Whatcha doing so long in Yuma?

Gracie and Timmy have been counting sheep

Chuck and Jerry are having a new brick patio put down

Chuck and Scott discuss the finer points of laying bricks

He can cut those bricks into any shape you want, just like that!

Ken and Jerry keep an eye on what's going on

I'm having my own fun with my PT Cruiser, the engine light comes on, so off to the dealership I go

$300 later the power steering sensor is replaced, so off I go

On the way home from the repair shop, the engine light comes on again!!! So back to the dealership I go

Another $350 and the cam shaft  sensor is fixed, they assure me that they have not caused this sensor to fail

And then.......on the way home another engine light comes on, and back I go, this time I have done my research on the Internet, there are some people who believe that wireless telephone towers are turning these sensors on in certain cars?????

I am ready to put an aluminum foil cap on my car to shield it from unwanted cell phone tower emissions, but they say no, a module failed, $286 later I was good to go

Nothing happens on the way home, Chuck takes me to see Pat's (Bill's Mother) new place just down the street from their place

I like Pat's place, there is a place near here for $25,000 and then you pay 2 to 3 thousand a year for park fees, nice park model homes

Chuck and Jerry  invites us all to Sunday breakfast

Chuck takes me out for a desert run

He's gonna go under the freeway, in a wash out, hold on......

You sure we fit, Chuck??????

Are you sure we can make it up that hill Chuck????

That night, Timmy brings me something back from his foraging in the desert, plops it down in the back of the PT Cruiser like it's the answer to all of our problems

It's a rabbit's foot! My luck has got to change now, no more engine sensor lights!  Chuck and Jerry offer to cut the foot off and dye it pink, but I think I'll pass.

The Romance And Sex Life of a Date

There were two things my Father wanted me to do in life, one was to drink coffee to be sociable and the other was to eat dates to be regular, he figured that I would be a happy girl if I did these two things, but, coffee was too bitter for me and dates too sweet.  My father  sent me a box of dates every Christmas, even though I told him I gave them to Chuck every Christmas.

So Chuck, says get in your car and follow me, gonna show you around Yuma, and we go......

He shows us lettuce fields that are harvested every 6 weeks making this the salad capital of the world

Fields of cabbage, broccoli, and just about every vegetable you can think of

Chuck showed us Scott and Ken's new house, they are painting now and hope to be in it the first of December

And their "old" house, I think they are looking to sell it or rent it if anyone is interested

Then Chuck takes us to Martha's Garden, in honor of my Father, who always took me here and tried to talk me into having a date shake, can you imagine?????? Jerry has one, and Chuck has a vanilla shake, none for me, thank you very much, then, Nancy tells me that in Indio, where she winters, there is a famous date garden, (they don't call them farms for some reason) that plays a continuous movie called the "Romance and sex life of a date"

Now, I've spent my whole life avoiding dates, I might have been interested in them if I had known they led such risque lives

So I do some research, not in here actually, I just thought this was a funny sign because it said Superstore, wonder if they sell food in there too like at Wal Mart

Most plants have both the female and male parts on the one plant, but date trees don't, there is a male tree and a female tree, when I asked the woman at the date shake counter, if the date tree had a sex life, she said, "ha! Our female date trees don't need no stinking men trees! They go up the tree and they shake those little men trees, get the pollen off them and then shake it on the girl trees. No sex needed!"

Martha's Garden has 5 female trees to every one male, in Indio they have 49 female trees to every one male, but they aggressively shake the pollen off their male trees, in fact they build ladders up them as they grow, chop down their blossoms and bring them down to shake out their pollen

The female trees are only fertile for a short period of time, the fruit starts growing in March and in the fall they start picking them as they don't ripen all at once, you might see paper covering the fruit in the summer protecting it from the rain as rain ruins the dates

All and all dates are very labor intensive, expensive crop to bring in, and I should really have more respect for the very sexy date tree, there's lots of fiber in those dates too! There Dad, I said it, but I'm still not having a date shake.

We are finally retired in Yuma

Gracie is on her last nerve and is counting to 10, we must stop this motor home before she goes crazy, and we do, we reach Yuma, where my parents came in the winter for many years and now our friends, Chuck and Jerry are

This is Chuck and Jerry's lot, we, of course, are on the left, and they are on the right

This area of Yuma, where they live is called the Foothills, because of these hills, Gracie has all ready had two baths, because she has found something dead to roll in here

This is Jerry and his sister, Darlene, who lives just a few houses down from him

Nancy Hobby comes down from her wintering place in Dessert Edge, and off we go to get in to trouble in Mexico

Since my feet and legs are not doing great we figure if we want to go into Mexico we will have to drive in rather than walk across, so we fuel up, Jerry tells us to, and off we go, we read up on the Internet that we don't need a bunch of papers if we are going no more than 20 kilometers of the border

We drive in behind this white car, the arm goes up and we are in Mexico, nobody is at the gate, not a guard, nobody

We peek into Mexico, very giddy, we are driving in Mexico, I don't know how many times my Dad told me never to drive in Mexico, he must be rolling over in his grave right now!

Everything looks about the same as when you walk in, whole bunch of places to get your teeth fixed, eyes fixed, and pills, liquor and all kinds of stuff

We drive out past the border when we realize, neither one of us know what 20 kilometers is, so we turn back toward the border

It is funny when you think about it, I have been all over Puerto Vallarta, Mazatland, and Mexico City, but I feel that I am pushing the limits by driving a few miles into Mexico at the border

So we come back to Algadones, park the car, take note that we are at the beer bottle, so we can find ourselves and go shopping

First stop is the pharmacy, the Canadians have told us best buy is the zip packs of antibiotics, so we each buy 4 of them, they are only $5 a piece, then, in that jar to the left of him is a salve made of penicillin, nothing will get us, we will be invincible!

After I have bought Cindy some of the finest gold necklaces in Mexico, and have almost bought 3 Mexican men in sombrero's to put in my yard, we rest at the Mexican restaurant

Nancy talks me into eating something, I think not, no Montezuma revenge for me, but she assures me I am being dumb, so I order up 3 taco's, which are very good, and then.....

I finish my Diet Coke and I am peering at a bee, that has been drowned for quite some time, as I have been drinking it down

Good day to you, Mexican Pigeons

I get a 2 foot tall turtle that is carrying a sign that says Welcome, a metal seahorse sculpture, all things I could not live without, so we get in the car and head back to the border crossing

Oops, the line is at least a mile long, this could take a while

In fact, this takes 2 1/2 hours to get to the border, during which vendors are trying to sell all kinds of things to you, which we succumb to just a few, an apron for Chuck, vases and plates for both Chuck and Jerry, and little flying dragons for us

We can figure out what the 50 cents is for but what in the heck do you get for 6 dollars, a bath?

We continue to wait in line, and spend a few minutes here wondering what is behind these doors for $6

We are sort of resting in Algodones, in line at the border

Notice our flying dragons on the dash, good buy for a dollar a piece huh? Finally we are at the U.S. Border and the sun is setting, boy would my Dad be mad if he knew we were here after dark, the crossing is uneventful, and off we go back to sedate Yuma, by comparison.  Tomorrow we will be looking into the sex life of the Date Tree, you won't want to miss that, it's pretty racy