TOUR AMERICA, 2019: YUMA, ARIZONA – THE GRAND CANYON STATE

Places We Have Called Home In 2020

Places We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:   Rancho Rialto RV Resort, Yuma

January 17, 2020

Temperature 67 Degrees

Around Our Community

On Our Front Porch

Yuma Territorial Prison State Historical Park – Part Two

It was evening time and we received an email message that let us know that our Amazon package was left on our front porch.  Excuse me, we don’t have a front porch.  We don’t even have a front bumper.  Something was wrong.  I went outside and I looked around and under and no package.  Time to call FedX.  Suffice to say they were about as helpful as the technicians who staff the help desk at Dish – in other words useless.

The saga continues this morning.  Barbara receives a call asking if she was expecting a package from Amazon.  The woman stated that her neighbor who is also a Barbara wasn’t expecting anything so she checked at the office and my Barbara was the only other Barbara in the park.  Got all that.  Hence, the call that final led us to

the wayward package.  The company that shipped it put an incomplete address label on the box.  Inside of putting our site number which is 273 they put 27 on the label.  It’s getting hard these days to find good help.  Thankful, the woman who received it didn’t send it back, but graciously took the time to track us down for which we were ever so grateful.  Yes, grateful indeed for inside was just what we needed.

A fireplace.  Now I can put my feet up and sit by the fire and keep warm on these chilly Arizona nights.  Yes, it also has an electric heater.  A neighbor of ours has one and claims it keeps his 40 footer warm all night.  We shall see tonight.  If not the flames are fun to watch.

Let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood.

First up, a lighthouse on the back of a class A.  Let me think about this, I wonder what would look good on the back of Graybeard?

Here is something a little bit different.

Then there is this.  A 2008 Fleetwood Discovery for sale.  It has a full wall slide on the drivers side, and two slides on the passengers side.  We’ve looked at it before but dismissed it.  But we’re talking about it again.

OK, so much for all that.  Let’s finish our tour of the

So, you’ve been misbehaving, caught and sentenced to prison

That’s what they all say.

Your mug shot was taken and soon enough you find yourself

behind bars in the main cell block.  What was life like?

You were now no longer a name but a number.

Of course among the many a few always stood out, usually for the wrong reasons!

Women did indeed mean problems, largely because in the beginning no one thought they could ever be as bad as men so no provision was made for their incarceration.

 

Yet, as this list shows there were some in the general population who were far from being angels.  However, look close and you will note that many of them never served their full sentences but instead were either pardoned or paroled.

 

This women’s cell was craved out of the granite hill by inmate labor.  It used to continue on off to the right in this picture but that section was lost after the prison was closed.  The railroad came through in 1922 and wiped out the whole west end of the prison.

WARNING, the following may be upsetting to some.  If so just scroll as fast as you can past this section.  Some women like the men, also stood out but for all the wrong reasons.

On the opposite end of things

With time on their hands

 

Yet for others it seemed there was no hope.

Still others spent their time trying to get out whenever and however.

Not everyone succeeded.

Then there were those who were forever sorry that they did succeed.

The attempted escape still talked about today.

Despite strict instructions to never open both gates in the Sally Port the guard on duty fearing for Gates life opened both and let the prisoners out.

I thought we would be able to wrap things up tonight but we’re far from finished.  Tomorrow I’ll pull the rest together and take you from where we ended tonight to what happened to the prison and how it became a park.  Till then.

Time to call it a day on The Road of Retirement.  We had another relaxing day full of odds and ends.  We managed to rescue our wayward package.  We’re enjoying sitting in front of the fireplace tonight.  Our laundry is all done.  Another blog is in the books.  Just another beautiful day in paradise.  Thank you Lord.

Great having you along today.  We always enjoy you riding shotgun and we always look forward to your comments.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before

See you on down the road!