Your Heart Doesn't Beat Just For You.

It's Presidents Day and we are heading through the Arizona desert to our next destination. We thoroughly enjoyed our two week stay in Yuma Arizona at the Shangri-la RV Park. First a bit of history about Yuma. It was incorporated in 1914 and has a full time population of 93 thousand. Yuma is also considered to be the winter vegetable capital of the world, 350 days of sunshine and amazing irrigation from the Colorado River.

Miles of Lettuce crops

 The winter population increases by an additional 83 thousand because the entire senior population of Canada arrives in November and stays until April. We really liked the cloudless skies the warm and sunny weather every single day we were in Yuma. When everyone was getting snow back east and even chilly temperatures back home in Florida we were basking in 85 degree temperatures by the pool!

What makes Yuma so interesting from my point of view is the HUGE number of snowbirds in RVs!  I really think there are more RVs than homes in Yuma and there are at least 100 RV parks!
The park we stayed in was about as charming as it gets. Our neighbors on the right were a sweet couple that were both over 90 and were from Alberta and had been coming to this park and staying in a small trailer every winter for 28 years.

Izzie and Heinz's little slice of heaven for the past 28 years

Izzie and Heinz were both ballroom dancers and delivered a splendid show of their talents at the Valentines Day dance last Friday night. It was one of the best Valentine's Days I've had, dinner and dancing, for a mere $15.00 per person, BYOB!

 This park was full of happy retired people playing shuffleboard, golf and riding around in their golf carts visiting friends for the daily Happy Hour.
The people here were friendly and warm and we really enjoyed making some new friends here.They wanted us to stay longer and hated to see us go! They made us promise to come back again, Ya never know!
We went to a Mega open air flea market where you could buy anything and everything! On Sunday we ventured out towards the Yuma proving ground, never did figure out what they were trying to "prove" I may have to get back to you with more information on that! During our visit we also ventured over to the Yuma Territorial Prison Historic Park, a big deal in Yuma. It opened in 1875 and housed over 3069 prisoners including 33 women. In it's 34 years of operation the prison was considered to be a model institution for it's time.

Do we go in?

That's what they all say....

 We stopped at a farm stand that not only sold jams, salsa and fresh produce, but they served a mean Carne Asado Taco for $2.75, it was delicious!
The highlight of the trip,was this tiny church right in the middle of a field surrounded by lettuce crops, It was open and the sign said  The sign said "Pause Rest and Worship".... 4 tiny pews, a Bible and a guest resgister, it was truly special.

 "Pause Rest and Worship"

Small and gracious

Down the road there was also a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge it was built back in 1929 over the Gila River. It was a practice run for the real one. It was named The McPhaul Bridge in honor of Henry Harrison McPhaul the first Yuma resident to become an Arizona Ranger. These days it is considered to be the bridge to nowhere since it was deemed too flimsy for modern traffic and the river was diverted upstream in 1968.

The Bridge to Nowhere

We never did find any good restaurants except our standby favorite In and Out Burger, it's always good for a leisurely lunch but you can't eat there too often, but when we do, it's a treat!
We are headed to Tucson for a few days and then Las Cruses New Mexico and finally to Albuquerque where we will leave our home on wheels for service and drive the Jeep back to Florida!

Heading East

While I loved this 8 month adventure on the road I'm ready to go home to my loft on Clematis Street. I miss my Mom, my siblings and daughter. I saw a sign on the road that said,  "Your heart doesn't beat just for you".....Time to see family and take care of business for a few weeks before we head to Vancouver this summer. In the meantime, we will have some adventures to report on between Arizona and Florida, stay tuned.

More amazing sunsets