him back to sleep) and left Salt Lake City January 1 for warmer climes.  The Salt Lake area is beautiful -- mountains, trees, even that crazy Great Salt Lake at the right spots -- but cold weather brings inversions and we drove south for an hour before we got out of the soup.  New Years Eve Day we went bowling with the kids/grand kids at Olympus Hills Bowling, where there’s a wonderful view of the city from the parking lot.  If you didn’t know what it was, it was almost beautiful to see the tops of the buildings poking out of the gunk.  But both Jim and I have morning head stuffiness we think might be caused by the smog.  I’m glad my kids/grand kids live slightly “up the hill” and are not right down in the valley -- although I’m sure they still get plenty of smog exposure.

Near Santaquin, UT, the smog cleared and we continued south to Henderson, NV where we had a hotel for the night.  Ashley (my daughter) asked me what we were going to do near Vegas -- go to a show, out to dinner, hit a casino?  I said we’d probably read, watch TV and go to bed early before going on the Yuma where we stored the rig.  That’s exactly what we did.

As expected, when we arrived in Yuma Thursday (yesterday) all the camping spots at the Yuma Proving Ground Fam Camp were full.  So we got the rig and kayaks out of our storage space, put the boats on top of the tow car, filled the rig with water, bought groceries at the commissary, and headed to some BLM land closer to town.

Today was do-stuff-to-the-rig day.  This morning we drove to CJ's RV repair here in Yuma.  They'd ordered a part to fix the rig awning which we could not longer roll in or out.  After that, we went to Love's Truck Stop to dump the tanks, then we got gas, came back to our BLM spot and put water in the coach batteries.

Tomorrow the plan is to drive to Tucson.

PS:  We are both wearing shorts and T-shirts today, a big change from our wardrobe in Salt Lake.  

Some typical scenery between Las Vegas and Yuma.  This spot was not far from Searchlight, NV, hometown of Senator Harry Reid.  Per Wikipedia, 539 people live in Searchlight but during the gold mining boom days it was larger than Las Vegas with a population of about 1,500 people. It's slightly bigger than a "blink or you'll miss it" place.

I've been meaning to post this photo of me and our next-door neighbor, Lisa, when we were at the Yuma Proving Grounds Fam Camp.  In front of us is Lisa's Sun Oven -- a solar cooker that cooks/bakes/steams just about any food. Lisa's husband, Dale, took this photo.

Tonight and last night were on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land about 17 miles from downtown Yuma.  Campers can stay on specific BLM land for free for 14 days; after that you can move to another free spot at least 25 miles away.

Bob of CJ's RV Repair working on our rig awning.  The awning had a broken gear in the roll out/roll in mechanism.  I'm sure there's a technical name for that, but I'm just glad it works.

While Bob the RV guy was working on the rig awning, I walked across the street and took photos of a field of cabbage.

And another crop.  I think this is a type of curly lettuce.