Desert Games and Birds

Monday  was a beautiful warm day without much wind so we got in one last game of golf at the Westwind Golf course.

After golf we noticed this group of seniors playing cornhole.  As you can see they set up their Monday cornhole games on the bocce ball courts.

On a recent walk behind our RV park the desert looked pretty bare and uninhabited.

But this tiny bird caught our attention..

It was a Hummingbird....

...and he was very cooperative about posing for pictures when we walked up closer.

🐓

Cleanings at Westwind RV Resort

We will soon be putting our Cougar Travel Trailer into storage for the hot summer months to come, so we decided to get her washed and waxed.

We called Roadrunner RV Wash and Wax.  These two young men came over and washed and waxed our trailer and out truck for a reasonable price.

Here is a sight we have only seen at Westwind RV Resort, and we see him running up and down the paved streets every day.  He is the park street sweeper.

He stopped to talk and Bill asked him if he had ever driven a Zamboni?

He said no.

😣

Garage Sale and Lawn Ornaments

A recent visit to a Yuma RV park-wide Saturday garage sale did not turn up many results.

This was a typical offering.

It was hard to find any good stuff.

This road-side ornament sale had a lot more to offer.

We almost bought a flying Wood Duck.  Almost - but we were afraid it would not hold up under Michigan weather conditions.

🐦

A Shriners Golf Outing

Shriners International is a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth.  In the Westwind RV Park the Shriner membership are active and we were invited to buy raffle tickets for a drawing they were having on Saturday that included three new bicycles as prizes.

We bought some tickets and attended the drawing that was held after a morning golf outing in the park.

Neither of us won a bicycle, but one of Bill's tickets was drawn and he walked away with this nifty bag of dice games, LED hat lights, and trinkets.

Mr. Lucky!

✨

Seniors Acting Like Kids Again

Many retirees forget that they are getting old.

Therefore the RV parks cater to their childish notions.

Westwind has this sand volleyball court and it gets used every day in this 55+ RV resort.

No bikinis however. 

Recently a street was closed off for seating during this one-man concert.  (See the guy on the left with the white cowboy hat)  What we appreciated was that the people in the front rows were not standing.

🎤🎻

A Different Kind of Travel Trailer

Here is an advertisement from 1959.

In 1955 Avion Coach Corporation was formed in Benton Harbor Michigan.  The company built these self-contained travel trailers and people who bought them were known as "Tin Can Tourists".

The silver Avions were built until the 1990s when the company was sold to Fleetwood who decided to build them with conventional materials.

 We recently saw this Avion unit in a nearby RV park.  We seldom see them.  Back in California we talked to a man from the state of Washington who told us he owned and used an Avion trailer for eight years.  When he  sold it he said he got $300 more than what he had paid originally.

Just like an Airstream - they are holding up well.

🌜

Back To Yuma

On Tuesday morning 2/20/2018 we packed up in Quartzsite and headed south on Arizona State Highway 95 through the desert toward Yuma.  It was about a 90-mile drive.  Along the way we passed the desert proving grounds of General Motors.

For our last week in Southwest Arizona we decided to try another RV resort that was rated high by Woodall's Official Campground Guide.  We are familiar with the east side of Yuma so Westwind  RV  & Golf Resort was easy to find.  We grabbed a site and moved in.

Signs like this one above in the park made us quickly feel right at home.

🐶

Rock Hounds, Tough Cacti and Dry Campers

 Quartzsite has become a mecca to visitors and exhibitors for rocks, gems, mineral specimens and fossils during the town's famous winter gem shows.  We are not enthusiastic rock collectors but we decided to hike out into the desert and see what we could find.

It was a cool and windy day but we drove north about ten miles out of town and started our hunt for rocks and fossils and whatever.

We stomped over some interesting public lands;  (BLM lands out here for Bureau of Land Management) but we found few rocks/gems of note.  Not even any gold!

We did find out just how tough a cactus can be.  Note the large pile of lava rock above.

When you look close.....

...you will notice this baby cactus hanging on to a tiny ledge in the rock for dear life.

All around Quartzsite we were surprised to see hundreds of RVs that were just driven out into the desert and parked. 

These winter visitors just fill up their tanks with water, drive out and live off their battery power.

"Dry Camping" is what it is called.  It is a cheap way to spend time in the southwest and it is legal in posted areas of the public lands.

🌵

A Different Kind of Tourist Attraction

The small town of Quartzsite, AZ has a city park of 40 acres.  Approximately 8 acres of the park has been transformed into Celia's Rainbow Garden by local residents and RV visitors.

Celia was a local girl who was born 17 weeks premature and barely survived.  She did survive and became an inspiration to all who knew her.  Unfortunately, Celia was not yet nine years old when she died in 1995.  The towns' people started this rainbow garden in her memory and it has expanded from there.

With few restrictions, people are allowed to create their own desert memorials to their loved ones once they die. 

There are no dead bodies here, but plenty of plaques, paths, desert plants, and interesting items in memory of loved ones who have passed on.

Here is a small wall where school children who knew Celia were allowed to leave their hand prints.

The displays are difficult to describe....

...and the paths go on and on.

Celia's Rainbow Garden is certainly worth a visit if you ever are traveling near Quartzsite.

It is one of a kind!

🙏

We Cruise Back Into Arizona

Interstate 10 took us out of the Coachella Valley of California, through the town of  Blythe, CA over the Colorado River and into Quartzsite, Arizona where we decided to stop for a few days.

There must be at least a dozen small RV parks near Quartzsite and we chose Quail Run (above) that was located about a mile north of town on Highway 95.

Quartzsite is associated with camels because in 1856, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (later President of the Confederacy) had a novel idea: transporting freight and people across the desert Southwest on camels.  In short, the Civil War broke out and the camels were set free near Quartzsite to roam the desert.  The last camel was spotted in 1942.

The town does not contain much beside the RV parks and snowbirds that gather here in the winter.  There are some perpetual flea markets, a couple small grocery and convenience stores, and three gas stations.

We explored the outdoor markets but Karen found only one treasure;

She found this crystal ball and brought it home for a few dollars.

We attended the park's Card Bingo Game on Saturday night but this time around neither of us won a round of Bingo.
Tomorrow we will post a blog entry about the biggest tourist attraction in Quartzsite.
🐫

A Big Festival in Town

During our stay in Indio, California we could not help but notice that a large event was being set up at the fairgrounds not far from our RV park.  Then we started seeing advertisements on local television stations about it.

This is what the carnival atmosphere was all about:

The workers were setting up for The National Date Festival.

We did not attend, but it became obvious that is was a big deal in this area of California.

We saw lines of  people buying admission tickets as well as plenty of excited children.

Growing dates here is big business and something worth celebrating.

🎠🌴🎡

A Bike Ride Through the 1% Houses

Indio, California, where we are staying, is a pretty well-to-do town by Michigan standards.  However, down Highway 111 west toward Palm Springs the real estate values rise steeply.  On Friday Bill loaded up his bicycle and decided to check out some of the towns while Karen did laundry.
(Karen needed some "alone time" with the washing machines and dryers)

Indian Wells was impressive so the bicycle trip started there.

The eight-feet wide sidewalk/bike trails were smooth as you pass gated community after gated community.

This was a typical common area in one of the neighborhoods.

This was the main gate to one of the county clubs along Highway 111.

Without exaggeration, you can ride or walk for miles along this trail and never see a dandelion or a weed of any kind.  Beautiful landscapes and flower gardens were everywhere.

Bill came across this small memorial park honoring military personnel from the local area.

The memorial was built to honor the fallen.  By reading some of the plaques, Bill was surprised to find out that Dwight Eisenhower had a winter retirement home nearby in Indian Wells, California.  Eisenhower loved to play golf.

Bill had a memorable bike ride on another beautiful warm day - as he got to see where the rich folk come to play.

🚵

A Day Trip to the Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is California's largest inland lake.  

It is approximately 35 miles long and 15 miles wide and is 235 feet below sea level.

We drove about 25 miles to the southeast down Highway 111 to check it out.

From a distance it  looked beautiful but it is no Lake Michigan, for sure.

It has no natural outlet flowing to the ocean; whatever flows in, including agricultural runoff does not flow out.

The water has a very high salt content.  It is not as high as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, but it is high enough to be rather unhealthy now for fish and wildlife.  We saw dead fish along the shore and there was an unpleasant smell in the air near the lake.

We saw these exceptionally long and narrow boats near the camp store.  We never found out why they were built like this or what they were used for.

The recreational area had hiking trails like this.

We hiked down a shoreline trail, but this sign reminded us to not wander into the brush.

We had a fine day trip out of the city.  The Salton Sea was not pristine but it was interesting to witness up close.

⛵