Week ending Feb 7, 2019 Yuma

Friday morning, we woke up to a light fog in the RV park, after rain in the night.  One of the long term residents said this was highly unusual.

The park provided us with a 79 page booklet containing local advertising for Yuma and Los Algadones, B.C., Mexico (this BC is for Baja California, the Mexican state on the Northwest corner of Mexico), descriptions of many tourist attractions in the area, and lots of interesting facts about Arizona.   When we arrived yesterday, we heard the flock of doves continuously cooing in the park.  One of the interesting facts in the booklet describes the annual Dove Hunt, which opens Sep 1 each year.  Arizona Game and Fish estimates that from 1.0 to 1.3 million mourning doves have been bagged each year for the last decade, with a significant portion being in the Yuma area because of the amount of grain farming on both sides of the border here.

Friday afternoon, we went for a walk around the park.  Doesn't take long, as there are only 3 long lanes. On the way we met a couple from Rabbit Lake, Saskatchewan. He had taught grade 6 in Spiritwood.    

Saturday morning we paid $4 each for the weekly Saturday morning breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage at the clubhouse.  This is a 'bring your own dishes and cutlery' event. 

Later in the morning, we headed across the California state line to Tumco (short for The United Mining Company) Historic Mine Townsite.  It is in an area with many boondockers.  The BLM has created an interpretive trail around the townsite, but there were no brochures to enlighten us at each of the 9 points of interest.  Part of the way around, on our return from a side trip to a couple of digs on the side of a hill, we chatted with a couple from Oklahoma who are boondocking between Tumco and I-8.  One of the highlights of the area is 4 or 5 large cyanide tanks. Gold was first discovered here by Spanish colonists coming north in Mexico. When the Union Pacific Railway completed the Los Angeles to Yuma section, a gold rush occurred. Over 200,000 ounces of gold was recovered.   

Cyanide Tanks

Graves site

Two digs, one above the other

 

Cyanide tanks are getting thin

Sunday was a lazy day with TSN skins curling and superbowl.

Monday, we drove to Fortuna Pond, a little 'oasis' in a small section of BLM land surrounded by farm fields.  There are boon-dockers here, most of them along the edge of the pond, and few with smaller units tucked into trees on the north side of the area across the road from the pond.  It was pretty much fully occupied.  

Cormorant on the pond

Then we headed to the hiking / mtn biking area north east of town a few miles, on the west side of the Gila Gravity Canal, in an area called the Sugarloaf.  The access road was along the canal between the Yuma County landfill, and the tire disposal area.  We were surprised to see a bike repair tool kit mounted on a post.   After looking around a bit, we decided it looked like a technnical mtn biking area, rather than a hiking area, so we headed back to the trailer. 

On Tuesday morning, we did some more reading on the hiking area, and decided  it looked feasible.  First we stopped at the Visitor Center in downtown Yuma to pick up some area info, then went back to the hiking area.  We did a loop trip that took us partway up one route, Ryan's Trail,

 

to the termination of a path called the Backyard.  We followed this until it connected with a path called the Frontyard, which took us back to the trailhead.  This is a pretty desolate area, with minimal vegetation on rolling hills.  We did see quite a few flowers in purples, pale pink, yellow and white.  

 

 

 

 

Back near the trailhead, we worked our way around the tire disposal area.  Despite seeing a few vehicles parked at the trailhead, and another one further up the canal, we only saw two bikers right at the trailhead.   The only other person using the trails was in a jeep which passed us on our way across the backyard section.

Wednesday morning was cool with a wind.  We had picked up some information sheets at the visitor center.  On of them was about the Historic Plank Road, 15 miles west of Yuma in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area.  The dunes are an average of 5 miles wide over a length of 40 miles running north from Mexico into California.   In 1912 people heading west to California had from southern Arizona had two choices, via Mammoth Wash Trail to Los Angeles or across the sand dunes to San Diego.  A group of San Diego businessmen got together, with the help of Ed Fletcher, to build a road across the sand dunes.  Canadians had introduced plank roads into the US in 1846, with a road from Syracuse NY to Oneida Lake.  A competition was held with one team going from Los Angeles to Phoenix, and another from San Diego to Phoenix.
When Fletcher won this race, he and the Imperial County Board of Supervisor raised money to get the materials needed to build a 6.5 mile plank road across the dunes.   There is now a BLM Historic site, which protects a small remnant of the road, and created a sample of the 12 ft by 8 ft sections of planks bound with steel strips that were used to construct the platform of the road.

 

The road was used from 1915 to 1926, when it was replaced by a two lane asphalt road.   We walked up the dune to end of the section of road. 

 

 

From the top, we could clearly see the wall along the border with Mexico, about 1000 feet away.  We saw a Border Patrol truck driving along the wall, and another person was on the dune in the vicinity scanning the area with a telescope.

Patrolling the border

We have been leaving our heater off overnight since we pay for electricity here.  The trailer was 46F when we woke up about 5 AM, so time to run the furnace to get it back to a decent temperature.  This is the first time we have run the furnace this week.  We did a trip to The Peanut Patch, which is a few miles north of us on the edge of suburban Yuma.  From a variety of fudges, including sugar free versions, Joan chose an amaretto and John the creamsicle flavors.  We also picked up some peanuts and mango lime salsa.  They had some granola packages without an ingredient list, but they keep a list of ingredients for all of their products at the cash desk.

 

On the way back, we took a different route back to the RV park.  On a road a mile west of the park, we saw a flock of egrets along the canal and few in the orchard below the canal.