March 26th through April 3rd, 2022 - Week Thirteen- Yuma Arizona

 

Destination number: 92/172/30

Before departing Tucson, I had worked a 16 hour day on Friday, and a 18 hour day on Saturday working to get the latest version of CDCR’s Esri Software installed on the servers. With the critical systems back up and running Sunday morning, Remi and I left Tucson and headed to Yuma Arizona  towards our last stop outside the state of California. Since Yuma is on the back end of my trip and not part of the orginal plan, I wasn’t sure that there would be anything to see in Yuma. As I have been with all of my stops, I was pleasantly surprised with this next destination! Just driving to Yuma, took us through a large valley surrounded by mountains in virtually every direction.

The RV park that I had selected, didn’t have very good reviews on www.rvparkreviews.com, but I’ve always had the approach that if there was water, electric and sewer, that was all that mattered. Everything else was gravy! The reviews were that there a lot of “Permanent” residents in the park and that it was a trash heap. The most recent review was that a new owner had taken over the park and that they were “Trying” to clean things up. When I arrived, the park was sparsely populated. There were probably only 12 RV’s in the park, but more than 80 available pads available. Admittedly, the “Self Service”

A few minutes after I arrived, the new park managers (also from California) came out and greeted me. They explained that I paid for the space up front, and then at the end of the week, they would read the meter and let me how much more I owed for the electrical service during my stay. They also warned me that there was an active Rail Line on the south side of the property. I assured them that most of the RV parks I have stayed at have either been next to a highway or a railway, and that usually after the first night, I don’t even notice it. Though I was right, that I had no problem sleeping through the trains that passed through during the night, I had no idea just how much rail traffic came through, but I was about to find out. Since I would telework during the day, and with my desk facing the railroad tracks, I was easily able to see every train that passed through. I would say that easily, there were 5 east bound trains which had departed either Long Beach or San Diego headed for points east and an equal number of trains, with a number of empty rail cars, heading west to pick up more cargo. About the only rail cars that I could tell were loaded on the west bound trips, were the ones carrying new automobiles and light trucks.

After we arrived and got camp set up in Yuma, I worked another 6 hours on Sunday to address some of the less critical, but still important tasks before the start of the work week. The rest of the work week was fairly uneventful and I had all of the production systems back up and running by Tuesday of the week. So, I took Wednesday off to do some exploring around the Yuma area. I had four places I wanted to visit in the Yuma area that I had identified on Tuesday night by looking at “Things to do…” in Yuma that I found by doing a Bing search. Two places I could take Remi, and two places I could not. So, Wednesday morning, Remi and I set out first for the “West Wetlands Park” which is in the city of Yuma. Someone had posted that if people had dogs that liked water, this was a place to go. The park was very well cared for and nicely architected. There was a number of hiking trails and a boat launch area. Remi wasn’t much into the beach area adjacent to the boat launch area, apparently here only interest in water is the splashing of the surf that we found on the Oregon coast.

There was also a very nice fishing pond that kids can go to and capture a number of different species of fish that it is periodically stocked with. There was a lot of wildlife that obviously feels very comfortable with the environment there. I must admit, it felt very quiet and peaceful in the park, and I can see why people in the community enjoy it so much.

After exploring the park a little bit, Remi and I loaded up in the Jeep and drove to the “Castle Dome Mine and Ghost Town”. One of the other locations I wanted to visit while in Yuma is the Yuma Proving Grounds Heritage Museum, but they don’t allow dogs. As we were making our way to the ghost town, we drove through the middle of the proving grounds including its main gate. The last 8 miles of road to the Ghost town and Mine, are traversed on a dirt road off the main highway.  The first 6 miles are military roads and there were signs all over the place saying “DO NOT TAKE PICTURES” and “WARNING, LIVE ORDINANCE MAY BE FOUND IN THIS AREA, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE”. The last two miles of the road, were on a Wildlife preserve. No section of the dirt road was better than another. Yes, the picture on the dirt road was taken in the Wildlife preserve area, not in the Proving grounds section. :-) 

As I arrived at the Mine and Ghost Town, if felt a little odd, because you have to drive through this small RV park to get to the Mine and Ghost Town. I was really wondering if someone was going to fill me full of lead or not. After I finished going through the RV park, I arrived at the parking lot and after asking if it was ok for Remi to go through the Ghost Town as well, we started exploring. The very first thing I noticed was as I entered the building where you pay your admission to go through the Ghost Town, these old style single pane glass windows that “Appeared” to date back to the 1800’s. The glass was full of ripples and Imperfections, much like early glass panes appeared before glass was factory made.

The whole Ghost town was amazingly pristine. Obviously weathered over the decades since the 1800’s, but I was surprised just how well preserved everything was. There were a number of Cabins, an old stamp mill (for crushing the ore), a church, a sheriff’s office, a hotel, a mercantile store, a ladies garment store and countless other store fronts. The vast majority of them you could go into. About the only exception was that you could not go upstairs in the hotel.

In Central California, near the Nevada border, there is a ghost town called Bodie. Bodie is very spread out in comparison to the town of Dome Rock City, but this down is much better preserved. But, Bodie is a state park, where as this Ghost Town is on private property where they charge $15.00 for every person that walks in. This location is amazing, and I encourage anyone who comes through this area to come check out this ghost town.

After we finished exploring the Ghost Town Remi and I returned to camp for the remainder of the day. The rest of the work week was un-remarkable and on Saturday, I set out to the Yuma Territorial Museum and the Yuma Proving Grounds Heritage Museum.  But before I left, I wanted to find out what their hours were. A quick check told me the Prison opened at 9:00 AM, but the Proving Grounds Museum was only open Tuesday through Friday. BUMMER! I should have looked at that earlier in the week. Oh well. Un-deterred, I gave Remi a frozen peanut butter bone and set out to the Yuma Territorial prison.

The prison has been closed since the early 1900’s but it was the first prison in the state of Arizon, thanks to a little sneaky move by an Arizona State Senator who was present as Arizona was initially laid out for statehood. The plot of land assigned to the Prison was bordered by the Colorado River and due to the river on one side, the newly constructed railway on another side, and some geological challenges on the other two sides of the plot of land, the size of the prison was fairly limited. None the less, this prison has a storied history including how the prison and its occupants ended up contributing to the name of the Yuma Highschool and it’s team mascot, but you will just have to watch the video for that juicy tidbit.

This prison was in some ways considered revolutionary for it’s day. For the early 1900’s the medical care was some of the best and the treatment of the prisoners was considered extremely humane… at least for the early 1900’s.

Once I got home on Saturday from exploring the Yuma Territorial prison, I had time to get the motorhome packed and ready to go for the next leg of our trip. I actually had too much time, you see, I was just kind of standing around on this wonderful warm Saturday afternoon, wondering what to do and I decided, Remi needed a bath. So, much to her disappointment, Remi got a bath. She was after all, pretty dusty from the visit to the ghost town.

Tune in next week for my update from our first week in the San Diego area.

Here is the video from this week.

Safe travels all!

Eric and Remi too!