Tuesday – January 13 – Dorothy has wanted to attend Q [Quartzite] for some years. Thousands of RVer’s come to this location in SW Arizona in January to wander around the hundreds of booths selling everything that might appeal to the RV crowd. They even sell RV’s. It’s quite the deal, Some opt for public campgrounds with hookups, most boondock in the desert. We are in the latter group, parked with 20 other Lazy Daze in what the organizer calls Roger’s Half Acre. Cocktails are at 4:30 and a campfire follows. We wandered around some of the booths this morning and bought the following treasures: a pair of Crocs each, a Rada knife, some tent stakes that should prove difficult for me to bend, mini clamps, t-shirts for Dorothy, a hiking stick for me since I forgot to load mine, a Kokopelli carpet runner to replace the thread bare one we had, a Kokopelli outdoor mat, (been looking for one for six years), two LED light bulbs and six pair of socks. About $200 into the roving cash economy. The Big Tent opens Saturday. I thought we would be gone before then, but Dorothy wants to see it, so San Diego will wait. It’s shorts weather after 10am, except today, the breeze is a stiff 20mpg.
Tried to find Dripping Springs. Failed. The instructions said it was difficult to locate because of all the trails. Did see all manner of cacti and a reached a vista point where we could see thousands of white dots of RV’s covering the valley floor.
Pictures taken by talented LD folks
Wednesday – Friday – More of the same.
Saturday – The Big Tent opened. We walked around for two hours. We expected more RV gadgets and less of the non-RV stuff. It’s worth going to once every few years I suppose. We dropped another hundred on a fanny pack that Dorothy will wear on her tummy, a stove top grill, which she says will allow her to grill bone-in pork chops on the range, and a jar of pink goop that cleaned all sorts of grease from carpet and fabric at the demo.
Had our last happy hour and fire. The group will get larger over the weekend after we are gone.
California
Sunday – We drove to Bonita, CA and parked in our friends “RV park”. Well, they do have two RV’s and a sail boat lodged close to their home. It overlooks a valley. I will have to remember to take a picture of the view – all the way to Mexico. He made dry rubbed ribs for dinner. Yum. Gary and Diane joined us.
Monday – Foraged for supplies at Sprouts, Walmart and Costco.
Tuesday – We toured the USS Midway in 2008. Dana volunteers there and took us on a tour before the masses arrived. Included was a tour of CIC, [Combat Information Center], which was where I served 50 years ago. It’s in the process of being restored and is not open to the public yet.
Wednesday – Off to Anza-Borrego. We had spent two or three nights there in 2008, but did not see much. Dana and Cathy took us on some of the backroads. They have been camping here since they were kids so they know the place from A to Z. We are parked at Arroyo Salado.
In the Pumpkin Patch
The view of the badlands from Vista del Malpais
The Viewers
Thursday – Another trail, today to Coyote and Sheep Canyons. I thought it was thoughtful to put the prey and predator canyons adjacent to each other. We did not spy either mammal, but the scenery was worthwhile. Even needed to put Rubi in 4WD high up a rocky trail.
Some of the ocotillo's are greening up after the storm two weeks back, but we only saw a handful in bloom. There are more ocotillo's here than anywhere else we have been. Large ones too.
Some of the critters we saw in Anza-Borrego
You have no doubt used Avery labels at some time. Well the owner, bought a lot of land here, populated it with steel sculptures and left the land for the enjoyment of all.
Anza-Borrego is one of the largest parks in the US. Mostly you see desert, but there are springs and where there is water you see palms and orchards. We bought 8 grapefruit for $3. That’s a bargain.
Most CA parks charge $30 to park on asphalt. Here it is free. Yes, there are private, county and state parks with amenities for a fee, but there are more enough state and BLM land for dry camping.
Badlands, Yes. But is it SD or CA?
Saturday – We moved to a campsite in the southern part of the park. It took about 90 minutes of slow driving to get there. At the end we were 20 miles from where we started. The mountain road wanders all over the place.
On the way south we stopped a the wild life preserve to photograph some of the large critters with KoKo.
We were the only ones in our new campsite until close to dark when a 59 Caddy parked a 1/4 mile away from us. I had to meet them. He is from South Africa, she is German, they bought the Caddie in Las Vegas and it has Utah plates. I invited them to our campfire tonight.
Turns out he is the skipper and she is purser of a 130 sail boat in San Diego. He invited us to come aboard this weekend.
Sunday – A morning drive through first one wash and then another. The deep arroyos reminded us of pictures we have seen of Petra in Jordan.
Look like we took a wrong turn. Hollywood and Vine.
Tuesday – Today we drove back to San Diego. Laundry, foraging for food and getting Verizon wifi will highlight the next two days.
Love it guys.... We are off to Death Valley Friday. Need to work on my tan, then to Vally of Fire outside of Los Vegas. We will wind up our trip visiting my mom in St. George the home. Look like you are having fun!
ReplyDeleteLinda
Sounds like you are having a great time so far. It was good to see you in Q.
ReplyDeleteLove the photo of Koko being attacked by giant insects!
Gayle