Boondocking in Quartzsite

Our first real boondocking trip where we were planning to stay out a week or more.  We've been talking about it for a few months.  Then Sandy picked up a job in California the first part of February, so now Quartzsite is now right on the way to her work!  Gee how that just happened.

So, we looked around and found a good land mark to find our campsite, follow the yellow boot road........  Someone had decorated a desert trail with yellow boots and hats.  

We had a perfect spot right next to elephant tree, right out in the middle of nowhere, except for the other couple of thousand boondockers.  We got up on a little rise and could see hunderds of encampments through out the valley around this little town.  Each year this town gets over run with snow birds for the 10 day RV show, then Rock and Gem show, then the car show, during January and February.   

I don't have anything to compare this show with, but our neighbors tell me that there are not as many vendors at this show and the prices are higher, because the booth rentals are very expensive.  I don't know, but I do think we had better pricing at the FMCA show last spring.  So, we didn't spend a lot of money here, and we cut our stay shorter than what we planed, just because we saw it all and decided to hit the road.  It was pretty neat staying out in the desert, conserving our resources to see how long we could last, and we did a good job of it.  

Oh, and we met some interesting people on the road too.  

Extremely Loud...

Today I did some work on the RV.  Our monitor for the rear view camera went out on our trip, I was hoping it was just a fuse.  So I took the dash apart and found some heat ducts that were not hooked up and found the fuse I was looking for.  But, as soon as I put a new one in it would blow again.  That was not good, but I hoped it might be something simple inside the monitor case,,,, it was not.  The power supply was shot, burn marks on the mother board, so it was toast.  I did a little research and see several Winnebago’s are having the same problem.  So, while at Quartzsite, I hope to find a monitor that will work for me. 

We went to a movie tonight, one that we’d seen some previews for and actors that we like, but I really didn’t know what it was about.  It’s called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Part way through it I still had no idea what it was about and commented that to Sandy.  Then I got it (I’m a little slow), the last half of the show was very moving how it affected this boy and his mother.  The ending was a real tear jerker.  At the end, everyone filed out of the theater quietly, in reverence to what happened.  This movie affected everyone, as it did me.  You gotta see it.  Don’t look it up, go in there cold like I did, let it hit you……………

Sonora Desert Museum

We’re staying a few days in Green Valley Arizona, just south of Tucson.  We met up with some friends of Sandy's who she met in Australia a few years ago.  We had a great time with Al and Eleanor and toured the Sonora Desert Museum.  What a great place that was, we spent all day out in the desert with perfect weather.  If you are ever in this part of the country, this is a beautiful place.

Everything was outdoors; my highlight was a Rapture show where 4 Harris Hawks swooped over our heads.  These birds have adapted to the desert by hunting in a pack.  When the prey hides under a thorny bush, one hawk will land and attempt to flush the prey out the other side, where the others will be waiting on perches above.  These birds are like a pack of wolves, where there is an Alpha male and female, and two junior birds.  

They have other exhibits too, like mountain lions, bears, a hummingbird aviary, another bird aviary, bighorn sheep, and I've never heard of so many different rattle snakes!     

Back on the road, YAY!

On the road again!  It’s been too long, not in the RV.  It’s been nice in the house, well kind of.  Been working my ass off!  I’ve been so busy, I can’t catch my breath.  So, it’s good to be back on the road.  But knowing Sandy, she won’t let me rest much.

I finished a second photo booth for our son in Dallas.  The first one went to our son in Albuquerque; they are both starting up a side business.  It’s a real cool design that my brother-in-law came up with (www.myphotobooth.co).  You can check them out at www.sandiaphotobooths.com and www.cowboybooth.com.   I was under the gun to get this last one finished before I could leave on our trip, so I was working into the wee hours to git-er-done.

We are heading to Quartzsite for the RV and Gem shows, and to check out this boondocking thing.  We’ll probably freeze our asses off in the desert at night when our batteries run down and no heat!  But, I guess that’s all part of the experience.  We’re going to park at Camping World tonight, just north of El Paso, and visit some friends in Tucson for a few days before we get to Quartzsite.  We’ll probably have to stop at the largest flea market (always need fleas) in Mesa AZ, as we’ll pass right by it.  There is still some room in the basement for more stuff.

To all my friends in Chicago; Eat your heart out!  I’m camping and you are snowed in!  I hear it’s 20 degrees and snowing horizontal,,,,, nice…….