Quartzsite, a Winter Oasis

Quartzsite is located about twenty miles from the California border in southwestern Arizona. The town began as a post to protect the water for travelers and as with so many of these little places, it alternately grew and died a few times along the way. About twenty years ago a tent with sixty exhibitors fathered the present town. Now the winter months are filled with a variety of shows. One of the large ones is the Sports, Vacation & RV Show, another the Hobby & Craft, Gem and Classic Car Show.

There are also several gem and mineral shows. Up and down the streets you will encounter flea markets that display every kind of tool you hadn't even realized you needed until you see it. There are vast tables of minerals, rough cut, polished, cheap and very expensive, such as a $15,000 polished large rock sphere, still in the box. Many dealers go there to pick up the raw materials for their own stores back home. Need a boomerang, or a fancy statue from an exotic place? Chances are good you will find it here at the Quartzsite flea markets. Need an old doodiggee good for nothing except the junk pile? You will find it here.

The Quartzsite area is one of the major areas for boondocking, that is, camping without hookups, within the southwestern USA. An estimated 100 to 200 thousand RV'ers park in the desert surrounding the town. Fortunately this is spread out over the winter bringing about one million visitors to inflate Quartzsite's regular population of three thousand. The temperatures in the winter are warm in the daytime with cool evenings sometimes down to freezing. It's usually sunny. Sometimes broken cloudy skies will provide beautiful sunsets.

For RV'ers it's a dream come true, thousands of acres of land to camp in, and it's free or very, very cheap. The United States Bureau of Land Management provides the desert, nature provides the scenery, and the RV'ers provide most of the rest. Unless you want to use one of the crowded RV parks in town, you simply check into the allocated BLM land, find a patch of ground, and set up camp. You can stay free for two weeks before having to move on. There are also BLM long-term areas where some extra benefits are provided such as waste bins, dump station, water on tap, and vault toilets. The charge for a two week stay is US$30 and for seven months US$140. The main advantage of the long-term sites is that you can stay beyond the 14-day limit imposed on the other areas.

Many areas of the desert are covered with desert pavement, small, black, polished stones that cover the clay and sand below. These are the areas to look for. If you camp in an area of desert pavement it will be relatively dust free when the wind blows. I found the BLM land north of town dirty and dusty. I would suggest for your first exposure to boondocking at Quartzsite go south of town. You will encounter the long-term areas first, and then at the La Paz Valley road, the Roadrunner short-term free unit.

The major problem that affects almost everyone is the horrendous traffic. Last year several traffic lights were installed. They would have worked too, if all RV drivers could be polite and use the rules of the road. Too many would enter the intersection to turn left across traffic before the road ahead was clear. That left them sitting across two lanes when the lights turned green for the cross traffic. Some even entered on yellow lights. The result was to tie up traffic in all directions.

Traffic is worse near mid-day. I suggest one way to avoid problems is to camp south of town, go in to the RV show early and get a parking place. When you leave around noon you will have an almost empty lane, while the incoming lane can be stop and go for several miles.

The RV show runs from Jan. 22-30, 2005 in the big tent. There, packed into 45,000 square feet, you will find almost everything to add to your RV. You can purchase your solar panels or other gadgets and get them installed outside. Travel booths hand out literature for all sorts of exotic places and ritzy RV resorts. Several Western Canadian provinces and territories have booths there.

The Pow Wow Rock, Gem, and Mineral show runs Jan. 26-30 and has some of the finest gems you can find. You can purchase jewelry ready to go, or select your components and have the piece assembled for you.

One of the best things about Quartzsite is the revisiting of old friends you've met along the way. At one night around the fire we had friends from Oregon, Washington, and California. It's easy, find your own saguaro cactus, and set up camp. Very soon you'll meet some people that you like.

Drop around to my fire. See you, there!


For More Information: www.quartzsitervshow.com