Slideshow of All Today's Images
Today was our first visit to Quartzsite, AZ - what a place, it's pretty incredible! For those of you who haven't heard about Quartzsite, it is the largest flea-market and RV show in the world. During the months of January and February, there are 40 to 50 thousand RV's in and around Quartzsite. Instead of just a few thousand people, the population explodes to over 1 million during the winter months. The actual exhibition site covers 4 acres and involves hundreds of vendors and exhibitors selling everything imaginable - and more.
The first obstacle was finding a parking spot for our truck. After getting stuck in the sand and gravel in one of the many free areas(washed out gully's), we gladly paid $3 and parked on solid ground. One thing I'm learning about the desert is to stay away from sand and loose gravel as it's sort of like driving in deep snow - very tricky! Anyway, we got parked o.k. and from there, it was just a 5 minute walk to the exhibition sites.
Paulette and I agreed on a spot to meet in 90 minutes, then she wandered off to look through the outside sites in search of beads, gems and crafts, while I decided to have a look at the RV show in the main event tent. The whole place was packed, thousands and thousands of people, but, walking down the first aisle in the tent, I ran right into my brother Tom and his wife Donna. They left Victoria on January 6th and had already been in Quartzsite for six days, dry camping in a free park just 5 minutes away. I never really expected to run into them so easily, especially with the thousands of people around.
So, we met up with Paulette, and decided to have lunch at one of the hamburger joints on the grounds. Tom and Donna told us they had been up to Laughlin, NV for 6 days before coming to Quartzsite. Tomorrow, they are planning to head down to Yuma for a few days and then head over to California for a month or so - somewhere around Desert Sands.
After lunch, Tom and Donna headed back to their campsite while Paulette and I decided to check out more of the vendor's stalls. It turned out to be a very hot day and with so many people walking around it was pretty tiring. Mo and Molly were with us so they had a real workout walking around and looking at all the other dogs. They were really good and only growled a few times - usually at other dogs who got too close for comfort.
Paulette managed to find great deals on a bag full of beads and gemstones while I bought a 6' coax cable - they didn't make much off me this trip. I did see a few RV things that I will check out a bit more on our next trip down to Quartzsite.
By 3:00pm, we'd had enough and decided to head back to Lake Havasu - about a 90 minute drive. We got a nice surprise when we got back - a shiny, clean 5th wheel. The guys had been around while we were away and washed the RV and treated the rubber roof.
After lunch, Tom and Donna headed back to their campsite while Paulette and I decided to check out more of the vendor's stalls. It turned out to be a very hot day and with so many people walking around it was pretty tiring. Mo and Molly were with us so they had a real workout walking around and looking at all the other dogs. They were really good and only growled a few times - usually at other dogs who got too close for comfort.
Paulette managed to find great deals on a bag full of beads and gemstones while I bought a 6' coax cable - they didn't make much off me this trip. I did see a few RV things that I will check out a bit more on our next trip down to Quartzsite.
By 3:00pm, we'd had enough and decided to head back to Lake Havasu - about a 90 minute drive. We got a nice surprise when we got back - a shiny, clean 5th wheel. The guys had been around while we were away and washed the RV and treated the rubber roof.
No plans yet for tomorrow, probably just enjoy the sunshine and maybe browse around downtown a bit - maybe even take a look at the London Bridge.
Next week at Quartzsite, the Gems and Crafts Shows moves into the big 'main tent'. We will definitley be heading down for that as Paulette has been looking forward to seeing it for a whole year now. We'll probably take one more trip down even before that too. It is quite a place!
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