Quartzsite, AZ...um, why?

Quartzsite, AZ

January 27th-29th

We decided to make the winter pilgrimage the Arizona town of Quartzsite...um, why???  To meet other full-time families!!!

Garrisons, Travalingos, McCloskeys, Butterfields, Bakers, Seeleys, Gardners, and Team Monty
(We also met a German family, but they left before this photo was taken.)

We'd been on the road for 4 months and hadn't yet met any other full-time RVing families.  We've been reading their blogs here: fulltimefamilies blogs so they felt like friends, even though we've never met.  We were so excited about meeting these people, seeing how they do it, and fellowshipping with like minded people.   :)


Quartzsite is a tiny town in western Arizona on I-10.  I've actually been there twice before during the summer to visit my grandpa who used to live there.  I've heard his stories for years about the legendary winters in Q!  I was excited to check it out for myself.


This town of a few hundred year round residents blossoms into THOUSANDS during the winter.  Why?  The warm weather, RV and rock shows, and lots of free BLM land for dry camping:

RVs as far as the eyes can see!  All those white spots wwaaayyy out on the horizon are RVs!
Ours is out there somewhere off the I-10.

We got the directions to the Fulltime Families spot in the big desert...

They were:  "turn right when you see a "road", then stay right at the 1st yellow boot, cross the wash, stay right at the second yellow boot, then turn left at the yellow hat."  We didn't know what those directions meant until we got there.

This made us all laugh :)

Pick a spot anywhere...no really, anywhere!

Circling the FtF wagons!
This picture is taken from our roof at sunrise.

After setting up our camp (which doesn't take long when you don't have water, electric, sewer, and cable hook-ups), we met our new friends and toured each other's homes.


All the kids had so much fun together.  A big thank-you to Kim Travalingo for her ice breaker "Minute to Win" games!

Balloon Toss 

Yep, we wrapped the kids in TP!

They had to move m & ms with a straw.  Poor Faith....she sucked up a bunch of dust in the straw one time!

New BFFs

The next day we checked out one of the big draws of January... the HUMUNGOUS RV show!

The HUGE tent was only the centerpiece of the show...
there are blocks and blocks of vendor booths.

Vendors and people are everywhere.  It was very overwhelming!

We got a couple of little things at the RV show.  It took so much restraint to NOT buy all those things that we didn't know we needed.  


After the show, we went back to our spot in the desert to play and visit.  One of the families in our circle taught a gun safety course to all the kids.  Kent did a great job and I'm thankful that he took the time to teach this valuable information.

On Saturday night, we attended our first Tent Revival!  I've always want to go to one, especially when we were living in the south.  It was exactly like I imagined it would be :)

The pastors are another full-time family!

Each day was full of visiting...and that carried into the evenings as we sat around great campfires.  The last evening in Quartzsite we had a pot luck.  

We enjoyed the challenge of dry camping for four days.  However, we're looking forward to having hook-ups again... and to get out of the dust!  That was one thing about the desert...dust was everywhere...on us and in our camper.  The Cougar will get a good spring cleaning in California!  While the dust bothered Jon and I, the kids LOVED it!  

Jolie's hideout.

Lots of room to run!

There were three redeeming things in Quartzsite:

The sunrises:

The sky gets all pinky after this stage.

The sunsets:

And new friends:

 

On a side note:  look how filthy Faith is!  That is actually one thing the kids loved :)

So long Quartzsite, we probably won't be seeing you next year.