Scouting Around Yuma and More BLM

 

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We haven’t been just playing.  We’ve been really busy.  Part of being busy included scouting around and checking out some of the other areas around Yuma including a few BLM spots.  First of all we took S24 and headed towards Bard.  Bard is on the California side of the Colorado River.  The road runs through fields and fields of crops.  It also winds through more date farms. 

Imperial Date Farm

As I’ve said before, this area grows just about everything. Add all the citrus, fruits and produce around here and it’s like being in the middle of a green salad and then jumping into a fruit salad for dessert.

Cauliflower Fields

We crossed over into Arizona close to Laguna Dam.   This area is a short distance from the well known boondocking spot of Imperial Dam.  We were surprised to see hundreds of RVers dry camping in the area.  It could almost compete with the RVs at Quartzsite.  In the past we had just circled through the front section.  This time we drove towards the back and circled back to Senate Wash Road.  There are many great spots and sections in this area.  It is also another BLM with several dumps, fresh water and trash containers on site. The downside of this is if you need to head to town, you have quite a little drive.

Laguna Dam

Waterfront Sites

Senate Wash

Our next stop was at Mittry Lake.  I had always wanted to check it out.  Besides this area was closer to Yuma than the Imperial Dam area.  It's still a ways out and not my cup of tea but others love it.  The area around the lake is covered with tall brush and vegetation.  I prefer to be able to see what I might be walking into. If a critter is hiding in that stuff, it could really hide.  Being in a boat would probably be fine.    There is a paved boat launch and several boats were in the lake.  

Mittry Lake

Paved Pathway and Fishing on the Lake

We haven’t been able to have many campfires since we arrived in Yuma.  It seems we’ve just had way too much wind.  It’s not that it’s been really bad most of the time.  It hasn't been.  However, the wind  does seem to pick up in the evening and about the time we would light the first log.   We've had some mighty gorgeous days but we still have had some mighty windy days too.  Matter of fact, we never leave our awning out when we take off.  We even hesitate to put it up during the day when we’re around because we know we’ll be taking it down soon.

The other night we were invited to our neighbor’s campfire.  Their campfire was dug into the sand so it was pretty protected and easy to snuff out if we needed to.

Campfire in the sand

We met two other couples from Oregon.  One was from Oregon City …. so they were our neighbors …. kind of.  They also have ATVs and had been riding them in the dunes and around the many gold mines close to where we are at.  This time they were already loaded up and getting ready to pull out.  Their next move was to the other side of Yuma and some new trails. Now we just need to locate some of those gold mines they left behind and find ourselves a little treasure.  That certainly is in our plans.

Ready to go

Terry’s been working on sanding some more walking sticks.  He was just a little too busy to go riding with me.  I love to ride.  I bet you didn't know that.  Freddy decided he wanted to give it a try and off we went.

Freddy

What a view!

There goes Freddy!

Next on the agenda was dinner at Steve and Carol’s.  It was a very delicious spaghetti feed.  Again, we were blessed with great food and great company but the pictures I took were rotten.  It was a little cool outside so we were lucky that their motorhome was large enough to seat all eight of us very comfortably.

This was just a short summary but we’ve been mighty busy people. 

'Tis a busy life on the road.