March 28 - We are heading north now towards Quartzite after five nights at Imperial Dam BLM. It was a nice place...one we could see ourselves spending more time at in future years of skipping winter. We enjoyed another afternoon at a deserted beach on Senator Wash Reservoir, did some more hikes and discovered a cool slot canyon carved in the sandy wash about 4 feet wide and 20 feet high at its zenith.

On Sunday, we went into Yuma to check out its historic downtown district and were surprised to find it virtually empty. But that meant we were able to enjoy lunch at the locally-famous Lutes Casino diner before it filled up...by the time we left there was a line to get in reaching around the block!

Camping culture is huge here - it seems about half of the vehicles on the road are RVs. However, the thing we found most strange about being on the BLM lands was that people were nowhere to be seen. There were hundreds of large RVs, many with elaborate long-term set-ups with covered patios, lights, fire pits with huge stocks of wood, but we rarely saw a person at them. We met no one on our hikes and only two other people at the beaches. What does everyone do all day? Just sit inside their rigs watching TV? We can only guess. It's like an RV ghost town. Perhaps it's late in the season.

On the 26th, we took Coco's sutures out from her spay surgery...the vet assured us it would be quite easy to do ourselves with some tweezers and sharp snips. We just expected some whimpering and wriggling, so Andrew held Coco's legs firmly while I tugged at the stitches. She didn't struggle or cry out at all - just calmly lay there for 10 minutes while I poked and prodded at her belly! What an absolute gem this little girl is! She is now about twice the size of when we got her weight-wise, but her proportions and look has pretty much remained the same. So she still looks very puppy-ish and I hope this trend continues.

Will have to wait to show photos in person...they are too slow to upload on McD's wifi!