More desert, and a Desert Bar (1-23-2011)

     Our new desert home is located in the town of Quartzsite, AZ, about 90 miles from where we were in Yuma.  We got here Friday and are parked next to Julie and Mike, who were with us in Yuma.




 

parking in the desert

     Quartzsite is a quirky town.  I am assuming it gets its name from all the quartz there is in the area.  It's a rock hounders paradise and there are a lot of rock and quartz shows based here.  Every year, during the winter, the population of this small town of about 3,300 swells to hundreds of thousands, as RVers swarm the area in order to be someplace warm.  About 1.5 million people pass through here during the months of January and February. Although there are several RV parks in town, the biggest draw is the BLM (Federal Bureau of Land Management) land where RVers can park for free, or nearly free.  There are tens of thousands of RVs just parked in the desert.  We are one of them.  There are signs along the roads indicating where "groups" are parked so people can find their friends.  Julie and Mike gave us directions to where they are, and we found them with no problem at all.



 



steady stream of traffic on the road to the Desert Bar

      Our first adventure was to the "Desert Bar" in Parker.  The bar is only open until sunset, and only on the weekends, and if you want a parking space, you need to be there by noon. It's  located 5 miles down a dirty dusty road, which you'd never know, based on the traffic on that little road!  What a fun place!  It uses solar power to run everything, and has a live band playing in the afternoon.  You can get food to eat, and whatever you want to drink.   It really reminded me of the Caribbean, except classier.




 



The Desert Bar

    We went with Julie and Mike and met up with Nancy and Dave once we got there.  Nancy and Dave were in Benson and Yuma with us. 

       This morning Paul and I went to the craft shows and mineral shows in town.  The "goods" are similar to the ones we saw in Yuma, with the exception of all the gems and rocks.  We didn't buy anything, but we had fun looking.  Tomorrow we'll probably head to the huge RV Show that's in town as well, not that we want a new RV, but again, its fun to look.

      I have been enjoying "boondocking" a lot more than I thought I would.  Part of it is being part of a group and having other people around.  We're not used to socializing with the same people more than once, and its been really nice to feel a sense of community.  Really, the only thing we miss at all  is TV.  We really don't have enough power to watch it unless we run our very loud generator.  Paul misses watching the news every day, and he feels a little out of touch.  We have the computer, but don't really spend much time on it.

     We have no idea how long we'll stay here, but we're not really in a rush to leave, since apparently its pretty cold everywhere else in this country!

As a P.S.,  today is my son Stephen's birthday.  I really can't believe he is 24, which really squarely puts him in his mid twenties. How did he get so old??



Stephen