Quartzite, Arizona Experience

 

We left Southern California a week ago and drove to Brenda, Arizona, which is located about 10 miles east of Quartzite.  For those of you who may not know about Quartzite let me give you some information from what I have learned.  It is in the desert out in the middle of nowhere.  During the hot months, spring and summer, the town has a population of about 5,000.  Years back the population would increase to over a million during the fall and winter months due to the influx of snowbirds who would winter here.  The numbers and length of stay have been decreasing over the past few years but the population still increases into the hundreds of thousands for a couple of months during the winter. 

The big attraction is the climate but also the rocks and gems that are found in the area.  So a big rock and gem show was started here many years ago and then an RV show was added since so many of the snowbirds use RV’s to live in while in the area.  At one time it was billed as the largest RV show in the states.  Following the RV show is a large craft show. 

To really experience Quartzite you need to come during the RV/Rock and Gem show as this is when everything is going on, so that is what we did.  We met up with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin.  They have been coming to Quartzite for many years so they have been very helpful it directing us around and telling us what to see.  Here is our two rigs at the park in Brenda.

Ours is in front of our red truck.  Their rig is to the right.

Needless to say it is very busy here during this show time.  Traffic is very busy getting to the show and parking is difficult as there are no real parking lots.  You just find some dirt spot out in the desert.  Fortunately we have 4 wheel drive on our truck as some of the areas are like quicksand.  The RV show was a disappointment as only one RV dealer was used for the main site so the brands of trailers were limited.  Around town other dealers were set up but still it was not what I had expected.  The vendor tent was pretty good for RV related items.  Outside the main tent was a huge vendor area selling just about anything you wanted.  Then around the rest of the town (one main street) was probably the largest garage sale going on. 

What is fascinating about all this is the town has a few gas stations, no major supermarket (just a couple of small grocery stores) and no bank.  The nearest Wal-Mart is 50 miles away!  I don’t understand why this is the case with so many RV’ers here. 

A popular thing for RV’ers to do here is boondock.  This where you drive out into the desert and park your RV and have no hookups.  As most of the land in the area is public land it can be done for free or for a small fee to the Bureau of Land Management.   There are businesses set up so that you bring your rig in to fill up the water tanks and dump your holding tanks, or you can pay a little more and they will come to you.  As you drive around the area on Interstate 10 you will see RV’s all over the place in the desert.

One place my Aunt/Uncle told us to stop at was a place called the Reader’s Oasis.  It is a used bookstore where the owner, an elderly gentleman, runs the shop in the nude except for a small cover over his “junk”. We stopped but it was a little cold in the morning so he was wearing a coat.  I was able to find a picture of him on the internet so you can see what it is all about.

We are here for another week then onto Las Vegas.

A new section:  While in Southern California I bought an atlas and highlighted all the roads we have driven and places we have stayed and gave it to my step-father so he can follow our travels.  With each blog post I will now add at the end the roads that we traveled to get there.  We left Anaheim on the 91 freeway going east to Interstate 215 south to Interstate 10 east.  Interstate 10 took us to highway 60 just east of Quartzite and we are staying in a little town called Brenda (probably not on the map) which is about 3 miles north of Interstate 10 on highway 60.

I’m Back!

 

Howdy folks.  It has been awhile.  As we get ready to leave Southern California I thought I would get you caught up on what we have been doing over the past couple of months. 

We arrived in Southern California (Anaheim) on Veterans Day in November.  We picked this area as my parents live here as well as some others relatives for the both of us.  In addition you cannot beat the weather this time of year in this area.  It has generally been in the high 60’s or 70’s most days.  The nights do a little cold but the sunshine makes up for it.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my one of my aunt’s.  She has been having a large Thanksgiving  gathering for years and I believe this is the first one we have made.  It was great to catch up with a lot of my relatives.  A real treat was seeing an uncle and cousin I had not seen in over 30 years.  We had a great time.

Next up was to celebrate Christmas a little early with our three daughters and son-in-law.  As flights are much cheaper before the holiday we celebrated in the middle of December.  Our two daughters from Knoxville flew in for 4 days and our daughter and her husband drove down for Portland.  We had a great weekend and it allowed them to visit with their grandparents. 

Christmas in the RV

Family picture

Since then we have been enjoying the great weather with daily walks and/or bike rides and visiting with my parents.  We have not done much sightseeing as we both grew up in the area and do not have much interest in revisiting places we have been.  We did end up going to Venice, California as neither one of us had ever seen the canals or the beach. The beach walk was pretty rundown but did have some interesting people.  It appears many people take up residence on the grassy area between the beach and the shops.  We walked the canals and it was interesting to see the nice homes all crammed together around these tiny canals.  I am sure you have all seen these as it is a popular filming location for TV shows. 

Venice Beach

Venice canals

We left Venice and drove up the coast highway a couple of miles to the Santa Monica pier.  You all should be familiar with this icon as the carousel and entrance sign has been in many TV shows and movies.  This is the ending point (or starting point) for Route 66 so it sort of means we have made the whole journey on the Old Route 66.  Technically we did not drive every portion where it still exists but we have hit all the major cities on the route, so I bought the T-shirt!  We had lunch on the pier and then walked the coast highway and their shopping district.  You could not have asked for a more beautiful day.

Santa Monica pier

Carousel building (it was closed for the day)

Entrance sign for the pier

On Saturday we head out for Salome, Arizona.  This is near Quartzite, Arizona where the annual RV show is held along with a crafts show and rock and gem show.  Due to the large number of snowbirds in the area these shows are very popular and supposed to be the largest ones around.  We are meeting up with my Aunt and her husband along with their daughter.  Following that we move onto Las Vegas to attend the wedding of a friends daughter then we begin a trip up the west coast to visit our daughter in Portland.