Havasu, Wickenburg, Borrego Springs, and Yuma

Playing catch up again.  After Las Vegas we moved south to Lake Havasu City.

Home of the London Bridge.  Dismantled in London, shipped to Arizona, and rebuilt block by block.

It's great place for city biking and our group of 14 enjoyed over 7 miles of bike paths.

Near Wickenburg we toured the "about to reopen as gold prices are high enough now"

Vulture Gold Mine.

One of the old entrances to various tunnels.  The mine owners hope to be fully  operational within 2 years.

Meanwhile lots of cleanup is going on.  At one time this was a town of over 3,000 folks working at the mine.

Lots of old equipment still around.  This was a cage for lowering men down the mine.  There was lots of "guy stuff" that got "ohs"  and "ahs".  And old saw mill, several cars, drills, etc.

And then still in Wickenburg at the Community Center the WINs held their annual Dance Rally -- open to all singles.  Lessons in the daytime and dancing to live music in the evenings -- for 10 days.

One night was "Dress up Night"  and Wow Silky did it up right with tux and tails.

Here you can see Silky with tails, Bob in the white dinner jacket, Richard in the grey suit.  And certainly to mention the beautiful dresses worn by the ladies.

Another evening wear dance was "Pajama Night".

Joann and Max show off their jammies.

Instead of dancing one night we had the "Talent/No Talent Show".

I was in the kazoo orchestra--second from right.  We played "Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", "Old MacDonalds Farm, and gee I was having so much fun I now forget what else we played.

Then to really make a fool of myself I joined the dance girls.  We had wanted to use tassels but were told that was too "risque".  Oh...

But we still had fun.

All to the tune of "The Stripper".

As a finale 5 of us performed  "Y M C A".   I'm the construction worker on the right with yellow hat.

Whew!   and my performing career is over..for now.  

Then we moved west to Borrego Springs, CA for Thanksgiving.  About 85 WINs gathered on the desert for turkey dinner with all the extras.  This was our view each morning.  

One day we drove out to see the "rock eagle".  It takes some imagination but I've outlined the natural rock formation.  

Moving on to Yuma we toured the Yuma Territorial Prison on the banks of the Colorado River.  Opened in 1875.  Most prisoners were in for robbery, adultery, or murder.  But a few were there for promising to marry a woman, then not going through with the ceremony.  

A model of the prison shows A- the main guard house built over the water storage tank,  B - the sally port, and C - one of the row of cells.

Present day the A guard house, and B the sally port.

One of the cell blocks.  Although at the time this was covered as shown in the model.

The interior of one of those cells-- I'm guessing about 8 x 10 and it housed 6 prisoners.

On to better things.   Christmas Day dinner with the WINs at the Yuma VFW Post.

Later a smaller group at our RV park (I'm not parked with the WINs, but rather in a nearby RV park) as we gathered to sing Christmas carols.  

Followed a few days later by a tour of a large date farm.  Here showing the mother trees that produce these babies each year.  They are cut off at the base and raised in tubs for 2 years when they can be planted for production.  

Since the trees are not producing at this time of year I had to take pictures of pictures.  Here's a tree almost ready to harvest.  We were told a mature tree can produce over 300 pounds of dates.  However, a very labor intensive process.

Harvesting using fork lift type platform where several workers can gather the dates safely--as the trees can be 20 feet tall.

This evening, Dec 31, 2013 our RV park group gathered for soup, bread and desserts before a rousing "Happy New Year"   (at 7 pm)  Well, it was midnight somewhere....

And Happy New Year to all my family and friends.