My Caches Got Published..............

last night, as well as another one by Buzzcut39, a cacher we recently met. He told me that he placed one but wasn't sure when it was going to be published. Fortunately, they came out at the same time so that gave us the opportunity to beat The Guru to Buzzcut's cache. "JJ" started for that one first, received notification that mine had come out so he set course for it as it's a part of my challenges for "JJ". We got FTF on the Buzzcut cache and then drove out to ours. Didn't see any lights so started back and here comes a truck roaring down the road. It was Jeep'en Jumpers, he found our cache and then left his GPSr laying on the ground next to it. We exchanged quick comments and I asked him if he received notification of my other cache yet........he just looked at me, shook his head and figured it was too late for that one since I told him it was 23 miles away. Off we go into the night. Read the logs this morning and discovered that "JJ" had been beaten to my other cache by 4 others. "JJ" has always been a "marked man" because he will drop everything to become the first to find a new cache. Now, there's a lot of other folks giving him a race to be the "first"; but, darn he's still winning. I've placed 14 caches in about 5 days and he's found 9 of them first. We've got a friendly contest going......sorta like a couple of kids trying to see who can pee the highest up the side of a wall! We both enjoy the gamesmanship.

Today we just went out and tried to find a few caches......believe we found six. Pics show the night cache we found last night and today we met some newbies looking for one of ours so gave them a hint and we went on our way, found one down by a canal and another in a rock/cactus garden. Came back to Yuma and spent a lot of time looking around a tree in a parking lot....finally figured out that I had parked over the cache. This turkey attached a small capsule to a rod that holds the parking barrier in place. Actually, a very nice hide. We then found an old fashioned playground, no trees, no grass, no nothing which was kinda neat. Visitors are invited to bring a rock from their home state and place it in the park. Lastly, we visited a monument west of Yuma in California. It marked the site of a training area for Gen. Patton. We finally found the cache, which had been placed by another friend, sandwiched in the wall. I don't know how this guy finds these places but around here he's known as the Master of Camouflage. Also, he usually takes you to places where there's a view or a bit of history.

Got home and had some emails from Jeep'en Jumpers. He has his own personal geocaching coins and asked us if we would like to have one. Dumb question, we broke our necks telling him "YES". He transferred the coin to us and we'll pick it up on Saturday if we don't cross paths before then. I considered it quite an honor, he said we will be only the 7th ones that he has ever transferred complete control of his coins to. Since Becky is into the coin collecting she is very happy with this one.

We're having fun now! Later. Wayne & Becky

Tuesday.................

and we started the day by taking Rhino down to the local Yamaha shop to have the new doors and grab bar installed. Going to use it on Saturday and Sunday we might take it up to Glamis to go hunting for Geocaches. Jeep'en Jumpers also has a Rhino and we're trying to make some plans to up there on Sunday. There are a ton of caches planted in the sand dunes so outta be fun if we can make it. Yesterday I went down to check on a cache that I placed to stump "JJ" since another guy went down there in the night and couldn't find anything. However, three others did find it before "JJ" did so that made the work worthwhile. A few posts ago I think there's a picture of me with my hand in a wall.........eventually placed the cache on top of the little structure inside a metal pipe. Used a magnet to hold it in place. A young school teacher climbed up there the night before and found it. Old farts like me don't stand a chance with this one........I used a ladder to place it but "JJ" scrambled up the side of the wall after I gave them some hints. Yesterday we went out and placed a micro capsule in a tree. It should give people problems, mainly cause I had to stand in the back of the Suzuki to place it. The area was a memorial of sorts to some dude named Ciro Cabrera.....will have to see if I can find some info on him. We found an Arizona style snow man on the way to the cache. Today we went into the desert east of casa to place another challenge cache. The two caches are located about 23 miles apart so when they are published it should cause the Guru some problems in deciding which direction to go. I placed a little capsule inside an old kitchen faucet that I found at the site.......it's under the brush and you can't see it in the picture. This particular bush has long, sharp thorns so I used my walking stick and placed a decoy in the middle of the bush. No way to get to it without impaling oneself. It's in plain sight.......just out of reach. I'll probably get keelhauled for that one when other cachers catch up to me! To use up the last photo I've included a picture of a benchmark that Becky found.

Well, it's now dark, very dark and I'm waiting to see if my caches get published tonight........if so, there'll be nuts going out to hunt them down. Opps..just got an email that informed me the caches are in the system, not published yet, but the reviewer is a bit of a sadist too as he likes to publish them late at night. They still might make it before the evening is over.

That's about it for AZ...........later. W&B

Geocaching Today.....What Else?...........

we had a couple of milestones to reach so went out today to get 'em done. Becky was at 999 finds and we drove out to a new one to make it her 1,000. I finished the day at 999. We get home and another new cache pops up just a little over 2 miles away. We were late spotting it on the computer so got a late start but out the door we flew. Arriving at ground zero we saw this big old white truck sitting there.........the Local Caching Guru, "JJ" and Mrs. "JJ" were there first. He had about 8 miles to drive but he gets instant notification on his Blackberry. It's hard to beat him to any local cache. Another friend, La84fishn, showed up while Becky and "JJ" were digging through all the cache goodies. We had a nice visit and then drifted away into the night. This was my #1000 find and we received a nice Geo Coin for being second.

Saw some new countryside today, we had been in the area before but were just passing through so today we took a little time to explore and tried to grab some easier caches that didn't require a hike up a mountainside. I also bought a six foot ladder just so I could place a cache to try and stump the Guru.....well, I NEEDED the ladder anyway. Cache is in place and waiting to be published. When it comes out I might drive down and hope to catch the Guru hunting for it. Would make my day if he can up with a "no find".

The collage shows part of our day, we saw this little wild burro staring at us from a hillside so had to take a picture of him. More later..........weather very cold here, don't think it made it much past 70 today!! W&B

Saturday................

got a late start for today since we had nothing in mind to accomplish. Finally found a new home for the remainder of our stay in Yuma, first picture in collage be it. We had to find another lot since most of the RV parks didn't have anyplace where we could park the Rhino and trailer. Went looking for a place to put a cache, this one has a big hole in the wall and I'm reaching around inside to find a ledge or someplace to put a decoy.....really like this spot since it's about .17 miles from the office of the local Caching Guru. I tried to get to him today, we went out and placed two caches, they were published after dark about 45 minutes after I posted them (the reviewer is certainly cooperating in my attempts to harass "JJ", the local Guru). Made no difference..........this Turkey went out and found them with a flashlight. The sixth picture shows the area where I placed the cache......it was litterly a "dump" with all kinds of places to stash something. Can't imagine what it looked like in the dark. "JJ" said he had a few choice words for me while looking for that one; but, he wasn't going to leave until he found it. We met a couple of more "crazies" on Turkey Day, Phyllis and Wayne. Becky started a coin on its travels....we found the unactivated coin in one of our FTF caches and she was undecided whether to add it to her collection or turn it loose.......finally opted for the latter. Found a few other caches today and right now I'm at 996 finds. Becky logged my caches, which I can't do, and she is at 999. Maybe we'll go out tomorrow and see if both of us can get over the "hump".

That be it for us...........man it's really getting COLD down here.........temperature in the high 60s and I don't think it made it to 70. Even worse for tomorrow. Send sympathy when you send gas money. Later... W&B

Turkey Day.......................

and we're just kicking back doing absolutely nothing. Weather is cooperating, sunny but cool, my kind of weather. Becky receiving phone calls from old buds with Thanksgiving wishes. Football is on the tube, will head out for dinner about mid-afternoon.

Went caching again last night, I was waiting for something to come on the tube, Becky playing on computer and she yells "a new cache is out!". We mulled over that for about 30 seconds, grabbed our shoes and out the door we go. It was located downtown so didn't figure we'd have much of a chance at getting there first. Surprise, surprise......not a soul was in the area. We scrambled around for about 15minutes and I finally got my handy dandy little mirror out and located the cache. It was a magnetic container, a little larger than a good sized pea and was stuck inside the tubing of a fence gate. We felt lucky to find this one, especially at night. We got home and finally figured out why no one else was there........another cache had been published about the same time a few miles away and the crazies headed for that one first. Apparently about 8 people converged on that one, someone finally found it and then they headed toward the one we had found. At least we got another FTF and, naturally, "JJ" was the one in the other group who made the actual find. That guy is uncanny. I'm still working on one to place near his office but beginning to doubt that I can be devious enough to even slow him down.

Best wishes to all for a Great Thanksgiving. W&B

Monday........Turkey Time Fast Approaching............

and we have no plans for "T Day". Will probably head for our favorite Chinese Restaurant for dinner.........we had Christmas Dinner there a couple of years ago and Becky has never stopped raving about the "dressing".....all in all it was a pretty darn good dinner.

We were just sitting here this morning trying to get the day started and a new geocache popped up on the computer. It was about 25 miles North of us past the Army Proving Grounds. Knew the local caching guru was probably working so out the door we went. We beat him for the First To Find as he drove out during his lunch hour today. We had bagged it several hours earlier. Made our day!!

Almost got stuck in the sand looking for another cache in the area.......didn't have air compressor with us so didn't want to air down the tires to continue looking. May have to go back to the area another day. On the way back to town we stopped to check out the cache we found in the middle of the night, look for some petroglyphs, took a few pictures and we found a "new" one........you'll be the first to see the new one published. Feel fortunate.

Also included some of our late night caching activities on Saturday night. We met these cachers looking near the entrance to the Army Proving Grounds and one of them finally spotted the cache so they claimed FTF. Included are some pics of our day's activities.

Another WARM day today.......probably in the upper 80s.....I don't know 'cause I didn't want to look. It would have made things hotter. We drove into town since it was "Old Folks Day" at the Paradise, collected our $20.00 worth of free play, had lunch and finally left with our lunch paid for and tons of money spilling out of our pockets.

Just got a phone call from another cacher who also likes to harass the local guru......I'm going to place a cache near the guru's office and place a "la84fishn" sticker on it for the FTF when I hide it. Just too bad we can't be around to observe. It ought to be good for some giggles! Later. W&B

Well....We Decided To Go...............

look for the cache. It was about 17 miles up the road and when we arrived I saw a car already parked there..........these people are absolutely CRAZY. We hadn't been there very long, introduced ourselves, and started looking. A few minutes later one of the other cachers said "I got it!" I was rather glad he found it 'cause we coulda been there a looonnng time looking for it. The cache was published at 2241 and he signed the log at 2330 and we signed it a minute later. I mentioned that I wasn't going to log it until tomorrow morning. He thought that was a good idea so there'll probably be a string of crazies racing to be "first" in the morning. We'll probably be called some bad names. Love it! At least another FTF was stolen from the local guru. Got home at midnight. Time for night night.

Saturday Rolled Around.....................

so thought we'd go out and find breakfast. Started for the Cracker Barrel, mid morning and there must have been 25 people waiting around outside waiting for their names to be called. Cracker Barrel has pretty good chow..........but not that good. Guess I'll have to take "B" back during a week day. Just down the road was Penny's Diner, a real greasy spoon that has "OK" gravy so we ambled a little further down the road and ended up at the Golden Correl. Buffet on Saturday so I managed to eat "all I could eat". Wasn't too bad and the price is right. Got ready to leave and checked the GPSr and Palm and off we went to hunt down some geocaches. Checked again for one we couldn't find last year after we talked to the owners and he said he went back and couldn't find it himself so replaced it was a film cannister. He did everything but draw a map so we went back.........I crawled around in the bushes, got impaled by sharp branches (again) and still couldn't find it. Back on my "to hell with it list". Found some more caches that were easy to locate and then we went after an "unknown" cache. Found some little markers that were supposed to lead us to the next point and did alright until we looked for the final location. Made a "call a friend help line call" and we finally determined that the cache had been muggled. Reported it as a no find and submitted a log entry that said the "cache sucked". I think I kinda pissed off the owner; but, he said any one line entries would be deleted so I made some succinct comments! Oh well, you sometimes gotta have a sense of humor.

A new cache just popped up on the computer near the Proving Grounds. About 15 miles away.........we're deciding if we want to look for it or not........it's 2255! ???
Might have a chance to beat the local caching guru since he's going out early in the morning. Decisions, decisions. Here's a collage of our day's adventures.

Later, W&B

Thursday.......Slow Day.............

in Yuma. Ran Rhino into the desert, still sputtering a bit so made a couple of full throttle runs along side the road and it seems to have cleaned out. Absorbed about 12 pounds of dust.......gotta get it out to the sand dunes. Made a commissary run this afternoon and that took care of the day.

My FTF Challenge for the local cacher fell flat on it's face yesterday. I placed 9 caches, they were published about 1500 and the race was on to locate them. "La84fishn" found two and "Jeep'en Jumpers" got the remaining 7 FTFs! This old desert rat found them all in 3 hours and 25 minutes. Heck, it would have taken me longer just to drive to all the locations where I placed them! Some people were beating him to the cache location but were unable to find the cache.........and I thought I had made some pretty obvious placements. I guess they felt that they had to hurry on to the next location.......obviously a bunch of amateurs!!! May have to try it again when some "hard core" cachers arrive for the winter. Many of them don't start arriving until after Thanksgiving.

Later, guess I'll kick back and outline my TV viewing schedule for tonight.

Reasonably Good Day Today..................

so we went out to finish planting our final cache. Now have 9 of them ready to be published, just heard from the reviewer and he said "no problems" so they'll be published Friday afternoon. I've been sending out emails inviting people to join in the hunt to beat "JJ". Would be nice if he didn't get a FTF on any of them; but, that's highly unlikely.

Been itching like crazy today from bee stings with a bunch of welts on my hands, arms, neck, face. They are aggravating but not much more. Should clear up in a few days.

We were sitting here and I was watching the Seahawks/49ers game. A new cache popped up on the computer that was only .88 miles away. It had been out for about 45 minutes so didn't figure we'd have a change for First To Find. We didn't make it, we were second behind Jeep'en Jumpers. While we were there Bronco Busters showed up, they live in California, and another cacher made an appearance who lived closer then we did. Had a nice visit with them and then went our separate ways. Hadn't been home very long and another cache pops up that was about 13 miles north of Yuma. We said the heck with it, got our stuff together and went looking for it. Becky finally found, the hint was "look for a patch of green". That's easy to say but hard to do in the middle of the night with only the glow from a Indiglo Timex for illumination! Becky found it and back home we go again. About 10 minutes after we left another cache showed up that was only 4 blocks East of us. That one waited until this morning. Cachers were busy last night and we did get one FTF.

Posted of few pictures of our latest adventures. This damn rock climbing sucks!

Later, W&B

Veteran's Day And We Still Had......................

had some more caches to place. Drove East from where we are and planted one near an old museum, stuffed it inside an old glove I found. We continued on into the hills, drove the ridges and we found another spot near an old cactus with a view of the lettuce fields. Then we started looking for some caches as we were looking for placement sites. Our search led us to the North side of one of the canals and we drove for miles (I mean miles!) and couldn't find a way to cross back to the civilization side of the canal. We did find a couple of caches, one belongs to a friend, La84fishn,........he's noted for stashing itty bitty micros and camouflaging them to blend in...this one was a rolled up log, with a micro pencil, stuffed inside one of those in-line automotive fues holders. Actually didn't take long to find cause I have a pretty good idea of what to look for on his. I'm going to offer him a big ammo box to hide........he'll have no idea how to disguise it! We kept following the canal and had many views of this peak, so "B" had to take pictures of it even though we never got too close to it. We did manage to place a couple of our caches out there in the hills, I'm not even sure we'll be able to find them again but these old, local, Yuma Desert Vermin will probably have no problems with them since they know the countryside. Back to town, found a cache in the bed of an old wagon, had a late lunch at the casino, which ended up costing us about triple for the lunch.......oh well, easy come easy go, expect it doesn' arrive quite that easy.

It was getting late and we drove into the desert again bout 4 miles north of our abode and that's where our evening adventure started. The last picture shows me picking up a log in the bough of a nearly dead tree. That's when the fun started.....I had disturbed a bee hive and boy were those bees pissed. I yelled for Becky to get out of there, dropped my cache and started to battle the bees, Becky was a little ways away and was OK until one bee found her....and that brought a little squadron of the bees after her. I made it to the car, found some anti-mosquito spray, sprayed that all over my head, arms and shirt, sprayed Becky down and the attack subsided a bit, at least enough for us to get into the car, killed a few more in the car and then headed for the urgency clinc about 5 miles away. The last time I got stung, it was a yellow jacket and my arm swelled up from my shoulder to my wrist so I was a little concerned. Becky said she never had a reaction to bee stings. Got to the clinc, they ran us right in, zapped me and "B" both with benedryl injections and then they gave me an epi injection. They pulled over 100 stingers off my face, neck, arms and hands and maybe 15-20 off Becky. Score, about 120 to 0! They were concerned about me and highly recommended that I go to the hospital. I finally said OK and since we both had injections they wouldn't allow Becky to follow in the car and called an ambulance for me so we both rode the ambulance. The clinc said the hospital would give us a voucher to take a taxi back to pick up our car. (We found out NOT!! and it cost $24.00 for the taxi after we left the hospital) Spent several hours in the hospital while they monitored me, during which time I barffed, developed almost instant diahrrea, finally saw the doctor who ordered another injection and said normally she would keep me longer but since everything had pretty much calmed down she let me go.

Don't feel bad at all today, they gave me a prescription for a bee sting kit, so guess I should fill that. I never developed any breathing problems so guess I don't have the violent bee sting reaction........at least not yet.

Now, gotta go back to the scene of the action, I dropped my cache container and still need to place it, somewhere else, plus I lost my little cheater glasses and my prescription sun glasses. Maybe I'll take a can of gasoline for a little revenge!!!

Well breakfast time and then back to the desert. Later, W&B

Must Be Saturday...................

but who's keeping track of the time?? Hung around the house this morning waiting for an RV repair guy to show up and fix the kitchen faucet. I ripped it apart before we left home, put a new cartridge in it on Wednesday and the damn thing still would not flow properly. Told the guy to bring a new faucet in case we needed it. He spent over an hour on it, took it out, put it back and was scratching his head too. Finally he tore it apart again and hooked up his air compresser and blew it out. Must have finally cleared the blockage because it started flowing again when he got it back together. RV repair guys are kinda spendy, especially when they make house calls........but it was cheaper then installing a new faucet. (Where the hell are you Frank when I need your expertize?) We finally left after noon, mailed a package to Doug/John, went searching for a RV rental lot for January that the repair guy told us about. Nobody home there so we'll have to check later. Went out and found a cache and then started looking for places to hide 9 caches. Drove into the desert, should have taken the Rhino in some of these places, and messed around until it got dark. Did manage to place 3 caches....only 6 more to go. I sent an email to the Cache Reviewer and had an answer when we got home. He said he'd be "very happy" to help me with a little friendly harassment of Jeep'en Jumpers. Sounds good to me!

Here's a collage of part of our day........official photographer absent from photos....guess I'll have to get my camera repaired so her family will know that she's still alive. I placed a cache inside the shotgun shell box in the old car hoping to drive some cachers a little nutso.........the first thing I think of is a "magnetic" cache when I see an old hulk like that so maybe this will fool some of them.

Wound up the day at the Casino since our travels took us that way. It cost us $10.00 for three "free" cokes.

Nice day today.......low 80s!!!! Yipee. W&B

Went Geocaching After Dark..............

last night. Checked the 'puter and discovered a new cache had been published about 20 minutes before I checked. It was 1.28 miles away, out in the desert. I told "B" that we should go get it, maybe get a FTF (First To Find) and beat out the local cacher, Jeep'n Jumpers, who has well over 200 FTFs. We thought it would be great if we could beat him. We did! We saw lights coming into the desert as we were departing and that must have been "JJ" as he said he must have arrived shortly after we did. We went back in the daylight to leave some items in the cache this morning. By then 5 other cachers had made the find. In the daylight the bushes beat the heck out of me and drew blood. Had better luck at night.

Got table, chairs, BBQ set up this afternoon. While I was working on them a truck stopped and some slick talking Chinaman walked up and tried to sell me some BEEF. He was from a wholesale food outlet in San Diego and said they had been making deliveries to local restaurants and had some steaks left over. Would I be interested in purchasing some at an amazing discount? They were Flash Frozen from an outfit in Illinois, Quantum Foods, Inc. I listened to him, tried to get a Senior Discount but he wouldn't budge. Finally I asked "B" if we had room in the freezer for the box of goodies. She said yes so I finally told him "OK". I paid $125.00 for Delmonico Ribeye, Kansas City, Center Cut Ribeye, sirloin strips, tenderloin wrapped in bacon, chopped beef steaks (these were 24 hamburgers). It figured out to be a little over $6.00 a pound. Since I had just set up the grill we tried two of them tonight. If the rest are as good as the first two then I think we escaped with a pretty good deal. At least they didn't start a fire when he set the box on the table!

Got the Rhino unloaded today, started up and then it died on me. Started again and it died again. Great! My WA and OR mechanics think it's the fuel filters. John has gone through several filters with his so looks like I'll be heading for the auto parts store tomorrow. Would like to have it running before the weekend. It's supposed to cool down Sat and Sun so that would be a good time to go exploring in the desert.

That's all folks. Collage is our geocaching in the desert last night and return today. W&B

Yeah, But It's A Dry Heat....................

........someone is trying to tell me. 91.6 is still 91.6 to me! Weather forecast for the weekend looks good though, 80 on Saturday and maybe even 79 on Sunday. I can handle that kind of weather. Sort of a non-productive day today, did a few domestic chores and then I spent most of the day getting nine geocaches ready to place. Got the easy part done....now I have go out into the desert/town/or where ever to place them. One of the local cachers in Yuma is sitting in his office with a Blackberry so he gets instant notification when a new cache is placed and then he's off to be the First To Find. I intend to place the caches in all directions, have them published at the same time and then see how many he can get to first. Should be interesting as the competition to be "First" is heating up with the arrival of more visitors. Haven't taken the Rhino out yet, as a matter of fact, it's still sitting on the trailer; but, we're only a few blocks from the desert so I gotta get it running and start exploring. We're about 1/2 mile from the entrance to the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range and we got our range permits so are ready to go.

Will post this and then got some stuff to do outside........on the shady side of the M/H! Later. W&B

Tuesday........................

We got up early today (early for us) and took a quick trip to Mexico. "B" got her teeth cleaned, some warranty work on a tooth filling, picked up some meds and back across the border. Didn't even stop for a fish taco.......will wonders ever cease. The old injuns enlarged their parking area, about double, and it's nicely paved. They also raised their parking prices from $3.00 to $5.00!! The attendant was very defensive when I mentioned the rate increase. Next time I'll tell her she should demand a wage increase. We might have to go to Mexico one more time before the hordes of "winter visitors" arrive. Right now no lines to cross the border and no crowds...........no crowds in Yuma either for that matter. Wish those damn late visitors would stay home!

After returning from Mexico we stopped at a Yuma Clinic, I'm still trying to see a doctor who might be able to help with my knee problem, gave them all insurance information and they said they would call me; however, they will be closed for the rest of the week. Business must be good for the rehumatologist.

After that we turned on the old GPSr and began hunting for a few caches. Think we found six of them today. Had lunch at the casino, lost $7.00 and Becky won $5.00 and one lunch was "free" so we didn't do to bad there. Sure does get dark quickly. So far we are the only rigs in the lot. We'll probably have company after Thanksgiving.

Here's a couple of pictures of our day's adventure. We had to hunt for information in the Yuma Prison Graveyard to get information to find a cache. The cache had a decoy, a rubber snake attached to a lid.......I should have let Becky find this one. Later. W&B

Made It To Yuma......................

this morning about 1100 and both of us have been scurrying about trying to get things organized and set up. Got my MTV going without any problems but swore at the internet dish for a loooonnng time before I realized that I had interchanged two cable hookups! Up and running shortly after that. Gotta work on the Rhino tomorrow, I bit the bullet in El Centro and purchased another new battery and this time I also bought a trickle charger so that should take care of my battery problems. The sand dunes looked very inviting at Buttercup as we passed through but that'll have to wait until later........after all, we do have 5 months to play in the sand. We're only about 4 blocks from the desert so figure we can sneak over there without putting the Rhino on the trailer..........at least that's what I thought. We are staying near where we were last year but now the main road is lined with straw bales and signs saying "Keep Out". Apparently someone has plans for building in the desert. Every year Yuma gets bigger from housing developments. Can't figure out who the heck is buying; but, apparently things are still selling down here.

Neither of us feel much like cooking so guess we take a little drive over to our Chinese joint for supper. For some reason their buffet is always about $2.00 cheaper on Sundays ??? I don't know why but will take advantage of it and the food is not too shabby.

Guess I'll post this and then get ready for dinner. Later. W&B

In El Centro At The..............

NAF, El Centro, CA. Arrived here yesterday afternoon and thought we’d spend a couple of days here before moving on to Yuma on Sunday. COSTCO here and we’ll check out the Exchange and Commissary while we have the opportunity.

When we left Bakersfield we ran into a lot of hazy smoke that was still lingering here and there, but no evidence of CA fires. Guess we were too far East. We decided to drop down to the Salton Sea area since we haven’t been there before. Found a casino near Salton City and managed to escape there without losing our shirts. Since we were “new suckers” they gave us $10.00 each to gamble with. Gave that back to them and then we left to tour Salton City. Way back when, early 90s I think, Sonny Bono was elected to Congress and revitalization of the Salton Sea area became his pet project. I guess they envisioned a high class resort area being built there. Well, Old Sonny did a head plant with a tree while skiing and with his death the Salton Sea project also died. Lottsa for sale signs scattered about and they have some real nice street signs erected; but, little else. We just drove through and didn’t even take any pictures. The Official Photographer learned that it’s a little difficult to drive the Suzuki and take pictures at the same time.

We’re headed into El Centro to do a little shopping so will update when we arrive and get settled in Yuma. W&B