Things Aren’t What They Seem in Yuma AZ…

Well the time at Lake Havasu City passed by too fast and it was once again time to move on… Next up would be a short stay in Yuma Arizona. What a pleasant drive it was as we followed the Colorado River. Our plans were to spend a few nights at the Encore Mesa Verde Park.

Well, this is where it got interesting…

We checked in at the office and received our site assignment. We disconnected the CRV to drive over to check out our site. On our way over we were unimpressed with the appearance of the park but figured it would be ok for our short stay. We arrived at our site only to find a large pile of aluminum debris sitting right in the middle of our site. Sigh…

Back to the office we went to get another site. The clerk gave us a another site but there was a tree in this site making it virtually impossible to maneuver our RV into it. SO back to the office again where we received a list of all available sites for our size RV.

All but one were so tight there was no way we would ever get our RV into them and the last one we looked at was probably doable but our slide would be so close to the adjacent park model we wouldn’t be able to walk from the back of the RV to our front yard not to mention the park model neighbor had their laundry drying on what would have been our patio!!!! Well, that was enough and back at the office we went where we asked to be refunded so we could go elsewhere.

Well what a surprise when we were told  there are absolutely no refunds as per Encore (Thousand Trails?) policy. Incredibly even though they couldn’t accommodate us to our satisfaction we wouldn’t be refunded. WOW!!! Well, we called Fortuna De Oro another park in the Passport  America network and secured a place to stay at a much nicer park. On the way to it we called our credit card company and contested the Encore charge (which was eventually refunded to us). Ridiculous.

We finally pulled into our site at Fortuna De Oro and took a stroll around this true resort, not an RV park claiming to be a resort. With a large pool, hot tub, pickleball courts and a bar on premises we knew we certainly would enjoy our stay.

Since we have stayed in Yuma before we were aware there really isn’t a lot to do in the area so staying at a RV park with amenities such as the excellent ones at Fortuna De Oro would make our stay a treat. We fully embraced the spirit as we played pickleball (our style) everyday for about an hour or so.

We also did some walking around the park and since we had been at this park before I wanted to find one of my favorite photo ops. The road signs at these two streets are my favorites so I posed for a shot between a rock and a hard place…

Sharon also enjoyed the fitness center and while she would work out I chose the less rigorous option by soaking in the pool and hot tub. The park also had some live music one evening so we went to the bar to sit and enjoy a pretty good country and western band. This park was very friendly so we are thinking we will return and maybe stay a little longer next time.

Before leaving Yuma we made our way over to the brewery in downtown Yuma at the Prison Hill Brewery where we not only had a couple of good beers but obtained some new friends as well as the people we sat near were all great people. We certainly enjoyed our short stay in Yuma even after the fiasco at the first park. Now it was time to once again hit the road….

NOTE: We are now in San Diego CA for a two months before spending the rest of the winter