yuma

We are still just outside Yuma, at a place called Ogilby road, a vast desert that happens to flat enough to drive motorhomes for a long ways away from the road. The area is a place where many people seem to spend the winter. The area extends many KM in each direction, and there are absolutely no services. However the views are amazing and….. you can see Mexico from our kitchen window. 🫢

We have been doing this winter thing of travelling down here and spending about 5 days at each stop along the way for about 10 years now, and have decided to try staying basically in one place. We have the experience of many many place to have some idea of each and which places we like best. This is a picture I took last year from here.

We are about 10 miles outside of Yuma, being just over the border of Arizona and California, and a wee bit north.

Ken and I have a significant problem of not being able to be idle. We realize that this is a problem that many people solve soon after retirement, but we are still struggling with it. Although it might sound like a virtue, it really is not, we both wish we were able to sit still.

So we have decided to try spending the winter here. See if there is enough here to keep us amused, busy, and engaged. Funny enough, as soon as we decided that we have found we are much more “settled”.

There is a very “rustic” RV park about 4 miles from here, that actually was once the site where the troops were based to train (in WW2) to fight in Northern Africa. It is a place where once a week we can empty our septic and fill with water. It is also a wee bit of a museum.

We have “sites” in all directions from here that we can wander a day away looking for rocks and being in one spot allows us to work on projects. This one is a way of “cleaning ” rocks. Citric acid is the acid from oranges and lemons and can be bought as a powder. And making a solution and soaking for 2 days, gets rid of the calcite and dirt on many of the rocks. Great fun.

Another “project” this winter has been attempting to from basic in water. It really is pretty amazing as these “branches” were just taken from a bag of basil we bought at Trader Joes, so off of a plant for awhile before being in the store. I have since trimmed it, we shall see how it grows new leaves.

Oh and here is Tucker doing his Yoga “DOG” poses. Tucker loves this spot too.

OH and another new “project” is a bike for Ken

We have gotten well versed at how to Order and have delivered parcels for repairing motorhomes etc etc… So it was pretty easy to order a new bike and have it delivered to Calexico a few days ago. Calexico sits on the border of California and Mexico. It has an adjacent city on the Mexican side of border called Mexicali. Interesting play on partial names. Ken sold his Ebike last summer.

The very sad thing though that while Ken was putting the bike together is slashed 2 of his fingers with recently sharpened knives. (Ken is a very good and diligent knife sharpener)

This is a common scenario for us, however I am usually the one with the cuts………. chopping vegetables. The cuts are often significant, and might at one time been worthy of sutures, we are both pretty skilled at making good use of “steristrips” and keeping the area protected long enough for some healing to take place. We DO have a fairly extensive first aid kit.🩺

We are about 1.5 hours from Quartzsite, and have friends who stay there, and have great adventure ideas.

So there is our rough winter plan. A few little trips, but overall, not our usual major jaunt into New Mexico and Texas. Perhaps we are settling down.

There are some truly interesting places close to here.

So Bye for now

Love Janet, Ken and our little yoga dog Tucker

We have finally found what we were looking for, after cross referencing maps from 3 books and also a little help from google earth, we found A road going WEST from Palo Verde and the destination was Pebble Terrace. The books said “desert varnish covers all the rounded agates, shaped by water.” “Water action has left the area looking like the tide went out and never returned” It DOES look like some of the Oregon Coast beaches in the winter when the rocks get exposed.

and there are the tell tale beer bottles (broken)

The agates here are a bit harder to find, but when you find them, they are already polished. The ones on the beach are shiny when wet, but these are already shiny when dry.

We have joined the lapidary club in Quartzite, it took awhile to join. We had been in town for a few days, and a week ago thursday, ken went down to see whats what… He got there about 9 am, and was told that you had to do the orientation before you could do anything there. He asked, “when are the Orientations?”, they said “every Thursday morning at 8.” So we waited all week to go for orientation, and did it Thursday morning at 8. But then we learned that it was only the general orientation, we needed the lapidary orientation, and when is that??? Thursday at 9 AM, and likely booked up… _(&_(*&_^&. SHEESH. Well in the end we did get it and learned all about how to use the machines, a few of which we already have at home. We have not made it back yet because they are closed on weekends.

The area we are in is all about Cotton, among other crops. Very agricultural south and west of here. This really is the healthiest we have ever seen it. We have heard it requires more herbicides etc than almost any crop…. perhaps best not to hang around 🙂

Well this is Tucker, and we have identified 2 situations where he becomes VELCODOG.

“Velcro dog” is when he sticks to us like GLUE, usually wanting to be in physical contact or close at all times.

#1 situation: Teddybear cholla. A cactus that sends out little grenades that lie all over the ground. When you step on one of them with your paw it sticks in and then when you instinctively try to remove it with your mouth (if you are a dog) it stabs you in the mouth. This year we had thought we were going to be ahead of it all and buy the booties that go up the legs. We thought that the best place to get them would be down here. THEN we found out that the best kind actually comes from Canada, and the stores rarely sell them for larger dogs. So we will likely order then when we get home. We have been doing pretty well this year by avoiding these kinds of places and finding spots for him to hang out that have been cleared of the little “land mines”

Velcro dog situation #2: YUMA PROVING GROUND. The Yuma proving ground is where bombs come from all over the country to PROVE themselves. To “prove themselves” they likely need to be able to cause as much destruction that they possibly can in places like Yemen, and Gaza.

Tourist info on Yuma Proving Grounds

“”In a typical year, over 500,000 artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, 200,000 miles (320,000 km) are driven on military vehicles, and over 4,000 air sorties are flown from the proving ground’s Laguna army airfield.”

So if you can imagine 500,000 rounds a year, translates to ~ 1300 a day?? :^) This whole proving area lies just south of all the places we have been hanging out. So we can often hear these bombs going off, and we are pretty sure that Tucker hears many more than we do. So when he gets clingy, we know what he is hearing. This picture is taken just a few hundred yards outside of the proving grounds border. The beautiful Castle dome mountains.

The drive home for the tired pup……

Much love to all, thank you for following our obsessions….

Janet

mymostrecentobsession

yuma our little nest..

Pebble Beach