Recovery and rehab for a “blown out” knee sure limits one’s activities, both outdoors and in. Meanwhile, Kay continues her daily routine including pickleball, and Tuesday she got a “cut and color”—a great cut, but then she’s always beautiful!

Mexico is relatively close by, perhaps a couple hours away. However, most folks from around this area (Casa Grande, AZ) enter at Los Algodones, just west of Yuma, Arizona, via southeastern California. Los Algodones is a small Mexican town in Baja California located on the extreme northeastern tip of the Mexicali municipality.  It is the northern most town in Mexico and Latin America. It is informally known as “Molar City” because of the large number of dentists (approximately 600) that cater to Americans and Canadians. Thus, on Wednesday, Kay and I made the almost three hour trip to Los Algodones.

We ate lunch at a great little street restaurant. The shrimp tacos and quesadillas were quite good and inexpensive; our meal, including light (diet) cokes in bottles, cost $13 American. After lunch, we shopped at the pharmacia and bought antibiotics and arthritis meds—vastly cheapen than in the US—which we keep on hand for travel. The border crossing, both ways, was uneventful and we only had a 5-10 minute wait entering back into the US.

From Los Algodones we drove the short distance to Yuma to “bird” a couple of areas. At the West Wetlands Park, our targets were butterflies and hummingbirds. We struck out on the butterflies, but saw several hummingbirds, mostly Costa Hummingbirds, nectaring on Desert Spoon blooms. Click on image for larger, individual view.

A short drive from there took us to East Wetlands Park where we had hoped to see water and shorebirds. Birds were far and few between, though we did see an occasional rodent crawling out of its hole and woodpeckers in trees along the trail.

Having read many westerns, I was intrigued by the Yuma Territorial Prison. It is now a state park, but railroad and highway development has destroyed most of the prison such that only a few buildings remain.

Yuma, like most Arizona cities, has a flourishing park and trail system widely used by residents and tourists alike—makes one a bit envious. Our plans had been to spend the night in Yuma, sightsee part of the next day, and then return home. However, we accomplished all of our goals, and drove back to Casa Grande, arriving about 7 o’clock PM.