March 18, 2005

March 18, 2005

Quartzsite, Arizona to Winterhaven, California

DAY 273

 

Last night when I lay down on the bed to read for awhile before undressing and going to sleep, I thought ; gee ... my back seems warm ? ! Uh-oh ! ! ! I took off my shirt, and as soon as my wife started to holler at me about stupidity, I knew ! Shouldn't have done all that work outside yesterday without a shirt on. Burnt to a crisp again ! At least I didn't burn my nose so badly that the tip would blister and fall off like I did in Costa Rica.

Today was warm and partially cloudy.

We left Quartzsite this morning heading south on Hwy. 95. I'm somewhat sad to say that I drove for about 75 miles in clouds of migrating Monarch Butterflies returning from Mexico. I think about 87 million Monarchs start the migration northward, and maybe 3 of them make it back to Canada. The rest are smooshed on the front of RV's ! I smooshed so many of them that the truck radiator is plugged with them. I'm going to have to brush or wash the radiator to prevent over heating. As we drove south from Quartzsite towards Yuma, through the Kofa Mountains, we noticed the Ocotillo had bloomed over night. We didn't even know that Ocotillo had flowers ! They're beautiful. Late in the day, just after we passed into California, I stopped and took some pictures. I’ve seen it spelled both Ocotillo and Ocotilla. I don’t know which is correct, or if both are correct.

Approaching Yuma, we came out of the Kofa Mountains down into the fertile Colorado River Valley. There were farms for the first time in a long time. Fields of vegetables like lettuce and cabbages. We stopped at a road side vegetable stand, and while Joanne bought produce, I took Bo to see the burros in a nearby corral. WHOA ! Bo didn't know such beasts existed ! I guess they didn't have burros back in Alabama where he comes from. Once at Yuma, we found our way to the Kofa Co-op SKP Park where we were planning to spend the next 2 nights. It was full, so we decided to keep heading west, into California. Just beside the Kofa SKP Park was a grove of lemon trees in full bloom. WOW ! ! ! The fragrance of a lemon grove in bloom in the spring is something everybody should experience once in their life time ! On the other hand, I have had such an attack of hay fever today that I had to take an antihistamine. We found a Wal-Mart in Yuma, and stopped for lunch and grocery replenishment. After lunch, while Joanne went into Wal-Mart to buy groceries, the boys and I napped. On the way out of Yuma we stopped at the Arizona Tourist Information Centre to pick up a new map of Arizona, for our travel file. The one we have been using for the last few weeks travelling across Arizona was torn in half, and beyond salvation. Surprisingly, when we crossed from Arizona into California a few minutes later, there wasn't a California Travel Information Centre. HMPH !

Yuma is in the southwest corner of Arizona, on the borders with Mexico to the south and California to the west. We took Interstate 8 out of Yuma into California. Shortly after entering California we were in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area. This is an area of small mountains, made of sand. It's a popular area with the dune buggy crowd. At Winterhaven we turned off I-8 north onto Hwy. S-234 for 9 miles, then turned west on a gravel road named Gold Rock Ranch Road for about a mile and half to Gold Rock Ranch RV Park. This park is the site of an old, abandoned gold mine, sort of an old gold mining ghost town. It's quite an interesting place, with remnants and artifacts of the old gold mine strewn about, including a bunch of abandoned old mining trucks from the 1940's, left to rot in the desert. We found an old grave in the desert with a decaying wood cross. The horizontal member of the cross has a Mexican name on it, and the vertical member of the cross says “Reckless”. This is the area of the California desert where the first Star Wars was filmed. When we got here and set up in our site, we saw that the Prickly Pear Cacti had also bloomed today. Gold Rock Ranch RV Park has one of the most absurd and amusing rules we've ever seen in RV park rules. "Do not encourage illegal aliens or coyotes by feeding them." HA HA HA HA HA !

We've just discovered that the hot water heater is not working on electricity. We had to turn it on to propane to heat water to wash dishes after supper. Great ! Just what I needed. I'm not even finished the last big repair job and I've already got another one. Such is the life of full time RV'ing. The wear and tear on the rig is tremendous. Today is our nine month anniversary of full timing. We've travelled almost 24,000 kilometres / 15,000 miles.

DSK