Another busy day in Yuma! Hike, Ride, and Concert!

This morning brought on another busy day for us. Judy was down doing pool exercises at 9:00 while I just kind of took life easy and read the Toronto Star...(online version of course)

After Judy returned to the RV I was ready for a walk, and we decided to head out into the desert, which starts at the edge of our park. We were out for about an hour...

Judy was just a hoofing it across the desert...

We walked across a section of the desert and came up to a High School. The picture below is what I call an "Arizona Snow Fence"....

They stack hay bales around the base of the chain link fence to keep sand from drifting into the school yard!

After our hike, our neighbours invited us to join them and go down to the Rec. Room for lunch. Every two weeks on Friday some of the Residents put on a lunch. Soup and sandwich and it was great.

After lunch I was sort of looking for an adventure, and found a road to go and explore called the "Butterfield Stage Coach Route". On the GPS the road looked liked it looped around a small mountain range, and then we could catch the freeway back to the RV Resort.

Below give you an idea of some of the mountains. What we found was that the entire road, about 7 or 8 miles, was all dirt road. We decided to be adventurous, especially after visiting Judy's friend Moreen this summer up on Manitoulin Island, where we had learned dirt roads real good!

First thing we found was this hydro line that looked like it was starting to get washed out!

The road runs beside a set of rail tracks and looks like there used to be a bridge here????

Here is Judy just a motoring along with the mountains not far off...

Not too far in, we found that there was all agricultural land back here, and they had a major irrigation ditch to feed water to the fields.

Below in the picture you can see the Mexican workers, working in a lettuce field....

Lots of mountains back here in the middle of nowhere!

Judy snapped this pic of me in action....

This field was harvested, and is now ready for new planting. This was near the end of the road , and we were just about out to the freeway to shoot back into Yuma.

Well of course after we got back near home we had to stop and wash up... the bikes were real dirty. It was nice and warm, and was not too hard a job...So here is you little history lesson for today. Around 1856 John Butterfield put in a bid with about 4 other Companies, to provide Mail service east to west across U.S.A. He was the successful bid of a contract worth about $600,000 per year! (Remember... 1856) He only ran it for a couple years, and it took hours for the stagecoach to make it across. For example, from Yuma to Tucson, Az. is about 280 miles, and it took 72 hours. They would have to go right across the U.S. This was pre-railway, so they thought it would be a good way to do the mail. The Postmaster General lived in Tennessee at the time, and favoured Butterfield's route, as it was a more southerly route than the others, and hence would not run into winter and snow problems. It looks like after a couple of years, Butterfield could no longer keep the Company going, and sold the route to a good friend of his (Wm. Fargo) who owned a Company called "Wells Fargo"!

After dinner, we headed into Yuma on the bikes, and attended a Christmas Concert Judy had found, that was happening at a local Church. It was excellent, with the Yuma Youth Choir, and another group called the "Chamber Singers". They were both excellent. We did get a little "cool" on the way home. The temps can drop here at night!

We got MAIL! Our first letter came today! Jenn, Shawn, and Emmie sent us their Christmas Card! Thanks! Wow... Emmie is getting big!

Well, the end to another busy day... time for bed!