Yuma eats, suburbs and a little RV repair

Shadow selfie w Larry SR603451 (2)

Larry and I shadow selfie. Who is who?


My visit to Yuma ended up being a two week stay. As this was my “destination” for my travels south in the USA this time, I felt I should make the most of it. I walked around the Fortuna suburbs, did a little hike on the edge of town, had some expected and unexpected RV repairs, plus I treated Larry and Diane to some of nights out for dinner. Read on for all the details.

Orange Trees SR603372 (2)

Orange trees in the side yard, dry fruit

I should explain my “destination” in quotes first. As I mentioned in more detail when I entered the USA this time, customs has a certain set of boxes they would like you to fit in – like where are you from, where are you going, why are you going. Nomads don’t fit those boxes well, and an honest answer like “I’m going to explore the Arizona desert for the winter” doesn’t fit in the “destination” field very well. Travelling across the Canada-US border it is just better to have a destination in mind – preferably with an address like an RV park or a hotel you are going to stay at to treat yourself. Nomad life does not fit the government’s paradigm, it is better to just try and fit to them and avoid the suspicion that will be aroused if you say what you are really doing traveling.

Brenda Drive view SR603501 (2)

Typical Fortuna Foothills residential side street

I had lots of days to just explore the local neighborhood, both by walking and by motorcycle. I got a good feel for what the ‘burbs of Yuma are like.  The first thing I noticed  in Fortuna Foothills was the uniformity of the property fencing. Most fences are the same three foot high brick fences, usually with wrought iron gates for entry. Even the empty lots in the area were usually fenced in, telling me that this was an architectural control for the area. I don’t know if all suburb communities are like this, but I suspect cheap brick and cheap Mexican labor have contributed to the popularity of this type of fencing here.

Empty Lot SR603475

Empty lot, yet same fencing

Speaking of empty lots, there are a few around, despite this neighborhood having been around for quite some time now. This area was pretty free in terms of what you could do with your lot. I’m told a building permit was not even required at one time. The net result is the feel of an upscale mobile park.


Single width mobile SR603474 (2)

Typical mobile in the area

New build SR603476

New spec build, one of several clones


Fancy carport SR603465 (2)

The RV don’t fit under the carport!

As there were few rules, you have a mix of mobiles, bungalow/ manufactured home, and these weird carports that I’m told were built this way to avoid being classed as a ‘house’. The space in the back can’t have cooking facilities, otherwise it can be a garage or just extra living space down here. I don’t know what to call these things, perhaps a cargage?


Stone structures SR603505 (2)

Even a bit of informal stonework building

You can see how the neighborhood evolved. Starting from a bunch of (brick fenced?) empty lots with utility hookups, people built storage sheds and RV carports. Some people brought in single width mobile trailers. Over time, mobiles were expanded, bigger mobiles and manufactured homes were brought in, and fancier carports were built, getting you to the point today with the mix from empty lot to bungalow type stuff.


Primitive Road SR603467

Not so primitive road past sign

The roads are similarly haphazard. The most common road is a strip of pavement with the “sidewalk” consisting of a gravel strip between the pavement and the brick fence. The roads even have warnings stating they are primitive, and not regularly maintained. They make me wonder if at one time everything was gravel and potholed. Now, the signs are not really needed. They do fix holes in these roads!

Primitive road with sidewalk SR603503 (2)

A primitive road upgraded to sidewalk, one side only

As far as walking it’s OK, but definitely the bare minimum for pedestrians. With the number of mobility challenged seniors in the area, I’m surprised there is not more call for some solid sidewalk development. I guess people stick to their cars until the bitter end. I can see that standards have changed over time, and as new development goes in, the road is built to the higher standard. Upgrades are good, but it results in roads that go from gravel, to nice pavement with concrete sidewalks, and back to pavement with gravel sidewalk. Even the upgrades are not consistent from one side of the road to the other, like pavement to a concrete sidewalk on one side, and pavement ending short on the other side with a gravel “sidewalk”. The esthetics aren’t great, but taxes stay lower I bet. Just make sure you have enough money for sturdy shoes for your walkabouts.

Trail down SR603491 (2)

The trail looking back to Yuma

One advantage of the sprawled ‘burbs of Yuma is that we were far enough out that the Gila Mountains were not far away, with a few hikes to be had in the area. I decided to ride the motorcycle over to the trailhead for The Seat. On that ride, I found out that I’m still not calibrated properly for street riding on the Grom. I had to do a hard brake to stop for a traffic light at the last second. Problem was, I locked the rear wheel and ended up sliding partway into the intersection. I figured out later that I had not applied near enough braking to the fronts, and way to much to the back. Yeah, I’m at the point of being in the ‘knows enough to be dangerous’ part of my motorcycle training!

Coming to the cross seat SR603488 (2)

Approaching ‘the seat’

I never found a proper trailhead, so I just parked the motorcycle at the end of a street and started walking over to where I could see trail. Things are kind of informal out here – the last houses just peter out and the streets end with an ATV or trail perhaps going off. The hike up was nice, although very windy. Good thing it was a warm wind! I could see the sprawl of the Yuma area, with the city proper way back on the horizon. The hills were scenic once you got away from the last of the houses.

The Seat view SR603490 (2) The view from the seat is nice. Plus there is a place to sit, ha ha! But the wind was ferocious, I wasn’t staying much longer than a few minutes to get my pictures and enjoy the view. I had thought about hitting another trail that day as this hike had been short, but the wind convinced me that a bit of quiet time in the RV would be better.


Fortuna Lake Boondocking SR603431 (2)

Fortuna Lake boondocking

It turns out Larry and Diane had never been to Fortuna Lake before, so we took a Sunday drive over to check it out. I had camped here before, so I was mainly curious to see if it was more or less busy since last time, just before COVID hit. It turns out to be about the same from what I remember. Good spots on the water are taken, but if you go just a little ways from the water, you can camp in the trees and have a little more privacy. Just don’t get stuck in the sand!

Redondo Lake dock SR603445

Redondo Lake dock

As a bonus, we went out to Redondo Lake, which I have not been to before. It’s just a bit north of Fortuna Lake, but very different in terms of rules. You can’t camp. You can’t even launch a kayak off the dock, it’s all fenced in. There is a large RV park on the south side of the lake; I’m sure they have put maximum pressure on the local politicians to make sure the lake is ‘no camping’. So the public ramp is nice, there are lots of birds to watch, but the area is only for day use.

There was also some civilized pursuits, involving eating food in other people’s places made by other people. Queue up three mini-reviews!

Da Boyz eatery SR603460 (2) Da Boyz Italian Cuisine was the first place we hit in Yuma on Larry’s suggestion. The Calzone came highly recommended, and lived up its recommendation. I would prefer the tomato sauce a bit more spicy rather than the sweet I got but that is a matter of preference. The place is low budget saddle up to the order counter and a server will bring your food kind of service. Unfortunately, the beer selection was similarly low budget. While I didn’t mind a plain lager, a nice brown beer would have washed down the tomato flavors so much better. But Cervezas and Lagers are the predominate beers here, you provide what sells with limited selection.

Wheezy’s Restaurant and Sports Bar was about the closest thing to a pub we got to while I was in Yuma. This is a busy place, we aborted our first attempt to go there thanks to the full parking lot. But I can see why it is busy: the prices are good, the food is good, the place looks nice, and they have a decent beer selection. I had a Ruben sandwich with a corn chowder soup. The soup was excellent. The sandwich wasn’t a traditional Ruben – they add 1000 island dressing and use swiss cheese. I’d skip the dressing and use a sharper cheese myself, but this is a minor quibble. Consider it to be the local version of a Ruben and call it good! I was surprised there were not more local brewery beers on the menu. While they had ‘craft’ beer, I put that in quotes because it was all supplied by the major breweries down in the States. Support local Wheezy’s! My Amberbock draft of big brewery I can’t recall was OK, but nothing to write home about. It was good value though – $12 for a pitcher! I have one more critique on the payment. They are still on the archaic take your credit card and have you sign a slip adding tip on a piece of paper. Time to get up to the modern times and invest in remote chip and pin terminals like most other places. Even in the USA now, most places are chip and pin. I can’t remember the last time I saw a slip with signature required in Canada. The service was excellent, I made sure the tip I wrote in was big. Overall, I’d hit this place again to try some of their other food.

Sign SR603591 Eat Asian Buffet SR603590

Lastly, we have Eats Asian Super Buffet. I entered with a bit of trepidation, having been to a place called “Foody Goody” in Calgary many moons ago that also was a massive buffet of a very budget nature. What put me over the top there was the raw burgers available to cook your own. No thanks! I had no such concern here – everything looked clean and of high quality. I started with a pile of sushi. They have a chef there making it as required, so there never is much out that stays out for long under the refrigerated display. My second and third plates were from all over the restaurant, which corresponded to all over the far east. We had Korean, Chinese, Thai, and probably some others I’m forgetting. The selection is huge! About the only thing I didn’t like was one kind of fried shrimp (head on). I can’t say the head threw me off, but the flavor wasn’t my thing at least. There is a great range of desserts too, even serve yourself ice cream if you just want something plain to wash down all the great food. I stuck with green tea here, can’t say anything about beer, for that matter if they even had any! The prices here are very reasonable. You pay a bit more to get sushi included, but it is worth the little extra cost if you fancy a bit of sushi. One interesting aside: they will do take out here (COVID innovation?) I assume they go around and grab you a serving of what ever you want from the buffet. I would definitely go here again, there were so many things I did not get to try.

New Marker light SR603515

New Marker light to install

I know I’m going a little longer than normal on this blog post, but I only have RV fixes left to talk about. You can stop reading here if you don’t care about RV repair tips and travails. My expected repair I wanted to get to while I was down in Yuma was my broken passenger side rear marker light. It’s not an urgent fix, but since I had a yard, and the light did not require a ladder, I might as well get to it. My overhead marker light that required a ladder would be next if this one went smoothly.

Marker light removed SR603514 (2)

Note leftover screw stuck in bottom hole.

Of course, it went anything but smoothly.  My rig is new enough that everything is all LED lights, which should last forever. Evidently, ‘forever’ starts at around two years. You don’t replace a bulb with these things; you replace the whole fixture. You’d be right to guess that is much more expensive: $25 for an LED red marker fixture. But at least it should be easy, right? Snap off the edge cover plate. Unscrew the old fixture, only two screws. Now pry off the light which has all been Black PCV’d sealed/glued in. Disconnect light from wires, first taking off some fasteners inside the RV compartment to give me slack to pull out the wires

Now I get to my first problem. The wires had a broken connector, which came off the wire. So did I have a defective light or defective wiring? A bunch of electrical troubleshooting later, I determined the wire had been fine until I touched it – there was power there and the new light would work connected, but not the old one. Fine, now onto putting the new light in. Now I see my second problem. I was wondering why the bottom screw was so easy to get out and so short. I see now the remaining part of the screw is still in there. It definitely was not me that busted the screw – a previous tech threw it in there and called it ‘good enough’. I was thinking of drilling out the screw but Larry came up with a better suggestion: carve out just enough to grab the end with a needle nose plyers, and use a vice grip to clap onto the needle nose plyers for maximum grip. That worked beautifully. I will remember that tip! I fixed the electrical connector, and screwed in the new marker light, putting a little silicone into the bottom screw hole to give the screw a bit more grip on what was left of the hole. So, what was supposed to be a half hour job took three hours. I wasn’t going to attempt the overhead marker light. Who knows what surprises lurk in there?

Canister purge valve SR603478 (2)

Canister purge valve that was replaced

 My second repair was of an unexpected nature. I had driven to dump my tanks one day when my ‘check engine’ light came on. Great, what could this be? It turns out that Ken who was living in an RV parked at the back end of the lot, was a mechanic who said he would take a look at it if the code was something he could fix. Larry again was a source of great advice, telling me that AutoZone down there will do a free engine code read for you, saving me some dosh. I got prompt service from AutoZone, plus I found a flexible hose for my small grease gun! The code thrown up was a “P0442 (EVAP) system leak detected (small leak 0.04 inch)”. The sheet included a recommended fix, replacing the Canister Purge Valve. I took this information back to Ken the local mechanic and he concurred that this valve was the most likely issue. Back to AutoZone I went, only to find they didn’t have the part. Part sourcing challenges is a common problem these post COVID days, so AutoZone lost out on the business they’d normally get for providing the free diagnostic. I hopped across the street to the local O’Reilly Autoparts. After a bit of a wait for someone, anyone to come to a till (could have cleaned the store out) I find that they do have the part, yay! Much cheaper too, yay!

I considered installing it myself, but since I had a mechanic right there, I hit the easy button and let him do it for a very reasonable rate. Unfortunately, my ‘check engine’ light remains on at this point, so the problem is possibly not fixed. I’m going to try disconnecting the battery, draining the remaining charge in the system by turning on the lights momentarily, and letting it sit for half an hour to see if that finally does the reset, compared to the quick one minute disconnect we tried on the spot. In the meanwhile, the code does not indicate a critical problem for driving the RV. That is it, after a long post with much covered. Join me next time as I start heading north again!

About ralph

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