Yuma 2017

Fortuna de Oro RV Park in the Foothills of Yuma, AZ - our winter home from Nov 2017 thru Feb 2018.

It has been quite a while since our last post. Most of this due to circumstances. Losing Molly was really hard. She was so much a part of our family. When we got to Fortuna de Oro things were just not quite the same. To start with, I had achilles tendonitis which prevented me from doing the thing that I like to do best here - play Pickleball. I went through almost 2 months of not playing and then decided to give Physical Therapy a try. I did. For about 4 weeks and then stopped. Thinking it was better. I tried playing and this lasted for about 3 games- and then I hurt it again. Haven't played since. Bummer. Anyways, we do like the park - Fortuna de Oro and they do have things going on all the time. So with this post, I'll try to share some of the things from Fortuna de Oro as well as Yuma and the surrounding area. BTW - we really like Yuma. Who would have thought?

Looking west from our spot. Sunsets were always great

November at Fortuna de Oro included the Thanksgiving Dinner:

November also included a few trips for me to Cocopah Speedway to see some great dirt track racing.

The Sprint Cars were awesome

Manny! He put on one of the greatest driving exhibitions that I think I have ever witnessed.

A trip to Cocopah Speedway is definitely worth it. Great track, great racing.

November also found us making our pilgrimage to Algodones, Mexico for dental work and glasses. I ended up having a chipped tooth "repaired" and a crown installed. When I went back for the crown 3 days later, I happened on one of Algodones' festivals.....

People lined the streets for the parade

Toro

Bet you have never seen anything like this......I'm told that this Bull dances too.

With my Pickleball curtailed, I did my next most favorite thing - fishing. That is one of the nice things about this area - the water available for fishing. In the middle of the desert.  My favorite place to go fishing has turned in to be Mittry Lake, a drive of about 15 miles from the park.

All loaded up and ready to go

A view of Mittry Lake

Looking off towards the Yuma Proving Grounds

Rigged and ready to go

The fishing at this lake has been "different". Not quite like fishing Lake Champlain where you could catch 50 fish in a day, but still fun. I had the thrill of my life one day when I hooked up and landed a 6lb 14oz Largemouth Bass. 24" in length. Definitely the largest fish I have ever caught. Incidentally, I had the  opportunity to talk to a member of the AZ Fish & Game Dept and he assured me that they have taken 13lb bass out of there. My day is coming. Maybe.

The month of December was highlighted by the Christmas Dinner in the big hall.....

The Ladies did a great job decorating the table.....

In January we met up with old friends John & Kathy for a trip to Das Bratwurst House German Restaurant......

Good time with good people

Also in January was the annual Car Show at Fortuna de Oro.... there is definitely something for everyone.

January also saw the Sewing Group move to new quarters. They had been sharing a room with other groups with them using it on Mon-Wed-Fri.  The popularity of the group forced the park to come up with a better plan for them - and they did, creating a new room off of the Laundry in the East side of the park. Grand Opening of the new Fibre Arts Center, which features for the ladies 7 day a week access, as well as the ability to leave their "stuff" there and not have to take down each day.

That is our friend Joan standing, with Mary just to the right.

Notice the Fibre Arts Sign

The Official Ribbon Cutting

January also included our Spanish Classes. The park offered a free Spanish class that ran 1 hour a day, 3 days a week, for 3 weeks. Mary had taken the class last year, so this year I signed up for it and she signed up for a new Spanish Class - a Spanish II for those that had already taken the first class. Now we get to practice on each other. Hola! Buenos dias

We mentioned that we really liked Yuma, and this for a number of reasons, foremost among them is the agriculture in the area. In February, we signed up and participated in the Field to Feast Farm Tour. If you ever have the opportunity to do this tour, do it. It gave me a whole new perspective on farmers and farming.

Our bus in the background....

Our Tour began at the Yuma Crossing Center where we boarded the big black bus and headed south towards Somerton to the University of Arizona research farm where we learned about food safety and a little bit about the farm, before being given a recipe card. Each member on the tour was given a card and asked to pick the requested vegetable and fill a bag with this. When done, these were sent on ahead of us to students at Western Arizona Culinary School who then prepared us a lunch feast from our vegetables.

As part of the food safety program, we all were required to wash up, wear hair nets, and in some cases - beard nets, before being allowed in to the actual fields. A lecture from the Poop Specialist on the things they have to do as vegetable producers to insure healthy food. Really quite interesting and informative.

Once we had the veggies picked for our lunch, we each had a bag which we could fill up with vegetables of our choice- for ourselves to take back with us.

When done here, we boarded the bus and were "educated" by our Tour Guide, as well as by the Host Farmer of the Day, Mike from Foxy Fresh Produce. What an unbelievable story he told, first a little bit about himself and how he got involved with Foxy, and then about the day to day routine of running a huge farming operation. To quote Mike: The one who wins is the one who schedules best. So much planning, so much scheduling.

The logistics of these operations is mind boggling.

Mike telling us about his operation. This one in Winterhaven, CA

The white boxes are part of harvest going to Costco. The red shirts were to commemorate Valentines Day

The "Boss" bringing us a few boxes of Romaine Lettuce so that we each had a sample to take home with us.

The amazing thing about all of this- the Romaine Lettuce is picked, trimmed, cleaned, bagged, boxed, palletized, secured, and off to cooling units before being loaded on a truck for delivery to everywhere. 

Foxy Romaine Lettuce

When we were done with the tour, then it was off to Arizona Western College where we would enjoy an excellent lunch prepared by the culinary students with the vegetables we picked earlier in the morning.

Before we ate, we had the opportunity to meet our chefs.....

What a great job they did!

Neighbors. We saw some interesting things from our site here in the park. Neighbors were always interesting.......

Neighbors 3 spots north of us. This bike is powered by a Corvette V8 engine

This one is powered by a 350 Chevy V8 engine

Now this is quite a site going down the road. I think he has all of his "toys" covered

This gentleman put on quite a demonstration of dog obedience training. These were a pair of trained Chocolate Lab retrievers. Was I ever impressed.

And this is Max- one of the best behaved dogs we've come across. Would you believe he understands commands in 3 languages! Max belongs to our neighbors Antonio and Jan.

Antonio and Jan

This particular day we were viewing a video on Great Trainrides of the West. Antonio has a similar fascination with old steam engine locomotives as I do, and together we were planning a ride on the Cumbres & Toltec railroad in Chama, NM.  More to follow on this later this summer/early fall.

One of the things that we really enjoyed at our site was feeding the Hummingbirds. We had at least 2 that were there all day long - a small female, and a very dominant male who Mary named Harvey.

The male, Harvey, would not let the female, who we called Missy Anna, anywhere near the feeder. She only got to feed when he was away. So to give her some options, we installed 2 feeders to the rear of our trailer. Believe it or not, she took advantage of this. It was kind of fun watching them. If he was on the feeder out back, she would go to the one in the front. And vice versa.

And the last thing that we have to talk about before leaving Yuma, is the new addition to our family:

Lexie arrived via United Airlines Flight in Tucson, AZ coming to us from Tulsa, OK, via Houston, TX. A really long day for a little 8 week old puppy! But, she survived and then survived the 240 mile trip back to Yuma. Having a puppy around is both a lot of fun and a lot of work, with the emphasis on fun and work. The first few nights she was a chore, whimpering on and off through most of the night. After that 2nd night, she settled down and now we tell her lights out at 10 and I have to get her up when I get up at 5:30 - 5:45.  I'll share some pics now:

Little Lexie has made 2 trips to the local Vet already, once for a general checkup the day following us getting her, and the week after for her first booster shot. In the first week she gained 1/2 lb.  She is a little terror at times, but quite a loving little dog the rest of the time. Hopefully she has a long, healthy, life with us.

Well that about covers Yuma for another year. In a few days we'll be out of here and heading east. First to Eloy, AZ and then to Benson, AZ and then to New Mexico. More to follow......