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.