When we arrived in Yuma, trucks were suddenly everywhere. Several were lined up at an intersection, we were following one or two more, and we thought perhaps our next RV stay was going to be in an industrial park. Happily, not so. But what was up with these trucks?

It wasn’t long before we figured it out: lettuce! Most of the lettuce you’ve been eating this winter comes from Yuma. We’d follow trucks filled with boxes of romaine and iceberg lettuce. We saw fields of broccoli and cauliflower too. The fields are fertile, the weather warm, and there is an ample supply of pickers just over the border in Mexico. Dole and Sunkist are major employers.

During our first days in the town, we visited the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park. It is the main tourist attraction in this town and a very interesting place. It dates back to the days before Arizona was a state.

A few days later, we saw the prison again from the bike trail, which runs for three and a half miles along the Colorado River. On the bike trail, we were able to see the Ocean to Ocean Highway Bridge. It was built in 1915 and was the last link in the “new” interstate highway system. Previously, a ferry shuttled travelers across the river. Now it is only used for local traffic and a massive highway bridge serves for drivers on I-8.

The Colorado River had been dammed up in the early days of the city’s growth. The fertile valley and wetlands that the natives had enjoyed into prehistory was destroyed. I’m glad to see the wetlands brought back with native trees and grasses.

The bike trail wasn’t long, and eventually it went on to a country road. We rode it for some miles and eventually ended up in an iceberg lettuce field.

Across the road, another field was being harvested.

The bus with the porta-potties behind, which carries the pickers, is also a common sight around town.

It’s not just lettuce, though. Our RV park was miles down a country road. Getting to town, we would pass many orange and lemon groves. It seemed like they had mostly been picked earlier in the month. I took a longer-than-usual walk one afternoon and wandered through rows of lemon trees. There was a soft whisper of lemon scent in the air.

Inexplicably, there was one loaded orange tree in this orchard. Is anyone going to come and pick them?

Dates are also grown in Yuma. It’s not the season for harvesting dates so I’m not sure how it is that this palm tree has some hanging down. But I wouldn’t know; we tried unsuccessfully twice to tour Martha’s Gardens Date Farm. If you ever show up there, know that they do not do tours on Monday, even though they are open.

We settled for a date shake in their little cafe while watching a video about the farm. It was delicious!

If we had toured the farm, I was hoping to find out why there are groves of palm trees planted in many areas around Yuma. It’s still a mystery to me.

A crop of something we couldn’t identify was being newly grown in the fields behind our RV, with green shoots just peeking out of the ground. The irrigator made for some great sunset pictures.

Yuma has a huge winter snowbird population. I wanted to see what it was all about, and the produce production was pretty interesting aspect of our stay. I’m not sure that I would want to stay much longer than the two weeks that we were here, though. Many RVers have their special winter spot, but we are still looking for ours!

Next time – moving further west to the big city!