Yuma Territorial Prison

We stopped on our return to California for two nights in Yuma.  Having a day to explore Yuma proved to be an interesting step back into the history of this region when we took a guided tour of the Yuma Territorial Prison.  The main cell block is pictured above and a cell interior is below.

 In 1876, the Yuma Territory was a remote and unruly place and Arizona was not yet a state.  Arizona would not join the United States until Valentine’s Day on February 14^th 1912.  Only county jailhouses could contain the criminals before 1876.  These were not conducive to long term incarcerations.  So in an attempt to remedy the situation, a territorial prison was proposed.  Inmates from Yuma were conscripted into service to build their own jail.  On a hill made of clay and sand impregnated with crystalline salts called caliche in Spanish (resembling cement when it is formed into walls), these prisoners fashioned prison cells lined with strap steel surrounded by 18-foot high walls.  On July 1, 1876, the men moved into their handiwork.  The prison operated on this site for 33 years.  Over that time period, 3,040 men and 29 women called this place “home” under the strict rule of wardens, known as superintendents, and guards. 

Six men spent the nights in each cell locked with double strap steel doors on straw mattresses ridden with lice, bed bugs and termites.  The strictly enforced rule that they not talk with one another while in their cell was punished with solitary confinement in the “dark cell” – a windowless cell with two solid doors leading into it that was dug into the caliche hill upon which the prison stood.  Here, stripped down to their underclothes, the prisoners were chained in a cage-like box of strap iron to serve out their punishment for infringement of any of the prison rules.  One prisoner spent 104 consecutive days in this version of hell.  It is said they were fed only once a day; the cell had no accommodations for them to relieve themselves and was only cleaned every couple of months.  The only light and fresh air entered through a small hole in the ceiling, which also gave entry to snakes and scorpions.  Above photo is the interior of the "dark cell" and Jim emerges from it below. 

On a brighter note, the prison housed the only library in the surrounding territory.  Locals where allowed to checkout books for 25 cents from this great resource and the money collected was used to further improve the library’s offerings.  Prisoners were taught to read and write in the library if they wished to take advantage of the opportunity.  Another benefit the prison offered was the best hospital in the surrounding area, which served both prisoners and the locals. 

The prisoners were kept busy continually building and maintaining the prison, gardening, making and mending their own clothing, and even working in town doing construction and repairs after the Colorado River floods that occurred each year until the Hoover Dam was built.  The few prisoners that tried to escape were generally tracked, found and returned by local native trackers who were paid the huge sum of $50 to retrieve them.  Those who successfully escaped to Mexico suffered a worse fate – they were found and conscripted into the Mexican army for life.  Their life was so much worse there in the army, than in prison, one wrote to the superintendent and begged him to tell the others left behind not to go south to Mexico!  Above, I enter into the exercise block through a low entry.

In their free time, the prisoners were allowed to create craft works such as belts made of horsehair, white knitted lace, carved onyx jewelry and wooden picture frames, to name just a few.  Photo below is an example of knitted lace. 

After the prison closed, it became home to hobos (the term used in those days for the homeless) trying to find a safe place to survive during the Depression as they attempted to get into California across the Colorado River here.  So many were attempting to cross into California over the only bridge for 1,200 miles, that the Governor of California setup guards on his side only permitting the homeless to come across when they could prove they had savings of $25!  Finally, the prison was emptied of these people and a museum today protects the history found at this site.  Restored and maintained, it has even become the site of movie sets for Hollywood westerns with actors like John Wayne.  A photo of the library when it was in use is shown below. 

There was more to the Yuma Territorial Prison story and you will find this an interesting stop along Interstate-8 should you travel in this direction.  The photo below is the women's cell, where up to five women were housed.

Dateland

Sixty-eight miles east of Yuma on Interstate-8 is a place called Dateland Date Gardens.  We’ve been passing by it for years in wonder as to what it is all about.  Billboards tout their date milkshakes for miles ahead of time.  You can see the date palms from the highway.  Today we stopped. 

It proved to be an informative stop and we tried just a taste of the date milkshake (not my personal favorite, but interesting.)  There were at least eight varieties of dates available for sale with samples to try of each – all grown onsite.  Each variety has a specific taste, texture, moisture content, and sweetness level.  We selected a package of dates called "Halawi" - high in sweetness, moisture and with a caramel-like flavor.  Quite yummy and a great treat!  There others with exotic names like "Zahidi", "Khadrawy", or "Thoory" dates.  "Honey" and "Medjool" sounded more familiar. 

Jesuit Missionaries first introduced dates into Mexico, Arizona, and California in the 18^th Century. Dates originated in Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia.  Better varieties followed in America by the 1920’s, when palms were cultivated in increasing numbers as a commercial undertaking. 

Date palms require desert conditions to thrive with long, hot summers, moderate winters, minimal rainfall and low humidity.  Grown from seed or offshoots, both a male and female tree is needed for fruit production.  Full production is reached only after ten to twelve years. 

Large and sharp thorns must be removed from the tree to safely grow and harvest this labor-intensive fruit.  The size and quality of date production can be improved by thinning the developing fruit.  Just before ripening, the fruit is covered with a cloth bag to catch any ripening fruit that falls before being picked.  The bag also protects against birds and the elements like wind and rain.  Usually, the fruit is picked over four passes selectively by hand.  Once picked, the dates are dried in the sun, and then sorted for size and quality.

Three categories of dates are used:  soft, semi-dry and dry.  Soft dates have a high moisture content, soft flesh and low sugar content – these are highly perishable.  On the other hand, semi-dry varieties are firm, low in moisture and high in sugar content, and will keep for weeks or months at room temperature.  Dry dates are high in sugar, low in moisture and have a hard, dry flesh, which will keep almost indefinitely at room temperature.

The date is popular with health conscious individuals, as an alternative to sweets.  For baking, the date will yield moistness and sweetness.  I am glad we stopped and learned all of these facts at Dateland.  Now the mystery is solved and we know what this rest stop with its beguiling signs is all about.  Stop there when the opportunity presents itself to you!

An additional note – there is a wonderful gift shop here as well.  I controlled myself, but there were easily three or four items I could have gone home with!

Cotton Gin Reinvented

Tonight we are in Goodlett, Texas.  As I write this, it is 99 degrees and windy and the clerk at our RV Park for this evening said, “I am ready for cold!”  I queried whether or not there was a fall and spring and she replied, “No, just hot and just cold.”

We are southeast of Amarillo, which we passed through earlier today.  Now the surrounding terrain consists of planted farm fields (including I believe peanuts from what I saw and then researched on the Web.)  We also passed an occasional feedlot, small towns mostly fading away and an occasional rural business like the RV Park where we’re staying tonight.

The park we are in has thirty spaces in the main park with ten more spaces across the access street in what appears to be the front yard of a home bordering Highway 287.  Those were added a few years back when "business was booming with construction workers doing jobs in the area," according to the clerk.  It sounds now like that business has dried up.

What is remarkable here is the building in the main park.  The building is a revived cotton gin-a metal building with a rusty metal roof that was once used to process cotton.  There is an in ground, small pool and another building that houses four washrooms.  Well kept and landscaped with trees, grass and flowers, the park is a nice stop for the evening.

The cotton gin structure houses the office and a kind of lounge area.  Inside the lounge area there is an array of antiques around what I would call a recreation hall seating area with several fold up style tables and chairs.  Saddles, an old stove and a variety of cotton ginning equipment remain.  It has a country style character that is charming.

The property is for sale.  The elderly lady that redid the property in 2001 has a health issue now and the family wants to sell.  Too remote and too late in life for us to consider!  But this too could be yours for around $330,000!

Tomorrow the expected end of the day is near Fort Worth.  Then we’ll spend the weekend in Livingston, Texas. 

Denver to Lamar, Colorado

Today after breaking up camp (aka getting the RV ready to go on the road) we left the Denver area in windy weather under angry gray skies.  Chased by a straight line of blue sky lower on the western horizon that promised better weather, a front seemed to be following behind the clouds.  We hoped for good driving conditions as we plied our way south on smaller, two-lane roads.  We were rewarded with sunny conditions, but the wind held on throughout today’s drive.

Cattle graze around a windmill.

Early on we passed two cowboys driving a small herd of cattle on horseback.  They were far enough away we could not see them in detail, but you could see their cowboy hats and the cattle responding to their prodding.   So I had to wonder, “Just how do they round up cattle spread over hundreds of acres of ranch land?”  The answer can be found as usual with Wikipedia:

  “Today, cattle drives are primarily used to round up cattle within the boundaries of a ranch and to move them from one pasture to another, a process that generally lasts at most a few days.  While horses are still used in many places, particularly where there is rough or mountainous terrain, the all-terrain vehicle is also used. When cattle are required to move longer distances, they are shipped via truck.”

That explains the cattle trucks we saw yesterday.  Interestingly, if you drive a cow more than 15 miles per day they lose too much weight.  (Now that seems like a good reason to get off my duff and start walking more, but I alas digress!)

 

We passed expansive stretches of flat rangeland (above) with cattle initially followed by fields of corn, sorghum (pictured below) and even sunflowers.  We came down in altitude by two thousand feet and the mountains dropped from sight to the west.  The temperature is rising as we continue south rising to well over 90 degrees by the time we stopped today.  We elected to travel a shorter distance today and let our bodies rest.  While the urge to spread out in our Florida home draws us along, our old muscles and bones protest too loudly over the push.  So we will extend our projected arrival date to the 25^th of September and enjoy a little more of the journey.

We ended the day with a sky that darkened as the storm caught up with us again.  Dark clouds laced with flashes of lightening entertained us during dinner.  As the sun began to set, the clouds appeared to be raining in swaths of golden, orange sheets of rain with a rainbow accenting the drama.  We must be carrying a lucky aura with us down the road as nature continues to remind us with yet another spectacular end to a well-spent day just how lucky we are to see this big, beautiful country.

Rawlins Wyoming to Denver Colorado

Today we started in Rawlins, Wyoming and ended the day east of Denver, Colorado.  There were several different twists to the day.

Snow fences are everywhere in Wyoming along the Interstate Highway.  In most cases they are wooden but in some cases the barrier is made up of trees planted in rows.  Some are the familiar picket fence style while others are high wooden partitions appearing to be newly built.  The latter are built with openings that accommodate the movement of cattle or wildlife and set in long, staggered segments.  These fences hint at what weather the region expects in the near future and we are grateful to be crossing this terrain now rather than later!

Cattle roundups appear to be in progress.  We saw three cattle carriers along a frontage road as we passed by one area.  It begs the question, “How do they find all of the cows across such a large range?”  The cattle seem to be wandering everywhere, mostly in small groups and without fences to constrain them. 

Migrating birds are also evident.  Grouping together, they are flying in small groups contrasted against the sky in black ribbons of flight.  In other places we saw them gathering around small ponds in an otherwise golden grass covered rangeland.

Wind turbines visible several times today during our journey hint at winds that are predominant along the ridges bordering the highway.  At one point today a gust blew the RV halfway into the oncoming lane.  Luckily, we were not close to any oncoming vehicles and Jim was able to get back into our lane rapidly.  Others were not so fortunate.  We saw no less than four accidents today.  Two involved tractor-trailers, one included two cars and a pickup with a horse trailer, and the last was the cleanup of the contents of a truck headed to Wal-Mart that lost all of its cargo on the side of the road from produce to house wears.  This more in one day than we have seen all year on the road.

Yesterday we saw what appeared to be the production of natural gas across the landscape for miles in Wyoming.  Today that gave way to oil production with the bobbing of pumping machines you’d only expect to see in Texas.

Pronghorn antelope were everywhere today.  I made it my goal to capture a better photograph of one.  You would think it would be easy, but it is not even with herds of them from an RV traveling 60 mph.  But here is my best…

Amazing geology exists in Colorado.  There are rocky mesa formations, ridges that have pushed up out of the landscape like the earth has been sliced and soil that looks like it has been dyed a rich red.

Smoke hid the mountains for the better part of the day and the sky was overcast all day.  It is a constant reminder of the wildfires.  We are glad to be on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains just east of the Denver Airport this evening.  We passed its famous white teepee style terminal roof today seeing it from a distance-the first time I have seen it in years, starkly white against the smokey sky.

Ogden Utah to Rawlins Wyoming

We got on the road early again today.  The angle of the sun cutting across the landscape drew out the dramatic rock formations, mountain landscapes and coloring of changing leaves as we started through the canyons east of Ogden that Interstate-84 travels in a serpentine fashion.  The roads were quiet.  The coach pulled easily through the climb as we continued to advance through the Rocky Mountains.  Utah is beautiful.  Utah is impressive.

Well before lunch we were into Wyoming.  The terrain changed dramatically becoming flat and high desert in muted shades of gray, gold and whites of rock, grass and minerals.  We passed signs proclaiming the Continental Divide twice.  And prone horn antelope-lots of them.  Unlike earlier this summer when we saw three or four, today we saw a hundred.  These creatures blend into their surroundings and one must search diligently for them to see them much less photograph them.  Alas, I have no good, close-up shots for you. 

We stopped for lunch in a place called “Little America” which is really a glorified truck stop.  A nice break from driving.  A good hamburger.   Then we power up the RV and continue on through a town called Green River where we see some interesting geological formations.   There is a huge railroad presence here that follows the Interstate highway and we see train after train for the rest of the day.

The day ends at Rawlins.  This is the only RV Park for miles in either direction.  It is also the only “town” which consists of about a dozen businesses, some hotels and a restaurant or two in the middle of an otherwise very remote area.  They have done a good job with the park.  Some decorative wooden moose near their sign are cute and a beautiful sunset finished the day.  Tomorrow it is on to Colorado!

Mountain Home ID to Ogden UT

Today we drove from Mountain Home, Idaho to Ogden, Utah crossing the flat plains of lower Idaho in the reverse direction of our earlier summer travels.  As we climbed the on-ramp early in the day, we saw onions again on the side of the road again and several onion trucks passed us going down the road in the same direction as we were traveling.  Like California, the production and transport of food is impressive to me and makes the reality of what it takes to get that onion onto a grocery shelf a much broader concept.

It was a relatively benign travel day until just before we reached our stop for the night.  A huge plume of black and white smoke with visible flames beneath the smoke could be seen rising just off the Interstate Highway a bit north of Ogden.  We have no idea what caused it or what was being done to fight the fire.  It did not appear on any news we watched.  After a summer of wildfires, it is sobering to see anything like this with everything so dry.

On these travel days it is hard to catch our routine naps.  Some days they get delayed to late in the day.  Snoopy accommodates naps whenever they occur however.  He travels mostly under the couch going down the road.  But overall, he’s been a trooper for this long summer of work.  We are all looking forward now to getting back to Florida and out of the RV for a while.

   

Pendleton OR to Mountain Home ID

Today we left Pendleton shortly after dawn.  It was beautiful with the sun creeping over the hills south of the Casino’s RV Park and making shadow lines in the fields recently harvested.  To the north, there was a haze and we wondered if smoke from wildfires to the west had found its way to this valley?

The road climbed in a serpentine fashion quickly into the hills with the terrain changing from golden fields to fir trees as the elevation increased.  Surprisingly, cows grazed in grassy open areas around some of the trees.  Soon we were at 3,200 feet and the road leveled out and started to run straight south gradually turning back into rolling hills covered in golden grass and sagebrush.

Near Huntington, Idaho, large swaths of burnt landscape claimed the hills.  In some cases the burnt areas covered hills as far to the west as we could see from the RV.  It was sobering to imagine what I-84 must have been like when these hills burned.  Seeing the news reports on television is one thing.  Experiencing the sight of what remains following those wildfires is hard to fathom when you see that all that is left is charred dirt.  This is somewhat of a remote area so no homes or businesses appeared to be affected.  Only 10% of these fires start from lightning.  Humans cause the remaining incidences.  One can only hope the worse of it is over as cooler temperatures are predicted in a couple of days from now.

The Salmon River sparkling in the sunlight greeted us as we crossed into Idaho around noon.  Along the road wild Black-Eyed Susan flowers bloomed in abundance.  We settled into Mountain Home RV Resort around 1:15 pm.  We walked here tonight and admired a rose garden in this park, watched a golden sunset glow beyond the trees and listened to the sounds of a nearby high school football game.  The universe is unwinding for the day just as it should in Mountain Home, Idaho. 

We’ll pause here for one night and then continue on to a new adventure in Utah.  There we will add a new state sticker to our U.S. map for RVing.  Life is good.  Chocolate cupcakes for dessert-join us anyone?   

Traveling East-Everett to Pendleton, Oregon

Some scenes from along the road from Everett, Washington to Pendleton, Oregon:

Have wood carvings will travel…with a smile on their faces as we passed, it seemed as if the driver and his companion were having a good time going down the road with smiles on their faces.  Maybe they realized what an attraction their cargo was?  No doubt we were not the only ones noticing their whimsical and eclectic companions! 

As we traversed Snoqualmie Summit, it seemed as though touches of fall had preceded our arrival with the first hints of red foliage appearing in spots along the ridges running on either side of I-90.  Empty lift chairs await the arrival of snow we purposely want to avoid.  Road construction is underway for miles here next to Keechelus Lake-a reservoir for Seattle’s drinking water that is alarmingly low.

Here we played musical chairs with an RV pulling a boat that was named “I’m Seasick Too” alternating back and forth between who was in first versus who was in second position going through the construction and over the pass.  The boat was taller than the RV on its trailer!

It is apple harvest time in eastern Washington.  Near Yakima we passed trucks hauling boxes of them.  Along the roadside we saw boxes ready for transport.  Grapevines are nearing their harvest as well with lush green vines in long rows growing in fields we passed.  Here where the largest production of hops (used for making beer) are grown, we saw the hops growing up inverted “V” shaped supports and then empty frames where they have already been harvested.

We crossed the Columbia River and ended our day in Pendleton, Oregon.  We arrived one week before the rodeo and will leave in the morning long before the Pendleton Wool Blanket factory opens for tours.  Alas, our timing is poor, but maybe next year…

From along the road at Wild Horse Casino RV Park,

Chris, Jim and Snoopy

Crow Valley Pottery

In the San Juan Islands, Washington on Orcas Island there is a fascinating place that sells locally crafted creations.  At Crow Valley Pottery, you can find every thing from hand made soaps and lotions to pottery and yard art, paintings or even hand bound journals.  The list of items from seventy artists on display could go on and on.  The store, which has been in business since 1959, displays a collection of everything you can imagine-all created by local artisans.  It is impossible to visit without finding at least one must-have!

There are two locations.  One is in Eastsound-the main village on the island.  The other is on Orcas Road as you drive from the ferry to Eastsound.  The latter is housed in an historic 1866 cabin carefully maintained to preserve its rural character surrounded by a garden filled with whimsical yard art and amazing brass bells.  I can only dream of having the imagination of even one of these artists!

 

The web page shows more photos and gives a history of this wonderful island business I won’t repeat because it is so well done.  Click here.  I’ve included a few of my photos, but check out their site for lots more!

I love this place and for me it is a must stop every time I travel to Orcas Island.  If you go there, you can still meet the owners.  Crow Valley Pottery today continues under the second generation of family ownership-nephew Jeffri Coleman with his partner Michael Rivkin.  Their attention to detail and their friendly engagement makes any visit a pleasure.  My hat is off to two gentlemen who have gotten it right!