Sometimes in life you learn the hard way that Yuma, AZ has no proper train station. Just a Union Pacific office that is strictly off limits, a couple of scruffy looking benches on the platform, and a very sleepy and neglected old town that is not without its charms... the problem then being that of lugging your bags around for four hours.
This very cool and charming former hotel, the Del Sol, is a historic landmark that will hopefully become a train station, cafe, and other things... It would make a fabulous youth hostel, or budget traveler hotel along the lines of Tucson's Hotel Congress.
I didn't realize Yuma had an old town until the sight of this fountain beckoned me... There are some shops and restaurants and all kinds of potential. Speaking to several people that night, I learned that as far as old towns go, this one is completely overlooked, that if the developers had their way it would be flattened by now, and that the funding is simply not there yet to make things happen. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. If anyone could appreciate old town Yuma, I guess it would be me.
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