2021 The Year of Hope

Friday, Jan. 1st - Saturday, April 10th

A fun sign someone left in front of the dumpster at our campground in Yuma.  It pretty much sums up how we all felt about the last year.  Here's hoping the new vaccines will see things much improved this spring and summer.

Field of spinach growing right next to our campground.

This is how our campground looks when we arrive Dec. 1st and how it looks when we leave at the end of March.  It gets much busier from mid-January to mid-March.

Our view toward Yuma, which is about seven miles away.

This poor old lonely horse is kept here right across from our campground.  We never see him get out or get ridden or even just get a little company.  But John was out walking early one morning and saw him walking down the highway.  Probably trying to make a getaway or looking for a friend or maybe just a little exercise.  John went up and knocked on the door and told them their horse was loose.  Afterwards, he thought maybe he should just have let him escape.

Our new Jeep that we bought on Inauguration Day.  John just wasn't enjoying the ride anymore in our little HHR.  Lucky break for #1 grandson.

Cool use of a pallet at one of the permanent campsites at our campground.

One day this load of bees showed up next to the several fields of cauliflower, broccoli, celery, cilantro, etc. that surround our campground.  Someone told us it costs $100,000 to have a load of bees like this brought in.  A month or so later they were all gone again.

This machine was parked next to our campground one day.

They had just finished squaring off the orange orchard, top and sides.

Hiking in the desert with friends.

Julie and Karolyn checking out a pet cemetery in the desert near a BLM camping area.

Julie had to stop and visit her cat, Buddy, that she buried here last year.

Marijuana test plots across the road from the BLM camping area north of our campground.

Visiting friends who were boondocking at Mittry Lake.

Nice to see Rick, Donna, Roy and Diane again.

We were excited to get our first vaccine shot on Feb. 10th.

Karolyn and I went to the Yuma Swap Meet on Valentine's Day.

We listened to the Mexican band play while we waited to see the dancing horses.

This guy had his horse lay down when it was done dancing, so folks could come up and have their pictures taken sitting on the horse with him.

On Monday, Feb. 15th, Karolyn and I borrowed Steve and Julie's electric bikes and road the bike baths in Yuma again.  We had lunch at Da Boyz Pizza in old downtown.  This is facing I-8 with the Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge in the background.  The hobos had a camp along the river just below the bridge until the city started cleaning up the area along the river around 2000 to make it into the beautiful parks that are there now.   A hobo is someone who rides the rails in search of jobs, a tramp will work occasionally when necessary and a bum never works.  I never knew the difference.

We were very happy to finally get our second vaccine on March 11th.  Karolyn, Julie and I went down to Algodonos, Mexico twice in March.  There were lots of people there just like always, but absolutely everyone had masks on, both indoors and outdoors.  There is a double row of the new border fencing there.  Last year there was just the usual chain link fencing, but they had added razor wire on top of it.  The day we were there they had rescued two people from drowning in the canal near Yuma after they made it across.  I just can't imagine how desperate some of those people must be for parents to send their children on their own.  I wonder if our ancestors were as desperate to get here as they are.

Side of a building we walked by in Algodonos.  The usual outdoor patio, live music party was not going on this year, so we ate at the hotel.  It was very nice.  Julie got a new pair of glasses.  We also got some drugs, vanilla and booze.

Spotted this little Santa as we walked near our campground the last week in March.  He reminded me of a post a friend made on Facebook recently.  I believe it was March 10th and he posted that they had just finally taken down their Christmas tree.  This has just been a strange year all around.

Another day the girls and I ate lunch downtown at Holy Smoke BBQ.  It was very good, but I do not recommend the Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Stout beer.  Yuck!!

They had a couple small tables with swings for seats.

On Friday, March 5th, we took the farm tour at Martha's Date Gardens.

It was $10 and very interesting.

New plants sprout up from the base of the trees and have to be spaded off every two or three years.

They had hundreds of these new trees for sale.

There is one male tree for every 48 female trees.  The pollen powder has to be removed from a clam-like limb at the top of the male tree by hand and sprinkled on the female trees by hand.  This year they are experimenting doing it with a gun that is a cross between a leaf blower and a bazooka.

This gives an idea what the date clumps look like even though they are just old dried up ones that didn't get picked.  There are hundreds of dates in each clump and about 25 clumps per tree.  Each clump has to be thinned by hand, so they will get big and ripen. Also, the branches they are on have to be bent down when they are green and tied down.  Later they have to all be covered with cloth bags to protect them from the birds.  It is a very manual labor intensive crop.  I buy an 11 pound box every year to bring home.  My grandkids love them and my Mom, too.  I like them plain, chopped in a lettuce salad or topped with peanut butter or veggie cream cheese with a pecan on top.

Another day we went on a tour of a marijuana farm.  Steve came along that day.  I guess we finally did something that interested him.

It was very interesting learning about the different varieties and uses and legislative issues.

They were also raising micro-greens as salad toppings.  They had beet sprouts and radish sprouts and I forget what all the other kinds were.

They had a tiny horse, a goat, a peacock, a turkey and about forty chickens.

They had a sampling of a few of the products they make with CBD oil that you could buy, but their store, the Pink Chameleon, is in Yuma.  We stopped for supper at a little Mexican place in Somerton on our way home.

Harvesting a cauliflower field next to our campground.

Sunday, March 21st, we moved north to Emerald Cove Resort on the Colorado River near Parker, where Karolyn joined us again for a week. Four wheeling is very popular in the desert.  Steve and Julie were in Havasu for the ATV races.

Karolyn and I drove up to Havasu City on March 23rd to have lunch with Julie at the Blue Chair, a very nice restaurant below the London Bridge overlooking Lake Havasu.

Every meal was served with an orchid.  They had surf board chips with guacamole and salsa and hang ten bacon, a miniature wooden clothes line with four strips of different flavored bacons clipped on it.

After lunch we drove up to the north edge of town to check out some BLM land where John and I have stayed in the past.  I think it's called Craggy Wash.  This interesting little RV was one of the boondockers there enjoying the desert.

And a Mondo Margarita.  A very popular place with great food at reasonable prices, but the drinks are a bit pricey. 

On the way home from Havasu, we stopped at the public boat access near our campground, a really beautiful spot.

There are two really nice boat ramps.

Karolyn is checking out the fish.

Maybe somebody can tell me what kind it is. It looked to be over a foot long.

Another day Karolyn and I did a little driving around in the desert.

Saturday, March 27th, Karolyn and I drove over to La Paz County Park to watch the boat races.  We parked near this guy and stopped to admire his camper.  He said his wife built it and it took her about a year and a half.

Then we found a spot down by the beach and enjoyed about five hours of boat races.  This race started with engines off and guys in the water holding the boats in place until they took off.

There were lots of different categories of boats.  Some smaller ones called cracker boxes with quite young kids driving.

They said the boats traveled anywhere from 35 mph to 100 mph and some of them hardly looked like they were touching the water.  Boy those ones that went 100 mph were so loud, even the ear plugs didn't help.  They ran on alcohol.

About every hour they would stop the races for a bit, so the boats that had accumulated on both ends could pass through.

Burros visit our campground at Emerald Cove every night.

Donna took these pictures from her camper window when they joined us for another week.

This is one of Donna's creations.  This one is painted and made with sea shells.  Most of her creations are just a rough board with designs made from rocks she collects in the desert.  She is very creative.  Donna Rox!!  I brought one of her creations home for my Mom last year.

We left Arizona Saturday, April 10th, after a week of almost 100 degrees and arrived in Helena Monday, April 12th, where the highs have been 40s to 50s for about ten days.  We even woke up to an inch of snow on the 19th, but it should be getting much warmer from now on.  I had to drive the old car home for Carter.  We expect to be here most of the time until we head south again in the fall, except for a few weeks in the Dakotas and Iowa in July.

Tarra