One must go to Algedones Mexico, the town right across the border from Yuma. During the months of January February and March retired folks hurry across the border at 10am (the liquor stores open at 10) to get their hooch and prescription medications and are typically out of there in an hour or so. Some (like David-not so much me I am too dentist scared) get their teeth cleaned at one of many local dental offices. David's cleaning (at a shoddy little joint I might add) was a mere $25. Now not all dental offices are shoddy looking, some are nicer appearing than those in the states, and most of the dentists have been trained in the states. It's just a matter of finding a good one that has been recommended by another dentist scared person (Thanks Mikey:)
As David was sitting in the shoddy looking dental office (with just two chairs in the waiting room) a very round lady came out of the bano with her pants down around her knees and a camera in her hand. She asked the Mexican dentist to come in to the waiting room and take a picture of her tattoo-apparently she wanted to take the picture across the street to have the Mexican painters paint a picture of said tattoo on a souvenir. She turned towards David telling him that she had a unicorn tattoo on her other leg and proceeds to pull the pants down to her ankles. David then had the joy of seeing all of the tattoos on her legs. After she shared up went the pants and out the door she went. As it turns out the tattooed lady and her husband were staying at the same park as we were. All of this and a teeth cleaning for $25!
These are the painters across the street.
Much less exciting (but very informative) was our trip to the Peanut Patch in Yuma
The peanut patch is actually a little tourist trap that was, at one time, a peanut farm. All but two peanut farms in Yuma have closed due to a little white leaf eating fly that was somehow transplanted to the crops. Yuma is the vegetable capital of the US, imagine what a leaf eating insect could do to the lettuce, cabbage...etc. Since the farms stopped producing the fly is no longer a threat.
One of the things that we did learn was that peanuts are not grown on trees like other nuts-they are grown underground as the picture below shows. This is because peanuts are not in fact nuts, they are vegetables...who knew!
Peanuts are harvested by a large machine that plucks the plant out of the ground and allowed to dry. Once the plant and nuts (vegetables) are dried another machine scoops them up separating the peanuts from the plant.
The peanuts are not washed they are bounced around (literally) on a large combine type of deal to get the dirt off of them. The one below is one of the originals.
After the dirt is 'bounced off' they go into a roaster such as this.
Workers hand pick through the roasted nuts in order to get rid of the bad ones
And the end result, at least this day, was a yummy looking slab of peanut brittle.
An interesting day.
Although our park in Yuma, Yuma Lakes, is not our favorite park the sunrises were certainly very nice.
From Yuma we head to one of our favorited places-Quartzsite. It's a week of living off the grid and pretty much total relazation.
The first two rigs to arrive and thus find the perfect spot for up to 24 rigs were Tud and Diane Johnson and us.
At one point we had I think the full 14 rigs in our circle
So many so that I wasn't able to get them all in one picture, had to do a sweep shot
This was not really a rig but a bedroom on wheels, but it worked for them.
Quartzsite is a week of good friends, great food, smart ass talk around the
campfire, some shopping at the flea markets and
'Jeeping' in the desert
The Johnsons joined us in our jeep in an attempt to traverse a difficult trail which prooved to be much to difficult for our poor little jeep
After Tud got us through the rocky path we took the green machine home and traded it in for Tud and Diane's yellow bumble bee jeep the next day. This was a much less difficult trail which took us through a variety of landscapes.
There were mountains
Gorgeous mountains as far as the eye could see
And sand dunes with mountains as a back drop
The sky was pretty much perfect for pictures that day
The cactus were plentiful.
This one made for a good perch on which a hawk can look for his meal
The ocotillo were not in bloom but are still one of my favorites
Yikes-stay away from this one. Those stickers were wicked looking
These look like a nice soft spider web, do not be fooled
The dead ocotilla makes for the perfect walking stick for Diane
And then it was time for lunch atop the hill amongst those danged jumping things (chollas). I put the camera on Tud's jeep, set the timer and dashed back for the photo just barely missing the deadly jumpers :)
There she is, the yellow bumble bee sitting at the top of the world...well kind of
Yep Quartzsite is a favorite of ours. One of these trips I am going to have to get a picture of the book store owner that does not believe in clothing except a crocheted little dealy to cover up the 'equipment' Next year.
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