Nogales, Arizona to Yuma, Arizona

 Yesterday was a shorter day and we started off with a lovely breakfast at the Hotel Americana in Nogales. 

Just a small Mexican family having breakfast and they had two cute little girls.  The little one looked like she was a handful!

Eric has already eaten scrambled eggs and now a pancake. 

Lots to choose from. 

There is a lovely swimming pool outside. 

On highway 19 heading north towards Tucson.  Eric says the poor asphalt roads in the USA are better than the best ones in Mexico.

It's pretty country here. 

And now for a USA border check.  Again....waved through. 

It's getting greener. 

Here we're on the old Ajo highway or highway 86 heading west.  It's about an hour slower but we had lot's of time so we decided to take the quiet route. 

The highway is pretty good for....most of the way!

The Palo Verde are leafing out. 

Lots of pretty wildflowers along the edge. 

Most of the Indian land relies on water towers to store water from deep wells. As we drive we wonder why they are living out on this barren land.  We also wonder if they were relocated here from some other area that the government wanted.  

And as we rise the Saguaro cacti start to appear.  

They were in big patches as we drove along. 

Here the pavement is " not so bueno!"

We're just about into Why and this is the Hickiwan Casino and the Hickiwan Trails RV park where we used to stay.  We really like this area. 

Here we turn north to Ajo.  

Lots of open pit copper mining here in the past. 

Just massive tailings. 

Kind of pretty. 

Coming into Ajo.  We stayed here many times as well. 

Another pretty little town that seems to be doing okay even without the mine. 

A main street house. 

Bougainvillea will survive anywhere...even without much water. 

We only stayed at Shadow Ridge once.  We stopped here for fuel and paid just over $4 US for diesel. 

Another one of my "favorite little grocery stores"  Olsen's IGA in Ajo.  Here I can get all sorts of chili powders from all over the USA.  I picked up some sandwich fixings for the next part of the journey as well.  We then stopped up the road away's and had a roadside lunch.  

There was a huge amount of traffic heading south.  We guessed that because they were coming in bunches there must be road construction up ahead...we were right.  However there was still a lot of traffic and likely because it was Friday and they may have been heading to Puerto Penasco for the weekend. 

We got onto I 8 at Gila Bend and now we're heading west to Yuma. 

A very short grain crop. 

Large cattle barns in the distance but I couldn't see any cows.  Maybe they were all napping. 

Hmmm....looks like over fertilizing to me.

We go up before we go down into Yuma.  We arrived around 3:30 and I attempted to check in at the Ramada.  I'd reserved and requested a room on the bottom at the back but there wasn't one available.  Well, there was one but it wasn't clean.  In the end we took a room on the top at the back on the end but there is a trek to the stairs and a pain to lug everything upstairs.  The next problem was that there was no wifi internet in our room.  I was not amused.  I talked to the desk but the rather disinterested desk clerk didn't know anything about no internet out the back.  I do have cell service but...it is not easy to do the blog on a cell phone so....here I am in the lobby doing the blog.  

For dinner last night we went to the Curries restaurant which is right in the front of the hotel and it was great for Eric and not so great for me.  Eric had a classic shrimp curry and the very nice young waiter suggested the lamb curry to me.  Unfortunately the "lamb" or mutton was strong and I didn't eat it.  However the sauce was very good and I used it with the rice and naan. We raised sheep for many years so I do know the difference between lamb and mutton.  However we also ate lots of our own mutton and it wasn't strong.  Perhaps this was New Zealand lamb which is noted as being strong.  A big mug of Taj Mahal draft beer drowned my sorrows as well!!!  We had a long chat with the young waiter who is from Goa, India.  He has been in Yuma for a year and...he doesn't like it here.  Too hot, dry and dusty and we agreed.  He lived in Minnesota for three years and he likes it there much better...he likes the snow!  He and Eric had a chat about Goa and Eric said he'd always wanted to go there.  The Riviera of India.  We felt sorry for the young waiter and I felt like I needed to give him a hug.  I guess he just goes where the work is.  The Curries restaurant is now opening an adjoining restaurant in the building called Chopsticks so we'll try that next fall.  

 A good nights sleep was then in order.