Saturday, April 11, 2015

Tucson to Yuma, AZ

We left Tucson today.  It was a good departure, only one very minor process fail.  We drove Interstate 8 to Yuma.  This is what it looks like out there.  Flat.  There are many blooming yellow trees.


Along the way we saw this.  Its the Solana Solar Farm.  It was built by a Spanish company, Abengoa.  It uses parabolic mirrors to heat tubes filled with heat transfer fluid (oil) that run the length of each curved mirror.  Once the oil is hot it can either go to a steam generator where it boils water to run turbines, or it can be directed to store energy by heating tanks of molten salt.  Click on the link.  They have much better pictures than mine, and it's really cool technology.  Abengoa is currently building an even larger facility in the Mojave desert.


We're over nighting at the Fortuna del Oro Golf and RV Resort.  Coming up to the RV park we completely missed seeing the office building on the left, and the fact that one is supposed to pull off the road on the right, and then walk across the frontage road to register.  We drove into the park and asked some people where the office was.  As it turned out,  it didn't matter because the office was closed.  We were to pick any slot and then tell them in the morning.  They've planted orange trees at the front of almost all the sites.  Our door was blocked by the tree on the first site we backed into.  After some walking about we found a treeless site which was better.
In 2007 we left Seattle and moved to North Carolina.  The plan had been to domicile mid coast and visit the large cities of the east.  Somehow we ended up buying a travel trailer instead.  Friends of ours had talked to people from the Yuma cycling club on their travels; it sounded good, so with no research we came here. We lasted 21 days before fleeing to Tucson.  We hated it here so much it's a wonder we didn't sell the travel trailer and head east.  We don't like it any better this time.
Tomorrow we will be in San Diego.  It should be better there.

5 comments:

  1. Your Yuma story made me laugh. After Seattle and NC, I can imagine it was a bit of a shock. ;-)

    Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow! Hope you have a good trip over the hills...

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  2. Tucson beats Yuma 10 to 1… I have yet to understand the draw of of Yuma on Rv folks. It's too hot there, even in the winter :)

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  3. Yeah, Yuma is for teeth cleaning and pickleball. Nothing else can hold my attention.

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  4. You lived in NC? How did I not know this? Where?! You know I'm from there, so even if you were only there for the blink of an eye, I'm intrigued. :-) Glad you made it out of Tucson anyway!

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