Cocopah

We're at the Cocopah casino on the Indian Reservation in Yuma (Summerton, actually).  There is a big RV lot on blacktop with lines marking out nice large spaces.  There's about 30 RVs here and it's only half full.  It's $10 to stay here for 3 days, but they give you one day free, so it ends up being four.

This is perfect because we just dumped and took water at the LTVA in Winterhaven and are good to dry camp for 4 days. 

Why did we drive the rig out here?  Well, first off, I was going to have to do it eventually because we needed gas in the RV and there's no gas stations in Winterhaven except for one on a military base (where we had a negative experience before). 

Second, the car will be done tomorrow and it would be hard to drive the RV to the Meineke.  I want to get an Uber like I did before.  There's no Ubers in Winterhaven.  Moving over here gives me access to that service again.

This is a very nice blacktop boondock.  Pretty quiet so far, except for one noisy truck engine that ran for a while.  All around us is bright green grass, the casino landscaping.  It's been so long since I had something other than desert and scrub brush to look at.

Of course, we're stupid and gambled ourselves broke.  Not really--but we did go overboard.  In that regard it becomes a much more expensive boondock.  Meh...oh well.  It's what we enjoy.

Before we settled in here we drove to a Food For Less and got provisions.  This is a Mexican grocery store chain in Yuma (and elsewhere?).  We were low on everything so I really filled up the shopping cart, including the space under it. 

If you go to a Mexican grocery you'll notice that people have very little in their carts, or are just carrying one or two items to the checkout.  People go shopping more than once every two weeks.  A lot of the carts looked to hold the contents of one dinner. 

So here I come with my megacart.  The check out lanes aren't designed for big piles of stuff.  It's that tiny rotary style check out you see at little mom and pop grocery stores.  I let a man with two items ahead of me.  Then a woman with one item comes up.  I tell her to go ahead.

Her eyes bulged and she said, "Really?" in a tone that sounded like she knew me (or my type) and was shocked that I was being civilized.  She followed it up with a genuine thank you, and a 'thank you so much!'


I looked like a fat trashy white person.  We had planned to shower that morning, but couldn't park the RV in by the token shower without a permit, so we skipped it.  I was dressed in what I'd slept in last night because I expected to get cleaned and dressed up after my shower.  My hair was in a messy bun.  My splotchy skin is white as a fish-belly.  People can't tell I'm a Sorta-Rican (half hispanic).  I look white.  The woman was a young black girl.  She acted like she was not accustomed to someone like me being considerate.  Her reaction made me stop and think. 

But, then, it could be because people in this area are generally inconsiderate and have nothing to do with race.  I don't really know.