Yuma, Part 2

We decided to go back to Yuma yesterday and check out a few more RV resorts.  We're trying to find something for next year.  We were thinking of going to Florida, but after talking to our daughter, Lisa, we decided we'd probably be happier in the California / Arizona area.

So, we first went to Cocopah RV Resort and Golf Course.  This was a nice resort right on the Colorado River.  It looks like it's on the California side of the border, but everything south of the Colorado River is Arizona.  The park is in a rural section of west Yuma out in the fields where the crops are.  While it isn't gated, it's so far out there that there isn't a need and you have to pass by a 24-hour guardsman to enter.

The park streets are named after legendary Golf Courses.  There is an USGA rated 5,731 yard, 18 hole golf course on site and the park models and RVs are located along the fingers of the gold course.  It's unique in how it's set up.  The pro shop was one of the nicest one I've ever seen; clothes, clubs, shoes, supplies - everything you could want to golf.  It also has a putting course, chipping course and putting green!

On the map below, the yellow section is the pet section for those with animals.  It's a bit farther away from the main happenings, but it has a nice pet area.  Most of the park is already filled up with park models so the RV area is limited to near the pet area and pet overflow areas.  You would definitely need a golf cart to rent to get around this resort.

As is typical with the southwest, there is little to no grass at your rig.  Here is what sites look like.  So, it's a little sparse.  But, people add things to make it more homey.

Amenities at this park included:

• 19th Hold Restaurant (breakfast, lunch and dinner)
• Large heated pool and spa with grassy areas
• 2 acre grassy pet park (not fenced)
• Ballroom with hardwood floors for dancing
• Ballroom stage for events
• Round tables for social dining
• Card room, Billiard tables and library
• Ceramics and Craft/Quilt Rooms
• Woodshop
• Shuffleboard and Horseshoes
• Tennis and Pickleball Courts
• Archery Range
• River Picnic Area
• Fitness center
• Mail service
• ATM in the Pro Shop
• Convenience Store

The pool was very warm and I liked that it had handicap access, which you don't often see and is overlooked.  The shuffleboard area was being re-waxed when we were there and there is an activities center with lots of excursions available.  Downside is that the sewing room is extremely small...

Cocopah's building were pretty old, though.  Decore was still from the 80's in the blue and pink color sceme and you can tell Cocopah is a Indian owned park.  It just needs some TLC although it was nice.  But, the views are beautiful!

After we left Cocopah, we went to about 8 other parks and while the Internet said they were 4.5 and above rated, we strongly disagreed.  For the price and money, they were low scale for sure.  We did, however, like Sun Vista RV Resort.  It's a large park right next door to The Palms that we visited last Wednesday.  Sun Vista doesn't have a golf course, but the other amenities made up for the lack of a course.  The park is cute in that the streets are named for legendary Hollywood movie stars.

Sun Vista has orange trees on practically every site that you can pick off and eat when ripe.

It also had a lot of GREAT amenities:

• Large spaces with full hook-ups & 30/50 amp
• Satellite TV
• Locked Mail Boxes and forwarding
• Notary Services
• Fax and Copies
• HUGE Laundry - the biggest I've EVER seen!
• Spacious bathrooms with showers
• Indoor AND Outdoors heated pools and spas
• Movie Theater
• Ice Cream Shack
• Two story Recreation and Entertainment Center for classes
• Top Entertainment with Dinner Shows - Live Shows weekly!
• Two story fully equipped Fitness Center
• 2 Fenced Dog parks (one with grass and one without)
• Tournament Quality Shuffleboard and Horseshoe Pits
• Music Room
• Card Room
• Library
• Billiards Room
• GOBS of resort activities
• Ballroom for Dancing, Classes and Entertainment
• Walking Path and Exercise Stations
• Radio Controlled Car Race Track
• Computer Lab and Video Library
• Chipping and Putting Greens
• Woodshop
• Driving Cages
• Organized tours
• In-Park Hair Stylists and Massage Therapist
• Arts & Crafts Classes
• Pickle Ball and Bocci Ball
• Sunday Worship and Bible studies

Just so much to do!!  I really loved their activity board with classes like harmonica, ukulele, yoga...all sorts of things!!  Class can include:

• Bob Ross Painting
• Paint and Brush
• Scrapbooking
• Quilting and Machine Embroidery
• Needle Crafts
• Card Making
• Lapidary
• Silversmithing
• Genealogy
• Singing
• Wood Shop
• Investment Club
• Photo Club
• Ceramics

The sites for RVs are getting low with a lot of park models, but the sites are double wide - just not as deep.  So, a typical site allows for your RV, pad and car parking.  The only downside is that the streets are quite narrow so parking would concern me a little bit since we have to back in.  While we were there everyone was very friendly and helpful.  We spent some time in the quilt room upstairs where about 100 ladies quilt.  The room was very large and spacious with books and tools to use.  Lots of tables are available to use and the room is generally set up for sewing when you arrive.

Outside, there is an indoor and outdoor pools, which are both very clean...and WARM.  And, a masseuse on site!  Heavenly.  My back is still hurting, so I wish I was there now!

The fitness center is great and they have their own set of amenities:

• Water Exercises
• Water Aerobics
• Arthritic Aqua Classes
• Easy Aerobics
• Yoga
• Tai Chi
• Pilates
• Zumba Gold

This place seems to have it all - except a golf course.  I think we'd like this place a lot.  Now, it just depends on the price.  We also are going to head back one more day to see the last of the resorts we want check out.  So far, our order would be Sun Vista #1, The Palms #2 then Cocopah #3.  If The Palms gives us the buy one / get one (1/2 off) for next winter we'd do that.  If not, we'd probably like Sun Vista.

Yuma, Arizona

Yesterday, I don't know what I did but I really hurt my back after I got out of bed.  I think I just bend funny and it's been tweaked all day.  But, after an hour of heat on my back, it felt a little better and we went the 55 miles over to Yuma.  I had actually planned on going to the Yuma Territorial Prison and other tourist sites but our day took a different turn than we planned.  

The first place we went to was Grandma Jo's Quilt Shop on the east side of Yuma.  There I found a couple of cute patterns for a casserole dish cover, a supply binder and I bought a few fat quarters to make a sit and stitch pin cushion for the chair or edge of the sofa where I can stitch, put my scissors and thread, etc.  

This is how Scott always feels waiting for me at a quilt shop!

The shop was cute but very small.  All the girls here at Desert Trails said it was the only quilt store in Yuma so I had to go check it out.  While they were super friendly and the shop had a nice supply of books and patterns, the fabric was not the best.  Not one single Moda fabric.  They did have a room full of batiks, which was impressive, but nothing that really stood out.  And, I didn't think the fabric was the best they could have put in a quilt shop.  They did have a huge display of southwestern fabrics, appropriate for the locale, but not for regular quilter.  I could see selling it because you were in the desert, but that's all and it's kind of cheesy, in my opinion.

After the shopping, Scott wanted to drive over to an RV resort down the street called The Palms RV Resort.  Apparently, there are over 60+ RV parks in Yuma.  It's the warmest town in Arizona during the winter months and 150,000 people flock to Yuma from Canada and other US states during the winter.  Yesterday, the weather in Yuma was 78 degrees and so nice!  It was 75 in El Centro.

There is security at The Palms and they keep track of every visiting car in the park via walky-talky.  The Palms is an interesting park in that there is a central gathering facility for events - a fitness room, splash pool, lap pool and hot tub, library, mailboxes, crafts areas for pottery, lapidary, quilting, etc., outdoor grill to purchase food from, a ballroom where they have bi-weekly tribute concerts, shuffleboard courts, dog grooming station, etc.

The resort is unique in that you can purchase your pad and build a house, gazebo, or casita on that pad, or just rent a space for the winter.  Right now they are having a special for next winter - your rent 3 months and get 3 months free!  So, it would be about $1700 for the winter, which is great!  The cost of the pad to purchase is $39K, which gives you access to all amenities, etc.  Each space can be leased out in the months you aren't there.  The icky part of the park for me is that it's a desert wasteland other than the central activity center.  There are very few trees and the palms there are not big palms but small skinny kind.  Lots are nothing but gravel with a small concrete pad and each site is back-in only.  Some site (generally on the ends) are larger and wider and most sites are quite deep.

Here's a map of the park.  I like the layout and I like the north section of the park more than any other near the small dog park.

Before we knew it, we had spent nearly 3 hours there, so we decided we better get home since the girls were back in El Centro.  But, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a bite to eat on the way home.  We were home at 5:30 and enjoyed the day despite my back aching.

We've decided that maybe we'll go to Arizona next winter even thought we thought perhaps we'd go to Florida...not sure yet.  But, we will be making a few more trips over to Yuma and see what we can see.  There is a couple here at Desert Trails in the temporary area from Roosevelt, Utah, heading over to Yuma today where they stay for the winter.  They said they used to come to Desert Trails years and years ago but people don't come here as much as they used to.  Hmmm.  Wonder why.  They said Desert Trails was packed every year but over the years not as much.  They said Yuma was hard to get into and now it's easier.  I suppose with over 60 RV parks, it's easier to get into the place you want to be.  Maybe that's why The Palms offers 1/2 off on winter sites.  Regardless, we'll keep searching and see what we can see in Yuma.

Today, we're going to hang out here in El Centro.  I'm heading over to the pool and hot tub for my stiff back.  Scott's off to get a haircut and then we'll see what we decide to do after that.

Joshua Tree National Park via the Salton Sea

Scott has 10 days off work.  On the bucket list of things to do this week we want to go to Yuma, Lake Havasu, Cabrillo Lighthouse at Point Loma in San Diego, Joshua Tree National Park, the Salton Sea and we wanted to go to Westmorland, CA for some yummy Medjool dates.  Today, we originally decided to go to Lake Havasu but realized we would have to do that another day since there wasn't enough time to get there and back before dark.  Instead, we just got home from a fun day exploring Joshua Tree National Park via the Salton Sea AND Westmorland Date Shake store.  We got 3 things done in 1 day!  How's that for smart planning?!

We left about 9:30 a.m. and heading north through Brawley and over to Westmorland to Date Shake.  Date Shake is a store that sells date shakes, all kinds of dates, including Medjool - my favorite - and other exotic items.  So, a date shake is a shake made with vanilla ice cream and then dates are added.  That's where the sweetness comes in.  A small shake is all you really need.  It's quite filling.  Just like eating a date, at first you don't notice the taste until the end and then it hits you.  It was yummy.  The northern area of Imperial Valley and Riverside County has thousands of date palm trees.  It's the "date mecca" of southern California.  Right along "date mecca" is also the Salton Sea, but more about that later...(All the Date Shake photos were found online...I forgot to take any but this is what I saw...)

After our date fix, we continued our journey up past Palm Springs toward Twentynine Palms, California to get to Joshua Tree.  Originally, I had Twentynine Palms as the destination, but Joshua Tree Village came first and there was a park entrance there so we went that route instead.  Along the road, you could see thousands of date palms.  Scott researched about the date palm trees as I drove.  They can grow up to 40 feet tall and the dates are grown in pods.  There are male and female date trees but bees don't pollinate them - the growers have to do this.  As the dates mature, they are grown in pods with sharp needles that can grow up to 5" long.  These have to be removed before the growers can scale the tree to recover the dates.  As you see, regular palm trees have a round ball at the top of the tree before the fronds, but date trees grow fronds without the ball.

Along the road before we got to the park entrance were houses hidden in the tops of the hills of the high desert.  Others are scattered on the plains - so plain and hard to see and others with brighter colors of stucco - perfect high desert construction for the 120 degree heat that accumulated in the summer months.

The name Joshua tree was given by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-1800s.  The trees reminded them of the Biblical story where Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer.  Scott named the single tree without hand "Moses' Staff" which I thought was pretty creative.

There are two desert ecosystems in Joshua Tree National Park.  The western part of the park is in the Mojave Desert and the eastern and southern parts are in the Colorado Desert.  The Mojave Desert is actually higher in elevation and cooler and that is where the Joshua trees live.  The Colorado Desert is much hotter and drier.  Walking around Joshua Tree is almost surreal.  The sky, rocks, dirt and trees are so still and quiet - untouched, really, that you feel like you're walking in a photograph.  One of my favorite parts of the park was the north drive where we visited the Cholla Cactus Garden nature trail.  This was a simple 1/4 mile trail of beautiful cactus.  The cactus today were shades of yellow and gold with stems of varying shades of brown to black.  Simply stunning.   The needles are amazingly long and thin.  I really enjoyed the walk.  Scott stayed in the car the entire time at the park.  He really missed out.

Scott's favorite part of the day was sitting in the car watching the clouds and taking pictures with his iPad of me taking pictures.  He took a bunch of photos of the clouds and I do have to say they were impressive even though I wasn't paying any attention to them.  I was more transfixed on the trees, shrubs, and rock formations.

Unfortunately, there was no hiking allowed in Joshua Tree today due to the ecosystem and the number of people in the park.  I guess that was a factor in Scott not getting out of the car.  I found that interesting because it was so quiet everywhere I went today...while I passed people in cars, I rarely saw many people except at Cholla Cactus Gardens - and even then there weren't many and the walk was quite peaceful.  Christmas is a high attendance time for the park.  Since it's in the desert and the temps get so hot in the summer, there are few visitors during this time of year and December - April are peak times, especially Christmas and early January.  There are a number of drives to take in Joshua Tree and a good number of hiking trails as well.  If I were you, I'd plan a visit between January - April since the weather is great AND the blossoms will be on the cactus then as well.

After we left Joshua Tree National Park, I decided that I wanted to drive on the opposite side of the Salton Sea on the way home via Hwy 111.  I had assumed that the Salton Sea would be something like salt water - which it is - but as Scott told me about his Google search, while it's a State Park for camping, etc. it is also a contaminated water body.  That surprised me.  Why would there be a State Park at a contaminated body of water?!?  Apparently in during 1905 the Salton Sea was created when massive flooding caused the Colorado River to break through an irrigation canal and flowed freely into the Salton Basin for 18 months!  During the mid century, the Salton Sea was a thriving business area but in the 1970, the area was abandoned due to rising sea elevation in the city marina. By the 1980s, with no drainage outlet, zero rainfall and runoff from nearby farms, the sea was polluted with pesticides and was saltier than the Pacific Ocean.  Periodic flooding brought the poisoned water further to shore and the rest is history.

As we drove along Hwy 111, we only saw 3-4 public area access points along the northeast shoreline...the farthest away from agriculture for camping and walking or biking along the beach.  My favorite was Corvina Beach.  There were a lot of RVers there and people sitting on the shore.  There was an article written in 2015 entitled Toxic Dust from a California Dying Lake.  It's kind of scary to read...and sad since the Salton Sea is California's largest lake!

Despite the article, the scenery and photos I took tonight as the sun began to set were beautiful.  Time for bed so I'm ready for tomorrow's new adventure...!