Tuesday February 7, 2012


We drove back out to the Yuma Military Proving Grounds this morning. We wanted to tour the Military Museum located on the Military Base within the proving grounds. We were there about a week ago but it was too late in the day to see the museum.
 Military Base at Yuma Military Proving Grounds


We drove into the main gate of and got clearance to enter the base and was directed to the museum. The museum was small but filled with the history of the proving grounds. The proving grounds were developed during WWII by General George Patton to test military equipment, explosives and various military gear. The proving ground is huge and includes many thousand acres of  chosen landscapes to closely resemble those of various war zones. We watched a video that explained how each item is put through stringent tests to assure it's endurance and effectiveness. While on the base we heard many booms off in the distance where they were testing the explosives.
We talked to one of the military personnel at the museum for awhile and he told us that we could have lunch either at the main restaurant on base or at the bowling alley. The restaurant closed at 1:00 but the bowling alley was open until midnight. He explained that the bowling alley had extended hours to provide an eating place for the personnel who worked late and provided healthy meals. It was 12:30 when we left the museum so we went to the bowling alley for lunch. We had a sandwich and a drink and then drove around the base for awhile before we left. I mentioned last week about the RV's parked on the base. As we were driving on the base we had a better idea of just how large the RV area was and it looked to be filled to capacity with campers.


                                                        Imperial Date Gardens

Date Groves in Bard, CA

We left the base and drove through the main road of the proving grounds and arrived in Bard, CA. Last week at the farmer's Market, I talked to a lady who had a booth selling dates. She told me her family owned Imperial Date Garden in Bard. We started seeing many date groves and then came to a shop owned by Imperial Date Company. We stopped and looked around the shop for awhile and ended up buying a date shake to share. Every where we go around this area, we see signs advertising date shakes but for whatever reason, just didn't sound like something I'd enjoy. The shake was thick enough that we used spoons to eat and surprisingly it was quite good. It had a faint flavor of dates but mostly just a basic ice cream type of treat. I asked the lady at the shop about public tours and she told me they require at least 7 people in a group. I asked if we could be included with someone else but she didn't really answer. Basically, I don't think she understood me as she was Hispanic and didn't seem to have a good knowledge of English. Most of the date groves, I read,  are owned by Hispanic families.

Workers in Date Field area with white suits. 

We drove down the road a little further and the date groves were on both sides of the road with various sizes of trees in the groves. I read a lot of history about the date groves and it takes around 7 years for a Mejhool date to produce fruit. We found another store owned by a different date company so we stopped in  to look around. They had 4 varieties of dates to sample. We sampled 3 varieties known as Halawy, Barhee and the Medjool. From the ones we had, the Medjool was the moistest and was my choice. The Medjool Date can be quite large and the shops dress them in many ways ranging from chocolate covered, bacon wrapped, nuts and also stuff the dates with everything imaginable. The dates are packaged and shipped all over the US. I also read it takes around 2,000 people to tend the groves in the Bard area and it is a 12 month process to prepare the fruit for harvest. Some of the groves we saw had been irrigated and had water standing in the grove that looked like a lake. One of the fields had farm workers dressed in white work cloths as if they were laboratory workers.

Migrant Workers harvesting the vegetable crops at Bard, CA




We drove back to the main road and found many migrant workers working the vegetable fields. The vegetable fields are interspersed among the date groves all though this area. The landscape is so flat that the date groves are easy to see for miles. The migrant workers were harvesting in the vegetable fields and were walking behind huge machinery where they box and bag the vegetables. There are always many flat bed semi's setting around the harvest area ready to be loaded for shipping. The fields are so well maintained, they look like a well tended landscaped yard. All of the vegetable fields are planted in strips with about 6 rows of vegetables in each strip. The spring mix fields are very colorful with alternating strips of deep purple to various colors of green.


We came back to Yuma and drove back to RT 95, the blacktop we drove out of town on. On this road, we saw several fruit and vegetables markets so we stopped to buy tomatoes. The tomatoes in the stores are terrible which is amazing since they are grown locally. We bought a basket of tomatoes and some homemade tamales. The tamales looked very good and everyone there was buying them so decided to give them a try.

We came home and had the tamales and cottage cheese with tomatoes for dinner. The tomatoes we bought looked beautiful but we were so disappointed in the flavor as they weren't much better than our store bought tomatoes. A few weeks back we talked to a guy in the grocery store who expressed how upset he was that he could not buy a decent tomato in this area. This confuses me since the area produces acres of tomatoes and can't believe they are so tasteless. If these are the tomatoes shipped into our markets in Illinois, I now understand why they are all so tasteless. The tamales were OK but also a little disappointing in flavor.