The Agnew Family aboard the "Dog House"

Checking the calendar today, we realize we have one week left in Yuma so we had better get to the site seeing we want to do.

We decided to see a few of the local sites today. Driving out of town on 95 we came to Harry McPhaul "Swinging Bridge to Nowhere". This bridge currently spans sifting sands of the desert as the great Gila River that it once bridged has been merged into the Colorado River. The bridge was built in 1929 and considered an engineering feat.

Next stop was Betty's Kitchen Wildlife and Interpretive Area. In 1983 (I think) this residential
area was flooded (there had been a restaurant called Betty's Kitchen) and the devastation was so bad that the area was turned into a park instead of trying to rebuild. There were lots of birds in this area. Leaving this area we followed the road up to Mittry Lake and then followed the canal up to the Imperial Dam. There is a lot of BLM land in this area where people park there trailers. In one spot we saw 2 burros.

Last stop of the day was the Ocean to Ocean Bridge at the north end of Yuma. The bridge was
built in 1915 and was the only vehicular traffic bridge across the Colorado for 1,200 miles. The
bridge completed the link from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the southern states.


The Harry McPhaul bridge, an engineering marvel now only spans the drifting sands



This sign details the history of the Ocean to Ocean highway bridge


The Ocean to Ocean bridge (on the left) was the final bridge required to complete a highway from the US coast to coast, the railway bridge on the right came later