Roadrunner ---- Beep - Beep

For the past few days there has been a roadrunner running through the park.  He is hunting -- lizards are one of his favorite lunches.  People will put out hamburger for them.  They are meat eaters.

 Its hot here now -- in the 90's -- close to 100 -- so people are leaving in droves.  We will be leaving April 1st.  We always get so antsy to be moving on to our next adventure after a whole season in one spot.  There is always so much to do before heading out.  We get the truck serviced, we get everything washed -- you can't wash things yourself the water is too hard and just leaves spots.  There are many mobile rv wash businesses that come and wash your rv, etc with soft water and wipe it so it doesn't spot and its cheap.  We have our mail stopped, we stock up on hard too find things and we have to put all of our knick knacks away.  We also had to repack the boat to get it ready to put in storage.  

So lots to do and it has to get done early in the day because its just too hot.   They say its 12 degrees above normal here which is a big difference when your looking at 100 versus mid 80's.   Of course when we look at temps in Nevada its still below freezing at night so we aren't going too far north for awhile. 

March Blooms

There are some beautiful bushes and flowers around the park that are now in bloom.  The light pink flowers are on an oleander bush.   The reddish pink blooms are covering a bush that I don't know.   You can see in the background a covered car.  People are getting their homes and rvs ready for the hot, dry summer.  Here things need to be summerized instead of winterized.    Most people in the park are leaving sometime this week to start their journey home.  There is a large contingent of Canadians that have to go back to Canada because their health insurance is only good for so many months in the US.   They hate having to go back so early since its still winter in most of Canada. 

We are leaving Yuma,  April 1st although we aren't going too far.  We will be spending a good part of April up in Needles, California.  Its up by Lake Havasu on the Colorado River about 150 miles or less south of Las Vegas.  Its hard to go any farther north without heading into cold country.  Most of eastern Nevada is still below freezing at night and even 40's at night isn't very comfortable so we will just wait til it warms up to go farther north. 

Military History in Yuma

The military has a huge presence in Yuma with the whole town surrounded by land controlled by them.  They try to be good neighbors offering things like tours of the bases and a large air show that features the Blue Angels.   They also allow folks to take jeeps and 4wheelers out on part of the Barry Goldwater range.  all that is needed is a free permit and you have to check and make sure the day of your adventure they are allowing non military use. 

The history of the military in this area goes way back to the mid 1800's but Patton put it in on the map with his training camps prepping for combat in WWll scattered all over around here.    So the local military bases try to have something for people to look at to understand some of this history.  They have a large display of tanks, personnel carriers and assorted vehicles that transported missiles, etc.  Now they are expanding the display and adding a visitor center.  It should be even more interesting next year when it opens.

Baby Hummingbirds

 

Jim found a hummingbird nest when he was trimming some Oleander bushes.  Such a tiny little nest and theirs mom sitting on it .  The nest stretches to make room for the babies as they grow.  We managed to get some pictures of the babies after they hatched.  The beaks on the newborns are short but as they grew you could see their beaks growing longer and longer. 

                                   

 There are some other birds that have a nest in a palm tree across the street from us.  The palm tree has never been trimmed so it has lots of dead palms hanging down.  The birds have managed to find a place in the dead palms to make a nest.  They've been squawking and flying in and out of the nest but we can't ever get a good look at them to see what kind of birds they are.                                                                                        

 

Its hard to believe that its nesting season down here when you consider how cold and snowy it is out east.  

Wild Burros by Senator Wash

We went over to the California side of the river.  There is a long term dry camping area there.  People park out in the desert in this area.  Its on BLM land so they just pay under a hundred dollars to stay up to 6 months.  Of course there is no water, electricity or sewer hookups so they have to use generators, solar panels, carry big water tanks and use blue totes to haul their "black water" to the dump station.  The wild burros like to hang out here because its close to water and some of the visitors feed them. 

There are two "lakes" here.  One is called Senator Wash and its just a water reservoir but the other is Squaw Lake, a backwater of the Colorado River.   It has some short term camping - up to 14 days- flush toilets, a boat ramp and picnic tables.  Its very pretty and there are some hot springs in this lake where the sunfish like to hang out.  We haven't fished it but a friend of ours has and he actually got a meal of sunnies once. 

Desert Bighorn Sheep

Finally, we saw bighorn sheep up close in the desert.  It has rained a few times now so things are growing like these ocotillo bushes.  The bighorns were munching on the leaves.  If you've seen one of these bushes up close you would see the large thorns that cover every inch of them.  How the sheep eat around the thorns is amazing.   There is a good population of these sheep that live close to the Colorado River.  The land along the river is mostly owned by the federal government so the habitat for the sheep is protected. 

Most of the land along the river is fairly hilly, almost mountainous, and very remote.  There are not a lot of roads - mostly 4wheel drive tracks in the non wilderness section.  These sheep that we saw were actually pretty close to Yuma.  We were about five miles north of town by the river near the old Laguna Dam.  They may have been on the move because its the start of the mating season.

Scorpion Gold

We went out to look for gold and while we were looking for a place to park the truck I found a scorpion out scurrying around.  Not sure you can see it in the picture of the ground because they blend right in with their translucent body.  This guy was busy looking for a meal which was strange since its winter and they do kind of bury themselves under soil and rock and stay there til it warms up. 

We worked our new dry washer using dirt from a bank where we found a little gold before but this time really no luck.  Jim then started working a different area in redder dirt and by George we found a few nice pieces.  So we are going back to work that area again and maybe we will find more.  We talked to the guy that taught us how to run a dry washer and he tells us we can run dirt even if its a little wet.  It rained here again so now we have to dig farther in the bank to get to dry dirt but at least a third of the dirt we run can be damp so we will try it.