Sunday, March 6, 2011 (Fortuna de Oro RV Park, Yuma, AZ)

As usual, we were up bright and early enjoying our coffee as the sun came up. After our exercises and showers, we were ready to go when Doreen and Gerry arrived just after 9:00 a.m. We went to the restaurant here in the park for breakfast...a very popular spot! After a great breakfast, we headed out for some sightseeing. We have been really spoiled lately with great tour guides!

But before the sightseeing, we stopped at Doreen and Gerry’s place. I had our laptop and GPS so that I could finish the update to her that I had started while at Tombstone Territories RV Park. I had no problem connecting to Doreen’s internet...yay! I left it running...hopefully, it will be all finished by the time we get back.

We drove west into California to the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation area. Formed by windblown beach sands from a prehistoric sea, the dunes are 40 miles long and 5 miles wide and rise to over 300 feet. Wow! Quite incredible as we watched people on their ATV’s riding up the dunes. We might just have to try that sometime...probably next year when we return south.

After that we drove into agriculture land looking for a date farm where we could have Dateshakes. The contrast of the green crops to the dry brown countryside is really quite spectacular. There are fields of lettuce...all different varieties...grown. There are groves of date palms where dates are grown and harvested...very interesting...I didn’t know that was how dates are grown! The first date farm we stopped at was closed on Sundays...sheesh...and we were really looking forward to trying a dateshake! But we carried on and eventually found another one that was open. A very busy spot on a Sunday afternoon—I’m surprised that the other spot had been closed!

We sat outside enjoying very delicious dateshakes...not as good as the shakes at the “other” place, according to Gerry!! But they tasted pretty darned good to us! We continued our drive checking out a new subdivision of lots not far from Doreen and Gerry’s place...very nice!

Back at the O’Neils, Gerry poured drinks while Doreen invited us to stay for dinner...corned beef and cabbage...never had that. And it was delicious! We had a lovely evening sitting around the table after dinner chatting...Doreen and I did a very good job on that bottle of wine!

It must have been after 9:30 when we decided it was time to head home...thanks for the ride home, Gerry! We had had a great day! Tomorrow we are going to cross the border into Mexico...a “must do” while in Yuma.