Always something going on in Yuma! Not enough hours in the day to do everything we want to do! I don't know how working people do it!! Here's the latest installment. Same drill as before - start at the bottom and work your way up to the most recent photos. 
Tuesday, March 10 - Don and Cathy hosted a party for birthday boy, John Briggs. Here he is enjoying his cake. Also in the picture are Audrey in front and Doris, John and Cathy in the background.
and a beautiful Yuma sunset it was!
We went for a drive up into the foothills with Jan to get some pictures of Yuma and the sunset from a good vantage point . . .
Sunday, March 8 - Jan and I went for a walk into the desert and saw several varieties of desert wildflowers. This is a desert lily and in the background you can see patches of sand verbena. In some places the verbena covered the desert like a pink carpet.
Saturday, March 7 - We took Jan on the hike at Mesquite Mine where we didn't see nearly as many lizards as we did with Joyce and Ken the week before. We then continued on to Osborne Lookout where we had lunch and watched the dune buggies, sandrails, dirt bikes, quads and even 4x4 trucks kicking up sand. Being a weekend it was much busier than the last time we were there.
See if you can find the moose, neon football player, Superman, a dinosaur (I think), a flying machine, a giant spider . . . Great place to let your imagination run wild!
This gives you a bit of an idea of all the stuff covering the walls and ceilings. Your eyes don't know what to focus on next. It's a very busy place and the food is good. I even tried the Lutes Especial - a combination cheeseburger and hotdog covered with hot sauce.
Friday, March 6 - If you haven't been to Lutes, you haven't been to Yuma! This was our third visit and we still haven't seen everything there is to see inside. The original building was built in 1901 as a general store. In 1920 it became the Casino Billiard Parlor and in 1959 the Lutes family became the owners when the current owner, Clark "Cocky" Powers couldn't pay back $10,000 he had borrowed from them. The Lutes family added dominos and hamburgers and started collecting stuff (i.e. junk). There are posters, paintings, murals, signs, mannequins and even a booted foot crashing through the ceiling.
You never know what you're going to see in the skies over Yuma. As a rule it's some form of military plane flying overhead, but this aircraft was a little more unusual. The next day our friend, Jan, from Saskatoon flew in to visit and the following day Joyce and Ken left to see a bit more of Arizona before returning home to the frozen north.
Tuesday, March 3 - We had a wildlife refuge of our own back in Yuma. Two doves had set up housekeeping in the hitch of our 5th wheel!
Sand, sand and more sand. The dunes are incredible - always shifting and changing with the wind. The dunes extend for more than 40 miles in a band averaging 5 miles wide. The dunes often reach heights of over 300 feet above the desert floor. One area of the dunes north of Highway 78 is known as the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness Area. It can only be accessed by foot or horseback and provides a home to rare plants and animals like the desert tortoise.
Ken and Joyce at the Osborne Outlook overlooking the Imperial Sand Dunes and the Imperial Valley.
On our way to the main highway from the look-out, we passed through a low stretch of road where they actually measure how deep the water runs when they get a big rain. Definitely a spot where you'd want to head for higher ground.
Doesn't he remind you of a vain, plump, slightly inebriated Kermit the Frog? This lizard had personality plus!
This guy just cracked us up. He sat there for the longest time in this bizarre position posing for us while we took his picture.
Lizards weren't the only living things inhabiting the hillside. Many beautiful beavertail prickly pear cacti sprung up between the rocks.
Amazing how close you can get with a zoom lens! He almost looks like he was smiling for the camera.
Another lizard allowed us to get quite close to him. Maybe the noon-day heat made him a little sluggish.
The view of the sand dunes from the look-out was amazing and so were all the little creatures we saw scurrying over the lava rocks which covered the hillside. This little gecko stopped to check out the human wildlife.
This mine uses a "heap leaching" process where ore is piled up and soaked with a cyanide solution to chemically extract the gold. It is owned by the second largest gold producer in the world, New Gold, a Canadian mining company based out of Vancouver. Nice to see some foreign ownership on this side of the border, too!!
Monday, March 2 - We decided to go on a road trip to see the Imperial Sand Dunes and on our way there, we stopped to take a walk up to the Mesquite Mine lookout just a few miles from Glamis. This mine is one of the largest in California and extracts almost $100,000,000 in gold per year.
This rusty old truck with the chicken sitting in the back is only one of the many unusual things you will see at the Gold Rock Desert RV Park! The character behind the wheel actually has a pumpkin for a head. Hopefully it's plastic!
We drove back to Yuma via Ogilby Road and stopped in at the Gold Rock Desert RV Park which is located just across the road from the historical Tumco Gold Mine. It's quite the place filled with lots of unusual memorabilia, Tumco mine items, an antique store, restaurant and much, much more! One of its biggest advantages is its close proximity to the Imperial Sand Dunes.
The Imperial Date Gardens specializes in Medjool dates, the only variety picked fresh and eaten fresh. I'm not a big date fan, but these are delicious!
Sunday, March 1 - After a tough day of bartering for souvenirs in Algodones, MX, Ted, Ken, Joyce and I rewarded ourselves with a delicious date shake from Imperial Date Gardens in Bard, CA, just north of Winterhaven.
Tuesday, March 10 - Don and Cathy hosted a party for birthday boy, John Briggs. Here he is enjoying his cake. Also in the picture are Audrey in front and Doris, John and Cathy in the background.
and a beautiful Yuma sunset it was!
We went for a drive up into the foothills with Jan to get some pictures of Yuma and the sunset from a good vantage point . . .
Sunday, March 8 - Jan and I went for a walk into the desert and saw several varieties of desert wildflowers. This is a desert lily and in the background you can see patches of sand verbena. In some places the verbena covered the desert like a pink carpet.
Saturday, March 7 - We took Jan on the hike at Mesquite Mine where we didn't see nearly as many lizards as we did with Joyce and Ken the week before. We then continued on to Osborne Lookout where we had lunch and watched the dune buggies, sandrails, dirt bikes, quads and even 4x4 trucks kicking up sand. Being a weekend it was much busier than the last time we were there.
See if you can find the moose, neon football player, Superman, a dinosaur (I think), a flying machine, a giant spider . . . Great place to let your imagination run wild!
This gives you a bit of an idea of all the stuff covering the walls and ceilings. Your eyes don't know what to focus on next. It's a very busy place and the food is good. I even tried the Lutes Especial - a combination cheeseburger and hotdog covered with hot sauce.
Friday, March 6 - If you haven't been to Lutes, you haven't been to Yuma! This was our third visit and we still haven't seen everything there is to see inside. The original building was built in 1901 as a general store. In 1920 it became the Casino Billiard Parlor and in 1959 the Lutes family became the owners when the current owner, Clark "Cocky" Powers couldn't pay back $10,000 he had borrowed from them. The Lutes family added dominos and hamburgers and started collecting stuff (i.e. junk). There are posters, paintings, murals, signs, mannequins and even a booted foot crashing through the ceiling.
You never know what you're going to see in the skies over Yuma. As a rule it's some form of military plane flying overhead, but this aircraft was a little more unusual. The next day our friend, Jan, from Saskatoon flew in to visit and the following day Joyce and Ken left to see a bit more of Arizona before returning home to the frozen north.
Tuesday, March 3 - We had a wildlife refuge of our own back in Yuma. Two doves had set up housekeeping in the hitch of our 5th wheel!
Sand, sand and more sand. The dunes are incredible - always shifting and changing with the wind. The dunes extend for more than 40 miles in a band averaging 5 miles wide. The dunes often reach heights of over 300 feet above the desert floor. One area of the dunes north of Highway 78 is known as the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness Area. It can only be accessed by foot or horseback and provides a home to rare plants and animals like the desert tortoise.
Ken and Joyce at the Osborne Outlook overlooking the Imperial Sand Dunes and the Imperial Valley.
On our way to the main highway from the look-out, we passed through a low stretch of road where they actually measure how deep the water runs when they get a big rain. Definitely a spot where you'd want to head for higher ground.
Doesn't he remind you of a vain, plump, slightly inebriated Kermit the Frog? This lizard had personality plus!
This guy just cracked us up. He sat there for the longest time in this bizarre position posing for us while we took his picture.
Lizards weren't the only living things inhabiting the hillside. Many beautiful beavertail prickly pear cacti sprung up between the rocks.
Amazing how close you can get with a zoom lens! He almost looks like he was smiling for the camera.
Another lizard allowed us to get quite close to him. Maybe the noon-day heat made him a little sluggish.
The view of the sand dunes from the look-out was amazing and so were all the little creatures we saw scurrying over the lava rocks which covered the hillside. This little gecko stopped to check out the human wildlife.
This mine uses a "heap leaching" process where ore is piled up and soaked with a cyanide solution to chemically extract the gold. It is owned by the second largest gold producer in the world, New Gold, a Canadian mining company based out of Vancouver. Nice to see some foreign ownership on this side of the border, too!!
Monday, March 2 - We decided to go on a road trip to see the Imperial Sand Dunes and on our way there, we stopped to take a walk up to the Mesquite Mine lookout just a few miles from Glamis. This mine is one of the largest in California and extracts almost $100,000,000 in gold per year.
This rusty old truck with the chicken sitting in the back is only one of the many unusual things you will see at the Gold Rock Desert RV Park! The character behind the wheel actually has a pumpkin for a head. Hopefully it's plastic!
We drove back to Yuma via Ogilby Road and stopped in at the Gold Rock Desert RV Park which is located just across the road from the historical Tumco Gold Mine. It's quite the place filled with lots of unusual memorabilia, Tumco mine items, an antique store, restaurant and much, much more! One of its biggest advantages is its close proximity to the Imperial Sand Dunes.
The Imperial Date Gardens specializes in Medjool dates, the only variety picked fresh and eaten fresh. I'm not a big date fan, but these are delicious!
Sunday, March 1 - After a tough day of bartering for souvenirs in Algodones, MX, Ted, Ken, Joyce and I rewarded ourselves with a delicious date shake from Imperial Date Gardens in Bard, CA, just north of Winterhaven.
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