The desert in bloom

I’ve often heard how beautiful the desert is when in bloom, but I had no idea.

 

We had some rain here a while back and perhaps that’s what triggered it, or maybe they just get more water here, or maybe it was just their normal time to bloom.

Anyway you look at it I felt privileged to observe it.

The first time I saw this I thought it was fake. 

 

I really believed someone put these tacky plastic flowers on the edges of the cactus type foliage. 

 

 I mean, it just doesn’t look natural. 

Wow, there seems to be an epidemic here – the same flowers are everywhere. 

Well, kind of. 

 

There seem to be a wide variety of colors and types of blooms.

I’m guessing there’s a lot more bloom to be seen, but it’s delightful seeing this much as we walk around the park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long Live the Blooming Queen

Views of River's Edge RV Resort

 

For a park we found purely by chance, this is just delightful.  It is located right off Interstate 8 and next to the Colorado River.  We can see the park in Yuma across the water.

When we checked in I was asked if I preferred fish or fowl.  Huh?  This made no sense to me at all until it was explained that one half of the park had streets named after fish and the other half was named after birds.

I was in a “fowl” mood that day, so that’s how we ended up on Osprey Drive.

The lots are large and have a concrete patio, which after time in the rocks and sand of the desert this is very nice, indeed!

Here is a view of the street we live on – we’re in the back on the left.

The sunsets are fabulous here and I couldn’t resist running outside to snap these as I saw them out my window.

The resort has a pool and two hot tubs.  On Tuesday and Thursday they play water volleyball, which is a blast.  I had commented that the only thing that would make it perfect is to add a pickleball court.  This is in the works but I doubt we’ll still be here by its completion.  But the Yuma Parks and Recs offers it for $2 a person as a drop in fee....and it's indoors!

 

The library has a large collection of books, magazines, movies and jigsaw puzzles.  I’ve been taking advantage of this to read some free books and work on jigsaw puzzles, something that takes up too much space in the RV.

They have a room with pool tables, but we haven’t gotten in there yet to play.

There’s a large community room for dinners and dances, something else we’ve yet to take part in. 

The resort has several laundry areas, bathrooms and showers.  Instead of plugging in multiple quarters you purchase tokens so there’s only one token per load to be inserted.  That simplifies things.

There is a walking path along the river and there are several little areas to go closer to the water and sit.  Several are decorated really cute.

On the front side of the resort there is a dog run that has a collection of antique machinery along the route to decorate it.

 

The first time I saw this wagon pulled by two horses I just knew I had to fake a photo of See-More in the wagon.  Now we are traveling with a two-horse-power engine.

 

There are large rows of trees planted between the lots, providing privacy and shade.  Obviously this is an older park as they are huge.  It feels so good to see trees again, and running water…and I mean both watching the river and being able to turn on a faucet!

So, I’m glad we committed to a month here.  In fact we may stay a few extra days as Vicki Lawrence is doing a one woman show at the casino nearby.  We have tickets to see the Temptations there on the 15^th already and I noticed the signs for her show as well.

We don’t have any big rush to move on from here, our next route is to head north to Las Vegas to visit the Divine Miss M for a few days.

Long Live the Queen of the Resort

Combat bocce ball

 

I had never played bocce ball before and my vision of it had been as a lawn sport with nice smooth grass to roll the balls on.  In fact, all the photos of this sport depict that very activity.

So it was to my surprise that Kay and Tom invited us to play with them during our stay in Quartzsite.  Really? 

Kay explained, with that mischievous gleam in her eye, but this is “combat bocce ball”. 

Huh?

So out into the wash between Boomerville and the Solar City (those RV’s wanting to stay away from us and not hear our generators) we went.



this was OUR playing field
 

Their set of bocce balls was all beat up, full of dents and scratches and I was soon to find out why.  We played on the rocky surface of the land around us, dodging cactus, bushes and G-d knows what slithery creatures might be lurking about.

But, like a bunch of kids playing kick the can under the light of a lamppost in the middle of the street, we laughed and carried on with hoots and hollers.

There is a playful aspect to these Boomers!  It’s as if we had lapsed back into being preschoolers, enjoying our similarities more than what sets us apart, and just reveling in the joy of playing with one another.  This felt so right to me.  The only difference seemed to be that instead of hearing my Grandmother’s voice calling me home for supper, I had to fix it myself.  Bummer.

Just when I thought Boomerville was winding down several more rigs started to pull in.  They stopped near our area while we were outside with our neighbors, Al and Ingrid and asked about where to set up.  Ingrid immediately tried to make a quick $20 by claiming to be the campground host.  Nice try, but it didn’t work.

They asked where the "solar people" were because last time they set up near some of them; and they didn’t like it when they started to run their generators.  Ingrid continued playing host and assured them that we all ran our generators here and it was no problem.

So, much to her dismay they all pulled in right next to her fifth wheel…all three of them.  And I mean right next to her rig – closely.  Seriously?  You can look around and see lots of empty open places to park here and they tuck in like we’re in some kind of crowded campground.  How rude.  Oh well, that’s part of this life, you know you’re moving again soon anyway so just let it roll….unlike those combat bocce balls.

We had some good memories of that stay and it was fun meeting new fellow nomads. 

Long Live the Queen of Nostalgia

Getting caught up with the blog

 

Left Brain has finished cleaning up the RV and car now; all the windows are washed and sparkling once more.  I did my part by removing everything from the outdoor bays, cleaning out the compartments and resorting and replacing the items in a more orderly manner.  Now all the craft and sewing items are inside where they are accessible.

There is a rummage sale coming up soon here in the park, so I’m getting all the things that need to be parted with prepared for the sale.  I don’t care if I get any money for the stuff, it will save me having to haul it off.  If I need to do that I noticed a Humane Society Thrift Store in Yuma that I’ll take stuff to.

We took some time to chat with our neighbors next door from Montana.  They are currently in a 13’ Hi-Lo but realized they can’t spend large amounts of time in this, so a new travel trailer will be arriving later this week.

Left Brain watched the Super Bowl and I took the opportunity to have a lengthy chat with the Divine Miss M and then walked down to the clubhouse and worked on some jigsaw puzzles.  I thought I had managed to miss most of the game, but came home to find there had been a lengthy delay due to a power outage.  Outflanked again!  We were reminiscing about how different the two experiences were.  Last year’s Super Bowl was watched on a 7” screen in the original canned ham and this year was on a nice big screen in a recliner.

I’ve located where the Parks and Rec have their pickleball games and we’ll search that out soon.  The RV resort has water volleyball on Tuesday and Thursday, as well as cribbage, so that will fill in some of the other activity slots.  We need to get out and move our bodies a bit if we’re going to keep eating this well!

The library is starting Spanish lessons on Wednesdays, so I’ll be checking that out also.  There’s plenty to do and no excuse to be bored here.

 

Long Live the Queen

Settling into our new digs

 

We have arrived in Yuma at last.  Well, actually we went past Yuma and landed in Winterhaven CA at a place called the Rivers Edge RV Resort.

Our plan was to stay at KOFA, the Escapees Park, but they were full to the brim.  We were offered dry camping and getting on their list but there was no guarantee.  Well, this girl has had enough of dry camping and was longing for electricity and water again…so we continued onward.

This park is nice, the lots are spacious with a cement pad, big shade trees and we were fortunate to be positioned next to the river as well as close to the laundry.  There’s a bit of highway noise and a train once in a while, but the rent was affordable and we just wanted to settle in for a while.

The first night we laid low and the following morning we set out in search of what Yuma has to offer.  Our first stop was at the branch of the public library, not that far from where we are staying.  Here we found free wireless internet with large quiet rooms to use for accessing the net.  There are also some study rooms you can use for a two hour period that may come in handy later when it’s time to do the taxes and longer projects.  After we got caught up with our email, Facebook and reading the blogs we went in search of food.

On the way to lunch we dropped off Left Brain’s prescriptions at Wal-Mart where we were told it would be a two hour wait, so those will be picked up later.

 

We agreed on checking out Bubba’s for lunch.  In my mind it was close enough to Bubbe’s for me.  He had the pulled pork sandwich and I had a very nice reuben.  After satisfying our hunger he dropped me off at Fry’s supermarket and then went across the street to a carwash.  He’s wanted to wash the car (and the RV) for a long time after all the dirt and dust from our stay in Quartzsite.

Since I was at my own leisure I walked up and down each and every aisle – what a nice store!  It had great selections and amenities. After shopping I went outside to wait for my chauffer to pick me up.  The car was so shiny I wasn’t sure who it was stopping for me.

After putting away the frozen and refrigerated items I carried the laundry over to put it in the machines.  It sure felt good to get everything clean again.

We have been living full time now for nine months.  It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road this long already. 

 

Long Live the Queen of California Living