Wednesday - January 16, 2008

This morning I called my mom and as luck would have it my sister-in-law answered the phone, they had just come in from seeing the doctor re my mom’s cataracts so Carol was able to fill me in on the details. Mom is scheduled to go for a pre-op on February 1st with surgery on the 12th so here’s hoping all goes well. Mom is 90 and has never had surgery in her life so god willing all will go well for her and she will be able to see again as right now she is pretty well blind in one eye. Can you imagine being that age and never having had surgery – how wonderful!!

The weather forecast was for a cool, windy day today but this morning was sunny, pleasant temperature wise and the wind was very light. We picked up Sonia and Jim about 11 to go to Castle Dome Museum which is about half way to Quartzsite. We drove into Martinez Lake on the way to have lunch, there is a small restaurant at the marina and the hamburgs were very good. When we came out after lunch the wind had picked up and was out of the north, the sun had disappeared and it was downright chilly – so much for a wrong forecast! Thankfully we keep our nylon jackets in the truck but I did wish I had put on jeans rather than capris.

The museum is about 12 miles east off Highway 90 and the first two miles are paved road then it is a washboardy gravel road – nice ride. The museum is very interesting; a couple from Washington State have assembled a number of buildings from the surrounding abandoned mining areas and created a small town there. They have a lot of information about the life, times and people who lived and mined in the area and it is an interesting place to visit; the museum includes a saloon, bar, hotel, church, jail, theatre, a 50’s diner, general store, dressmaker’s shop, bordello, miner’s cabin, mine shafts and equipment etc. We spent a couple of hours there and thoroughly enjoyed it but Sonia and I agreed that it would have been a hard life out there in the desert but certainly thousands of people did it. At one time a local school had 17 children in attendance so I guess there were also a number of families living in these mining towns. It was also interesting to learn that a lot of names we heard mentioned on last week’s Yuma walk, including local merchants, ship captains etc. also owned mines in the area.

After we dropped off Jim and Sonia we stopped and picked up a roast chicken for dinner, that with some fresh hot crusty bread and a salad made a quick but delicious dinner.

Tonight I am doing this with one eye on the computer and the other on Law and Order, a bit more TV and it will be time for bed. And so ends another wonderful day in our life of retirement.