New Year’s Day 2011

As on nearly every January 1^st for the past fifteen years, we started the year in the saddle of a Harley.  Around 10:00 a.m. the sun was shining and the temperature was already in the 50’s.  We rolled the bikes out of the trailer, and headed into the City of Yuma Arizona, about 12 miles west of our location.

It didn’t really matter where we were going, it just mattered that we were riding there. 

 We stopped for breakfast at a local eatery called “Bubba’s”.  Huevos Rancheros for her and Huevos and Chorrizzo for me.  Huevos Rancheros are eggs served on a tortilla covered with salsa.  Huevos and Chorrizzo are eggs and Spanish sausage scrambled together with cheese and potatoes.  My selection was better than her’s.  Evidently, being near Mexico doesn’t guarantee true Mexican cooking.  I guess with a name like Bubba’s we should have had the BBQ.

Our next stop was at the Yuma Territorial Prison.  Now a State Park, the prison has had many incarnations since it closed in 1909.  Not the least of which was homeless housing during the depression, a location for  

Double row of cells

several Hollywood movies, and temporarily, a high school following a fire.  To this day, the High School

"Solitary"
housed up to 20 at a time

  team bears the nick-name the “Crims”, or criminals.  For its 100^th Anniversary, the high school had a commemorative bobble head doll made.  It depicted a man in classic prison stripes with the inscription “100 years of Criminal Activity”.

The penitentiary housed some of the most dangerous and notorious bad guys, and girls, of the old west.  Offenders were sent there for crimes ranging from murder and robbery to adultery and bigamy.  The residents of Yuma resented the prison calling it the “country club on the Colorado”.  The facility was state of the art for its time with electricity, power ventilation, and even a band.  The inmates 

Hospital Cell
Still only one pot to share

did not concur.  With six men sharing a six foot by nine foot cell, summer temperatures over 100 degrees and one porcelain pot  between them for a bathroom, they referred to the place as “hell”.  The number one killer of prisoners was “Consumption” or Tuberculosis.

Nearby is the Downtown Yuma historic district with some old stores, bars, restaurants, and entertainment.  Riding through Main Street, it looked fairly deserted, undoubtedly due to the holiday.

Back by 3:00 with the sun still shining and the thermometer in the 60’s, I didn’t want to end the first day of the year just yet.  I decided to do a little more of what we can’t, or won’t do at home in January…I went swimming and then into the Jacuzzi before dinner.  If the old saying is true and you will be doing for the rest of the year what you do on the first day of the year, this could be a very good year indeed.