Sunday, January 17, 2010 Lorraine’s report
Well, we moved from Palm Springs on Wednesday to Ehrenberg, AZ and then to Quartzsite, AZ on Saturday morning. You sure could feel the difference in moving from semi-desert to desert. The temperature went from in the 60’s to the mid to high 70’s, and it is such a dry heat, it sure felt nice.
This past week was fairly quiet for both of us. We slept in, watched TV, did the rugs and bedding at the Laundromat; just your everyday normal stuff. Oh, and I had my hair done at Walmart in Palm Springs by the same gal that did it before Christmas. I told her it was too dark that time and this time she did it differently, and I think she got the color down the way I like it, thank goodness. This week was a nice reprieve from our regular busy stuff, especially since I’m still not my regular self after being so ill before Christmas.
We are here now dry camping at Quartzsite. Yesterday, six rigs pulled into our circle of friends, making us a total of ten rigs, all ready to enjoy the sights and sounds of Quartzsite.
I think there are four rigs that are new here to us. there’s Sharon and Randy, Allen from St Louis, Bob from LA , and John and his wife, Judy, plus Sharon and Virgil, Bob and Linda, Mike and Linda, Mike and Cathy, Earl and Lynda and us.
Last night we had our 5 pm happy hour. Sue made up a big pot of her chili, using some buffalo meat, I made up a pan of corn bread and everyone else brought snacks and such for sharing. We had a delicious dinner with wonderful fellowship following.
After dinner we all sat around the campfire and visited until it got too cold to sit out any longer. Linda and Mike brought a copper pipe with a piece of garden hose stuffed inside the pipe and put the pipe into the fire. This pipe made the fire turn blue and green from the chemical reactions of the pipe and hose. It was very pretty. A big thank you goes to Sharon and TJ and Larry and Kathy for telling Linda and Mike about this last year. Everyone enjoyed the show around the fire.
Today we will probable go over to the big tent and walk through all the vendors.
That was the week. I hope this finds everyone healthy. Until next time….Lorraine
1/17/10 Chuck’s report
Hey, I forgot to call my brother Craig yesterday to wish him Happy Birthday. Hope you had a good one, be careful, you’ll be creeping up on 60 in a couple of years!!
Following is some information I cut and pasted about Quartzsite.
Quartzsite, Arizona is the ideal place for anyone who drives an RV. In the winter, when the weather is perfect, it is the home of the annual Quartzsite Sports, Vacation and RV Show. Quartzsite is also a wonderful place to find gems, rocks, minerals and fossils. During January and February, the town hosts around 10 different gem and mineral shows in a flea market type setting. With over a million people visiting during these two months, Quartzsite makes itself the place to be.
We are back in Quartzsite, Arizona for another visit. This is where we camp out in the desert with no hookups (called boon docking) for as long as we like. We actually stay in an area that has water and a sewer dump available if we want to head over there and wait in line. I hear there are over 1,000,000 people out here around this small town, some stay a few days, some stay all winter.
All this craziness started in the 60s with folks looking for a place to spend the winter and built up from there. They started with rock and gem shows, added a RV and sports show and a classic car show. The erect a huge tent for the months of January and February for all the folks to roam through and buy stuff from the venders. There are also sections set up with more permanent venders selling their wares. Lots of rock and gem, tools, clothes, and other stuff can be had.
We are planning on staying here for 6 days this time, staying with the same group we have in the past two years, RV America Forum. The people are not the same every year although the “core” group stays the same. We have built up some good friends from here, even went to Mexico with some of them last winter. This year is the same as year’s past, we meet with our friends and make new ones that are here for their first time. I think there are a 4 rigs here with folks that we haven’t met before, looking forward to getting to know them better.
We have a regular scheduled happy hour every day at 5:00, everyone brings some snacks and goodies. It usually ends up being enough for our dinner. But we sit around the campfire eating and visiting and just having a good time. Later when it gets cooler, we sometimes break into smaller groups and play cards or dominoes in someone’s rig.
The traffic in town is horrible, but everyone seems to just take it in stride, you don’t hear lots of horns honking or see lots of one finger salutes. We haven’t been over in town yet, just got here yesterday afternoon and we are waiting for the crowds to die down some. We are close enough to walk over to the big tent and will probably go over this afternoon for awhile.
The weather forecast is for rain starting tonight. We have never been here during a rainy period but everyone says it turns into a muddy mess, not much fun. The forecast for Southern California is for 6 – 8 inch of rain over the next weeks, some of which is supposed to come over the mountains and dump in the desert too. Oh well, if it gets too bad, we have wheels under our house and will just leave earlier than planned, no problem here.
This past week we were in Palm Springs, spent some time resting from the early mornings with the Maestros at the FMCA rally. We left there on Wednesday and drove over to Ehrenberg, Az. for a three night stay at a campground. We had our mail delivered to the local post office, our first mail delivery of the year. We filled up our fresh water tank, made sure our holding tanks were empty and headed out on Saturday morning to meet up with our friends here in Quartzsite.
We plan on leaving here on Thursday this week and head to Yuma. Lorraine has already made a dentist appointment in Mexico on Friday. We will stay in the Yuma area for a week or so. I haven’t had an official request to go to work back in Washington but depending on that outcome, we will either slowly start heading East toward Alabama or stay Southern California for a couple of weeks before slowly heading North. Either way we are hoping to enjoy the weather, meeting old and new friends and enjoy being together in this fun lifestyle.
And now for some pictures of this area.
We’ve arrived, that the big tent in the background.
You see just about every kind of camping rig you can think of out here.
Some of the folks we are staying with. Mike/Linda on the left, Bob/Linda on the right.
Randy/Sharon on the left, Sharon/Virgil and Sue on the right.
A picture of our campfire the first night. Our friends from back home and in Yuma, TJ/Sharon, have a copper pipe with a piece of rubber hose inside that they put into their fire. It causes some kind of chemical reaction and produces multi-colored flames. Mike/Linda made up a copper pipe and tried it in our fire, you can see the colors in the pictures Lorraine took.
And once again, that was our week.
Thanks Chuck
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