Yuma Arizona

Thanks to my daughter Melissa, I know now that those strange mountains in Southern California are called the Laguna Mountains. They are located between San Diego and the desert, straddling Interstate 8. The mountains are composed of gneiss and schist. They started as sandstone and mudstone, metamorphosed into granitic schist and quartzite. At some time in the distant past, they were turned vertical (tilted) by rising magma and metamorphosed. What you see today is the result of those processes and severe erosion.

Some highlights of our stay in Yuma follow. Peggy and Mike went to a buffet last year and so wanted to take me as soon as we got here. There is Indian Reservation just across the border in California where there is the usual gambling complex. On Friday nights, they offer the best seafood buffet I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the one armed bandits (they still have some manual one armed bandits in this casino!) But the food! The Food! I ate Alaskan King crab. They were the largest, thickest crab legs I’d ever seen. The shells broke easily exposing beautiful crabmeat which came out whole. Peggy decided that on our next trip, she’s eating crab too. Of course, other tidbits included seafood au gratin, steamers, shrimp in a variety of dishes, and several kinds of fish. Oh, also a dessert table including half a dozen sugar-free desserts. We are going back!

Mike Peggy took me Algodones Mexico. By car it’s about 10 miles. 5 miles back into California and 5 miles south. Incidentally, the border between this part of Arizona and California is what’s left of the Colorado River. Remember, that’s the mighty river that carved the Grand Canyon but now is tapped by the city of Los Angeles and much of its water is siphoned off. Others grab their share and a small stream enters Mexico. The landscape between here and Algodones is essentially desert, even a little bit that’s irrigated on both sides of the state border is really desert.

We parked the car at the border (the same Indians who run a casino offer parking at five dollars a day on the US side of the border. We walked across into Mexico with no questions asked. Two steps of the border and you’re in a border town which seems to exist to capture American dollars. Peggy and Mike wanted to have their teeth cleaned and I wanted to check out new lenses for my scratched glasses. There have got to be 25 to 50 dentists offices, a similar number of eyeglass outlets, again of drugstores, not to mention the plastic surgeons. The sidewalks outside all the shops and stores have street vendors. You walk down the sidewalk with articles for sale on your left, overhead, and on the right. The nice thing about it is this provides shady sidewalks in the hot sun. Every vendor tries to stop you. Every price is set for haggling, at least on the sidewalks. I have been offered so much Viagra that I’m a danger! Some of the vendors include those children who offer to shine your shoes (I was wearing sneakers). We watched for young men painting the most unbelievable pictures with spray cans of paint. There were lanterns whose glass chimney’s had been painted with Southwest scenes. There were frame-able pictures, saws, and other decorated items. I watched them work for quite a while. They were fast, accurate, skillful and entertaining. They mixed colors on torn pieces of newspaper. They used scrunched up plastic shopping bags to apply this paint onto their spray painted surface. They used the edge of a piece of cardboard (like a cereal box) to make lines which turned into a cactus or a bird or a coyote. I don’t think anyone can appreciate the artistry unless they had seen it.

We returned to Algodones twice more that week. In addition to everything above, I was amazed by the customs procedure at the border when returning. It seemed to me that those people in cars had a much longer wait and a better chance of detailed inspection. The walkers didn't spend much time with the border patrol agent. They asked what you bought in Mexico, looked at your passport, ran the number through a reader and sent you on your way. Somehow, I expected more but I was glad it moved well because it was very hot in the sun, waiting.

Somehow, that sentence about being hot in the sun made me think a little about the climate here. I have heard a million times and that "it's dry heat". I always felt, dry or not, hot is hot. Well, I guess I have to confess I was wrong. Hazy hot and humid is uncomfortable in the sun or in the shade. Here, as soon as you step out of the sun, you feel a huge difference in the heat. Since arriving in Yuma, most days have been in the low 90s in the shade. Going anywhere in the sun has been hot and uncomfortable. But I can sit in the shade beside our camper and read comfortably in this heat. I know I can't be comfortable at 93° but I am! Hard to get New England out of my brain! What I really love here is the endless sunny days with beautiful blue skies. The evenings are simply the best. About an hour after sundown, the temperature drops in to the low 80's or high 70's, the air is balmy, there are no bugs and an evening walk about 8 pm is heaven. I could begin to think about this!!

I had planned to take a little vacation from this arduous journey and visit San Diego by myself. Within a few days of making of this plan, San Diego went up in flames! Calamity Jane strikes again. With 900,000 evacuated from the city and thousands of homes burned to the ground, Melissa advised me to rethink my plans. As usual, she's right. So, our drive through San Diego County may be as close as I get to San Diego. I'll let you know. Meantime, my son Erik is planning a Mexico tour for me. Some time ago I took a course on early civilizations in Mexico and he suggested I would enjoy seeing some of those sites. I totally agree. Stay tuned.