Y'all oughta come to Yuma!

I think all of the people in British Columbia, half of Alberta and most of Oregon have relocated in Yuma! We decided to come here after a snowy day in Tuscon.

 These had to be the biggest snowflakes that I'd ever seen!

The snow wasn't really that bad but because we'd been planning to move anyway we had to do some figuring. We had planned to head for a Roper Lake State Park, farther east and at a higher elevation and then go to Roosevelt Lake, farther north and at a still higher elevation but, when the snow came we check long term weather guesses, we decided to head towards the sun and that meant Yuma.,

With the help of our Passport America 1/2 price camping directory we selected Southern Mesa RV Park

Yuma has been a surprising place. There's still a lot of cactus but lots of palms as well. I'm loving the bougainvillea that is blooming everywhere.

 This is a huge agricultural area with grapefruit, tangelo, lemon and orange orchards, date plantations, huge fields of lettuce (it's the salad capital of the world), asparagus, & broccoli. Someone told me that they have three annual harvests of the lettuce. Most seems to be flood irrigated.

Many fellow travelers have recommended seeing the Yuma Territorial Prison so we did.

Built in 1875 by the prisoners who had to live there it was outgrown and closed in 1909. After that it housed the Yuma High School! It was unbelievably harsh; the prisoners called it the Hell Hole of Arizona but the people of Yuma called it the Country Club because it had more amenities than their homes did - running water and electricity and a big library. The warden's wife, who started the library, repulsed a prisoner outbreak by grabbing the Gatling Gun in the guard tower after the guard was killed and shooting at the rioting prisoners. She must have been quite a gal.

We're enjoying the sunshine again but I have to move away from the computer. More adventures later.