A trip to Quartzsite

If you were going to identify "the middle of nowhere" you would call it Quartzsite, Arizona. Quartzsite is roughly 90 miles south of Lake Havasu but is actually in another universe. This is a place that people from up north, where there is snow and cold, come to spend their winters. Although there are some real to goodness RV parks in town most folks just pull up out in the desert and drop anchor. Most of the land is owned by the U. S. Government and is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). For the most part folks can stay on BLM land for free. The only problem with that, even though these massive beast we tool around in are fully self-contained, periodically one has to find a place to empty the holding tanks and replenish the fresh water supply. That requires pulling up stakes and trekking into town to pay someone a small fee to use their dump and fresh water spigot.

Quartzsite is located at the intersection of Arizona Highway 95 and U. S. Interstate 10. It is about 100 miles west of Phoenix. The large crowds are more apt to be there in January and February. Here in late March most of the northern folks, or "snowbirds", have left and headed back home. In January of each year they have a big RV show. Many of the Arizona RV dealers will bring out RV's for sale. Also, a huge circus like tent is set up and vendors from all over rent space to hawk their wares to the RV community.

Our day trip, in the car, today was to scout out the area to see what it is all about. It was around 90 degrees there today and in the summer months it will go well over 110. We have several friends in our Monaco owners group who go out in January and have been asking us to join them. So far our scheduling has not allowed us to travel this direction during that time frame. When these folks get together they all park together for a week or two and have a good time. This always includes checking out the latest RV items in the vendor tent, having pot luck dinners, tending a large campfire, and having the required "happy hour" each evening.

The biggest down side to joining our friends is it would require us to "dry camp". Even with the fact that when dry camping we are not paying an RV park for use of their space it means we also don't have the luxury of plugging in our home on wheels to a convenient electrical source, a water hydrant or a sewer line. We have done some dry camping, most recently for a few days in the California desert while we helped with the Baker to Vegas run. The longest we ever dry camped was at a RV rally in Brooksville, Florida, in 2007. We were there for eight days and had to really be conservative with water usage so that our "gray tank" did not get too full. (The gray tank holds all the water that comes from the sinks and shower and holds 54 gallons. The "black" tank holds the contents from the toilet and holds 36 gallons.) All in all, I'm not a big fan of dry camping. Yes, as previously stated, our coaches are set up to be fully self supporting. We have an 8,000 watt generator that will produce all the electricity we need plus a bank of batteries that perform well when the generator is not running. The generator does burn diesel fuel so we normally do not run it continually when dry camping. We also have a fresh water tank that holds 100 gallons. But, I still can't see why folks will sit for months out in the desert. I figure that if God had wanted me to subsist out in the desert he would not have had the builder of this coach put a big 50 amp electric cord that comes out of the back of this thing.

Every RVer has a different idea of what is fun. It may very well be that we join our friends out in the Quartzsite desert for awhile one of these January's. We'll just have to look at the schedule when the time rolls around and see where we are. For today, we are back at our coach in Lake Havasu with both air conditioner's running. Joanne is taking a nap and I'm relaxing in anticipation of our leaving tomorrow morning and starting the trek east and back to Oklahoma.