Resort Living

We haven’t been in campgrounds lately with much in the way of amenities.   So it is time for a bit of resort living here in Yuma, if “resort living” and “campground” are not inherently at odds with each other.  It was tough to zero in on one as there are just so many campgrounds in greater Yuma.  But we finally chose one a bit west of town, almost to California and to Mexico for that matter – Cocopah RV and Golf Resort.  It is owned and operated by the Cocopah Peoples (roughly translated to River People as they lived in and around the Colorado River).  The campground is on the Reservation and is located at the big bend in the Colorado River where it then makes its final run south into Mexico and to its mouth at the north end of the Bay of California.

It is a large campground with something like 800 sites.  It is built in “spokes” with an 18-hole golf course running between the spokes and then finishes right along the river.  It has a large pool, hot tub, access to the Colorado River, a restaurant, cantina, sports courts, and a large activity center.

Our neighbors here seem quite nice and as we noted in our last blog post, the weather has been just spectacular.  As with most campgrounds in the south, there are a lot of Canadians here.  The percentage of Canadians who are snowbirds has to be huge.  The park even flies the Canadian Flag with the American and Arizona ones.  We don’t have any grass at our site, but at least we have a concrete patio for a change. We think it was a good choice for our month stay in Yuma.

3:10 To Yuma

We didn’t have specific plans for our stay in Arizona this Winter.  Escapees North Ranch worked well for Thanksgiving through New Year’s and until Quartzsite.  At one point we thought after Quartzsite we likely would return to Congress and then go to Lake Havasu for the pyrotechnic show (fireworks) in February.  But there was one thing that came through quite clearly in weather reports – that Phoenix and Quartzsite were 5 degrees warmer than Congress and that Yuma was 5 degrees warmer than Phoenix and Quartzsite.  Although I am not a mathematician, it was pretty easy to figure out that Yuma was 10 degrees warmer than Congress.  So, that settled it, after Quartzsite we were going to head to Yuma and get at least a month of the warmest winter place in Arizona.

The weather in Quartzsite was spectacular.  Many veterans of the Quartzsite said it was the best weather they could ever remember.  Highs were in the low to mid 70s every day for the two weeks we were there and lows were about 40, So, after Quartzsite, we headed south to Yuma on Highway 95, not the 3:10 train of the film starring Russell Crowe.  (Gary watched that movie not long ago and I gave the DVD to my parents without ever watching it.)

Now, for the benefit our friends back in the North, here is the forecast this week for Yuma.  And if you can’t read it, that is a predicted high of 86 for Thursday.

If that comes to fruition, it would be an all-time record high for January 30.  Anyone want to visit?  

The Big Tent And More Quartzsite

The major draw for RVers to Quartzsite in January is the “big tent” RV show.  The actual name is The Quartzite Sports Vacation & RV Show, but everyone just calls it The Big Tent.  And as shown below, the show here really is in a big tent.

We were told to skip the first two days of the big tent as there would just be too many people there during Saturday and Sunday.  So we made our first foray over there on Monday, failing to remember that it was the Martin Luther King holiday.  It was a huge throng.  It was difficult to navigate the maze of people in the big tent perusing all things RV.  Our major purchase of the day was some fire extinguishers from Mac the Fire Guy.  We met Mac back in Wyoming and had been intending to upgrade to his extinguishers, so we were able to avoid the shipping and purchased them here in Quartzite.

We went back again on Tuesday thinking that the crowd would finally be diminished after the three-day holiday – wrong.   It was every bit as busy as it had been the day before.  But we did get to drop off our tow bar (for towing the car behind the motor home) for a free cleaning and adjustment.  It checked out fine; we don’t want our car ever coming loose on the road.  We went for a third time to the big tent and hit who knows how many flea markets and rock shops.  It is amazing how this little Arizona desert town can support so much of an influx of people and commerce for two to four months of the year.

Our first trip to Quartzsite was quite an experience.  After nearly two weeks dry camped in the desert, we are ready to move on down the road.  We did catch a few other of the “can’t miss” places about this dusty town.  One was the Oasis Book Store, whose proprietor doesn’t wear clothes.  You can’t even call the thing that he wears a g string or a thong.  We dined one night at Silly Al’s, where there sign says, “If you haven’t been to Al’s,,,,,,,,you haven’t been to Quartzsite.

And finally a last few shots from our first Quartzite experience – our camping circle at the second site where we camped, a vista of the sea of RVs parked out in the desert, a beautiful sunset over the desert, and our friend Dennis Hill doing a big Uncle Si “HEY” after a dusty ride across the desert.

 

We have been to Q.

Old Boys And Their Toys

The full timing crowd and especially the Escapees Club tend to be well…….. there is no other way to say it,,,,,,,,,,,OLD.  The average Escapee must be about 75 years old.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just a fact of full timing (and once a full timer always a full timer at least at heart) that most of us are retirees and are at least somewhat elevated in age.  But out here is the desert Southwest, it certainly doesn’t keep anyone from being young at heart.  Here at Quartzsite, the old boys and their toys are out in full force.

The old boy toy of choice seems to be the side-by-side four wheeler.  I assure you, Gary will not be buying one of these go karts on steroids.  One of the couples we presently are camped with is the Hills, Dennis and Carol former owners of the RV Driving School, line dancers extraordinaire (well at least Carol is), and candidates for the full timing hall of fame (if there was one).  Shown to the right is Dennis’ RZR when is it is looking like it is supposed to.  And shown below is what is looks like as it is not supposed to and what Dennis looked like in the aftermath that included an airlift out of the desert to a hospital to have his ear sewn back on.  And yes, he still is riding with all the other old boys a year later.

And there are other even more exotic old boy toys out here too.  Shown below is one of the para-gliders that was flying about yesterday evening and the hot air balloon that went up just over the way this morning.  And, nope, Gary won’t be going up in the air either.  But as he is afraid of heights, I don’t have to worry too much about these anyway.

Yep, the old boys and their toys are out in full force here in the desert.

Still In The Desert

We still are dry camped in the desert outside Quartzsite, AZ.  This is our longest period of dry camping in our 2+ years of full timing.  Everything is going well.  A couple hours a day of running the generator keeps our batteries charged up and provides power for some of the more high-amp accessories.  We moved today (Saturday) to another somewhat more remote desert area.  And as long as we were moving, we dumped the waste tanks and refilled the water tank.  We think we probably could manage dry camping for at least 10 days before we would have to dump again, but we likely won’t stay here that much longer.

The “Big Tent” RV show opens today.  They say it is really crowded in the early days and especially during this opening weekend.  We will wait until Monday to check it out for the first time.

We went to the two official Escapees happy hours on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.  There were probably 250 or more people at each of them.  We met another couple from our last home town in Michigan.  There was music each day and a ton of potluck snacks.

We had toured several of the flea markets, the many vendor tents that are here, eaten the the free pancake breakfast twice so far, and especially have enjoyed some of the rock shops.

North Ranch Wrap-up

We have one more post in us about Escapees North Ranch RV Park in Congress, AZ.  On our last day there we took another walk through two gardens on the premises.  We previously wrote that there is a fascinating cactus garden, Saguaro Park that has a huge variety of cacti and some other desert vegetation.  This time we took a lot of pictures.  We are sure there are many more cactus varieties than are in this one garden, but we certainly didn’t know there were this many.

Our cactus garden pictures – all 52 of them including names -- can be seen by clicking on the following link:  https://picasaweb.google.com/116107386675555024952/SaguaroPark

 

The other garden in the Park was even more eclectic – Flamingo Park – a park of plastic pink flamingos and other flamingo kitsch.  We stopped by this park specifically to make a donation.  We were a bit of pink flamingo people in our pre-fulltiming days.  We had some plastic ones, the classic flamingo mailbox, and a two-foot tall flamingo mirror that adorned one of our bathrooms.  We had some strings of flamingo lights that fit well with our old hoopty motor home, but were little used in our present one.  They were taking up a chunk of space in the basement of the motor home.  So, we donated them to the North Ranch Flamingo Park.  The “curators” of Flamingo Park just happened to be sitting at a table in the Park when we wandered up with our bag of lights.  They were most appreciative of the donation and posed in flamingo stance for a picture.

Quartzsite, AZ

Quartzsite, Arizona or as many call it – Q -- if you are an RVer, you know Quartzsite.  And if you are not an RVer, you likely never have heard of Quartzsite.  Ever since we became full time RVers, others have been asking us, “have you been to Quartzite” or, “are you going to Quartzsite”.  And when we said, “no, we will be in Florida this first winter, Texas next winter and then we will be in Arizona”, we just received the blank stares of, “how can you possibly wait three winters to get to Quartzsite”.

So, here we finally are in Quartzsite.  So, for you non-RVers, what is it all about?  Well, it is somewhat difficult to explain.  We are parked in the desert.  We are not parked in a campground in the desert, we are just parked on public desert land administered by the Bureau of Land Management – no electrical hookups, no water, no sewer,

In our immediate area, there are 60 or so RVs where the Escapees Happy Hours are taking place this week.  Spread out in all the desert around this small little dusty town are perhaps 500,000 rigs.  Why has this area become the winter gathering point for so many RVers?  Part has to do with the abundance of  public lands you can camp on and another part is the “big tent” RV show that is held here each January.  Somehow it has evolved such that there are not only all these RVers here, but there are all these vendors and dealers selling RVs, parts and accessories, and services to the RVers.  And then apparently you throw in several flea market and swap meet areas, vendors of rocks and minerals, and vendors selling all kinds of other goodies and now you have “Quartzsite”.

This is a test for us.  Except for the occasional overnight in a Walmart, we have not been dry campers.  We are loaded with fuel so we can run our generator as needed and keep our batteries charged.  We are loaded with water which we are using as sparingly as possible.  We don’t know exactly how long we will be here but it likely will be for at least two weeks with one sewer dump and water refill somewhere in the middle of our stay.

This week are the happy hours, potlucks, bonfires, fleas markets and the occasional free breakfast or lunch at the RV dealer who serves free food just to get people in the door.  Next week will be the big tent stuff.  And there will be plenty of socializing then as well.