SIGHTSEEING AROUND YUMA

Last week when the weather was still cool, we went on a sightseeing drive north of Yuma and saw some interesting places.  About 14 miles north of here on highway 95 towards Quartzite, we turned off at the Yuma Proving Grounds and had a look at their military machinery on display.  There were mostly tanks and missile launchers from different eras of conflict—here are some photos.

Further along that road, we crossed the Colorado River and drove up the west side of it to the Imperial Dam.  The dam is located in a wide, flat wetland area so the water build up behind the dam is not deep and the spillover doesn’t have a big change in elevation.  Here are some dam photos.

We drove further north and had lunch at Squaw Lake which is a good fishing lake and has a campground at one end.  We talked to a fellow who had just pulled his fancy bass boat out of the lake and asked him if he had any luck catching fish.  He had a bass that he meant to release and asked us if we wanted it.  Well, sure, who doesn’t want a fresh bass to cook?  So we took it in our cooler and then Stuart cleaned it down at the lake after lunch.  We cooked it for supper and it was nice, tender white flesh.  Very different from the trout we usually catch.

We continued on the main road which loops around to the west end of Yuma and stopped to take some photos of the workers harvesting lettuce.  How would you like to do that for a living?

We also stopped at a date farm where they sell all types of date products and other semi-local items.  You can buy a 17 pound box of dates for $15, which is a few too many dates for us.  Of course, we had to try their date shake and it was better than the one we’d had at Dateland (50 miles east of here) last year.  These are date palms.

So that’s the sightseeing adventure last week.  This week we played golf once and went to the movies to see “Unknown.”  It’s a good movie which keeps you guessing all the way through.