Reflections from Yuma

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We’ve now been in Yuma, Arizona for 3 months, and it’s been an amazing time, enjoying Christmas when the weather is far from cold and white. After the new year is well under way, it’s interesting to consider our changes in 2022:

A little over year ago, I was still an employee, even though it was two weeks of annual leave with one work day left to check out of a federal government job, and believe me, checking out of a federal job is hard labor.

Just a year later, life is very different: I’m not waking up at zero dark thirty to go to work, even if the commute was just down the hall. Our home is now 37 feet long, and happens to be wherever we happen to be. At the moment, that’s Yuma, Arizona, and the temperature is 68 degrees under partly cloudy skies. The coldest it’s been in the last couple months was 36 degrees, but the day warmed up to at least 65, and we needed sunglasses. As a matter of fact, Yuma is just about the only place outside of Florida and Hawaii where it hasn’t frozen all winter, and that includes other parts of Arizona.

The weather here is amazingly nice. The only complaints with any merit might be about the wind, which seems to always be present, and can get nasty. It was gusting to 50 mph yesterday, and we even had a quarter inch of rain. When the wind blows strong enough, it really stirs up the dust, and that can be obnoxious, especially with Natalie’s contacts. However, it’s only rained on us a few times, and we can get mostly used to the wind. The pool has buildings all around, so most of what we do outside can be sheltered from the wind.

Natalie finds it amazing that all the palm trees bend and blow with the wind, but they never seem to lose their fronds. That was not the case in Las Vegas – when the wind blew there, palm fronds went flying everywhere, and they had to close the pools for cleanup.

As we thought about it all, we decided this is a pretty good place to stay until things warm up. So, we kept extending our time here until April 10th, when we will be heading east to Texas and Oklahoma, then eventually to North Carolina, and who knows where else.

Of course, with the current border policies and the recent questionable elections in Arizona, things don’t sound good anywhere along the border. However, snow birds are an important source of revenue for Yuma and the nearby border town, Los Algodones, so the cartels and local law enforcement do actually fight and punish crime here, so there is very little here. We don’t see any evidence of the illegals we hear about on the news; they certainly avoid the populated areas where most people are. (and you can assume I’m knocking on wood – i.e. let it stay that way.)

Early in our stay here, we met some wonderful friends, and we gathered every Friday afternoon for a fireside fellowship. They even had a propane fireplace that warmed us nicely when the chill set in around dark. The hosts called it their Eat Dessert First fellowship, and we had as many as a dozen friends for really serious conversation. It was a mighty nice way to close a week.

So, let me resume the travelogue, such as it maybe ought to be, since we’ve been so busy enjoying life and newfound friends and procrastinating, we haven’t really kept up an orderly account of our journey so far.

We’ve been in Yuma since December 9th. The pools, both indoor and outdoor, are open year-round, and Natalie’s been able to enjoy the pool regularly. (I take along a good book, but did buy a swimsuit and might just jump in the pool someday.) This is a 55 and older RV park, but many residents have their children and grandchildren visit, so children are allowed to use the pool for a few hours during the day. It’s usually pretty peaceful and quiet around the pool, and the patio area is very comfortable. There’s even an ice cream shop, the Sugar Shack, to sell us milkshakes, cones, and sundaes. Quite a tough life.

One thing I find interesting about the pool, though: I almost never see anybody swimming. Instead, almost everyone has some flotation device, such as a pool noodle, and they gather in groups and talk while floating in the comfortable water with the sun shining down. As a matter of fact, most of the people in the pool wear some kind of hat and sunglasses. In the pool!

Our site is really quite nice, though a bit more room would be nicer. We have one space for our RV, a space for the truck, and in between is a citrus tree and a patio. There is a variety of birds who spend time around the park, including several doves who serenade us regularly and a grackle or six who also chatter. It’s amazing how far away we can hear the doves, and their cooing penetrates our walls, and the sound is quite pleasant.

One real pleasure is the fresh grapefruit that’s plentiful and free – just pick it off the tree. Of course, the only tree we ‘re supposed to pick from is the one at our space, and ours is a lemon tree. Natalie has really appreciated the lemons, and you can see the tree full of them a couple months ago, but we have only one left now. Several people who have grapefruit trees and don’t like grapefruit have given their produce to Natalie, but that supply has apparently run out as well. It was been pretty nice while it lasted, though.

The park holds a real Sunday service in the big auditorium with a pastor in charge of it all and a different pastor each week, depending who will be at the park and available. The services are really quite nice and at least a hundred people attend regularly while here.

Yuma has a group of musical entertainers who travel to several of the RV parks in Yuma to give concerts, and some groups who come for our Wednesday pool party. Natalie’s been to a couple of the concerts, one a Grand Ole Opry, and the other a Beach Boys Tribute. The members of the band that gave the Beach Boys concert had all played with the Beach Boys at some time in their history, so you can see the musicians can be very talented. There are musical people who live at this park and participate in the church choir when they can and give concerts themselves regularly. There’s also a “Gospel Jam” every month, and it’s made of people who just want to get together and perform, and all of them are very talented.

We have yet to do much as tourists, largely because there’s so much we can do without even hopping into the car. There’s a little café where we usually buy lunch while waiting for laundry to wash or dry. We’ve played mini-golf several times and sadly, Natalie has won most of them. They had a very nice Christmas concert; we’ve been to the weekly all-park potluck a couple times and might go back because the food is good and we meet some very nice people.

Then we met one couple we’ve spent several Thursdays with, concluding with a late lunch at a restaurant. We’ve played mini golf with them a few times and they introduced us to shuffleboard and bocce, which are fun games requiring very little exertion or fitness.

The shuffleboard “scramble” they hold here several times each week is interesting and one way to meet a bunch of other people at the park. There are 16 or so lanes and for the scramble, each person is randomly assigned a lane, a side and a role for the game, so it would be an amazing bit of luck to get to play with Natalie. Of course, part of the fun is meeting the new people and almost everyone is there for the fun of the game, the challenge, and the people; winning would be okay too. Some have even compared life here to life on a cruise ship, and that’s probably a good comparison.

We recently went with some friends to a restaurant at Martinez Lake, a community of mostly snowbirds on the Colorado River. I’m not really sure whether the lake is a reservoir or a bay off the river, but it is quite a spot full of boaters, dirt bikes and dune bunnies. The food was good, but the company was very nice. After eating, we visited the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge visitor center and drove around the area for a while. While driving through the desert, we were fortunate to see a group of wild donkeys, 5 all together and one rebel off on his own but seems to be returning to the main group.

Another day, we went to a restaurant name the “Yuma Landing” somebody recommended because they had a ceiling and walls full of memorabilia about aircraft (which drew my interest) and a bunch of Yuma history. The whole entry hall was packed with well-done models of many aircraft through history, right up to a B-52, and F-4, and a couple F-18s. Very nice.

We’ve also visited the Yuma Territorial Prison, Sanguinetti Museum and Gardens, and Martha’s Garden Date Farm, and Yuma Crossing. The prison may be the most visited tourist site in Yuma, and it’s full of interesting history. The Sanguinetti Museum is at the home of a prominent merchant who played a major role in the settlement of Yuma, and it is also full of interesting history. Martha’s Garden is a date farm, and the tour is conducted by a young lady who demonstrates her pride in the farm and the process of growing dates in the enthusiasm she shows in describing it all for all those on her tours.

We will include much more information about these in future posts. Stay tuned.

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Photos

Outdoor Pool 1.
The hot tub is in the foreground, with the jets going in this photo

Outdoor Pool 2.
The Sugar Shack ice cream stand is on the left on the other side, and the indoor pool is behind us in this photo

Outdoor Pool 3.
The indoor pool is in the building at the other side of this photo, with the Sugar Shack behind us

Church 1.
The choir members participate when they're here; most are snowbirds and stay for the winter.

Returning In A Duststorm.
The entrance to our park when the wind is really blowing