Flying in a Sea of Orange

The sunsets have been spectacular.  I love the oranges but its the deep reds that are most impressive.  I need to find a place to get a picture of the reds.  Here at the park all I would get in the picture is RV's and telephone wires.  The guy flying his little motorized paraglider is back in the area.  Its basically a parachute with a motor attached and he's sitting on top of the motor.  He flies over housing and into the off limits military grounds but never seems to get in trouble. 

Its very busy now in Yuma.  After the big show in Quartzsite the rest of the snowbirds that haven't made it to Yuma are now here.  The Canadians that can afford it are coming even for a little while to get out of the cold and snow.  We've been out of the cold and snow for awhile so we have kind of forgotten how bitter it can be.  Our blood is so thin now that when its in the 50's we are freezing.  We like it warm!

Views from the Wildlife Refuge

We took some friends to see the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge where we volunteered in the past.  We took in views of the overlooks along the Colorado River.   The roads in the refuge are still very rough.  The views are still very nice.  We also enjoyed the peace and quiet out there.  Our RV park is very close to freeway so we get to hear the sirens all night long.  Its sad to say but the sirens are mostly for health issues -- lots of old people down here this time of year. 

The big RV and Rock show is going on now in Quartzsite.  Its very popular for the RV'ers to go and camp out in the desert and check out the show.   They then make their way to Yuma to spend time soaking up some sun and going to Mexico for dental, eyeglasses and medications.   Our park is almost full although there are empty park model trailers because the owners are Canadian and they either have health issues or can't afford to come this year because their dollar isn't worth much.   

 

Archealogical Sites

On the California side of the river are these fenced off areas that protect Native American sites that can be hundreds of years old.  We never thought they looked like much just some worn areas in the dirt.  We belong to the local Gem and Mineral Club here in Yuma and at our last meeting we had an interesting lecture given by an archeologist who works with the local Cocopah Indian tribe.   She explained that these fenced off areas in the desert are where the local Indians had their camps set up and also you can see the trails they used.  Once there are "worn areas" in the desert those areas stay that way for a very long time.

Most of her lecture was about warning us as rockhounds not to go off the roads with our vehicles  so that we don't run over artifacts.  Many pieces of pottery, etc. have been destroyed by off road vehicles.  The archeologists don't like to move ancient pottery anymore.   They want to keep it were it is found so that it can be studied were it lies.  I think we were all surprised to hear that but she said they didn't want this stuff to end up in the basement of some museum where no one gets to enjoy it.

The Desert is Not Flat

We drove up highway 95 from Yuma toward Quartzsite to give the truck a workout.  It needed a nice long drive to clean out the engine a bit because we were using it too much for very short drives.  The views of mountains and desert along this drive are beautiful.  The area is made up of Yuma Proving Grounds which is the military's playground and off limits to civilians.  On the east side of the highway its  made up of a strip of land that is more Proving Ground but the closer you get to the mountains it becomes BLM land and then National Wildlife Refuge in the mountains themselves.  Out in this area is a surprising amount of wildlife.  There are bighorn sheep, mountain lions, pronghorn antelope, fox, coyote, wild horses and burros and of course all of the reptiles that love the desert. 
It is actually raining here which means that there will be a nice desert bloom this spring.  The downsides to the rain is that it will rain mud with all the dust being washed out of the air.  It also means we are done gold mining until the ground dries out.  The ground here hangs on to the moisture for a very long time -- that's how the desert plants survive but we need dry dirt to run our drywasher gold processing machine.