Catch up Day! Agricultural Tour!

Last night I got a little frustrated when my pictures would not upload to the blog so I did not get to put the hockey pics up I took. Today the blog uploaded everything, no problem.... go figure.

We travelled over to the Jobing.com Arena after we finished up at South Mountain. They did a fantastic job on the arena, and the area in front. It is set up for "Party Time" before the games, and they had a rock band playing. We went to a real nice restaurant for dinner before the game, had to eat at 3:00 as the game time was 6:00, and we wanted to see the warm up at 5:00. Here is the front of the Arena...lots of people gathered as they waited for the game, and there was all kinds of restaurants and other things to do...

It is a nice arena inside, and we had great seats only 10 rows up from the ice. Here are some of the warm up pics from the game...

I was interested in watching #14, Taylor Pyatt play, as when Judy and I lived up in Sudbury 10 years ago, Taylor was a big star on the Sudbury Wolves Team, and I watched him play his whole Jr. career. He played goo for Phoenix in the game...

At the period break, they had this corny tug of war contest...

Detroit won the game 4 to1, and the arena was a sell out, one of the few teams that will sell out this arena. There is a lot of controversy in the NHL over the Phoenix team, and a possible move to Canada. They are bankrupt, and have never turned a profit! More than 1/2 of the fans were cheering for Detroit.

This is another view for the outside in the courtyard. It was great. We all came away with good thoughts and comments about Phoenix and it's arena. A great place!

So, so much for yesterday, on with today. It was a good day, warm temps, but a bit of cloud. Pat and John came over at around 10:00 and we headed out to visit the Yuma Proving Grounds Museum. Judy and I had been there before, can't remember what day, but we did post a bunch of pictures. I have a few more today, so will not try to bore you all too much.

This is a shot of John and I in front of the "Honest John Rocket".... no kiddin....

Judy caught Pat and I checking out this tank...


After we inspected the outside Museum, we had to go through the check point, have out ID checked, and have the car searched, in order to gain access to the Museum on the base. It is real nice, well kept and current. We spent probably 1 1/2 hours going through the Museum. This guy was waiting for us in one of the rooms all in this gear! Must of been hot!

Harley Davidson made over 60,000 of these for WW11, as well there was over 650,000 Army Jeeps made for the 2nd. World War...

We enjoyed the Museum, and decided to head out to visit the Imperial Dam. On our way out to the dam, still on the proving grounds, we heard a large bang, and it was the Army test firing one of the tanks, and this landed right beside us a we drove out to the dam.....Man, that was close.... we will have to keep an eye out in the future for this....

On the way back I got a picture of the tank shooting another one off... yikes...

We decided to move on to something a little calmer, so we stopped at the Imperial Dam, which dams the Colorado River to divert water to the "All American Canal System" which provides water for irrigation for Arizona, and California farmers, and some water to Mexico. It all starts at the Imperial Dam.

We are discussing the finer points of the workings of a dam.....

After the dam, we headed out into California to view some of the farm land. John M. really liked this part of the day, and could not quite believe how they farm down here. It is interesting.

At first we thought that these were palm trees, but we found out they are in fact "Date Trees". We stopped and bought some dates... Judy said they tasted good, I would not even try them!

The fields are big, and you can see how they grow the lettuce so straight, and this is an example of how they irrigate the fields to grow this lettuce. There are hundreds of acres of this stuff growing down here... amazing...And here is my favorite pic of the day, it is lettuce growing... all lined up in a row! Kind of cool to see....Of course after playing the tourist all day, we headed back for the hot tub, and Happy Hour! Next we lit the BBQ up and enjoyed another nice dinner! Good day overall!

Till tomorrow....