Yuma Arizona

 Foothills Village RV Park. Site: 131 back in   Highs: 60's, lows: low 40's  Site: 131  AT&T very good (LTE), T-Mobile excellent--133 download, upload 79.5

Friday morning dawned cold and sunny. It was 25 degrees and after pulling in all slides and disconnecting from power, we were to have our truck hitched up to the fifth wheel ready to pull out at 8:00 AM  when the mobile repair tech (Currier Masters) would arrive to replace the front jacks. We were asked to hitch up to take the weight off the rig so he could take each jack and motor out and put the new ones in.

Just one problem. One of the jack motor's was on its last legs and it takes both front jack motors to raise the hitch up to go onto the truck. The left jack motor actually breathed its last breath and quit right then--nada, zip, zilch. The hitch was about three inches too low. No way to get the hitch up onto the truck without damaging it. 

Even though our rig is called a 5th wheel or a 5er, the part inside the bed of the truck is also called a fifth wheel, and that is what the hitch on the RV slides into when we are getting ready to pull out of a campground. It works to connect the truck to the RV. The contraption on the bottom photo is the "fifth wheel". When you are lined up correctly, (Eldo uses a variety of "sightings" to line himself up along with Sparky's recommendations of "a little more to the left", or "a little more to the right", a very precise measurement). (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA)....Eldy is rolling on the floor laughing. That narrow slot in the contraption in the bottom photo is where the round hitch pin slides up, onto and into the slot till it "clanks". Then you know you are hitched up along with a visual confirmation that it's locked in place.

the hitch pin that slides into the truck

The fifth wheel slot that accepts the hitch pin

Currier Masters, John Currier, to the rescue. He used a 3/8 socket wrench to crank up the hitch high enough to slide on and we backed up and locked in. He went to work and about two and half hours later, new jacks were on our rig! Bright, shiny and no road dirt and oil. At this point, we still can't use our automatic leveling system. When you replace the jacks, you have to recalibrate the whole leveling system. Because the drive was delayed this morning getting to Yuma, we needed to get rolling. We will wait a little bit till we have more time to set up and follow the recalibration directions using the control panel. Until then, Eldy has gotten quite good at leveling the coach manually. He uses the Lippert app called One Control. He stands outside and the app controls each jack, the lighting system, the awnings and more. It's pretty cool! He also uses a regular level to check for tilt and horizontal leveling, AND--the most tech advanced tip of all--the half bath bathroom door which is in the center of the coach. He opens it and if it stays open halfway and doesn't swing in or out, we're good!

We made it to Yuma to Foothills Village RV park. This is a nice little park and more for RVs than park models like many Encore parks are. All the sites are back ins. We would say that the majority of Encore parks cater to long term residents and require 55 and older, so usually there are a ton of annual residents and many many park models. (Park models are like tiny homes, single wide house trailers.) Also, the sites are usually extremely tight as they are older parks and were designed for smaller trailers. The sites are narrow, but not as close to your neighbors as they sometimes can be. Although the sites are narrow, they are long enough to put a 42 footer and your tow vehicle in the same site. The gentleman that guided us in got us SUPER close to the electrical post, but we had to fit between the concrete cement pad and the electrical post so that's the way it is. It's about 4 inches or less to touch the post.

After a week here, and checking the weather heading back into Cottonwood, the temperatures are so much colder in Cottonwood, we decided to extend our stay another week here in Yuma. Unfortunately, somebody was coming in to take our spot the day we were supposed to leave, so we had to switch to a 30 amp spot. The angles for the back in's are a little more challenging with a big shrub hedge in front of you, a palm tree immediately to the side of the site, and you have to back in right next to the concrete pad in order not to infringe on the neighboring site. It took a lot of backing up and forth, which wasn't working, and finally, just a drive "around the block" and pull thru from an empty site to get ourselves situated. Close.

Families are welcome here and Sparky enjoys seeing the kids play and sometimes even chatting with them. This week she met Winnie, Winston, and Willow and has been having nice conversations with them. Super well behaved and polite little youngsters. We are here for a week, and our type of membership means no out of pocket cost, it's free for this particular park. They have a very small swimming pool, a hot tub, laundry facilities, and shopping is close by. 

There are cute little cabanas at the end of each row that are available for anybody to sit in the shade, read a book, or drink a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the next person's site is immediately behind the cabana, so it's not very private as their window looks right out on the little covered patio site.

site #131

There is a LOT of road noise, from interstate 8 and the frontage road. But Sparky doesn't mind as she wears ear plugs at night. Guess why? (Hey, now....cautions Eldo.) 

What will we do while we are here? Well, last year, Sparky climbed a mountain with the most arduous, steep elevation change, over 1200 feet. Because her sciatica has gotten worse, that might not happen this week. Phooey! It's a great cardio buster for sure! She really wanted to do it again, maybe with the help of a lot of Aleve or Tylenol.  NOTE: After going back and reading last year's blog about Telegraph Pass, Sparky decided not this time. It took over 5 hours last year, was over 5 miles, and it was grueling. You can read more about that hike and Yuma here: 

                                        A Grueling Hike

There is a bike trail down near the Yuma Territorial Prison. The prison is a great tourist stop when you are in town. We visited last year and you can read about that here: Yuma Territorial Prison The historical Yuma Prison has been rated the "best haunted destination in the US" by USA Today.

You can pick up the paved bike trail at West Wetlands Park, in northwest Yuma, about 12 miles from the RV park. It is located along the Colorado River within the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area and you can ride to the East Wetlands and back, about 4 miles each way, from the West Wetlands Park to the East Wetlands Park, which is developing a nice park at the end of that section. It's a nice short ride with a pretty starting point at the family park. 

West Wetlands Park

Shortly after leaving the family park, you see this bike sculpture. Sparky always likes to see it, because she has a brother named Charlie.

There's not much to see after that except the pretty park in the center of town, very close to the prison. Once you get out of the city park, it's riding along a canal on one side and the wetlands on the other, with the Gila Mountains in the distance.

There is a cool little ramada on the way out of the East Wetlands Park. A ramada is a shady place, a temporary shelter with a roof but no walls, traditionally built with native local materials for shade on a hot day. It had some branches across it like you weren't supposed to go inside it, but it was still possible to see what a pretty view was out in the distance, of the marshes and mountains.

Sparky took a little side route along the main bike trail and saw beautiful broccoli fields growing. Temperatures are much cooler here in the southwest, about ten degrees below normal right now, so there is more green and less brown in the areas in Arizona we've visited lately. Did you know that 90% of the nation's leafy greens comes from Arizona, specifically Yuma County. Wow! Amazing considering everywhere you look is desert, but then there are irrigation fields of green, green, and more green. It's really beautiful against the mountains backdrop and the beautiful blue skies. It's sunny most of the time here, 91% of the year! This would be a great place for someone with seasonal affective disorder! 

There are other bike rides and mapped out routes, but they are on city streets and side streets. You can always ride around the RV park, too, for the safest ride! Sparky was warned by two different people just outside a couple of old RV parks to be careful where she rode, probably because they were not in the best areas of town. All righty, then. She will.

Martha's Date Farm

You can visit Martha's Garden and date farm. We did.  It's a very low key operation as far as entertaining visitors. They have more important work to do! The visitor's center is a lean machine. It's large but open areas with a small snack area and some shelves filled with lots of different Medjool date packages--be sure to try a date shake! Medjool dates were imported to this country from Morocco in the 1940's. You can buy boxes of dates and other goodies or have them shipped, and you can take a tour if you sign up on the internet. Trying to connect with them directly by phone can be a problem due to service in the area. Tours are offered twice a day and the price is 10.00. OR--you can watch a video at the visitor center/store and learn a LOT about the date growing and harvesting process. It's pretty interesting! 

Dates have the highest polyphenols among dried fruits and have a low glycemic index for fruit lovers who struggle with blood sugar. Martha's Date Farm grows their dates organically, use no preservatives of course, and the dates are not processed. Dates grow on palms, Sparky did not know that! (Eldo will refrain from saying there are a LOT of things she doesn't know, but she will be the first to admit that, haha.) 

Medjool date palms

The process of growing and harvesting dates is a very labor intensive one, and it's all done by hand here in Yuma. The growing season is six months spring through summer. It takes about 7-10 years for a date palm to fully mature and they can produce up to 300 pounds of dates. 

There are male and female palms. The males don't produce fruit. One male date palm can pollinate 50 female palms. Hmmmmm.....Letting nature do the pollinating is too unreliable with the wind, so it's done by hand. The harvesting is August thru October and several yields result in big, beautiful dates. Dates can be frozen and thawed repeatedly with no harm done to the fruit, just in case you want the best dates in the world shipped to you from Yuma, AZ and you want to save them for the holidays.

  Sparky and Charlie

Besides a visit to the date farm, Sparky visited her brother in the beautiful city of La Quinta, CA. It was a long drive each way, but well worth it and the closes she will be to her youngest brother for a long time. We had a great visit and a great lunch, and Charlie took us for a tour around the area, visiting a nice RV park, and some areas where Charlie sells homes. We also saw the area where the Kardashians have a home, along with Tim Cook, the Apple CEO. The city of La Quinta has an amazing backdrop of mountains and so much beautiful greenery with amazing landscaping, along with cool shops and eateries. And of course, all kinds of amazing, nationally known golf courses. (Sigh)...That's Eldo missing his golf a bit.)

Charlie and Eldy

As far as things to do in Yuma, if nature is your thing, there are two national wildlife refuges in the area, the Kofa and the Imperial. The Imperial refuge has 40 miles of sand dunes where they filmed "Star Wars Episode V: Return of the Jedi", "Spaceballs", and more movies. The Colorado River offers plenty of boating and rafting/floating opportunities.

Imperial Sand Dunes

If off roading is your thing, there is the Arizona Peace Trail, over 750 miles of thrills. If history is your thing, visit the territorial prison, the Colorado River State Historical Park, the Castle Dome Mine Museum, or the Museum of History in Granite and the Center of the World, a quirky tourist attraction outside of Yuma. The granite museum is an outdoor exhibit with massive monuments crafted from Missouri red granite. And of course, there is a lot of Native American history here as well, with the Cocopah--Keepers of the River and the Quechuan--Those Who Descended- having settled the area since ancient times. If art and culture are your thing, there are colorful murals and sculptures all over Yuma's historical downtown district and public art galleries at Arizona Western College.

There are plenty of great eating spots, too! Sparky is always looking for those, haha, because she really hates to cook. We found Mr. Fish & Chips right at the corner lot at the edge of our RV park. It's a tiny place with terrific seafood and jammed every afternoon from about 4:00 on. 

Of course, you've got great Mexican restaurants all over the place. And speaking of Mexico, you can cross over to Mexico just ten miles away, at Los Algodones, to get REAL Mexican food, or great dental care and medications at a fraction of the cost in the US. It's a non-complicated process to go over and back and thousands of people do that every year to save money on prescriptions and dental work. We went to Mexico a couple of years ago, crossing the border at Nuevo Progreso. It was a little depressing at how touristy and economically depressed the area was at that location, truly not a good indicator of the true beauty and culture of Mexico. 

That being said, we have a few more days to enjoy Yuma, then we will head back to Cottonwood, cold or not, for two more weeks, because Sparky's tooth is still not ok, then we leave Arizona and start heading across the southeast through Texas and onwards. We're already planning our summer itinerary, and it looks like we will be weathering the heat in the midwest, PA and NY, then the upper peninsula of Michigan! See you down the road.... Eldy and Jeannie