December 1, 2009 – Yuma, AZ

I gotta say, we love the weather here; it gets a little cool at night, but daytime it’s just right. Geri took me out for a short walk this morning while Don was showering, and I really didn’t want to get back in the rig, it was so nice out. Later in the morning, Don took me to a park in town, but the grass was really bad, and I didn’t really feel like rolling in it. We went back to the coach and picked up Geri and went back into town to a street fair. They had visited Yuma a long time ago (before I was born) and they were amazed at how much it had grown. They said it was just a dusty little backwater when they were here, with a sadly neglected downtown area and a few broken down trailer parks. Now there are at least two dozen RV parks, catering primarily to the people who migrate down from the north (where I was born) for the winter. They call themselves “Snowbirds”. The downtown area has been nicely renovated, and looks really spiffy. There are new shopping centers and other businesses to support the expanded population, which Geri says is almost a quarter million people! We’re all glad to see the town doing so well.

The street fair was a lot of fun, particularly for me, as many people stopped to say hello, admire, and pet me. One lady said that I was the most beautiful dog she had ever seen! Don got some tortilla chips with cheese (they’re called nachos) at sidewalk stand, and stood there eating them in front of me. Some of the people passing by shamed him into sharing with me, and I’m glad they did; the chips were really good! We got back to the truck and headed across an old bridge over the Colorado River; it was so narrow that it had traffic lights on each end to let traffic going each way to have the bridge to themselves; a one-lane bridge! We came back across to the Yuma side, and went to a park next to the river. Great grass! I went running and rolling all over the place, as I was starting to have grass withdrawal symptoms. We met a man walking his little dog, whose name was Daisy, the same as one of my friends across the street at home. She was a nice little dog, and we got along well.

Back in the truck, we drove down along the river to another park, a really big one, that had all kinds of wildlife habitats in it, like burrowing owls and other kinds of birds. There was a kiddies playground that looked like it had a castle in the middle of it! We all agreed that we’d like to spend more time there, but there were too many more things to see in Yuma. So we were off to the Quartermaster Corps base near downtown. I had to stay in the truck because of a stupid no dogs policy; I was a little miffed, ‘cause I could see the grass in the open areas between the buildings, and it looked beautiful. Geri and Don spent almost an hour in there, and came back to tell me about it. Turns out that this base had been established back in the 1850’s to supply the forts that were set up for the protection of immigrants who were heading westward along the southern trails to California. They even had steamboats going up and down the Colorado River carrying supplies to the forts. The Bureau of Reclamation also had maintained and office there, and Don was shocked to learn in their exhibit that there was a dam on the river that he wasn’t aware of! And he’s such a know-it-all. He also learned that there had been constructed a huge desalination plant next to the river in Yuma, but it had never been staffed or operated. Don says he wants to get more information on this.

We made a short stop at the Yuma Railroad station, and saw the three passenger cars and one switch engine that constitutes the operation. Don talked to an engineer who was working on the engine, and found out that it was an all-volunteer operation, and they had been running excursions down to near the Mexican border. They were going to resume operation in February, after some track repair was completed. Don was curious about the engine, as it was identical to the one that operated on the Stockton, Terminal and Eastern Line back when he was a kid, and had almost run him down while he was riding his motorcycle on the railroad tracks. The engineer told him that this model had been built for many years, back to the forties, (that’s 1940’s, for youngun’s like me).

We stopped by the entrance to the Yuma Territorial Prison, which Geri and Don had visited years ago, and which did not accept canine tourists. They like the view from the parking lot, looking over the river to the mountains beyond. A workman of Hispanic origin accosted them, and proceeded to explain the work that his company was doing in clearing extraneous greenery out of the park next to the river below the penitentiary. Don told me later that he was worry that the guy didn’t stick to speaking Spanish, as it would have been easier for him to understand than his mix of Spanglish.

My beneficent humans decided to visit the local Cracker Barrel for dinner, but took pity on me by breaking out some emergency dog rations that Don had stowed in the truck some years ago, just to keep me from starving to death. They emerged from the place after about an hour, and seemed pleased with the experience. We headed home to work on the blog, which seemed to take an unusually long time, and then headed for bed. There’s talk of staying here another day; well, why not? It’s a really nice place! See you manana!