Finding Interest in the Middle of Nowhere

For the past few days Alex and I have been driving through the middle of nowhere...the desert. We have come across some pretty interesting stuff. I have never driven through the South East part of California or through Arizona at all; so, it's neat to experience this all for the first time. I find it interesting to see tons wild cactus and a bunch of random abandoned buildings in the middle of the desert. At some point in time someone occupied those buildings and for some reason or another they had to be left behind. It makes me wonder about the history of those places and what type of people lived there.

We stopped in Felicity, CA, which has a population of 4 people; how does a town with only four people even become a town? A post office; if it has a post office then it becomes a town. Felicity is famous for being the center of the world. Of course, you are probably thinking how can any one place be the center of the world? And you are right. Anywhere could be the center. As you are reading this you are sitting at the center of the world due to our planet being a sphere, but this small town got a bunch of other countries to name it the "official" center of the world. The U.S. government even made a circular plaque for the town naming it the official center of the world. Recently, Felicity has added an outdoor Museum of Humanity to their town. It consists of a bunch of triangular blocks with the engravings of human achievement and failure. At the end of the museum there is a church at the top of a hill and as you can see from the picture, the view of the museum creates the shape of a cross being illuminated. They have a stone in the middle of the cross that they are hoping to engrave on it a way for future generations to read the writing on the triangular blocks if language changes over time. They are still trying to figure out how they are going to relay that on to future generations, but I think that is a really cool idea.  Felicity also has a piece of the old Eiffel Tower stairs. It was taken out of the Eiffel tower years ago to be replaced by some new stairs and the town of Felicity bought it.

We stayed in Yuma, AZ for a night. Yuma used to be home to a huge prison when it was still a territory. It was shut down in the early 1900s. Other than that, there really isn't much to Yuma. We walked in their downtown area for a bit and they had a Farmer's Market going on. At the market I was shocked to see a lady selling Fuller Brushes. I know about Fuller Brushes from the movie with Red Skelton, "The Fuller Brush Man." It is a great classic comedy about a guy who sells Fuller Brushes. I used to watch that move over and over as a kid. The lady selling the brushes confirmed that it was the same company from the movie and she unfortunately had never seen the movie. I recommended she see it, but told her it might give her a different perspective on selling the brushes. In Downtown Yuma there were a ton of abandoned old buildings...big shocker there.. and the city did put the effort in creating plaques for the outside of the old buildings explaining what it used to be, but they are completely unpreserved. I wish they would put effort into preserving them, but maybe Arizona isn't big on preservation.

We stopped by the Painted Rock Petroglyph, which is a site where a bunch of rocks had carved pictures in them from hundreds and maybe even thousands of years ago. Archeologists don't know exactly what the pictures mean, but they think they were a carved by the Indians that settled there between 300 BC and 1400 AD. They aren't even really sure of that, though. It made me think of the Museum of Humanity in Felicity, and how they want to find a way to help future generations read the writing at the museum if language changes over time. Most of the Petroglyphs are animal images, so maybe those people thought the easiest way for future generations like us to figure out what they were communicating was to carve out pictures of the animals in the rocks that surrounded the area. I don't know...that's just a thought. Or maybe the rock place was their version of graffiti and the teenage Indians were vandalizing the rocks, or maybe it was where the kids spent there free time while their parents worked on the fields during the day. I could think of a million things of what it could have been.

Our next stop was in Gila Bend. Gila bend used to be a major stopping point on the Butterfield Stage Coach route, which operated from 1858 to 1861. It went from Missouri to California in 25 days at about 5 miles per hour. It cost $200, meals included. The Gila River flowed in abundance during that time and supplied lots of water for the people and animals who lived in the area. The river is mostly dried up now due to modern dams and farming irrigation. I really don't know how Gila Bend still survives to this day. Most of the buildings on the main street are abandoned. It looks like it is slowly becoming a ghost town.

I love finding out the history of these old places, but it makes me sad that they dying out. I guess that is a part of life. Phoenix is next on our places of destination. I think Alex and will found plenty of things to do there. It seems like a pretty populated area.