The adventure that is Quartzsite

If you do much RVing, sooner or later someone mentions Quartzsite to you, and after a few times, you begin to question - just what is Quartzsite?  "They" tell you that its just one big gathering of hundreds of RVers of all shapes and sizes out in the middle of nowhere...and they would be absolutely correct!  But I believe it is something you need to experience for yourself.  We had planned to attend in 2011 and in 2012, but both years Jerry found himself serving a church in Kansas and we didn't make it.  This was the  year! There were 3 rigs that set out from El Paso...Pat Mundy in her living-quarters horse trailer, cousins Bill Hilton & Wayne Tallant in their Minnie Winnie and the Hiltons.  For several miles before you come to Quartzsite (which, by the way, is normally a wide place on Interstate 10 on your way to California) you begin to see all sizes and shapes of RVs  on the landscape wherever you look.  At the check-in point, you find that you pay the Bureau of Land Management $40 for the privilege of camping as long as you want up to 4 weeks anywhere on their 40,000 acres.  So we head for our reunion with Pat's friends, Dan & Jackie, who have been at Quartzsite with Pat the two previous years.  We "circle the wagons" as best we can, build a fire-pit in the center with a few rocks, and we are ready to go!

The focus of the ten days is in the tents--drive across the range, park a vehicle somewhere as close as you can get, and start walking....there is the main tent which is enormous and houses vendor after vendor--they might be selling items you didn't know you needed for your RV lifestyle, or offering medicines or massages, or showing you how to cook with their products, or offering you discounts for their RV parks (including a nudist RV park!), or selling memberships to their RV organization--even items to make your dog's RV experience a better one!  When you finish the Big Tent, there are rows and rows of other tents set up all around the perimeter...and some in the "town" as well...PLUS there are all kinds of RV Sales--they have driven in hundreds of new and used RVs for your perusal and purchase.

When we finished with our browsing each day, we return to our homemade campground, build a campfire, prepare our dinners together (we all take turns providing the evening meal)  Now we can say we have "been there, done that" - and while we don't plan to return next year, who knows what might happen the year after that!  It was quite an adventure, I must say!