Early afternoon. We have lunched and I just turned on the air conditioning. The temperature will be in the 90s again this afternoon. Cooler tomorrow and we are heading north toward Las Vegas on Wednesday. Last week may become our hottest of the year!

Yuma is a border town in more ways than one. Mexico is not far south and California is just west across the Colorado River. It is around Yuma that the great river is sucked dry. Some of the water is conveyed by a flume, the "All American Canal" to Mexico. Most of the balance is similarly transported to the farmlands that now comer its former floodplain in Arizona and California. With daily sunshine and usually warm weather, the desert becomes a vegetable factory.

This morning as we drove in the pre-dawn darkness to a birding location up the river, we passed a picking operation already in progress. The self-flood-lighted wheeled conveyor rolled across the field as many hands picked cauliflower and dropped it onto the belt. Tomorrow this produce will be at groceries in Los Angeles. On Wednesday it will be for sale in New York.

The fields are dead flat except for the various ridges, furrows, and terraces formed for the different crops. Beans, corn, and cabbages are planted on the sides of ridges. Lettuce grows on flat terraces. Surrounding each field is a foot-high ridge that forms a dike. The irrigation water flows into the fields through hoses from concret flumes. Excess water and the salt leached from the soil; are pumped out into drainage ditches.

The fields are prepared, seeded, and flooded to provide germination. After the initial soaking, the fields are variously irrigated by flood irrigation, sprinklers, or soaking hose, depending on the crop.

This week the primary harvest seems to be green and red leaf and Romaine lettuce. The secondary harvest is head, broccoli, and cauliflower cabbage. The corn is mostly six inches tall. The beans are just rising.

The farms and the river water make the Yuma basin green and dark brown, but the surrounding desert is pale. A range of barren sand dunes to the west makes a playground for ATVs. The Star Wars/Return of the Jedi desert scenes were filmed there.

Yuma is larger than York, but the county is less populated than York County. Outside the town and the farming district is nobody.

Across in California is not much either. The agricultureal district is farther west across the Great Sand Dunes in the Salton or "Imperial Valley." The Colorado River is the border and here it is a disappearing river. Not far to the south is Mexico. We corssed over the other day into the commerical town of Los Algodones. A bazaar of dental offices, pharacies, liquor stores, and craft stands, it is for Americans to visit. One parks at the border and walks across.

We were looking for a prescription for Anne, but its being unusual, none of the stores had it. They did have our favorite tequila, Sauza Hornitos Reposado. Only a fool would make a Margarita with this tequila. There it was $16 for a liter. At h ome it would be more than twice that.

Although Chuck needs a dental cleaning and exam, we were not quite ready to try that. Perhaps next time.

We found a few birds on the border. The amazing Salton Sea yielded a life bird for Anne, Albert's towhee, and about another dozen year-birds. This morning we heard our first Virginia rail of the year in a Colorado River marsh. We found a black-chinned hummingbird there a few days ago. Except for a few southern species, most of the migrants have yet to appear. We are going to miss some of them. We will be west or north of thier range before thair arrival next month. We were hopping to see a few of the brighter ones, e.g. hooded oriole and western tanager. There is still a chance.

Our DVD player failed to function when our expedition began this winter. We kept trying it and resorted to video casettes until yesterday. Finally we stopped at the Yuma Circuit City to buy a budget player. Instead we came out with another combination casette/DVD player. This really will be our last.

The April heat wave in Yuma has slowed us down a bit. Yesterday and today we have retreated in the afternoon to our motor home and air-conditioned establishments. That may be a useful rest.

Next we venture north into the Mojave Desert. We will spend one night at Cottonwood on the Colorado River and explore the Mojave National Preserve and then move on to glittering Las Vegas. There we will mostly be visiting family and checking the weather forecast. Our plan is to stay at Death Valley National Monument, but if it is going to be hot, we will move directly to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. After a week, we are to move north to Mammoth Lakes, California on the eastern shoulder of the Sierras east of Yosemite National Park. It will definitely be cooler there. We'll have to find the sweaters and coats again!