Friday, March 14, 2014 (Yuma, AZ)

We woke up at 5:30 a.m. to get started on our travel day.  Our target to be on the road was 8:00 a.m.  Boy we haven't had to get up to an alarm clock in a long time.....I can tell you I didn't like it too much.  =)

We got our showers and had a quick breakfast and started packing up inside and out.  Boy, we haven't moved the 5er since December 1st, so we felt a little rusty on our pack up procedures.  We hit the road a little after 8:30 a.m. a little behind our target, but still pretty good.  We wanted to arrive in Yuma before noon, it's a 3 hour, 160 mile drive and we should make that just fine.  It was a nice sunny day and no wind yet. 

The desert is starting to bloom which makes it very pretty in it's own unique way.  The Ocotillo are blooming, they are the plants that look like dead skinny sticks with thorns but when they bloom, they bloom at the tips with a bright orange flower.  I tried to get a picture of them as we were driving by, but none of them turned out....rats.  I did manage to get a picture of the mesquite trees which are also blooming now.



In the middle foreground is a bush that has a yellow haze around it which are actually the blossoms.  In the background against the skyline are ocotillo bushes



Mesquite tree with the yellow blossoms.  There are also creosote bushes which are the darker green shorter bushes which are also blooming now but you can't really see the blossoms in this photo - they are pretty small.

Just before we got to Yuma the scenery changed to farm land.  It was amazing how quickly it changed and what a bit of water can do. 

Not sure what this field of green was, but it was sure pretty

This field was just starting to sprout, so again not sure what it was, but the soil here is pretty sandy

A field of cauliflower that was being picked

Growing up in the Willamette Valley, it was a familiar site, to see fields of crops, the only thing different was seeing the palm trees.  =)

We arrived at The Palms RV resort by noon and were escorted to our site.  They are nice big sites and the park is huge.  This is a deeded lot park like our resort in Lake Havasu and we are excited to check it out.  One notable difference, is that there are alot more flowers around and some actual live green grass in the common areas.  Gracie hasn't been on grass for months now and they have two doggy parks here, one for large dogs and one for small dogs and they are nice green grass.

Site 284

After we got set up and had some lunch, we did a little exploring around the resort.  It's very nice and it has a few more amenities than Lake Havasu, like tennis courts, pickleball courts and outdoor shuffleboard courts.  They also have a billiards room and a big craft area where they do ceramics, jewelry, stained glass, etc etc.  They have two salt water pools which are very nice and we spent some time enjoying the water.  So far so good.....we'll see what tomorrow brings.