Here we are, on the road: We’re in Quartzsite, Arizona

January 18, 2014 Lorraine’s Report

Hello and thanks for stopping by. Once more we are in Quartzsite. Most of the year Quartzsite is just another small town people don’t even stop by to see or do anything here. But during these few “special” weeks, Quartzsite becomes the capital of the RVing world. If you can’t find it here in Quartzsite, well, they probably don’t make it for the RVing world, or it no longer exists. And when we started coming here, it seems to me that a whole lot more people would come here to enjoy the experience.

Well, this week Chuck was still suffering with his cold/flu, or whatever it is that he picked up. As I said before, when he takes medicine, you know that he is really suffering. And for him to take medicine without me urging him to take something is pretty unheard of.

It was nice to be in Palm Springs to at least be by the people from Lewis & Clark, before we came here. Although we didn’t hear much about what they did everyday, at least they knew where we were.

And of course we did see Joe/Alice. It’s always nice to go and visit with them. I know that their family is back home in Bellingham, WA. And I do know they miss seeing them, but soon enough, as they are headed back home.

So it is nice to see a bunch of friends from all over. We have enjoyed being with them, catching up on each other’s families and lives. I guess that is what Quartzsite is all about!

So that is it for me. I would like to thank you for stopping by. Have a great week everyone…See you down the road,

Hugs,

Lorraine

1/17/14 Chuck’s report

Another nice week in the books, not a real exciting one because I’ve been fighting the flu and some days just don’t feel like doing much. I don’t get a flu shot and normally that isn’t an issue as I don’t really get sick often but this time it almost got the best of me. A couple of days we mostly just stayed in the coach, only going out to walk Misty a few times each day.

Last Sunday we watched the NFL game, Dallas at Green Bay (Green Bay won and will play at Seattle today), then headed to Morongo Casino to meet Joe and Alice for brunch. We had a good visit with these two fine friends, too bad be couldn’t get to their place then head to Pala Casino like we had planned last week but I didn’t feel good that day and didn’t feel like having a good brunch or an hour drive each way either. But this visit turned out just fine, we had a good champagne brunch and a better visit. Joe and Alice will be heading back to Washington earlier than usual this winter so this may be the last time we are able to visit with them before they head back. Have a great trip and be sure we will try to see you when we can.

Monday we headed to Costco and Wal-Mart to stock up before heading here to Quartzsite. There are two small grocery stores here but with all the RVers in the area, it’s tough to get supplies here. While we were in Costco we found they had lots of vitamins on sale so we stocked up on the ones we take.

Later we watched the first every NCAA football championship game, we were rooting for Oregon but Ohio played a great game and deserved to win. Once again Oregon had a great season but came up short on their final game, bummer.

Tuesday morning some of the Lewis and Clark folks left, headed to Quartzsite too but they are staying in a different area than we are so we’ll have to find them before we leave. The winds picked up late morning and we both commented about it possibly affecting their drive, hope it didn’t. Later we drove to Spotlight 29 casino for a final buffet before we left the area. We had the lunch buffet and they were just putting out the dinner dishes as we left. We tried our luck on the slots but no luck for either of us this time.

Wednesday we got everything ready for travel and headed out to Quartzsite ourselves, only about a 3 hr. drive. We were glad the winds had died down so we didn’t have any issues with that. But some of the roads sure could use some maintenance, that’s for sure. But all in all, it was a good, uneventful trip with one stop to get diesel once we crossed the state line out of California.

We got to our park, checked in then drove to our site and got setup. We were surprised to find the sites are fairly large, wide enough to put out our RV mats and park our car next to it too. We were expecting 10 rigs to show up for our get together here, only two were here already. But it wasn’t long before the rest started showing up and before long 9 were here. Richard and Patsy, from Texas, were having mechanical issues and were unable to get here until Friday, shoot. We did have a good 5:00 meet/greet and stayed out until it started getting cooler after the sun when down.

Thursday we drove over to one of the vendor areas here called The Main Event and checked that area out. We must have been here enough as we just didn’t find anything we really needed or wanted. We were walking through one vendor and happened to run across our friends Dale and Audrey from back home. Dale and I worked at the refinery for years, I think he retired a few years before I did. Also, they have been coming to Quartzsite longer than we have, I think he said for the last 20 years, wow. It was good to catch up with them and have a short visit.

We did enough walking around that I had to come back to the rig and rest before going out to the 5:00 although they are changing the meeting time to 4:30 so we can be there a bit longer before the sun goes down and it starts cooling off.

Friday we headed over to a different vendor area, Tyson Wells. This is one of the largest vendor areas and once again we didn’t find anything to buy except Lorraine did find a new straw hat. We both noticed the prices are higher than before, there seems to be fewer vendors and the crowds aren’t as heavy. Like I said last week, I’m surprised that there aren’t more folks here due to the lower gas prices if no other reason.

After we got back to our coach we carried our chairs over and had a good visit with some of the folks here, just a quite, get acquainted again type, nice. Richard and Patsy did make it in today too, good to see them after their long trip. But it doesn’t seem the same without Mark and Sue from Louisiana being here, their names have come up a couple times.

Saturday Lorraine had a shopping trip planned with the gals, they left at 10 and got back around noon. I walked across the street and toured a couple new coaches at a RV place but found nothing to replace what we’ve already got. I also found the place where they will check/repair our tow bar for us and was just walking back to our coach when Lorraine called to let me know she was home. Once I got back I removed our tow bar and drove over to drop it off, they said they weren’t too busy and would be done within an hour, that’s fast. Usually it takes a few hours as they are really busy but once again, surprising, they weren’t.

We had made an appointment at a dog groomer we found to have Misty bathed and groomed at 3:00. Patsy stopped by to visit just as I had to leave to drop Misty off and pick up our tow bar so she and Lorraine visited until I got back.

Once again Lorraine got food ready for our 5:00 and we went over to the meeting area. Shortly after getting there I got a call from the dog groomer and had to leave and pick up Misty. She didn’t really groom Misty but more like gave her a short haircut but she still looks much better. I have not been able to bath her for the past two weeks and she really gets dirty when we are here in the desert so at least she had a good bath.

We’ve been having two fire pits going after our pot lucks and folks split up between them and continue with our visits. That is what makes our stay in Quartzsite so nice, shopping, food and visiting with friends. We’ve been coming here since our first year on the road, back in ‘07, and a few of these folks have been here every year with us while others come for a couple years and others take their place. We have sure met lots of nice folks here over the years.

Today we have plans to watch the Seahawks play, hoping they win over the Green Bay Packers. The second game will be New England Patriots against the Indianapolis Colts. Anyway, these are the Conference Championship games and the winners will play each other in the Super Bowl in two weeks. My prediction at the beginning of the year was for Seattle to play (and beat) New England, hope to see that prediction come true.

The weather has really been nice here for the past few days, maybe the best weather we’ve experienced over the years we’ve been coming. The highs are getting into the high 60s and low 70s while the night time lows are dropping to the high 30s or low 40s, not bad for being here. And we haven’t had much wind either, most years we experience heavy winds at least once or twice, it can be really dusty too.

Our travel plans are not too exciting, we leave here on Wednesday and are heading to Yuma for a week. While there, we are planning on going into Mexico for dental work and probably some medicines too. TJ and Sharon, we’ll try to see you while we are there but we are going to be staying out at Yuma Lakes for the week. Our plans from there are just smoke, nothing firm and for sure no reservations anywhere. Tough life, have to find somewhere to stay down here in the nice weather.

On the drive from Palm Springs to Quartzsite.