Yuma and El Mirage, AZ

On December 3 we arrived in Yuma, Arizona.  This fine little City holds the Guinness World Record as the sunniest city on earth, with sunshine 91 percent of daylight hours (a mean of 4,055 hours per year of 4,456 possible).  Yuma has also officially been named the sunniest city in the United States, as well as the driest, least humid and the city with the least frequent days of precipitation.  Yuma's average annual rainfall is around three inches a year, and humidity is generally low except during the summer monsoon season (July & August).  We stayed near the Marine Corps base at the Del Pueblo RV and Tennis Resort.

We certainly got used to the many jet airplanes taking off around us, the noise sometimes deafening.  We found out that Marine Corps Air Station Yuma is the busiest air station in the Marine Corps, supporting 80 percent of the Corps' air-to-ground aviation training because of its access to 2.8 million acres of training ranges and superb flying weather.

We hooked up with two friends from Port Hardy who we had met in Corpus Christi, Texas, and spent a couple of great weeks in the area.  We had a great time with cards, Yoga, Aerobics, touring and games of pool. 

We headed over to Yuma Palms RV resort and attended a Christmas concert put on by Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers.  These three brothers from Texas have been performing for over 50 years and Larry has written songs that have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Streisand, Tom Jones, and Elvis Presley.   We had a great time with their concert and really enjoyed their music.

A few nights later, we headed into Old Yuma and watched the Dorothy Young Memorial Centennial Electric Light Parade. This event’s theme was the 100th Anniversary of the founding of Yuma. There were some great floats, lighted cars and marching bands and the only light available was the light they were decorated in or carried. It was really spectacular.

Another site we visited was the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park.  It was on July 1, 1876, the first seven inmates entered the Territorial Prison at Yuma and were locked into the new cells they had built themselves.  We walked around the remains of the Prison including walking into the actual strap iron cells and the solitary chamber.  All the cells in the Prison were open to all the elements, including the rains of winter and the extreme heat of the summers.  The museum was very interesting with photographs and colorful exhibits of those who once “involuntarily” stayed there and the prison life they had to endure. A total of 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, lived within the walls during the prison’s 33 years of operation.  It was a remarkable place and quite scary in places especially if you could imagine yourself being placed in a 4X10 cell which housed six men for 12 hours a day. 

We visited the Arizona Market place (also known as the flea market) a couple of times.  During the season, it is set up on 40 acres with over 1000 shaded selling spaces and it was great fun enjoying the wonderful weather of Southern Arizona while hunting for bargains and unique items from around the world and there is very little you can imagine that you cant find here.

On a sunny mid week day, we took a day trip out to a remote RV resort in the desert, about half way between Yuma and Casa Grande, right on the edge of the Yuma Proving Grounds.   It was a really nice campground and one we might consider staying at next time around.  

We talked to some campers there and were quite astonished at the sights they were saying they saw at night from the Proving Grounds.    We found out that at 1,300 square miles, the Proving Grounds are one of the world's largest military installations, hosting up to 100 tests simultaneously.  Every year, tens of thousands of artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, over 130,000 test miles are driven, and nearly 4000 air sorties are flown.  The Manager of the RV park was relating a story where they were all out watching a bombing run and could feel the concussion from the explosion miles away at the park.

After a great two weeks, on the 17^th of December we headed north of Phoenix to the City of El Mirage for a month long stay.   We stayed at Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort.  

We also found ourselves very close to Luke Air Force Base.   The base population includes about 7,500 military members and 15,000 family members and the noise from the jets can be more than deafening!


This is the first Christmas Day that we have ever spent away from our family.  The day dawned bright and clear as you can see from this picture.

We spent Christmas Day with our niece Cheryl and her husband Steve who live in the City of Surprise and had a great visit with their son Phillip and his friends Nadine and Malcolm.  Had a great dinner with everyone and really enjoyed ourselves.

We bought new bikes for ourselves as Christmas presents and outfitted Susan’s bike so that our little boys could come with us on rides.

We also discovered a new passion with Skeet, Trap and Sporting Clay shooting.  It was a real hoot and we really enjoyed the experience.  We are looking forward to our visit to Casa Grande in a few weeks as they have their own shooting club there.

We have found some very interesting stores in the area and found some new favorites including Fresh ‘n Easy with their Great Kahuna wine (which is really quite good) from Spain which was $2.77 a bottle with 10% further off if you bought 10 or more bottles.  Trader Joe’s was another store with an outstanding selection of organic vegetables and their own brand of wine at $2.99 a bottle (equally as good).  We also saw a Christmas special at Wal-Mart, 1.75 L Bacardi white Rum on sale at $19.95 a bottle.  We thought this was pretty amazing until we found a “case” of six bottles of Bacardi white Rum at another store offered at $14.95 each.  The prices of liquor here is unbelievable just as the prices of clothing, food and entertainment.

We spent New Year's Eve with Cheryl and Steve, Phillip and Nadine and Kerry's sister Judy and Eric who had come down for a visit as well as friends of Steve and Cheryl.  We had a lot of fun watching the Gonzaga University basketball game.  Enjoyed lots of snacks and great company.

Kerry took a couple of golf lessons at the Desert Springs golf club in Surprise.  He finally worked out those mid range irons!  Drove down to Avondale and looked over the Phoenix International Raceway where we will be attending both the Good Sam Rally as well as the Subway-Fresh Fit 500 NASCAR races in March before coming home.  We also drove by a Major League baseball park, Camelback Ranch where the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Socks are in Spring Training (the Cactus League).  We have tickets for the Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox, also in March.

On the 5^th of January we took a “side trip” vacation to Las Vegas, staying at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino.   On our way to Vegas we passed by the City of Hope, Arizona.  In typical fashion and in the spirit of what most say about living in the Lower Mainland of BC, once you pass Hope, BC you are really 'beyond hope', and it seems the people of Hope, AZ share the same sentiment, however the environment is certainly different!

We enjoyed our time in Las Vegas and attended the TI Sirens show as well as the mechanical bull riding at Gilley’s Bar and Grill.  Made a few dollars at the tables and enjoyed the ambience of the City a lot.

We are leaving El Mirage for Tucson on Friday the 13^th with Judy and Eric for a short tour of the South portions of the State including the Old Tucson movie studios and Tombstone, then off to a Rally in Quartzite and then off to Casa Grade for a couple of months.

New Mexico

On November 28^th we left Fort Worth towards New Mexico, chasing the sun as we travelled through the Texas desert.   

Our first stop was the city of Carlsbad.   Carlsbad is located at an elevation of 3,295 feet (1,004 m).  One of our destinations was the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, located eighteen miles (29 km) southwest of the city but on our first day we drove up to the city of Roswell to explore the Aliens.  We started off at the Tourist Information Bureau where we got some great information and maps and a quick introduction to the tourist nature of the UFO incident, including having photographs taken with the aliens. 

Roswell is most popularly known for having its name attached to what is now called the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident, even though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some 75 miles from Roswell and closer to Corona.  The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object that crashed.  

We visited a variety of places in Roswell but one of the highlights was the UFO Museum and Research Center.  This is where we began to appreciate the alien eyes on the lampposts, space ship logos on local car dealer stickers, the city of Roswell logo and branding campaign including a space ship, and the great number of documentaries on the “Incident” and television programs with the Roswell name.  The museum has quite a number of displays on UFOs, sightings, abductions, history of UFO contact, a gift shop and several movie displays.  We walked out of there saying its hard to believe this happened, but it didn’t happen (did it?), why all the government secrecy over what was found there and why are there so many notarized statement from unassuming citizens who saw “something” the government strongly denies they saw.

The next day we headed off to visit the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  Carlsbad Caverns includes a large cave chamber, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber that is almost 4,000 feet (1,220 m) long, 625 feet (191 m) wide, and 350 feet (110 m) high at the highest point. It is the third largest chamber in North America and the seventh largest in the world.  The road up to the entrance was a real treat.  The road climbed up into the mountains and we saw some amazing scenery and plant life.

We arrived at the Park Headquarters and elected to take the Natural Entrance route, which is a self-guided tour.  

This one-mile route follows the traditional explorer's route, entering the cavern through the large historic natural entrance. The Natural Entrance route descends more than 750 feet into the earth following steep and narrow trails through a tall and spacious trunk passage called the Main Corridor. The route culminates in the underground rest area, near the elevators and the Big Room route starting point. We had quite a time navigating around Iceberg Rock, a single 200,000-ton boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago.  To walk past this boulder you had to stoop and take it really slow.  It was the only time we both felt a little claustrophobic.

Once at the bottom, we went along the basic tour through the Big Room Route, a one-mile, self-guiding, underground stroll around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave, the Big Room.  It took us about an hour and a half to go through this circular route, which passed many large and famous features including Bottomless Pit, Giant Dome, Rock of Ages and Painted Grotto.   It is immense and awe inspiring and we could certainly see why it is rated as a "must see" tour for all visitors to the park.

The next day we drove towards Las Cruces, a small city just north of the Mexican border.  Along the way we passed Holloman Air Force Base and then we stopped at the US Army White Sands Base and Missile Range.   There certainly was a lot of snow white sand around, so we could see why the Base was named as such.

This is a rocket range of almost 3,200 square miles (8,300 km²).  It is the largest military installation in the United States.  When seen from the hills, it is a massive territory for military testing of long and short -range missile guided bombs.    This base has a lot of history to it including on July 16, 1945 with the first test of an atomic bomb.  We visited the museum and the missile park displaying a variety of missiles and rockets tested at White Sands. These include everything from the WAC Corporal and Loon (U.S. version of the V-1) to a Pershing II and Patriot.

We were warned at entering the Base that we could take all the pictures we wanted to of the artifacts, however we will NOT take any pictures of anything to the West of the Main Gate.  With the very high number of Military Police on every corner and most of the roads blocked, we figured there must be a test of some sort going on that day.

We then headed on through the mountains and heavy snow towards the City of Las Cruces.  Coming out of the mountains and heading down into the valley below we saw some amazing and absolutely awesome views. 

After an overnight stay, on December 2, we left New Mexico and headed off towards Benson, Arizona.  After a day  in Benson, we'll head off to Yuma for a few weeks then up to the Phoenix area for three months.