Q is

The first item on our bucket list for this year!!  Quartzsite, AZ, is a small town on I-10 in western AZ that is considered snowbird central in the winter time.  That is, snowbirds that travel in RV’s. 

A windy day!

They start gathering in Q in late Oct and continue to arrive through the winter.  January is the big RV event culminating in a very large RV show the last week of the month.  There are several RV parks in and close to town but the very vast amount of RV’ers boondock in the nearby BLM lands.  There are LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) with dump stations and water fill stations and STVA (Short TVA) with no facilities. 

Open parking!

Some folks cluster togather

These areas are each 3 or so miles square and have no hook-ups, you park where you want to.

Some folks park by themselves others in small groups.  We are with a group of about 15 or so RV’s, all members of the Escapees RV Club.  There are other groups of Escapees (SKP) in the area and tomorrow and the next day there is a Club Happy Hour sponsored in one of the campgrounds.  Our group, the Class of 2007, gets together every evening about 4 o’clock around the fire pit and socializes!

Pot luck for the Class of 2007

Queen Linda on the throne!

This evening we had a pot luck and of course more food then you can imagine.  And, later some of the guys had worked out a fun way to recognize the effort of the main lady that organized this 5-year reunion of the Class of 2007 - their 5th anniversary of full time RV life! Remember, this is an all volunteer organization with no real officers or charter.    Linda has certainly been key to this gathering, our first. 

So this evening there was a coronation making her Queen of the Class.  Tools suitable for her duties and a throne were part of the coronation.

Around the campfire!

Later at the coronation ball, we had campfire songs led by a friend of a friend of somebody from Canada.   

Tomorrow we will have a bar-b-q to enjoy some meat that has been in the smoker for several days now!  And, Friday afternoon we have an auction as a fund raiser for a special charity we all have an interest in followed by a chili cook-off!

Life’s tough for BJ and I, but we are managing to handle it!

The whole town turns into a huge flea market in Jan.  There are several large gem and rock shows sponsored by different organizations.  And, dealers show up for any and everything imaginable.  A very large circus style tent (3-ring at least) is put up for the RV show in late January, followed by a rock and gem show, followed in Feb by an Arts and Craft show.  However, the huge tent is only one venue, every square inch of Q has some vendors hawking something that might be of interest to the crowd!

BJ at the Rock Pile!

The surrounding area is all open desert and BJ and I have enjoyed some hiking in the mountains, as well as, across the desert!  It is all beautiful.  

Some of the RVs in the desert!

And, when you get some height up a mountain you see all of these little dots in the desert that are RVs spread throughout the desert – I have heard estimates of 12,000 to 15,000 RVs here.  Before we got here I thought it was just somebody’s wild overestimate.  However, now I believe it is an underestimate.  Yesterday we were climbed a mountain SW of town and we had a good look from about 500 ft above the desert floor and the RVs were just everywhere! 

A pretty cactus flower in the mountains!

 

A desert road with flood warning!!

View from the mountain!

Always at home no matter where we are!