Just Out Walkin'

Spent some time on the computer this morning, got another month done. Took care of organizing Valentines for the grandkids. Partially cleaned out the refrigerator. Otherwise it was a quiet day.

Later this afternoon, Forry and I went out for a walk down the street towards the west side of the park. It was another nice day with temps in the 70s. Our neighbors' red geraniums seemed to sparkle in the sunlight --

On down the street, we spotted this pretty peacock --

I'm not sure what kind of a tree?/cactus? this is --

We walked down to the end of the park and watched these fellows playing pickle ball -

This pretty corner lot with the park model has a nice yard -- I especially like the orange tree --

I marinated a thick pork chop after I sliced it thin; then made stir-fry for dinner. I haven't done that for a while and I thought it tasted pretty good.

Auntie Violet is Getting Restless...

She is anxious to get on the road again! She has been rather neglected since we're been in California and is quite dusty and cluttered. I started cleaning and sorting in the bedroom this morning and she became very aware we were thinking about heading back to Washington soon. I threw the blanket, bedspread and rugs into the big washer here at camp and got all of the mirrors in the bathroom and bedroom cleaned. It's a start anyway!

The new director should be arriving tomorrow afternoon. We'll spend a couple of days getting him oriented and then try to start back to Washingon on Sunday morning.

While Forry went into Santee and El Cajon this morning to pick up the proper circuit breakers, plus the foundation vents and insulation for House #4, I spent the morning transcribing my notes from the past 2 1/2 months on the computer for Franzie, the new director. Ken, our construction supervisor, had also left a sheaf of notes, so transition may be a little easier for the next guy.

Here's a couple more of the blooming cacti that we've been seeing:

I've always been jealous of Sister Dena getting to see all of the cacti in bloom when they are in Arizona, but I seem to be getting my chance this year. We see more of them in bloom every day and I have really been enjoying them. Even if my friend Robin calls them "weeds"....

Yuma Territorial Prison

We decided this morning to stay in Wellton another night and make a day trip to Yuma to sight-see. We had visited the Yuma Territorial Prison almost forty years ago before it became a State Historic Park, but thought it would be interesting to see it again. I had only vague memories of most of it, but did remember the Dark Cell and the cells cut into the caliche. Most of the plaster and the roofs are gone, but you can still see the granite and caliche structures with their interior steel strap cages. The prison was abandoned back in the early nineteen hundreds and had a great deal of vandalism until it was resurrected as a park.

This is a picture of our guide (a volunteer from Washington State) as he was using Forry as a stand-in for the warden in a story he was telling us. His tale was of an attempted prison break where the warden was held at knife point by a group of prisoners. The prisoner with the knife in the warden's back was shot by another convict (a convicted murderer) who had grabbed a revolver dropped by one of the would-be escapees. That convict was later pardoned and was quoted as saying that "he was the only person ever sent to prison for murder and then pardoned for committing another murder."

After the tour, we hiked down the hill to the prison cemetery where 104 convicts who died while incarcerated were buried. Some were murdered by fellow prisoners, but a great many died of tuberculosis or consumption. There was one wooden marker in the museum that has survived -- all of the rest have been destroyed or stolen. The close-up of a grave shows yellow linanthus growing between the rocks piled on the cairn.

The City of Yuma has a Cactus Garden on the hillside above the cemetery. I found out there that the odd prickly pear cactus I had a picture of yesterday's blog is aptly named "Beaver Tail Cactus." My flower book says that barrel cacti do not bloom until late summer -- this little one must not have gotten the memo. The columnar cactus is one of over fifty varieties of this genera. It is fascinating to see all of the different kinds. We did see some ocotillo with red flowers on their tips as we came over the pass to Yuma. None of the rest we saw at lower elevations were in bloom and there was nowhere to pull over to get a picture on the pass.

After we left the museum we tried to find the Quechan Tribal Museum on the Fort Yuma grounds. The Quechan Tribe (one of the Colorado River Tribes) now owns the Fort property. They are using a few buildings for their headquarters but the majority of them are in too decrepit a state to be used. The tribe is trying to find grants to restore the Fort -- and their museum. A lady we asked about the museum did tell us that there was a rummage sale going on at the Methodist Mission Church also featuring fry bread. The Catholic Mission was closed except for scheduled masses, but we found the Methodist one. It celebrated its one hundredth birthday five years ago. There were only three Quechen ladies at the rummage sale -- one went to the kitchen and made us fry bread, rolling out her balls of dough while I watched. We ate the bread with honey and powdered sugar (since we had hotdogs at the prison, we opted not to have the bean ones). This lady had the touch! They were the crispist, lightest fry bread I've ever eaten -- and I try them every chance I get!

As we talked with the ladies, we discovered that one of them was going to be 97 years old this year! She had her own teeth, no glasses and walked around quite well. She was a bit hard of hearing and spoke English (the other lady told me that many of the elders did not). She told me she remembers being baptized in this mission church building when she was about 5 years old.

Birds seen today: Yellow Rumped Warbler, Gila Woodpecker, Say's Phoebe

Wellton, Arizona

We took off this afternoon to explore the town of Wellton and the area, looking for any museums or sites of interest. There's really not much around here other than the railroads. There's a small grocery store and a Dollar store in town. Right now, it is heavily populated with wintering RVers. We counted 8 RV Parks in this little town, if you look at it from Google Earth it looks like a sea of flat roofs. Many of the parks are actually lots for sale as sites for motorhomes or park models. Some of them have nice brick fences built in the whole development around each lot. We only saw a couple of fairly nice houses in town, most of the rest looked like they were built in the fifties -- and weren't kept up too well.

On the other side of the freeway, there is a new develpment with an 18 hole golf course that has two fairly large lakes. There are several VERY nice houses built along the golf course with more under construction. There's a brand new strip mall with a grocery, pizza place, realtor, a couple of restaurants, etc. We bought a few groceries there. They had very little fruit -- no berries -- but I bought a nice whole chicken I stuffed and roasted for dinner.

The picture above is a cholla cactus in their little park. The one below shows the nasty little barbed pieces that fall off for the unwary person or animal to step on!

The next picture is of a cactus related to the prickly pear -- but with different shaped leaves. I've not seen this variety anywhere else.

We saw this beautiful gully full flowers outside of one of the RV parks. I think they be creopsis, but I have misplaced my SW flower book...

We saw this little guy along the road. I got a picture with my camera, but he's just a speck in the picture. This one is from Forry's camera -- he didn't have his big lens, but he got a pretty good shot of the road runner anyway.

Tomorrow we'll pack up and move on -- one more stop before we get to Dulzura!