The Colorado River

We have moved to one of our parks on the Arizona side of the Colorado River. The closest "town" is Ehrenberg and we are about 20 miles west of Quartzsite. We have never been to this park before so we had no idea what the area was like. The park is nice and our site is beautiful. Since it is nearing the end of the season and there aren't that many rigs in the park, we were able to get a site right on the river. The town of Ehrenberg, on the other hand, is a series of falling down trailer houses surrounded by trash with not a redeeming feature that I could see. Ehrenberg makes Quartzsite look good! Blythe, CA is only five miles away and that is where there is a grocery store.

The view is ever changing from our site and always interesting, but I am especially enjoying the sunsets. Mike doesn't even mind cooking when this is the view.

Just to show you what a good job Mike did polishing the MH, this is sunset reflected off the side... Cool huh!

Our first two days here were spent CLEANING the inside. It seems that to matter how big your home is, it still is too big when it comes time to do that good thorough spring housecleaning.

I am happy to report that cabinets, cupboards and drawers are organized; the carpet and floors have been scrubbed, and everything else has been dusted and polished. It feels good to have it done!

With the cleaning behind us, we headed north to visit an historical site named Poston. Poston Relocation Center was one of 10 internment camps for Japanese people during WWII. It still is unbelievable to me that United States citizens were rounded up and put in camps because of their ethnic origin. When I express this sentiment, I am always reminded by someone that the fear after Pearl Harbor was very real and the government felt it had to do something... BUT, what must it have been like to be Japanese American living a normal life with a family and a home and a job one day and incarcerated the next because of where your parents or grandparents were from. When we visited this memorial, there was a middle aged gal there whose parents had met at Poston and married later. I did not have a chance to talk with her, but what stories she must have heard from her parents. This is the memorial - nothing much - easy to drive by for most people.

This internment camp was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, over the objections of the Tribal Council, who refused to be a part of doing to others what had been done to their tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Washington, D.C., overrode the objections and said it would be a way to bring improvements to the Reservation. The camp is named after the man who put in the irrigation system, which later did benefit the agricultural efforts of the Indian people along the Colorado River. All that remains are some buildings which were a part of the main camp and when we explored the area, it did look like one of the buildings may have been re-purposed at one time. Literature says that other buildings in the area are now used for agricultural purposes.

At the peak, between 1942 and 1945, over 17,ooo Japanese Americans were housed at the three sites (three miles apart) that comprised this camp. Most of them were from southern California. One group of men from the camp enlisted and distinguished themselves in service to their United States... the same country that had rounded them up and put their families in an internment camp.

Housing area - one door, one window

Poston War Relocation Center was, in the early 1940's, the third largest "city" in Arizona and had three schools for the more than 5,000 children housed there. Now, think about this: Poston War Relocation Center was built by Del Webb. Yes, the same Del Webb that went on to build "over 55" developments all over Arizona. Most well known is "Sun City" by Phoenix. Huh... rounding up "identified" people in one location seems to be a specialty of this fellow. I won't be able to look at a Del Webb development the same again!

I will close with this inscription on the monument. We Americans do not have a pretty history. Will we ever learn not to punish all when we are afraid of the actions of a few...

(Please enlarge and read this in its entirety.)