Quartzsite

In my blog I have been trying to catch up to where I am now, but the last few days have been so great I wanted to fill you in.

I left Yuma last Thursday and arrive in Quartzsite mid morning.  It is only 68 miles so it was a leisurely drive, with very little traffic.  The scenery as usual was magnificant with the mountains in the background against the blue sky and the desert.  Just north of Yuma they have a border patrol where you have to stop and check in.  They have sniffer dogs that check for every thing.  The guy asked me if I was an American citizen and when I said Canadian he said have a nice day.

Quartzsite is a small town of about 2,000 people during the "off" season but swells to over 100,000 RVers in the winter time.  You can park for 14 days in the desert for free, then you can move to another part and start again.  You can also get two week passes for $80.00 or 6 months for $180.00.  You can go where ever you want on these passes.  I joined a group called the WINs Wandering Individual Networks, a group that is very active Kayaking, hiking and biking. I am not a member, but my friends are. They only dry camp and live off solar panels and wind generators and know where all the free camping is.  My friends were there and Bob was replacing my old TV with a flat screen.  He put the frame on a hinge so I can open it up and I am now able to store things behind it.  I can also access my audio and video plugs (Wii coming up shortly to play with).

What is so much fun is when you wake up in the morning and you look out at the mountains with the sun coming up and a coyote wanders right by your window, sniffs around and moves on.  Grabbed my camera, didn't get a good shot, there is always another morning. A knock on the door and my friend Donna is going to Parker did I want to go.  It is the only town that has a Wal Mart Supercenter and it is 24 miles away so got a few things that I needed.  I was looking for walking sticks and they had them for $18.00 a lot cheaper than Canada. All RVers work around Wal Marts they are one stop shopping. When we got home someone mentioned All You Can Eat Fish Fry so a car load went to a little town called Bouce 23 miles away.  I could have gone dancing that night, but ran out of steam.  When I came in I bottomed out and it broke my connection to my brakes on the car.  Well at happy hour I asked if someone could fix it and it was fixed in 5 minutes, got to love the networking.

In Quartzsite everyone works around whatever hours you want to work it seems. Information was closed at 3 and didn't open until 10.  Sally Ann open at 9 closed at 1.  Forget going to the post office the line up is a mile long outside in the sun.  Can you imagine 100,000 people waiting to get their mail, Well not all in one day, I know a few drive all the way out to Bouce for theirs.  Left for Blythe, Ca at 9 the next morning, was only a 40 minute drive.  While I was waiting for the roof guy I parked by a part of the desert across from his house.  While having lunch I see about 15 Quail running past my window and hiding in the bush beside me.  Out comes the camera, they are so cute the way they try to run fast with little legs.

There are a lot of these pretty birds in the desert and are fed very well in some areas.  I am having the roof on my RV redone in Acrylic at half the price I would pay in Canada and it has a 10 year warranty.Scott Christian arrived so I backed into his driveway and he set up.  He owns two beautiful homes on the Colorado River with decks at the back.  They have three garages that house their pontoon boats and their four wheelers.  The family comes and plays when school is out for the summer.  Scott has been doing this for about 5 years and is a guy that has had his hands into almost everything.  When he retired he got bored so now he works all over the U.S. fixing roofs.  What was nice about it was we went into Blythe to shop and ended up at Sizzler Steak House for dinner.  What a great way to spend an evening talking to someone interesting.  I usually have dinner by myself.  Today is another beautiful day up to 28 in the shade with a nice cool breeze. Sun deck here I come.  I will be here for three days then I will go back to Quartzsite for the RV show and a rally with the singles.

As you can see every day is a present you never know who you will meet, what you will do and where you will go.  I wonder what is next..........................