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.

Remembering Skagway, Alaska

Reviewing photos of our Alaska trip I had to share these -- sorry if I already have -- but they remind us of our gold prospecting.  The statue is in honor of the men who came up to Alaska in 1898 for the Klondike gold rush.  They got off the boat at Skagway and then had to go up through the Chilcoot pass - a horrible trip that many didn't finish.  The '"gold boulder" is a replica of the boulder of gold found in the area.   We didn't get to do any gold prospecting in the Klondike.  We didn't go up the Klondike highway and what we heard was you needed to go on someone's claim to look for gold.   

The wind blew so hard here this weekend that everything has a new coating of dust.  Jim had to clean the pool and hot tub.  They weren't covered during the dust storm so they were a disaster.  They were full of all kinds of flower and plant parts as well as a ton of dirt.  He spent almost the whole morning trying to get them a little bit clean.   We still prefer blowing dust once in awhile to blowing snow!

Cute Faces

Still looking at photos from our Alaska trip and thought these were so cute.  A bear cub eating some new green grass and a beaver busily fixing up his house all after a long winter.  It was amazing how many bears we saw alongside the road enjoying the fresh green grass on our way up to Alaska.  We were always on the road early in the morning so we always saw wildlife.  When we stayed at a cute little campground up in the northern Rockies we watched this beaver and his mate working hard to replenish their winter supplies. 

Here in Yuma we watched the Foothills Christmas Parade.  It's amazing how many lights and decorations they can cram on little and not so little 4-wheelers and jeeps.  Everyone who decorates their "ride" joins in the parade through the RV parks in the area.  They use portable generators to run all the lights on their decorated vehicles.  It makes it seem more like Christmas!

Memories of Snow

Since we will NOT be seeing any of the white stuff this winter I thought I would recall memories ofthe snow we saw this summer.  When we drove through Banff National Park in Alberta we were up at 6000 to 8000 feet on some parts of the parkway.  We saw lots of snow on the mountains, glaciers and frozen lakes.  When we drove through the Yukon and on into Alaska we saw lots more snow on the mountains and glaciers.

It is going to be a little cool here in Yuma -- in the low 60's for a few days brrrrrrr.   I know most of the country is having some warm weather which is always nice and helps make winter seem shorter.   We are happy not to have snow for Christmas.  Most of the people in our RV park are decorating their sites for Christmas.  Its starting to look very nice and I've come to love lights on the palm trees.  

Skinning Palm Trees

Jim is learning a new skill.  The manager of the park decided that the palm trees should be skinned.  In the past if someone wanted the palm tree in front of their site skinned they had to pay a local Mexican to do it.  Now the maintenance guys, Jim, are learning how to do it.  You can see in the top picture where the palm fronds have been trimmed over the years as the tree has grown.  It leaves the husks of the fronds sticking out of the trunk.  So to get the nice smooth look of a palm tree trunk you have to skin it.  You start at the bottom on hands and knees cutting deeply into the woody husks.  Then you start peeling it going around and around and up and up the tree.  Its really hard work. 

Jim asked the local Mexican guy what he charges to do it -- thinking he'd pay the guy to do it for him -- he gets $80.00 a tree.  So when one of the residents of the park asked Jim what he would charge to skin his tree Jim said $5,000.  Of course the guy said he thought that was too steep and Jim said it was $80.00 and the rest was for pain and suffering.