The desert calls my name… Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but that’s how it feels lately. I never had anything against the desert, but I also never felt drawn to it either. It just sort of one day… happened to me?

Last fall we went to the Badlands in South Dakota, and it was 90 degrees with a dry heat. I had never really experienced dry heat before. Sure, I’ve been to Socal before– San Diego once… LA three or four times now, but I never wandered out to the rocks and sand just to see it. The Badlands was my first time seeing a real desert, and I thought that was it for deserts and me, but fate had other plans. Fast forward to March, aka: our family trip to Yuma, Arizona!

This trip was a big one, because it was Eric’s parents, his brothers, their own families, Eric and I.

The family hadn’t been all together in one place in a very long while, and the kids have never met before in person! Eric and I don’t have kids, so for us, it was exciting to see the nieces and nephews interact for the first time.

Yuma is in the lowest left corner of Arizona, above Mexico, and to the right of California, so very southwest from everything else in the state. The rocks were terracotta red, and the cactuses grew to be 10 feet tall. We were excited to go hiking on the rocks, because the views on the drive were so grand. It felt like we were driving on Mars.

Eric’s brother planned the basics of the trip like the flight schedule, the car rental, airbnb, and the grocery trip. We were told to decide what we wanted out of the trip, because everything was up in the air, and we were all just going with the flow. I had very little I wanted to accomplish, so I was up for going along with the majority of the plans. I only had 3 small things I hoped to do:

Go hiking in the desert and see some cool rocks.
Get a coffee at a cute local coffee shop.
Wander around some cute shops, and maybe find a local bookstore.

Other than those loose plans, we were totally open to just daily hangs with the kiddos. We went for an incredible hike with the entire family, on a easy-medium trail known as the Painted Desert Loop trail. It was fun watching Eric do uncle things, like helping his nieces and nephews climb on rocks and such. The trail also has wild burros, but we didn’t see any while hiking, but we knew they were there, because of the piles of… evidence… they left behind, Lol.

Eric’s brother on top of a giant rocky hill, and on the other side, Eric the dessert crab! (Looking very cute in his baseball cap!!!)

As for the coffee and shops, we had a morning with a little bit of time to split up, so Eric and I went to get the coffee and do some local shopping in the historical downtown of Yuma. We heard great things about the local coffee spot, Cafecito, from eric’s brother and sister in law. Located in Downtown Yuma, it has a patio to die for, with massive cacti, spanish tile tables, and plenty of shade from the sun.

We also had time to check out a local bookstore I saw online, called “Sunny’s Book Truck”, which is actually now a brick and mortar bookstore. They are independently operating and Woman-owned, so I felt drawn to it. We chatted up the owner’s dad, Joe, for quite some time and Maggie the store dog was such a sweet baby angel. I will always spend my money frivelously to support indie and local bookstores. They also had a card that explained peoples’ rights when confronted by immigration police, which I loved. Know your rights!

Anyway, I bought so many thing.. The book, “The Guest” by Emma Cline, 3 stickers, a T-shirt that reads, “Good girls go to heaven… Bad girls shop at Sunny’s Books,” along with a dad hat of my favorite literary genre, “Lit Fic.”

CODE’S ADVENTURES! Aka: Haunted attractions~ (please Zac Bagans, don’t sue me, Code’s Adventures isn’t real!)

I didn’t know this ahead of time, but Yuma is apparently super haunted. There have actually been two episodes of Ghost Adventures filmed at two separate Yuma locations! We actually ended up going to both haunted spots, and I had my feelings…

Lutes CasinoOOOoooOOOooo

I didn’t take any photos of Lutes besides this!!

SO The first location was a spot we went to for lunch called Lutes Casino and its actually only 5 minutes away from Cafecito by foot. Lutes Casino is now just a bar and restaurant and not a casino at all. It DOES however have an unsettling aesthetic, with vintage posters and photos of old Yuma, and mannequins hanging from the ceiling.

It felt fairly normal, with no bad energy at all. I found out after the fact, that we weren’t even in the haunted spot of the building! The abandoned building next to it was the actual Casino and an old timey theater, and its essentially in disarray to this day, because it’s so haunted inside, everyone who enters doesn’t want to stay in there.

Yuma Territorial Prison, oOOOooooooOOO

The second location, the Yuma Territorial Prison, gave me the absolute creeps! I was walking cage to cage saying hello, and asking the ghosts if they remember scaring Zac Bagans from Ghost Adventures, and then I would say goodbye. There is a dark room where they’d put people until they’d go crazy, and it was literally a pitch black room carved out rock and concrete, known as “The Dark Cell.”

We walked into the dark cell, and I instantly felt cold, and there was definitely a tonal shift, because of the obvious historical use of torturing prisoners, so it was historically a dark and awful place, and it’s vibes definitely matched that. I felt suffocated in the dark, because there was no light besides the hallway leading to the outside, and my phone flashlight did nothing to penetrate the darkness.

I told Eric I was leaving the space, and he crawled into a cage in the middle of the room with a skeleton inside. Panicked, I tried fleeing, but decided to snap his photo inside the cage, but I did feel a brush of air hit my back shoulder, and it creeped me out so bad, I thought someone touched me! (I’m sure now that it was my nerves getting to me, sorry less spooky, I know!) I yelled,“Goodbye!!” and I ran out the hall back to the safety of the light.

Dates grow on PALM TREES???

The last thing we did on this trip was explore a date farm called Naked Dates Farm. They also had a restaurant/brewery as well, called High Tanks Brewing Company, that hosts live music events out in the desert. I wish we could have seen it at night with the fairy lights and the live bands!

Here’s the thing.. I didn’t know– Dates grow on palm trees! Was I the only person who didn’t know that? We pulled up to the date farm, and I thought “oh neat, they’ve planted a little palm tree oasis at the front of their date farm,” but no, the dates grow on the trees! Its been like 2 weeks since the trip, and I’m still flabbergasted. They do farm tours at 10 bucks a head, but we were a big group, so we decided to just hang out to let the kids run around and play.

Eric and I tried two of the most date-forward flavored beers: Daphne’s Date, and Double Date. Both were quite refreshing, and I don’t know what dates taste like on their own, so I didn’t notice any particularly raisin-ish notes in our pours, but they were delicious. We also ordered some street tacos and a plate of chips and guac, which were excellent. There were a few farm dogs, but one dog in particular was living his truth, vacuuming all food anyone dropped off the desert floor.

After the date farm, we loaded the family’s up in their cars, said our goodbyes, and made our 2 hour trek back to the airport to head home. The date farm was the perfect relaxing way to end our family trip in style.

Thanks for reading!

I had a great time learning about Arizona, and I hope some day I can go back and explore it again! There are so many places I haven’t been yet, and the desert is one of those places I’m slowly learning more about. I was glad to experience it with Eric’s family.

Kindly,
C