Questival

Such a fun day, great way to get to know a city.

Green Thumb

The librarian at my school was giving away some terra cotta pots. So I took one, thought I'd try my hand at gardening. Here's what I started with.

After a few minutes in the Wal-Mart garden center, and digging through the dirt for a little while, here's what I ended up with. Not too bad for my first garden.

Colorado River

The Colorado River runs right through Yuma. Yesterday a few of us went tubing down the river. The weather was nice and warm, the water was perfect. We didn't see any snakes. My tube had a hole in it, but it was still fun.

I didn't take my camera, but this is what the river looks like.

After the river, we went to Ronnie's Pizza--rumored and advertised as the best pizza in town. I don't know about that--Da Boyz is better. But it was still good.

Miriam, Carly, me, Cody, Kristal

My Apartment

Mom told me she wanted to see what my apartment looked like. So here are a few pictures.

My bedroom. It features the Ninja Turtle bedspread Grandma made me 20 years ago, a tall Wal-Mart lamp, an Ikea nightstand, a Goodwill desk lamp, and picture of Hong Kong skyline. Not pictured is the walk-in closet and bike.

Kitchen. Jena's brother Nate came to St. George a few months ago and unloaded all his old kitchen stuff and was getting rid of it. The fancy black canisters and big salt & pepper shakers are from that. The toaster came from Ben & Jena, the microwave from Mom, and the knives from Ikea. If you look closely you can see a Chinese dragon and Cayman Island salt & pepper shakers on the microwave.

Living room. The couch and coffee table were Craigslist finds. The coffee table opens up into a big game table. I'll post about it someday (seeing as I never have much to post, that'll satisfy my 3 readers for a day sometime). The hat collection represents Newport Beach, Jamaica, China (Qing Dynasty), and Turkey. The Chinese characters say "Thomas."

I "built" this entertainment center. One of my most clever money-saving items.

This is my apartment from the outside. Mine is the bottom one on the left.

A view from underneath the stairs. There's a hook there for a hangy plant. But alas I have no plant to hang.

And here's my door. I should also get a rug. Someday.

President's Day

I love a long weekend. It's the only way I can make it through my job--looking forward to the next break. I had a great time honoring our nations presidents this year, by not going to work.

My friend Melissa's birthday was 2 days before, and she wanted to hike Telegraph to celebrate. Telegraph is "the" hike of Yuma. It's the one everyone does.

A view of Yuma from Telegraph.

Brooke, Melissa, Me

A view of the farms east of Yuma

After that, I went to Julian, CA with some buddies Paul & Tyler. I've known several people who have gone to Julian, and they all had positive things to say. I can't understand why. There was snow, which us Arizona people try to avoid, and it was kind of cold, and it was waaaaaay crowded. All the decent restaurants had lines outside and down the street. We found one with a 45 minute wait. They had buffalo meat, good stuff.

We walked a few blocks in the mud to get to this gold mine. We heard it was cool.

And then we found out it cost 10 bucks. Cough. And no looking was allowed. And an armed sentry was apparently on duty.

There was this candy store, and they had these suckers with bugs in them. Real bugs. Worms and scorpions. Seriously?

Julian is famous for mining and apples. Apparently you can go pick your own apples in the fall. They have all these pie places. Pretty good pie.

This is what town looks like. Small little mining town. I hear there are good hiking trails when it's not cold and wet. They say it's a fun town, I'm still sitting the fence about it.

Border Patrol

I like to explore. A few weeks ago, I went to the west end of town, where there are a whole bunch of farms. I knew the Colorado River would be out there, separating Yuma from Mexico, and I wanted to see what it looked like. This is what it looked like. I was on the levee, looking into the canal, the river, and Mexico. I was surprised. Driving through El Paso a little over a year ago, you can't see the Rio Grande anywhere because of the huge security fences. Driving to San Diego, you can see similar (though not as big) fences not far from the road. Here, there is nothing. Just the river.

After I had a good look, I got in my car and drove back to town. After two minutes of driving, there were sirens behind me. Crap. Was I speeding? No. It turned out to be a Border Patrol officer. He had seen my car near the border, and had seen someone standing on the levee. So, he needed to check my trunk and see my ID to make sure I was legal, and that I wasn't bringing anyone illegal over. He asked if I was a US citizen, and how I became one.

I've stopped at Border Patrol checkpoints many times since I've been in Yuma. This was the first time I had ever been pulled over though. Yuma's kind of a weird place. I can't decide how I feel about it yet. It's not my favorite place, but I can't say that I hate it. This blog is just about my experiences while I'm living in this Border Town.