January 17, 2002  La Posa North BLM  about a half mile south of I-10.

This was mostly empty desert two days ago.

This is a 360 degree panorama from our roof top.  Dave Peters, those black things on my roof are solar panels!
 

This is the Tyson Wash.  It is a good way to get across Quartzsite without lots of traffic.
 

Here is Quartzsite on Sunday morning 1/20/2002.  You might notice the increased number of rigs.  These are basically the same areas of the first day photos.
John

Here is a bonus pic.  Quartzsite traffic.  It is tied up in both directions like this.

Note the blue tarp flag on my antenna.  This is a custom, handmade flag adorned with cheap beer symbols, armed chairs and of course, blue tarps with duct tape. This flag was made by Melva King.

Now that we have done the Q thing, I'll tell you about the rest of January!  We left The Ranch on January 10th after sitting still for almost two and half months.  This is the longest time we have spent in one place since hitting the road at the end of 1999.  Dave and Sally Stribling and Willie and Sanda Horeis left with us as we headed for Quartzite.  We drove through Carlsbad, NM and on toward the Guadeloupe National Park on Rt. 62/180.  This route takes you by the Carlsbad Caverns NP and on to the Guadeloupe Pass in the Guadeloupe NP.  The road is a two lane highway, but is in pretty good shape.  Often we hear wind warnings for the pass, but the day we went across, the wind wasn't too bad.  The wind socks were standing out almost horizontally, but the wind wasn't really that strong.  We descended the western side of the pass and found ourselves in a dry lake bed, flat desert environment east of El Paso.  We took a bypass around El Paso going over a mountain pass on the north side of the city.  The Striblings, in their gas coach, labored up the grade and Willie and I cruised up and over with the diesels.  The Striblings eventually caught up with us and we stopped at the Flying J in Anthony, TX right on the Texas/New Mexico state line.  After refueling for the first time since Abilene, TX back in late October, we headed on to the SKP park in Deming, NM.

This is the third year in a row that we have been at Dream Catcher in Deming.  We boondocked the last time, but this time we wanted hookups and needed to fill our water tank.  The office manager was a lady we met at The Ranch last year when she was just starting out fulltiming.  It was fun to run into her again and see that she was doing just fine as a solo female on the road.
We also ran into two other couples from The Ranch who were heading for Quartzsite.
We spent two days in Deming and then headed for Benson. While in Deming, Dave Stribling made several stops looking for a lugnut that was missing on his Winnie Adventurer.  This is important for my later story, so remember the lugnut!

We arrived at Benson after an almost uneventful drive from Deming.  The Stribling's jacks down warning light and buzzer came on and they had to stop on the interstate to check it out. This seems to be not an unusual occurrence. It also happened to the Holders as we were going to Alaska in 2000.  Ours did it while in GA.  Oh well, no big deal and we were quickly on our way again.  We stopped for a stretch break at the rest area in Texas Canyon.  This is just a spectacular spot on I 10 just east of Benson, AZ.

We parked at the Cochise Terrace RV park in Benson as we have never felt too welcome at the SKP park there and decided to just go somewhere else for this trip.  Cochise Terrace was a great park.  Look for the review in our campground review section.
We did drive over to Saguaro, the SKP park and gave Roger and Liz Kurtz, the ex managers at The Ranch, a hard time.  It was good to see them again.  We had three couples from The Ranch there visiting them.  We spent an hour or so chatting with them and then headed for one of our favorite Italian restaurants for dinner.

Libby and I drove down to Sierra Vista to check out a park that was advertised as being a great place to spend some winter time.  We were not impressed, but did take a look at the Elks lodge as we drove through the town.

We spent two days at Benson and then headed for Gila Bend.  This was planned to be our refueling and resupply stop before heading for Q.  We fueled up at a Loves fuel stop and then drove a couple of blocks to the Wheel Inn RV park where we had made reservations.  We don't often make reservations, but decided that since this park was only a few hours from Quartzsite and this was the week before the big Q crowds it would be a good idea.  Not!  Terrible park, very narrow streets, old broken pads to snag tires and narrow, tough to get into with a big rig sites.  $18 for the night.  The water wasn't very good either.  All in all, a place we wouldn't go back to.  Luckily, the guy in front of us with a fiver and a big dually truck left before we did or we would not have been able to make the turn to get out.

We left Gila Bend and drove north on U.S. 85 to I 10.  This allowed us to bypass Phoenix and then turn west and run to Quartzsite.  We could not exit I 10 at the east exit for Q, so we had to go to the west exit and then drive through heavy traffic to get back to U.S. 95.  The BLM land we were looking for was on U.S 95 south of town.  We finally got there, registered ($25 for two weeks of boondocking) and followed the Life on Wheels signs to the area where the LOW folks were parked.  There were three rigs at the LOW site, and we brought in three more.  There were very few neighbors at that point. This was Tuesday the 15th.  The big RV show started on the 19th.  The locals told us that the population of Q would double on Thursday and then double again on Friday.  I believe them.

By Saturday, there were around 250,000 folks in the desert at Q.  After the long holiday weekend, we thought the population would decrease and it probably did, but every day as folks would leave, more would roll in to take their place.  It was quite a site.

One of the first days we were in Quartzsite, our friends the Striblings went off looking for a lugnut for their Winnie Adventurer. I has spotted a tent where the guy was selling various size lugnuts and steered them in that direction.  Well, they didn't come back for over 8 hours.  In fact, I was on the way to the local fire department to see if anyone had been squashed by a big diesel pusher during the day.  Libby called me on one of our ham radios just as I was about to get to the FD on the north end of Q. The Striblings had returned.  I came back , got lost trying to find our rig in the dark and finally got back to the rig.  The Striblings had wandered over to the new rigs at the RV show and wound up buying a new Itasca Horizon DP.  They decided to call the new rig, The Lugnut!  That will teach them to travel with us instead of going to Big Bend as they had planned.

We had a great time at Q, but a few days after we got there, the wind came up, the dust started blowing and it got so bad, they evacuated the big RV tent.  It was just miserable for a day or so.  One day, Libby and I drove to Los Algadones, Mexico, just west of Yuma to get some antibiotics.  We traveled down the Arizona side of the river on U.S. 95.  We came back up the California side, going to Blythe, CA to pick up our mail.  It was so windy that we saw four rigs whose awnings had blown out on our round trip that day.

Dave and Pat Peters showed up on Monday after the RV show started and of course, several other folks were there with us. It was quite a time.  We met up with Bill and Sandy Spurrier who came to the second RV America Y2K rally last year.  The Striblings came with us as did Willie and Sanda Horeis.  Mike Desche and Linda Oddo also came.  They are old friends from LOW and the RV America Rallies.  We spent some time with them in La Pine, Oregon last summer.  Here is a pic from the Quartzsite Yacht Club.
 

All good things must come to an end, so on Friday the 25th, we left Q and headed for what we hoped were warmer temperatures in Yuma.  It wasn't that much warmer!  Bummer.  We did prove that we can boondock for very long periods however.  We went into Q with 80 gallons of water and empty holding tanks.  We left with about 60 gallons of water and a quarter full gray tank.  At that rate, we could have easily stayed for three weeks without dumping or adding water.

We caught up with the Striblings in Yuma and ate out a lot!  We stayed at the Los Oasis RV Park, an over 55 park.  We didn't volunteer our ages and they didn't ask.  I guess this gray hair I sport makes me look older.  Libby says not to worry however, she will be 55 this year and will get me in these parks!

We left Yuma after a week and another trip to Los Algadones and headed toward Gila Bend.  My supplier for the internet sat system is in Gila Bend and I needed to stop to meet with him.  My two hour stop turned into a four hour stop, so we all decided that instead of going on to Tucson, we would just go to Ajo or Why for the weekend.  We left Gila Bend and traveled south to Ajo, but the RV parks there were full due to a Winnebago rally that was gathering there to head for Puerto Penasco.
We went on to Why and boondocked at the Robert's Ranch Rv park.  It was windy and dusty and cold, but it wasn't expensive!

Libby and I went to the Organ Pipe National Monument one day and drove a few miles of the trail roads.  We also went to the border and looked across.  Another border town.    We did learn the difference between the Organ Pipe Cactus and the Saguaro.

I'll leave this month with an aerial view of our rig in Q on January 19th.  See if you can pick us out. (right)