"Are you ready to go or are you going to be on the internet all day?" Kevin asked me at 5:20am. We had agreed to leave at 6am, so I had time to look up the address for the recycling center in North Tucson.
We left a few minutes before 6am, and for the first time in over a year, we took off for a long weekend without the dogs in tow. This was going to be our first road trip since we spent New Year's Eve at Lake Havasu over 13 months ago.
I didn't feel guilty leaving the dogs home alone. Sadie had been giving us both restless nights lately, whining at 3am to go outside and pee, and now whining at 4am for breakfast. With access to the back yard, plenty of food and water, they were set. No intruder would get past Sara without losing an arm.
I was behind the wheel. My late night up watching the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics tired me, but I drove the van until we made it to Gila Bend and across the barren desert of southwestern Arizona. Here the mountains, which top out at 3-4000 feet, don't show much life at a distant. This is the true desert.
Kevin took over until we got to Yuma, and just outside of town at 11am I took over again to maneuver into town. Kevin does not like driving in cities.
And what a town! What started its Anglo roots as a depot town in the 1850s to supply the frontier army towns along the Colorado River has now become an agricultural town of Mexican day workers, lettuce fields and RV sites as far as the eye can see. It was like being in south Texas again, except the weather in Yuma is more pleasant. To quote my Benchmark Gazetteer, Yuma is the hottest and driest city in the country." Federal land hugs the outskirts of Yuma, and the only way the town can grow is eastward along the interstate. We started entering the city limits ten miles from the river.
We were in town to experience its "River Crossing Day," an annual event in which both the depot and territorial prison are free of charge. Park at the town's depot and you can take the free shuttle to the prison. It was a pleasant afternoon reading the historical stuff, but what we didn't care for were the large chatty groups of retirees. Just like in south Texas, these people take over a room, a building and conversation and talk about the most private of details with anyone within hearing range. They are like teenagers without the annoying cell phones.
The shuttle bus was small and carried only 15 people, and when a group of nine retirees boarded with us, we soon had to hear all the stories about each other's pregnant pug, grandchildren or the distant cousin of some long-lost relative. Kevin was eager to get off the shuttle bus when we landed at the prison at 2pm.
And here we had more groups of retirees. There was not one angle I could find that didn't have a white-haired elderly person walking right into the shot. I soon gave up and just photographed whoever walked into the frame. It wasn't a very large prison, but this area was Arizona's first military post and the old adobe blocks to the prison were made right on the premise with prison labor after the Civil War. It is located on a bluff overlooking the northern flat desert of California. This prison stayed open until a newer prison opened in 1909 in Florence, AZ.
People in the Yuma prison were murderers, train robbers, rapists, even a few Mormon polygamists, Mexican miners and Indian laborers served time in these dark cells. A few women also found themselves here, usually because they had accompanied male accomplices during a murder or robbery.
It turned out to be a hot day. My hiking boots were too hot for my feet. Yet I wanted to walk back to the depot rather than wait for the shuttle to take us back to the Depot. After sternly letting Kevin know we were better off walking back than waiting on the shuttle in the hot sun with retirees gathering around us, he walked ahead of me in a pout. He had told me earlier he had wanted to walk back from the prison. That's how I managed to walk behind him along the Colorado River, taking photos of the reeds and river walk. For a river the Colorado here looks sickly, and isn't much wider than I've seen the Rio Grande south of McAllen. The many irrigation canals through the farm fields and the dams upriver have drained the river of much of its water. It's hard to imagine the river in the days of Martha Summerhayes of the 1870s when water traffic was one of the biggest economies here. Steamboats carried military supplies up this river; today those same boats would have a hard time getting out of the river's sludge.
We made it back to the depot in 22 minutes. It was a pretty walk on the paved trail along the river. More construction appears to extend this trail another mile south along the river, but we stopped at the depot. This was the nicest spot in Yuma that still resembled a natural state. Several people found remote spots along the banks for quiet fishing and relaxation.
Outside of the small historic area between the depot and the prison along Madison Avenue, though, there isn't much to urban Yuma besides hotels, restaurants and chain stores. Yuma makes its living off the farms and the winter snowbirds who rent RV spaces along the river. A lot of cars bore California plates. We had hit Yuma during its prime tourist season.
By 3pm buses carrying Mexican farm workers were on their way to the boarding rooms somewhere. (According to Gabriel Thompson, author of "Working in the Shadows," 12 million heads of lettuce are harvested each day around Yuma. Each worker cuts around 3000 heads a day.)
I was ready to car-camp along the river near a patch of river the tour guide at the depot recommended. This spot north of town allegedly is prime birding land. But instead Kevin suggested a hotel for tonight and a camp-out tomorrow and that is what we did. We had a nice meal at the family owned Chretin restaurant off 16th Street and then went upstairs to our hotel room. It was still in the 70s at 6pm, and a young family was outside enjoying the heated outdoor pool. I should have brought my water shorts!
Tomorrow we are going to explore a few wildlife viewing ranges along the river, and hike the short but steep trail to Palm Canyon, the only area in all of Arizona with native palm trees. Ironically the only native palm tree in Arizona is the California fan palm.
More later. For now, these notes will do. I'll download the pics when we're back home Monday.
http://www.yumasun.com/news/women-56329-prison-yuma.html
http://www.yumasun.com/news/escape-56350-prisoners-prison.html
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