Saturday, January 26, 2008

A Unique Place - Quartzsite, AZ

Our home for last week and this week is Quartzsite, Arizona, a very unique place. (About 100 miles west of Phoenix.) It is among the many Western towns that began with a few prospectors looking for gold and other precious metals. Actually, the precious minerals that abound here are rocks and gems. This is the home of the largest rock and gem show in the U. S. and it draws many rock hounds to the flea markets offering all the gems you can imagine. But in the last 40 years or so the desert areas surrounding this little crossroads town has developed into a temporary home for thousands of roamers with homes on wheels. They come for the warmth, the open space, the beautiful landscape, the unusual sites and to shop for the needs of the RV lifestyle. The regular population of Quartzsite is 1600 but it swells to over 2 million this time of year. The site of this valley during January and February is similar to viewing migrating birds in their wildlife sanctuaries. So anyway, this is our latest stop, enjoying the desert with our friends, visiting the huge RV show and exploring the 4wheeling trails. There's a lot to keep us busy. Sometimes it's an important discussion of rving life, such as, recommendations of fellow rvers on where to spend the next couple of months or the upcoming summer, or even next winter's stops. We've also just finished a week of great times with the FMCA 4wheelers and we will have some good stories to tell and photos to post as there's time for me to put them together.
Recently a friend here at "Boomerville," Ted, decided to make a short video for other Boomers who couldn't be here this year. Well it just so happened that the day he was filming was the day that the battery on our Jeep bit-the-dust!! Of course, this happened while Jerry was in town at the RV show. How embarrassing! But he called our generous friend, Rick Johnson, who so kindly came to the rescue, towing Jerry back to our parking spot and taking him to find a new battery. All this worked out just fine, but Ted's video documented the towing and it made it to U-Tube. I have included the link here if you want to take a look. You will see our motorhome a few times on the video, Nancy also appears and then there's "ole Yeller" being brought home!
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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Good times -- good people

This week in the Congress, AZ, area has proven again that wherever we travel in this lifestyle there are good people that result in good times. A few days ago we decided to change our location about 120 miles northeast to the Escapees Park in Congress, AZ. We expected to park in the campground and, hopefully, see some friends for a few days. Well that just wouldn't do for Jerry and Dee Thomas who offered us space on their lot and have been the most generous of hosts for several days now. We've had gatherings in their "party house", played some nostalgic music, shared travel stories, laughed a lot, made a day trip to Prescott and cheered their Ohio State team on. (Sorry about that Buckeyes.) There just isn't enough we can say about their hospitality.


Today was another example of nice folks providing good times. We were invited by Jack and Danielle Mayer and Jerry and Sherry Adcock to make a 4wheeling run near Black Canyon City, about 50 miles east. The six of us were anxious to try out this trail that Jerry and Sherry would be leading at a rally in a couple of weeks. After all, it was a 4 rating on the 5 scale and we know these 4wheelers love a good trail. As we met about 9:00 a.m. to start our day's experience, something kind of ironic and laughable happened. All three of us gals had on the same t-shirt, a Jeeping Moab shirt that we had each chosen separately during visits to one or our favorite places. What are the odds?? Just good taste, I guess.
The ride over on the highways to Black Canyon through the Tonto National Forest was definitely outstanding on it's own, but we were all ready to get started on the trail. Well, to our great surprise, when we arrived at the entrance to the trail there was a gate across it. What's this about?! Perhaps there's a good reason, but some access to these areas is being denied by government agencies without any misuse or other problems. 4wheelers are fighting to keep the trails open everywhere. We tried taking the trail backwards but found no entrance there either. While searching around we enjoyed lots of nice scenery, thick forests of saguaro cacti, layers of mountains and rolling dessert landscapes. It was a great day.
Here are we girls, Nancy, Danielle and Sherry, at the dissappointing entrance to the trail -- showing off our basic good taste in shirts. Too bad the gate was securely shut.
Oh well, why not explore a little anyway while in this gorgeous location. I've posted a shot of the yellow cliffs near Bartlett Lake where we paused to take in the views. We did find one rocky place while exploring and Jack and Danielle's new Rubicon was actually balanced about four feet in the air on three wheels just right before this photo was taken. I hated to miss that shot. Thanks for the fun you guys!!!



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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Happy New Year



May you all have a very happy and healthy 2008!
We had a great celebration on New Year's Eve with the Boomers at Mittry Lake. These generous and friendly rvers opened up their homes and hearts for an evening of visiting and then we all joined together at the campfire at midnight to ring in 2008.
It's been nice spending the last part of 2007 in our spot next to the canal at Mittry Lake. For anyone who isn't familiar with the Mittry Lake Wildlife Area, it is about 18 miles northeast of Yuma, Arizona, on the east side of the Colorado River between Laguna and Imperial Dams. There are nice views of the lake and mountains. On any day you might see many types of waterfowl, such as Coots, blue heron, egrets. And for a couple of days we watched from our rig as three pelicans dipped their long beeks for food in the shallow water that had been drained from the canal. They tell us the fishing is plentiful as well. If you'd like to look at some info on this location go to:
http://www.azgfd.gov/outdoor_recreation/wildlife_area_mittry_lake.shtml
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