The southwest has very little rain, so when it does rain, it is kind of comical to us. The weather forecasters of L.A. report that the rain moving in is a major storm. The prediction was for a quarter of an inch of rain. We get that much a couple of times a week in Ohio! During their quarter of an inch of rain, they provide shelters and hand out emergency sandbags to the residents. We kept waiting for the forecasters to use the phrase, “Hunker down”.

Speaking of hunkering down, this weekend in N.E. Ohio is exactly why we are doing this.

If you recall, I displayed a picture of a burnt pizza in a previous letter. Well, Google sent me an email congratulating me because it had been viewed 5000 times. It has now gone over 7000!

Monday, Jan. 14

Yuma’s forecast was going to be partly sunny and around 70 for the next two days. We were going to stay at a Harvest Host spot for the night. From The Farm, in the foothills of Yuma, is a restaurant/antique store. We got there at closing time, but they still made us tacos, tostadas and date milkshakes. Carol couldn’t wait until morning so she and Lois could have breakfast burritos and do some shopping.

During the evening, we noticed that the weather forecast had changed. At 9:00 pm it started raining, but it was going to end by 5:00 am. It looked like our Tuesday plans were still on.

Tuesday, Jan. 15

It rained all night! I’m going to mention it again; rain on the roof of the Ham is so relaxing. The hard gravel/sand/dirt parking lot was now mud and it was still raining. Guess who got to take the dogs out this morning? Since we couldn’t walk across the parking lot, we had breakfast in the Ham and started making new plans. It was going to rain most of the day in Yuma, so we decided to make today a travel day.

We are spending the night in the parking lot of a truck stop in Gila Bend, AZ because we couldn’t find an RV park with a vacancy. Tomorrow we will be in a drier, warmer and sunnier place.

Some Yuma information: Between November and March, Yuma grows 90 percent of the nation’s produce. The average annual rainfall for Yuma is only 3.4”, but the fields are irrigated by the Colorado River. The rainfall they got today was between 1.5 and 2” inches. Rain was our adventure today.

Wednesday, Jan. 16

When we arrived at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument this morning, we were greeted by a fellow RVer, who told us to just pick a site and stay as long as we want – at no charge! Organ Pipe is only six miles from the Mexican border, so we came here to help out the border patrol by watching for the masses of illegal Mexican aliens that are flooding into our country. While we wait, we are going to enjoy the warm temperatures, sunshine, hiking, biking and beautiful scenery.

Thursday, Jan. 17

Our first full day of illegal alien watching. Just like at the beach, during our whale watching, we each took a spot and waited. After four hours – nothing. We called it a day.

We were told that you look for small puffs of dust. When you see the dust, there is normally someone moving through the desert. If we do see one, I think you’re supposed to yell, “Thar’s a puff”?

We hope we get a chance to ask an illegal aliens from Mexico if they are “really bad people”, as we’ve been told. Throughout all the southwest, we have come in contact with many Hispanics and they all have been very nice people.

Friday, Jan. 18

We gave up on helping the border patrol – there’s nothing going on here. Build a wall???

Rocks are everywhere, so I did a little landscaping today.

Entertainment in the desert are the sunsets, especially when there is no TV signal or internet. RVers set up their chairs every evening and wait for the show to begin.

We’re rested and ready for a new adventure, so tomorrow we’re going north about one hundred miles.

Saturday, Jan. 19

We were rudely awakened this morning by a phone call. The first thing he asked was where we were at. Since we wake up at different places most every morning, we normally have to look out the window to figure that out.

One of our tenants from back home was calling about a broken furnace, just before a blizzard was about to begin. Now, we had to figure out how to find a HVAC tech to service the furnace. First things first though – to the bedroom. Before I got to the bathroom, Christy started throwing up. Carol is screaming for me to take her outside, but I wasn’t properly dressed, so our departure was delayed, just long enough for Christy to start walking through the mess.

Christy made it outside, the furnace got fixed, the Ham got cleaned up and we figured out where we were at.

As we were preparing to leave this morning, a cactus wren started singing for us right outside the Ham. Carol shot a video that I wish I could share with you. Its song was beautiful. It went something like this, “ Tweet, tweet, tweet – tweet – tweet, tweet -tweet”. It was a memorable event.

We visited Painted Rocks this afternoon – a large pile of rocks and boulders in the middle of the desert.

Many of the rocks had petroglyphs from over one thousand years ago. Carol was very excited to visit the site.

Later in the day, we found a wonderful regional park in Buckeye, AZ. It has an amazing variety of hiking and biking trails. Carol, the dogs and I did one trail before dinner, then Christy and I did a mountain trail right afterward. I can’t wait to get out my bike tomorrow morning.

I hope to hear about your snow stories.