Yuma on Friday

 I had two places on the agenda for Friday. In 2006 our Watertown neighbors were in Yuma for a couple of months. We visited Pete and Donna and they took us to the Yuma Proving Grounds to watch the Golden Knights. They also took us to the Imperial Date Farm for our first taste of date milkshakes. I can't say I was overly impressed with the date shake, but I certainly enjoyed watching and talking with the Golden Knights. (We stopped at the Imperial Date Farm on Thursday, but the business was closed so we could not do a comparison taste test of date shakes.) Hubby agreed to the visit at the Proving Grounds because it was a set of geocaches.

All the equipment on display at the two stops was tested at US Army Yuma Proving Ground between WWII and the present.

Sherry and Hubby on a geo mission

caught in the act!

Camp Laguna

Camp Laguna operated from April 1942 to April 1944. It was one of twelve such camps built in the southwestern deserts to train United States troops during World War II.

The Desert Training Center, a simulated theater of operations, included portions of Arizona, California and Nevada. The other camps were Young, Coxcomb, Iron Mountain, Ibis, Clipper, Pilot Knob, Bouse, Granite, Horn, Hyder, and Rice. Over one million soldiers from approximately 400 units were trained at the center. These units included 13 infantry divisions, 7 armored divisions and numerous non-divisional units.

Camp Laguna was the training site for the 3rd and 9th Armored Divisions, 79th Infantry Divisions, Italian service units and special bridge test section.

Some of the military training trails in the desert hills west of the official camp.

Once we completed the geocaching around Yuma proving Ground, we headed south and east to Dome Valley, farming country. This was the second place on my agenda and thanks to another geocaching Adventure Lab (and a string of park and grab caches) we can take it off the list for now. We passed fields of vegetables and hay/grasses for dairy farms. The road led to our lunch stop that day.

Ligurta Station

Ligurta was established as a railroad station on the Sunset Route around 1880. It has a restaurant and RV park and is a gathering place for the locals. 

The special on Friday was fish and chips. 

local character and interesting charm

written in rope on the back wall

Then it was time to head to Yuma Foothills on the eastern edge to search for interesting signs for more geocaching. A short walk in the desert sand took us to The Sign. The sign displays mileage to the hometowns of the people who visit it. 

look at the town sign near the top

5 stops in the Foothills area

and time for a few more special geocache finds

Friday night's SWAG event is the Flash Mob. This year's theme was the Can-Can. We were to bring a can of food to be donated to the Yuma food bank. There was a great crowd and we had an opportunity to visit with many geocaching friends before walking around the fountain and disrupting the flow of traffic around the traffic circle in old town Yuma.

While Hubby got inline for a table at Da Boyz for dinner, Sherry and I grabbed a couple more geocaches.

Robert G Fowler

Yuma City Project beautified the walls surrounding the dumpsters in the public parking lots in downtown Yuma. These two walls were my favorites discovered while geocaching.

A delicious Italian dinner ended another successful day of geocaching in and around Yuma.