This and that

January 4 (Thursday)

It was time for more dates, so we headed out toward Bard, CA to Imperial Dates to load up. They ship too so we bought some to send as a gift.

They have a great display of cactus outside their store.

We like this drive as it takes us by the vegetable fields and there is usually lots of activity in the fields. Today they were picking Romaine lettuce right beside the road. Backbreaking work.

We used to complain about the high price of vegetables in the store at home. After watching the work that goes into picking we won't be complaining (quite as much) about the costs.

As soon as the crop is off work begins at clearing the remnants and starting work on preparing for the next crop. With a year-round growing season they don't want the ground idle for long.

January 6 (Saturday)

We thought it was time for a repeat visit to the swap meets. Today we went to the Yuma Swap Meet. This is the more eclectic of the two major ones. Lots of antique shops, Mexican crafts, food ,and quite a bit of 'junk'. It is a great place to just wander around. We never bought anything, except some lunch.

January 7 (Sunday)

Now for a second visit to the Arizona Marketplace. We were here on Christmas Eve and many of the shops were closed. Today though it was much busier. It was also Karaoke Sunday and the place was rockin'. Nope, we didn't sing but there were quite a few that had just enough Karoke Courage to drink that they belted out some pretty good tunes. An entertaining afternoon. (just no pictures)

We did get a very nice sunset Sunday night and I did get pictures of that though......

January 8 (Monday)

We took a drive out to San Luis and Somerton. San Luis is right on the Mexican border. This is a large city on the Mexican side, but just a small town on the US side. Not too much here of interest to us, and you had to be careful you didn't get on one of the streets that led to the border crossing.

The border crossing

The border wall. The brown fence in the background. Just behind the playground. 

The wall.

We headed back up the highway to Somerton hoping to get a nice lunch at one of the many restaurants on Main Street. Turns out this was Monday and most of the shops and restaurants are closed! We did find Elvira's Bakery and the Flamingo Restaurant that were open. The restaurant was just ok, but the bakery was a real find! Donuts the size of your head, corn bread muffins, and various pastries that I have no idea what they are called. We bought a variety to 'test', for scientific purposes only of course.

The bakery has won many awards.

Those donuts are 8 inches across!

Last stop was the Yuma airport to watch some of the Marines finest practicing touch and go landings. I haven't seen many of these airplanes before. Pretty impressive to see the Harriers, the Ospreys and the new F35. Also some other jets I couldn't identify.

F35

F35 'down and dirty'. All the flaps in operation.

Not sure what model this is. This one was blue......

........and this one was brown and green.

Harrier

The sunset was a classic! Very nice!

.....and that a wrap up of what we've been up to and was Our View From Here!