Great review for Yuma snowbird's guide

My latest ebook, The Snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona, just received a very nice review from a website geared to Canadian snowbirds.

Here's what Suncruiser Media had to say about it:

Like the snippets of sample appetizers, handed out by folks at groceries store, you get a small taste of what’s available but you’re left hungry for more. It is informative and decently written; and although I would have liked it to be twice the size, the information it contains will easily save you the cost of the book 100 times over.

If you need more reasons to buy it, such as ways to save money in Yuma, check out an earlier blog.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is available only on Amazon where it sells for $2.99.
 

Six reasons why you need 'The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona'

Need a good reason to buy The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona? Here are six of them:

1.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is full of tips to make your sojourn in Yuma more pleasant. This guide is geared to first-time snowbirds to Yuma, but anyone who plans to visit Yuma will find the contents useful.

2.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona has tips on how to save money when you’re eating out. It lists Yuma restaurants that offer discounts to their senior customers.

3.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona offers a comprehensive list of things to see and do in Yuma and the surrounding area. This includes attractions, outdoor activities and visiting Mexico, which is just a few miles away.

4.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona lists all major flea and farmers markets where you can search for treasures among someone else’s trash and shop for fresh veggies for the dinner table.

5.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is more comprehensive than websites on Yuma, though not as comprehensive as the only other snowbird’s guide to Yuma I found. It does, however, contain the most recent information available, while the other publication is five years old.

6.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is a bargain at just $2.99 and is available for instant downloading on AmazonKindle. Books don’t get any more convenient than this.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona

We began our grand RV adventure just after Christmas 2013. Three weeks later it came to a screeching halt in Yuma because of health problems. We spent the next 7-1/2 months there while I underwent an aggressive treatment program.

Yuma is filled with so many things to see and do for a city that size, it is almost unbelievable.  Winter is the best time to visit Yuma. Temperatures are just right -- not too hot and not too cold. This desert southwest city does have four seasons; hot, hotter, hottest and hotter than hell. My husband used to joke he wished he could go to hell because it just had to be cooler than Yuma.  Many tourist attractions close down in the summer because of the scorching temperatures, making winter an even better time to visit.

Our stay in the desert southwest provided me the time to write a book for other first-time visitors here. The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is a great introduction to this city of almost 100,000 year round residents.

Yuma is a city that  has something for everyone, regardless of their interests. Snowbirds need to make some tough decisions on how to spend their time year.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is filled with tips and recommendations designed to help snowbirds make the most of their time here. It is geared to the first-time visitor to Yuma, as we were, though returning snowbirds are sure to find useful information in it, too.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is available for Amazon Kindle for $2,99, If you're planning to head south for the winter, this 11,000-word book will come in handy.

Yuma, Arizona: Summertime and the livin' ain't easy!

Skies definitely are blue in Yuma.

To paraphrase that beautiful ballad from Porgy and Bess is almost  like ruining the song, but the words describe what a summer in Yuma is like for snowbirds who stay on after the season is over.

Sure, the lines at the Walmart prescription counters are a lot shorter. Instead of standing in line for an hour, at least, to drop off prescriptions and then another hour or more to pick them up, you can be in and out in mere minutes. I, however, would be willing to stand in these long lines if it meant lower temperatures outside. Temperatures have been in triple digits here since early April. I swear I’ll scream if I hear a permanent resident tell me one more time, “If you think it’s hot now, just wait until July.”

Keeping cool is paramount

 

Life in Yuma these days is a mad dash from an air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned building and back again. (Some Walmarts and the local mall have covered parking.)  I’m beginning to see why siestas are such an important part of Latin American culture, though I’m finding it too hot to sleep in the afternoon. Even running the air conditioning full time in our trailer, temperatures don’t get cool enough to sleep comfortably until about 4 a.m. By 6 a.m., the temperatures are moving from searing to scorching, and the day goes downhill from then, even though the temperatures are only going uphill.

We’ve taken to doing our laundry in the middle of the night because the laundry room isn’t air-conditioned. Plus, we used to do laundry every week, but now try to go at least two weeks between washing. A hose connects our trailer to the city water system. Cold showers have become the norm because water comes out of the cold tap warm enough that you don’t have to turn on the hot water tap.

Our awning would provide some shade if we could use it. High winds can come up at any time in Yuma and will bounce the awning around, damaging it. (There have been times I’ve put the awning down at 6 a.m., only to bring it in at 6:30 a.m.

 

Avoiding dehydration is important

 

Dehydration is always a risk in hot weather. Our bottled water bill has quadrupled since the temperatures started soaring. While we may leave our American Express card at home when we go out (well, we would if we had one), we never leave the trailer without cold bottled water, frequently in a small ice chest. A bottle of frozen water can go from ice to too hot to drink when left in my scooter's drink cup holder even for a few minutes.

There’s less to do in Yuma in the summer months. When we arrived here back in January, I was too sick to do many touristy things. Now that I’m better and can get around more, the attractions are closed until fall. That includes one of our favorite spots, Martha’s Gardens, an organic date farm that serves the most delicious date milk shakes.

So when will we be leaving Yuma? Who knows? Our intent was to be here only a few weeks, but my medical problems have kept us here longer. We’ve quit guesstimating when we might be able to leave; every time we think we might be out of here in a few weeks, I have a setback. Note to snowbirds: If you’re looking for excellent, senior-friendly health care, Yuma is the place to be. The main facility where I treat is considered one of the best in the country, and on the cutting edge of medicine.

The snowbirds are migrating

An emptying RV park

With days getting warmer all the time in southern Arizona, the snowbirds are going home. Yuma, where we’re at, has been in triple digit temps for several days now, though locals say these temps are unseasonably warm for this time of year. The temps are so warm that news reports say rattlesnakes are coming out of hibernation early.

Many of Yuma’s 90,000 snowbirds started going home in mid-March, and more are pulling out every day. It’s hard to get a handle on how many are left in the RV park we’re at, because some people leave their RVs here year ’round or else have park model homes. We pass about a dozen RV parks on the way to the hospital every day, and they also are turning into ghost towns. We recently drove through Quartszite, where we spent a week in January, and saw many of the city’s 28 RV parks totally empty.

 

Another sign the snowbirds are migrating is the lines at the Walmart pharmacy department. Back in February, lines to drop off prescriptions wound down the aisle, almost to the door. Lines to pick up prescriptions were equally long the other way. People easily stood in either line for an hour or more to be helped. Now there are no lines and prescriptions are ready in 15 minutes or less, instead of a day or two.

Reflections on Yuma, Arizona

Blue skies over Yuma

So we’ve been in Yuma a week now, and what do I think of the place. Jon loves it and would like to settle here, but the jury is still out for me.

Yuma is sprawled out all over the place. The RV park we’re at is way out in the middle of somewhere, not too far from the Fortuna Road exit off Interstate 8. 32^nd Street is the closest major street for us. Flat fields growing veggies or citrus trees are interspersed with snowbird RV parks and strip malls. While downtown Yuma is probably about 10 miles away, there’s a Walmart superstore within two miles. Going a mile in the other direction is one of the best supermarkets I’ve been in in a long time. There also are some chain stores, banks and chain restaurants.

Food is expensive here. A gallon of milk costs about 40 cents more than we paid at Winco in Kennewick; whole grain breads that we like are about $5 a loaf. A package of frozen chicken breasts costs $3 a bag more than in Kennewick for the same brand. Even the fresh veggies are more expensive.

There are dollar stores all over the place, but a couple of them (Family Dollar and Dollar General) charge more than a dollar for many items. Only a true Dollar Store and a 99-cent store keep everything to that price, though the 99-cent store does charge more for a gallon of milk, but is still cheaper than the supermarket.

I am having problems finding my way around Yuma due to their weird street naming practice. Numbered streets are both streets and avenues; 32^nd street becomes South Frontage Road just south of Walmart. Plus north and south Frontage roads are not just one street. Oh, no! They intersect each other.

Yuma is not a good city to ride motor scooters in. Traffic moves too fast for me, though I can keep up with the traffic if I go 55 mph, which I don’t mind doing for short stretches, just not for miles at a time. We really haven’t seen that many other scooter riders, and I’m wondering if this is why. The traffic doesn’t seem to bother Jon, who rides his scooter a lot more than I do mine.

Air pollution is minimal, which is very nice. Skies are really blue and you can see the mountains surrounding this big valley that Yuma sits in.

We originally intended to stay here a month, but may be staying a lot longer, due to unforeseen circumstances. Maybe I will learn to like it better, though my preference is still for a place that has green trees (forests are more like it) and lots of water, like in oceans.