So here are the pictures I took on the road trip to Yuma.  I didn’t take too many, and most of them are of the prison museum at Yuma.

Three days, 900 miles, snow on the Grapevine (the highway, not the plant), huge, towering dust storms starting in Palm Springs and continuing to Yuma, wrong turns in Indio and El Centro, seeing the border fence from I-8 west of Yuma, seeing Border Patrol units all over the place…

sand looking like fog in the air,  sand storm throwing dust onto the road and having it snake across the lanes like some horror movie demon, gritty air, plastic bags nailed to a chain link fence at the WalMart in Indio.  The Taurus got 31 miles to a gallon on the highway, not too shabby for a big car!  Dinner at the 50’s style Penny’s Diner, had a burger, fries, and a Coke. Even had 50’s music on the juke box.  And the food was good, too!

Lunch the next day at Logan’s BBQ, good stuff, waitress was an airhead.  Food was great!  I had a steak salad, first time for something like that for me.  Visits to the prison museum, the Yuma Crossing military post, and Avatar in 3D.  Good movie, see it in 3D if you can, it’s going to set the standards for 3D.  Dinner at a Hawaiian BBQ place ran by some Chinese folks at the Palms Mall in Yuma, good stuff there, too.  A little Geo-caching, found one, but not the other.  Ended the night with some quiet time in the hotel chatting with Beau before he left to head back to the grandparent’s house in San Luis, at the border.  Home Thursday, nice drive along the Salton Sea east shore.  I’ll have to explore that area more someday.  Almosts – thought about going into Mexico, had the passport, didn’t go.  Almost ran over an igloo chest in the middle of I-210, just missed it.  Later just missed a trashbag full of clothing spread out all over several lanes of I-5 near Magic Mountain.  Saw a hard hat on the side of the road.  Remains of a single-wide mobile home in the center divider near Salton Sea, the wind blew it over into the median.  Crews trying to pick up pieces in wind gusts of 50 mph!

All in all, a decent three day road trip!

Beau at Logan’s for lunch.

Beau gets booked for unspecified crimes.

The Guard Tower at Yuma Prison. This is where they’d shoot you from if you tried to escape.  There’s also a water tank underneath.

If they shot you, this is where you’d end up.  Or if another prisoner got you. Or heat.  Or any of a number of infectious diseases.

Remains of the prison cells.  There was a building around this part of the structure, and a hospital built above it later.  Not much remains, they hope to restore it someday.

Trouble makers ended up here.  It’s everything the name implies, and more.  The actual cell is a small steel cage.  Only the floor section remains, but it’s not big enough for one, and they sometimes had several locked in, sometimes for weeks.

That hitchhiker assured me he was a citizen!  …and over 18.  But it’s the desert, they’ll never find him!  BWWAAHAHAHAHA!

If they do, though, this might be my fate!  (just kidding. really.)

Inside looking out.

At the hotel.  Bye bye!