Yuma Territorial Prison State Park – 3:10 to Yuma

Yuma, Arizona.

Notice: This post is being written during the COVID-19 pandemic and at this time, the park is closed to visitors. Please stay safe and follow your state or country’s guidelines for travel in your region. More information on the park’s current status can be found here.

Looks like they finally caught up with me. They put me on that train featured in the movie “3:10 to Yuma” and I must serve my time in the Yuma Territorial Prison. My “sentence” would only last a few hours visiting the once-notorious prison that is now a state park. That “mug shot” of me features a mirror that allowed prison officials to take a front and side view mug shot on a single exposure. The mirror is set up for guests to don a quick-change striped jacket, grab one of the prison numbers, and get someone to snap your photo. The Yuma prison is one of the first to use a mirror in creating prison record photographs.

Cellpic Sunday – 31 May 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

It was Spring 2020 in the White Tank Mountains. Even on our hikes, we were social distancing, single file, group photos taken in the line we’d formed as we hiked down the trail instead of gathering around a single person to grab a “group selfie.” The cactus flowers were plentiful, the day warm and sunny and I had plenty of opportunity to capture those rarely seen flowering cactus. One family of cacti, the Cholla has several varieties. The two that I’ve found most hard to distinguish are the Staghorn and the Buckhorn. For this post, I ended up looking for a definitive source to describe the difference here. The short synopsis of the difference is that they “are sometimes hard to distinguish.” They have similar blossoms, but the most obvious distinction is in the fruit. Well there you go. I’ve never seen a fruit on either variety.

Cellpic Sunday – 24 May 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

In March of this year, the desert was awash with spring flowers near our home in Buckeye. There was no shortage of opportunity to capture the bright yellow brittlebush plants that are plentiful in the Sonoran Desert. On one of our Saturday hikes, I was still learning about the new Samsung S20U phone that replaced my personal S6 and the “work” phone that was provided to me from Civil Air Patrol (CAP). That phone, a Samsung S7, captured many images that I shared here because of my 4-year tenure as North Dakota Wing Commander in CAP. As of April 4, I would rotate out of that job and the S7 would be retired as I no longer need a CAP-provided cell phone.

Weekly Photo Challenge – Pastimes

Scottsdale, Arizona.

This week, the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is being hosted by Sue (Mac’s Girl) from her blogging site, The Nature of Things. She writes, “With so much time being spent at home, many of us have been looking for new pastimes or taking up old ones in order stay occupied or even sane…. It could be something that you are trying for the first time or a hobby or interest that you have enjoyed for many years. Feel free to dig into the archives or take a picture to illustrate a current pastime.” You can read her entire challenge post here. I could have focused on some of the pastimes that have occupied my time over the years, but instead have decided to focus on a hobby that has always interested me, but I’ve never taken the time or had the space to get started.

Colorado River State Historic Park – Former Military Depot Turned Museum

Yuma, Arizona.

Notice: This post is being written during the COVID-19 pandemic and at this time, the park is closed to visitors. Please stay safe and follow your state or country’s guidelines for travel in your region. More information on the park’s current status can be found here.

Where the Colorado River crosses from Arizona into California, Yuma became a crossing point into the Golden State, never more true than during the gold rush days starting in 1849. One year later, a military post was established at Yuma and by 1858, Yuma experienced a boom as gold strikes on the Colorado River started another gold rush. In 1864, the U.S. Army established a Quartermasters Depot on the site that is now the grounds of the State Park. Materials and goods were delivered from ocean-going vessels to the mouth of the Colorado River where they were carried by steamboat to the depot. From there, supplies were transported to serve fourteen military posts in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Southern Utah, and West Texas.

McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park – Little Trains Equal Big Fun

Scottsdale, Arizona.

Notice: This post is being written during the COVID-19 pandemic and at this time, the park is closed to visitors. Please stay safe and follow your state or country’s guidelines for travel in your region. More information on the park’s current status can be found here.

In early January, Lynn and I visited McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, Arizona. During the Christmas holidays, the park is all decked out with lights and features evening train rides through the park. On any given weekend, the park is quite busy (in normal times, anyway,) and there are lots of activities for kids and adults alike. Though the engine and train cars in the opening photo are full size, the fun happens on little trains.

Cellpic Sunday – 3 May 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

As this is being written on Thursday, April 9, for publication in early May, Lynn and I are just starting our preparations for traveling from Buckeye back to our home in Fargo, North Dakota. Even though I thought last Saturday’s hike would be our last, the warm, sunny day this morning beckoned us to the hiking trail. We chose to hike part of the Quartz Mine Trail in Buckeye’s newest mountain preserve, Skyline Park. Right now all of the park facilities are closed due to the potential for COVID-19 exposure, however, the walking trails in Skyline, and throughout the city for that matter, have been kept open so that people have some place to get some exercise and fresh air.

Cellpic Sunday – 26 April 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

Spring in the Arizona deserts is unique, and when it’s been a “wet” winter, spring is just as colorful as in other parts of the country. The small hedgehog cactus is probably one of the least attractive of those desert succulents that grow in Mexico and the Southern United States. Indeed, some varieties of hedgehogs can be found as far north as South Dakota.

Dronie Sunday – 19 April 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

On an early March day, we hit the trail with my Mavic Air drone in the backpack. Our goal, in case you missed it from my last Dronie Sunday, was to hike into the Verrado Trails area toward the Petroglyphs and capture some aerial views of the White Tank Mountains. There aren’t a lot of flat spaces in the desert that are accessible from a given trail, so we hiked along the Petroglyph Trail about a mile before we found a suitable space for launching the Air.

Cellpic Sunday – 5 April 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

It’s spring in the Arizona desert. At The Founders Course in the Verrado development of Buckeye, golfers are busy throughout the three cooler months. Those who are avid golfers find themselves in the heat of summer out on the course in the early morning when the lows are in the mid- to high-80s. Part of the course is adjacent to the Verrado Trail System. As we walked by on a recent hike, the brittlebush plants were in full bloom with their beautiful daisy-like flowers. On the tee, a foursome was just getting ready to take their shots as I took mine with my cellphone.