Touring the Yuma Territorial Prison State Park

Martha and I spent most of the morning touring the museum and former Yuma Territorial Prison.  Unlike some of the other prisons we've toured, this one had been restored to pretty good shape; though not as complete as when it was an operational prison.

Archival photo of the prison, located near the crossing

across the Colorado River into Yuma

The emplacement of this gatling type gun seemed a bit excessive to me but then again, it was different times.  I bet the sight of it quelled some inclinations to riot by the prisoners?

After the museum displays we wandered about the remaining/restored structures that included the main cell blocks:

Six to a cell, cozy....

main cell block

the walls were constructed using prison

labor.

the infirmary

Female prison cell example

A pretty good museum and display.  It's worth allocating a couple of hours to it if you're in the Yuma, AZ area.

Afterwards, we had lunch at "El Charro" Mexican Restaurant, pretty good food.  Glad we got there as they opened, the place was quite busy during the ensuing lunch hour!

Some chores later, we returned to the campsite to rest away the rest of the afternoon.

Nature favored us with another nice sunset:

Enjoying a cocktail with the sunset on

a warm evening....not too shabby.

Now Boondocking near Imperial Dunes, CA

Yep, back in California, but not the overcrowded bay area at least.

Once again, camping in the Ogilby Road BLM area near Felicity, CA.

It was less than a 100 mile displacement so it didn't take us long.  Took a few tries and recons via CR-V before we found a good spot with good signal though.

Following were shot by Martha with her iPhone: (very minimally post-processed by me)

Quartzsite Activities

Mostly we just relaxed at the campsite the last day or so, enjoying the site's distance from nearest camping rigs.  We did discover we'd missed a car camper closer than the previously mentioned Class A rigs but he proved no bother.

Saturday, I rode Yagi for about a 31 mile round trip to check out how close I could get to a nice rock formation within the Kofa NWR.  I got actually pretty close but decided to turn back due to a lot of reckless OHV traffic and the dust thrown up as they raced about the area.

The spiky rock formation in the background was the goal

Sunday, Martha and I took the Honda CR-V into Quartzsite to have a look around.  We visited the Hi Jolly Monument:

Photo by Martha with more details about Hi Jolly

After the above, we went to peruse the books at the Reader's Oasis, home of the Naked Bookseller.  Yep, the owner tended to the store clad in nothing but a crochet g-string.  He passed away in 2019 however, so we didn't get to meet the guy.

Martha had started experiencing some eye irritation at the Hi Jolly Monument and it go progressively worse at the bookstore.  We returned to camp and I would end up returning to town and hunting about for a drugstore.  Finally found the stuff Martha wanted at the Dollar General of all places!

Martha is now doing much better thankfully.  However, in search of better stuff, we're displacing tomorrow to Yuma (actually the sand dunes area in nearby California).  The plan is to get better eye stuff and check out the Yuma Territorial Prison Museum and perhaps even a short day trip into Algodones, Mexico.

T-Dubing in Windy Conditions and now Boondocking near Quartzsite, AZ

Thursday, November 9

A very windy Thursday in the Lake Mead Recreation Area!

While Martha drove the Honda CR-V into Bullhead City for some "retail therapy", I went riding to explore some of the coves near the Katherine Landing area.

A view of part of the Marina area

Approaching Princess Wash, on Princess Cove

Princess Wash's "beach"

Next, I went over to Cabin Site Cove, pretty similar to Princess Cove, but it was crowded with a bunch of wind surfers and their Sprinter Vans.  Only one guy was in the water though, the rest were either by their cars or resting by their boards.

This is South Telephone Cove, only a couple of windsurfers seen sporadically struggling in the strong winds.

North Telephone Cove was also crowded with wind surfers and I did not even bother with a picture.

Nearing the campground, I lined up Yagi for this shot of the Palm Trees:

Thursday sunset from a small hill near the campground.

Friday, November 11

Happy Veterans Day to my fellow Veterans.

We displaced from the vicinity of Bullhead City, AZ and about three hours later were setting up camp near the La Paz Valley community on BLM land.  The community is neighbor to "famed" Quartzsite, AZ.

It's early in the snow bird season and the Mineral and Gem Stone vendors haven't set up shop yet.  So while there were several RVs already set up in the LTVAs (Long Term Visitor Areas); there was still room for dispersed camping.

We turned onto La Paz Valley Road and found a spot next to the Old Yuma Road which is a dirt road.  Martha called the spot we're in the Cactus Cove as we've got a couple of cactus around us along with bushes to give some seclusion.

Our nearest neighbor campers are a couple of Class A Rigs almost 400 feet away so not too close.

photo by Martha