Although the area was populated by native Americans for centuries, the first real European settlement of the area began after the Mexican American war in 1848 with the founding of Fort Yuma. The area was an important transhipment area between California and what was then the New Mexico Territory because the area around what is now the City of Yuma offered a relatively easy crossing for the Colorado River. At that time the Colorado was free flowing and quite a wild river at times and, what became known as Yuma Crossing, was critical for the emigrants going to California. Yuma also has a history of being a river boat port prior to the building of the dams along the Colorado which have reduced it’s current state to a mere trickle as it approaches the Sea of Cortez to the south.
Yuma was incorporated in 1914 and it’s current population is just under 100,000. This population probably triples in the winter as Yuma has become a favorite of the “snowbird” set, travelers who come into the area in the winter months, usually in an RV of some sort. There are hundreds of RV parks in Yuma and the surrounding area. One of Yuma’s most famous sites is the old Yuma Territorial Prison. The prison accepted its first inmate on July 1, 1876. For the next 33 years 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, served sentences there for crimes ranging from murder to polygamy. The prison was under continuous construction with labor provided by the prisoners. Many of the cells were simply caves dug into the rocky hillside with steel bars across the front. They were not even enclosed in a building. Since temperatures in the area can climb to 120 degrees in the summer, it was not the most comfortable place to be imprisoned. In 1909, the last prisoner left the Territorial Prison for the newly constructed Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, Arizona. The prison is site is a historic site and Arizona State Park today, as is the Yuma Quartermaster Depot, a part of the Army’s old Fort Yuma.
We spent the first day in Pilot Knob getting setup and relaxing. We had traveled here with our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock, and they were parked in the spot next to ours. We got together for happy hour and cooked some steaks on the BBQ for dinner.
Sunday, January 29th, we made a quick run into Yuma to Sam’s Club for some supplies. Other than that we didn’t do too much except relax around the coach. Monday we went out after an early lunch to some geocaching with the Bullocks. Although both of us have cached extensively around the Yuma area in the past, which normally would limit the number of caches which we had not yet found, this is a very active caching area. There are a lot of cachers who live and visit this area, and they are always putting out new caches. We found that there were a couple of sets of caches not too far from Pilot Knob, out in the desert. We headed out in the Bullock’s “real” Jeep (a Wrangler) and were able to capture 23 new caches in the course of about three hours. A pretty good day of caching. After we got home we had cocktails and then Peggy made up a batch of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.
Tuesday, January 31st, we left Pilot Knob fairly early, about 10:30, and we and the Bullocks drove into Yuma to do some geocaching and shopping. We did a few caches first and then drove to old downtown Yuma for the street fair and farmer’s market that is there every Tuesday. We spent an hour or so walking the market and looking in local stores. After our shopping we headed to a place called Penny’s Diner for a late lunch. Penny’s is a shiny, chrome old style diner located not too far from the main shopping area of Yuma. The food was very 60's drive-inn, burgers, fries and shakes, but they also served breakfast. Although moderately priced, the food was nothing out of the ordinary, just OK. Not a place I would recommend to anyone.
After lunch we drove down to the Marine Corps Air Station located adjacent to the Yuma Airport. We wanted to go into the pass office there to get our passes for the Goldwater bombing range, which is located along the south edge of Yuma County. Although this is a restricted military area, some parts of which are still active for bombing and gunnery practice, much of the range is open to the public so long as they obtain a free permit from the Marine base. They require the permit just so they can warn you of the dangers of being on the range. There are hundreds of geocaches out on the range, so that is why we wanted to get our passes. We have cached there in the past and went out there last year with the Bullocks.
Unfortunately, we got to the base at 3:04 p.m. and the pass office closes at 3:00, so no passes today. We went out and did a few more caches before deciding to quit and go to Walmart for some shopping. We ended up with six new caches for the day and one DNF. After Walmart we went back to Pilot Knob. Jackie and I went down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold’em at 7:00. The Bullocks don’t play, so they stayed home. Jackie pretty much broke even over the two hours we played and I only lost a couple bucks. Had a good time and got to play with some of our Canadian friends that we frequently run across during the winter months.
Wednesday, February 1st, MEDICARE DAY! YEA! Today is the day my medicare starts and I now have complete medical coverage at a reasonable cost. I no longer have to pay nearly $700 a month for an insurance policy that doesn’t cover much of anything. Unfortunately, Jackie woke up feeling sick today. Pretty ironic when you think about it. She spent the entire day sleeping, so I just hung around the coach and relaxed. Hopefully, she will feel better tomorrow. I think it is just a head cold, but we will see.
Thursday, February 2nd, Jackie was feeling better, but still not 100 percent. We decided to have a light day, so we didn’t do anything major. After lunch Jackie and I drove into Yuma to take her to an urgent care. She was hoping to get an allergy shot like she got in Albuquerque back in October. She got to see someone pretty quickly and they put her on a different type of antibiotic and some allergy meds. Hopefully, this will help her to feel better. We also did some errands, the bank, Walmart, and went by to “fix” the DNF cache we had the other day.
Yesterday Peggy and Vernon had gone into town for some errands and they went by the cache and looked again, finding it this time. This prompted us to get out there and find it too. We like to fix DNFs. After shopping we went back to the park. We got together with the Bullocks for happy hour and then Jackie served dinner in our coach, one of her wonderful Chili Reallno casseroles. We had a great time and spent the rest of the night in the coach.
Friday, February 3rd, we left the coach early, about 9:30, and drove to Algodones, Mexico. Regular readers will know that Algadones is a small town just across the border from Winterhaven that is almost exclusively a medical town. Dentists, optometrists, pharmacies, and some light shopping. Ninety percent of the visitors you see are senior citizens down there getting something fixed. I was there to get a tooth pulled. Eeks! I had an old post crown come off a few months ago and when I went to a dentist to get it glued back on he told me the tooth was cracked and the post would no longer work. I waited until we got here to have it pulled out because it is far less expensive. We have been using the same dentist here for four years, so I had no problem letting him do the work. Within 20 minutes I was done and ready to go back to the states. The doc told me that there was quite a bit of infection so he cleaned it out good and put a couple of stitches in. I stopped at one of the pharmacies to fill a prescription for antibiotic and waited an hour to get through the border station back into the states.
We had taken two cars down to the border, so Vernon took me home while Peggy and Jackie stayed down in Mexico shopping for another couple hours. Jackie also had to get here teeth cleaning done. I was worried that my mouth would hurt after the anesthetic wore off, but I was surprised to find it didn’t. I remember the same thing happening after I had my surgery three years ago to remove the melanoma from my back. I should have been in quite a bit of pain, but the medications I take for facial neuralgia seems to block most deep tissue pain. By the time Jackie got home I was doing OK and even the bleeding had stopped completely. We spent the rest of the night just relaxing.
Saturday, February 4th, we left the coach early, about 10:00, with Peggy and Vernon and drove into Yuma to the Arizona Marketplace, a large outdoor swap meet on the east end of town. The Marketplace has several hundred booths, most of which are under steel shelters which keep the sun out, selling most everything you can think of. Vernon made the comment that it was like the Quartzsite swap meet without the sand and sun. We spent several hours walking around the booths and also had lunch out there. We ended up buying some shirts, a new mat for outside the door of the coach, some flags and some other odds and ends.
After our shopping we drove back to the RV park for the rest of the afternoon. We had happy hour with the Bullocks and Gary and Ramona Wilson stopped over as well. They are staying about
five miles east at a different RV park. Later on we and the Bullocks had dinner together with Jackie making stuffed green peppers. A friend of Peggy’s, Sylvia, who is staying in Yuma for a week or so getting some dental work done in Algodones, also came to our place for dinner. After dinner we chatted for a while before everyone left and we just relaxed for the rest of the night.Sunday, February 5th, my 65th birthday. We and the Bullocks left the RV park early, about 10:30, to go out and do a slew of geocaches that were scattered along a stretch of desert just a few miles from the RV park. We went out and did thirteen caches before coming back to the park for lunch. After lunch we went out again and cached until
about 4:00. We ended up with 31 new finds and no DNFs for the day, a new all time daily record for us. Yea! Later on in the evening the four us drove into Yuma to the Outback Steakhouse for a birthday dinner. We had some cocktails and good food and conversation. It was a really nice way to celebrate my birthday and I really enjoyed it. After dinner we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.Monday, February 6th we had lunch at the coach and then packed up our laundry and drove into Yuma. We had gone two weeks and it was time to either do laundry or start recycling underwear. We chose laundry. It took us several hours to do our all laundry before we headed back to the coach for the rest of the day. We had happy hour with the Bullocks and I cooked up a big pot of chili for the four of us for dinner.
Tuesday, February 7th, our 8th wedding anniversary! Yea us! We awoke to a chilly and cloudy morning. The weather said there was a chance of rain today and tonight with temperatures in the low 70's. That would be comfortable except there was a brisk breeze blowing
that cooled things off even more. We and the Bullocks packed picnic lunches and we headed out in out Jeep about 10:30 a.m. for a day of geocaching. A couple days ago we set a personal single day best total of 31 caches and we were determined to better that today. This area has a plethora of new caches and we wanted to take advantage. We drove to an area about ten miles northwest of the RV park where there was a series of
31 caches put out along about ten miles of desert road. There were also a number of other single caches in the area. We cached for five hours and we ended with a total of 47 new finds without a single DNF!
A new record total for both us and the Bullocks. We had lunch in the desert and had taken the Bullock’s dog Belle with us so she had some good exercise running in the desert. Not only did we set a daily record, we hit our 3,500th cache in the afternoon and the last cache we did put the bullocks at 1,000 finds. Great milestones for all of us.After caching we went back to the RV park and had happy hour. We were pleased to find that our friends Ray and Del, and Karen and Dave, had arrived at the park while we were out. They are two of the couples we boondocked with in Quartzsite a week or so ago. Tomorrow Curt and Sharon, one of the other couples we were with, will also get to Pilot Knob. Karen and Dave were at the casino, so we didn’t see them, but we did do happy hour with Ray and Del, and the Bullocks. We were all pooped from the day of caching, so after cocktails we just went back into our coach for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, February 8th, our reunion anniversary. On this day in 1998 I got back in touch with Jackie after not having been in contact since 1977. We didn’t go anywhere today because we are doing a little group party tonight and we had some things to do to get ready. We have a very nice area between our coach and the Bullock’s coach which we are going to use for a karaoke party. I spent several hours in the afternoon putting out some rope lights and our light-up palm tree that we haven’t used in quite some time. I also put out our portable fire pit. I set up all the karaoke equipment and we got ready to party. Curt and Sharon came in to the park in the afternoon and got the site right next to the Bullocks, just two down from us.
Jackie spent time in the afternoon putting together some jalapeno poppers for the party,
which was actually a pot luck event. At 5:00 everyone came over and we started the music, the drinking and the eating. In addition to the group we were with in Quartzsite, the Wilson’s came over from their park down
the road, and our caching friends Russ and Nellie came over. Sometime during the evening we even had visitors we didn’t know from our park come over and sit and listen to the music. For the most part it was only Sharon and I who sang. Del came over and did a couple of songs,
but most of it was we two. We had a great party which went on until almost 9:00 when everyone packed up and headed for their own RVs. Thursday, February 9th I spent a little time in the morning cleaning up from the party the night before. About 9:30 we drove back down to the border and went into Algodones, Mexico. Karen, Dave and Sharon all went along since they had not yet gone down there. We had appointments at 10:00 with the eye doctor to get new glasses, and after our exams and picking out our frames, the five of us went to lunch at our favorite restaurant down there, the El Ranchito. The food and beer were excellent and we had a great lunch. We spent the next couple of hours walking around Algodones shopping while waiting for our glasses to be finished.
About 2:00 we went back and picked up our new glasses. Both Jackie and I got two pairs of glasses, one regular and one tinted for sunglasses, all four for $500. This is less than half what they would have been in the States. We got back across the border and drove into Yuma to Sam’s Club to get some liquor. We were running low and they had the best price in town on vodka. After Sam’s we went back to the park for the rest of the night. No one was really hungry after our big lunch, so we just had happy hour with the group and then went down to the clubhouse to play Texas Hold’em. I lost two dollars in the game, but Jackie was the big winner in the room. She cashed out over $12, which was a $7 win on the night. Yea! After poker we went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.
Friday, February 10th, most of the gang left the park in the morning to go to the Arizona Market Place swap meet. We didn’t need to go again, so we had lunch and then went to the nearby Quechan Casino. Since we were members of their players club they sent me a $10 free play certificate for my birthday. I played my $10 gift and then another $20 without winning anything big. Jackie hit a Royal Flush on the machine next to me and ended up cashing out $100. Yea, we left with more than we came in with.
After we got back I spent several hours putting away our outside decorations and stuff, getting ready for our departure tomorrow. I also did some cleaning and rearranging in the cargo bays. This is something that needs to be done periodically to keep things neat and tidy. Later in the afternoon Jackie spent some time with Sharon working on crafts. We had happy hour with the group, but had dinner only with the Bullocks. We got together and did some carne asada on the BBQ and had it, along with all the other Mexican goodies. We had a great dinner and spent another couple hours just chatting until it was time for everyone to head off to bed.
Saturday, February 11th, another travel day for us. We left Pilot Knob about 10:00 and actually headed east first. We drove the ten miles back to Yuma to get fuel for the coach and the car. Diesel fuel in Arizona was $3.82 per gallon whereas in California it is closer to $4.50 per gallon. This was enough of a difference, particularly when buying 60 or 70 gallons, to make it worthwhile to go out of our way a little bit. After fueling the vehicles we hooked up the car and started west on I-8 towards San Diego, about 175 miles away. There was not a lot of traffic until we got to the outskirts of San Diego, but the wind was horrible for the first two thirds of the trip. The wind had to be gusting to 40 mph and I was struggling to keep the motorhome between the lines.
We arrived at the Sante Fe RV park, just off of I-5 near Mission Bay Park, about 2:30 and parked in our space shortly after. We have stayed in this park every year for the last four years and have been in this space before. I was pleased to see that they had trimmed all of the huge trees that cover the park. In the past we could not get any space where our roof top satellite dish would work and I had trouble even finding a place for the portable dish to get a signal. This time, no problem, the roof antenna locked right in. It was cool and cloudy when we got into town and by the time we got set up it really looked like it might rain.
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting settled in for our two week stay here in San Diego. This also seemed like the ideal place to close out this episode of our story and get it published. We will publish again in a couple weeks when we leave here. Until the next time, stay happy and healthy and enjoy every wonderful day. See ya.
