What) The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 km) long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows from the Continental Divide at La Poudre Pass in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, into the Gulf of California between the Baja California peninsula and mainland Mexico. Large irrigation diversions for California's Imperial Valley through the All-American Canal, and to a much lesser extent irrigation diversions for Arizona, have dewatered the lower course of the river below Yuma, Arizona, resulting in it no longer consistently reaching the Gulf of California. (1)

    Why) Although we have crossed the Colorado and seen it from the North rim of the Grand Canyon, I thought Pam should probably see what the poor Colorado looked like after it had been sucked nearly dry.  Can you believe that such a depressing sounding Buckys turned in to one of the most beautiful places that we stayed on our trip?

























Yuma was neither a lucky exit nor paradise for the Colorado River.

















Pam could not bring herself to stop the car so I took these pictures of the Colorado through the window while crossing the bridge.














Our favourite stop on the entire trip.  The Shilo Inn had the largest pool in Yuma (2), mature lemon trees and was fairly empty in April ! (3)






In keeping with the Yuma theme, this little plant produces one of the most amazing flowers you will ever see.





We saw a few of these growing wild along the highway but they were only a third this height.





I picked up this brochure at some point but (unfortuantely for Pam) I did not look at it until it was too late to go to ...





... the Camel Farm.  We actually arrived in San Diego a day early so we would have gone here for sure. (Page 34)





Although we didn't know they were there, it was hard to miss these dunes when we drove by them. (page 46)