Week ending Dec 5, 2019 Laughlin to Yuma

Friday a motorcoach came in.  Shortly after, two great danes took their owner up to the dog park.   The owner could pat the dogs on the back without bending over.  Hard to imagine having two dogs that large in an RV.

Saturday morning, there was frost on the truck window.

Sunday, we packed up, and headed south through Needles, California. We couldn't believe that the price of diesel there was 4.99/gal.  We have been paying about 2.82/gal across the river in Ft. Mohave.  Fortunately, we didn't need to fill up on our way through California.  The roads were pretty busy until Quartzite with Thanksgiving weekend traffic. We pulled into Southern Mesa RV Park in Yuma, where we stayed for a month last spring. The website said their office hours were from 1 to 5pm on Sundays, but when we got there, no one was in the office.  We called the cell of the manager, who lives in the park.  He came over and told us he did have one site available for at least a month, as someone left yesterday.  They had been coming here for years, and she swam in the pool every day.  This year, the pool is not open, so they moved somewhere else.  The people in our site, moved over to the vacated site which is shady, and he is recovering from melanoma. 

Monday we did a scouting expedition to Hot Spring LTVA about 40 miles east of Yuma about 7 miles west of Holtville, California.  We had a good chat with the volunteer host about heating options. He  let us drive through to check out the 'sites'.  Then we checked out a store in Holtville, and the Walmart in Calexico for grocery options in the area.

Tuesday, we decided it was time for a decent walk, so we drove to the visitor center in Yuma, and walked along a section of the East Canal pathway, a little over 5 miles return.  One section of the pavement had broken up, and then been removed.  We saw quite a few mallards. 

Further down the canal, there were few mallards, maybe, that had a different pattern, white breasts and dark backs, but the usual dark green heads with yellow beaks.  We couldn't find that pattern in the Field Guide.  

 There was a group of buzzards in some trees across the canal. 

 The water in the canal was close to the bridges crossing it, probably due to the storm that had come through about a week ago.

high water in canal

On the road south to the RV park, there are a couple of fields of cotton, between fields of citrus trees on this route.  This time of year, there is lots of cotton on the plants