Day 7 Arizona West RV Park Yuma, Arizona

We began the day at the Yuma Farmers Market. There were a lot of cool things there, but mostly arts and crafts. We had been hoping for all of the local fresh veggies that are being harvested, but there was very little there to chose from.

The farming operations are huge commercial companies. There are 175,000 acres of cropland in Yuma. There are about 24 cooling facilities located here where the produce is held until it is taken out by truck. More than 1.000 tractor trailers move vegetables everyday. The harvesting is 7 days a week and sometimes 24 hours a day. 30,000 to 40,000 workers are in the fields on a daily basis. All of the fields are laser leveled flat. This is to ensure that water and chemicals applied to the crops stay on the fields. There is NO runoff. There are more than 75 winter crops growing here. If you eat salad in the winter, chances are that the lettuce was grown here. 11 salad processing plants in Yuma each process 2 million pounds of lettuce per day!

We took our bikes from the West Wetlands Park and biked into historic Yuma to see the Medjool Date Festival

We wandered through the booths, absorbing the gorgeous sunshine and the cool atmosphere. There are 20,000 RV sites in Yuma. In the wintertime, the town doubles its population because of snowbirds. There were lots of older people at this festival. Whoever arranged the entertainment was a genius though! The first groups were dance students. We all stood watching these little girls dance in their adorable tutus…a bunch of aging grandmas and poppops smiling and cheering! The second act was a mariachi band of young men. The star was maybe 9 years old and he was singing and playing the accordion quite well!!

The local sheriff complete with cowboy hat!

We had some lunch and decided to ride our bikes back. Then we drove to El Centro, California. The ride took us through more farm country. There also seems to be an infinite number of RV parks.

Imperial Dunes Recreation Area is BLM land. This is a 40 mile x 5 mile swath of sand dunes formed by windblown sands of ancient Lake Cahuilla. There were lots of ATV’s, OHV’s, dune-buggies, and dirt bikes enjoying the dunes.

The border wall was in sight to the south for the last portion of our drive.

We passed through a very scraggly and dry area of desert and then more canals and farmlands before the town of El Centro. This town is 50 feet below sea level. This is marked on a water tower as you drive into town. Consequently, the town is very dry and extremely hot in the summer, temperatures reach 120 degrees.

There were no festivals and the downtown area appeared to be fairly depressed.

We spent a quiet afternoon back “home.” Later in the evening I used some of our Medjool dates to make energy trail treats. These are great to take along for a hike or a bike ride.

Recipe for Energy Trail Treats

• 1/2 jar of Earth Balance peanut butter/coconut blend
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups rough rolled oats
• 1 pound of Medjool dates finely chopped
• 1 cup of walnuts finely chopped

Mix ingredients by hand and form into 34-36 balls.