Yuma, AZ

We spend Christmas and New Years in Lake Havasu City, back at the Porters' Party Place with the group. Not going to blog about that other than to say it was lots of fun, eating, drinking, you know the usual holiday drill, so again our heartfelt thanks to Paul and Sue for hosting.

Before we meet back up with the same group and even more friends in Quartzsite for the annual reunion, Brad and I head to Yuma to stock up on grapefruit honey, date syrup, date shakes, lime/cilantro balsamic vinegar, and cheap meds from Mexico. Other than shopping and relaxing, the only hike we take is a brutal 1,200-foot climb up Telegraph Pass. The view here is of Dome Valley and the Muggins Mountains beyond.

And here's the group who met in Quartzsite in mid-January 2017 (photo credit to Carol Ann Dwyer). Mostly, this event is about socializing with friends, and checking out the local shows - rock & gem shows, RV show, and general swap meet. As always, our special thanks to Steve and Carol for hosting spaghetti night, and the Porters and Swains for hosting margarita/quesadilla night. So much great food!

Quartzsite, Arizona

Socializing Around Camp

Annually, we gather in Quartzsite (Q to most) partly for the RV Show, but mostly to meet with friends, eat, drink and be very merry. Campfires are lit most nights at happy hour, and are occasionally accompanied by dinner hosted by one or more participants. This year, once again, the Porters and Swains host quesadilla/margarita night, and the Dwyers host spaghetti night. Everyone chips in, but these couples' efforts and organization are yummily appreciated.

Most mornings, some of us girls go hiking, for the exercise and comraderie, not the scenery.

Our departure. Several people, mostly the men, fall to a bad cold virus. Brad is on the verge, and we leave while we can so he can spend the next few days in bed recuperating since we've run out of fresh water.

Brad Goes Jeeping

A couple of folks have jeeps, and several couples go to Dripping Springs, an old mine/ghost town. This road is too difficult for our truck's long wheel base, so the jeeps are necessary.

How to thread a needle - with 10 people telling you which way to turn your wheels and when. I opt to spend the day quietly at the trailer, although I unwisely use my spare time cleaning and doing laundry!

Brad inspecting a few remaining artifacts.

Swansea Jeep Trip

Another old copper mining town, Swansea is about 1.5 hours away from Q. We go with Barbara and Wayne, who insist on driving their jeep, although the road is a well graded gravel road, rough only for the last couple of miles, but one we could have easily done in our truck. This panorama shows the remains of the smelter on the right.

Only a few walls of the smelter are left standing. Most of the buildings have tumbled and only the foundations and a few brick walls remain around the town site.

Barbara at the processing plant's foundation.

Barbara, Wayne, me and Brad with the miner's cabins behind us. Someone is currently restoring these buildings.

For those of you who are astute, you may have noticed that I have updated our "States Visited" map. I have changed my criterion from "we've set foot or wheel to soil" to "we've explored this state and stayed in one or more locations". It's a more accurate depiction.

Quartzsite, AZ

A panoramic shot of most of the rigs in our group (there are more to the right of us and under me since I'm standing on our roof to take this photo!) in Quartzsite, Arizona. This is a huge meeting place for RVers with numerous shows and swap meets occuring in January. We come to meet with our friends and enjoy social activities (aka drinking and eating).

Marguerita Night! Grilled quesadillas, margueritas, a pinata, a huge campfire and fabulous friends - life doesn't get much better!

Octogenarian Lee taking the first crack at the pinata. It took three people and about 8 whacks to open it up, and then we scrambled like a bunch of 5 year olds for the candy.

The entire group. Many thanks to great friend Carol Dwyer for herding the unruly cats so this shot is perfect! Carol is a wonderful professional photographer and we appreciate her generosity sharing this photo.

A day trip to the Desert Bar outside of Parker, Arizona. An abandoned mine site 6 miles from the highway in the desert, down a bumpy 4x4 dirt road, now a weekend/daytime only bar with live music and good food, not to mention good times with good friends.

A great pic of our circle and outlying RVs taken from Dave's drone (are we circling the wagons?). RVers love their toys! Dave also did a video of the RV Circle with his drone.  (Some of us are on the periphery; we are in the back centre.)

Most of the RVers here rarely boondock (park without water and electrical hookups), so this annual gathering is a challenge for some (it's not easy to make 100 gallons of water last for 2 weeks or watch the football game on battery power). For those of us who boondock all the time, the challenges are different. We have to learn how to reside in close proximity with others. I mean, that's why we boondock - to be ALONE! So for us, Quartzsite is all about socialization while ignoring the fact that we have to share our space. Still a good time catching up with friends.

Quartzsite, AZ

Have you ever seen 50,000 RVs camped in the middle of the desert?  No?  Then come to Quartzsite in January!

Here we meet up with old friends - not friends who are old, but friends from past travel years.  Plus we meet some new friends.  This year, the group is large - about a dozen RVs parked together south of town on one of the BLM's LTVA (Long-Term Visitor Areas).  Quartzsite has about 2,000 full-time residents, but during the winter the warm, dry weather draws snowbirds from all over the continent to winter here.  The shows in January draw even more crowds - the RV show and a couple of rock & mineral shows.  Fun, informative, tiring ... great to spend time socializing.

Not many photos from this part of the trip since many days are spent hanging out or wandering through the exhibits at the shows.  And towards the end of our stay, Brad gets a cold so isn't up to some of the activities.  Oddly enough though, another couple camping out with our group we met last year in southern Utah.  Frightfully small world!

	The entire group on Potluck Spaghetti night. It's quite a crowd, and LOTS of fun. Photo courtesy of Carol Ann Dwyer, resident photographer!
	Lunchtime during a gold prospecting outing (Brad's out searching). One of our new friends is a member of a Gold Prospectors Club and takes us a half hour up into the nearby mountains to look for gold. We didn't find any.
	Jerry panning his diggings from the prospecting trip with wife, Janice, watching. He didn't find anything either!
	Still panning; Ed in the background trying to get into the photo and Brad yapping to Gerry.

Can you say Ca-Ching!

I wasn't going to write about our time at Quartzsite, but I thought I might let everyone know what's been going on.  When we arrive, we think we'll be staying a few days for the Gem and Mineral Show and the RV Show, but we end up staying a full two weeks and spending a ton of dough.  At least the camping is free!  We also meet some great new RV friends.

The Gem and Mineral Show is interesting.  Brad gets to see some gold nuggets the size of a lemon, so he is all excited.  There are also lots of other specimens of natural rocks, metals and minerals, jewelry, beads, polished gems, and petrified wood.  The RV Show has everything you need to spruce up an RV:  solar systems, LED lights, cooking utensils, propane heaters, satellite systems, as well as brand new trailers and motorhomes to view.  These shows as well as a few others, run throughout January and early February in Quartzsite every year, causing this town to swell from 3,500 residents to over 100,000 putting a strain on services and residents' nerves.  For the first time in our travels really, we encounter rude service providers.  However, I'd be cranky serving this many people too I guess.

While we are here, we outfit our trailer with a solar system: 2 big solar panels on the roof, two great big new batteries, and an "inverter" which converts battery DC power into electrical outlet AC power inside the trailer.  So no the solar panels charge our batteries all day, and we can use our electrical appliances without having to run our generator.  First and biggest ca-ching!

Next we purchase a small propane heater that stands on the floor.  We use this instead of our furnace which is only about 60% efficient; the heater is 99% efficient.  The furnace fan was running our batteries our old batteries down to zero by morning.  Even though our new batteries are much more powerful, we don't want to destroy them, so the new heater makes more sense.  It has to be connected to the gas line from the refrigerator so we also have to pay for the gas line installation.  Second ca-ching!

I also bite the bullet and get a new Verizon cell phone which will allow me to connect to the internet using its wireless technology from anywhere.  Having the internet whenever I want it and not having to sit in a McDonalds parking lot or find a library is great.  Third ca-ching!

Our last purchase is a StarChoice satellite system with an automatic satellite finder.  We are currently with Bell, so I also have to switch at home and order all new receivers and programming at home.  Fortunately Shaw Direct is have a half price sale on their PVR receivers which are regular $400.  Unfortunately, we won't be able to get our receiver for the trailer until we get home, but that's only a couple of months away.  Fourth ca-ching!

Other than the cell phone, each of the systems we buy takes time to install: a full day each for the satellite and solar systems, and a couple of hours for the heater.  Fortunately, Grady is a very patient kitty - he has to wait in the truck as we can't leave him in the trailer since the installers leave the door open and Grady might run out and get lost.  But we all make it through.  At the end of our two weeks, we've spent over $7,000 on the trailer upgrades!  It's only money right?  Quartzsite turns out to be an expensive stop.

The best part of being here is that we arrange to meet our friends Jerry and Janice from Tennessee.  We first met them in New Mexico.  They introduce us to three new couples:  Carol and Steve from Oklahoma, Julie and Mike from Florida, and Sue and Paul from Michigan.  We had some fun times sitting around the campfire telling stories.  We will remember our new friends instead of all the money we spent.

Back row: Janice, Jerry, Brad, Marilyn, Steve; Front row: Julie, Mike and Carol