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.

Winter Vegetable Capital - Yuma, AZ

Yuma lies in the southwestern-most corner of Arizona along the Colorado River.  If you eat lettuce in the winter, this is likeloy where it's grown.  The fields are lush with vegetables of all kinds and irrigation is almost non-stop.  It looks and smells heavenly after the dryness of the desert.

We spend 10 days here, visiting the farms and historic sites from our campsite at Mittry Lake (where we camped last year).  The best part of camping here: lots of migratory birds, great views of the small lake, daily sonic displays thanks to the nearby Yuma Proving Grounds - a military base which tests heavy equipment and artillery.  The worst part of camping here: hunters and mosquitoes.

	Remember the movie 3:10 to Yuma? Well, this prison is where those prisoners were brought. From 1876 to 1909, the Yuma Territorial Prison housed over 3,000 including 29 women. During the weekend we are here, we see the Annual Gathering of the Gunfighters. Teams come from all over to compete by acting out old west skits that always end in a gunfight. It's a lot of fun to watch, plus there's a vendor selling Indian Fry Bread - mmm!
	The nearby Imperial Dam outlets, full of American Coots. There's a nice picnic area at the dam and a farm not far away that sells Date Shakes - mmm!
	The restored town of Castle Dome with the rock formation of the same name in the background. The current owners have collected shacks from the adjacent Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and restored them, rebuilding a ghost town. They've done a great job - best ghost town museum we've been to yet.
	Marilyn at the hotel bar in Castle Dome's ghost town. I think the whiskey has dried up.
	Another full moon rise behind a date palm taken from our campsite at Mittry Lake.