Sunday

It’s hard to believe that we have just rolled into our fourth week on the road. Yet I look back on all these journal entries and re-read the descriptions, and I look at the odometer which is reading over 4700 miles ... We did all that!?

So today was a day that we didn’t do quite so much.  Appropriate, since it is a Sunday, a day of rest.

Our setting was just too nice to leave right away, so we took a walk by just striking out across the desert, enjoying the cool desert air and the sunshine that was rapidly warming that air up.

We drove into Quartzite, Arizona just in time for the start of the service at First Baptist Church, a small church with perhaps 50 to 60 people in attendance this morning.  I should probably come here more often.  It makes me feel young.  Out of the entire congregation, we were the youngest ones there.

We talked briefly with a couple in front of us, who arrived two weeks ago from their home state of Montana.  They, like many in this town, spend the winter here or similar towns in the Southwest, returning home when it starts getting hot in April.  They told us they don’t really do that much here, except hunt for unique rocks, which seems to be big around here.  Kind of sad, spending your so-called golden years hunting rocks.

If I ever reduce my existence to just hunting rocks, I give y’all permission to whack me upside the face and tell me that God placed me on this earth for more than just hunting rocks.

Quartzite, Arizona is a place where many people flock to in the winter.  There’s snowbirds in Florida, and it’s a thing here also.  So much so that there are enormous RV parks in town and much of the BLM land surrounding town is considered LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) and is home to literally thousands of RVs during the winter.  Vast tracts of desert packed with RVs escaping the cold weather up north.  I can see the attraction as the weather here for the last few days has been ideal, but I’m not sure I can camp in the desert in one spot in a small RV for an entire winter.  

You just don’t want to be here in the summer.  We’ve read that it is one of the hottest places in the United States.  

The permanent population of Quartzite is just over 2000 people.  In the winter, that swells to 1.5 million.

Even on the road, every third vehicle is a RV, sometimes several in a row, and they are all large 5th-wheels or Class-A motorhomes, making my little Class-C seem tiny by comparison.

We missed the  gum museum in Quartzite, which sports a large collection of gum wrappers.  We’ll have to catch that one next time. 😜

Since we were running a little low on propane, we stopped at one of the RV parks to fill up.  The couple that helped us were full-timers, having just arrived here a couple weeks ago.  At least they are doing more than hunting rocks.  We asked them where the best grocery stores are and they told us to continue on to Parker, which has a Walmart and a Safeway.  And by-the-way, the gas station coming into Parker serves diesel at $4.84.  Leave it to a fellow RVer to know the best price for diesel in the next town.

In Parker we topped up the diesel, stocked up on a few groceries at the Walmart, and made lunch in the Walmart parking lot.  We then drove west of town on route 62 and pulled off on some BLM land about 4 miles west of town.  We’re back in California here, daylight saving time ended in most states except Arizona, and now we’re all messed up.  We’re just sticking with Arizona time for now.

There’s evidence that quite a few people camp here during high season.  Two-track roads and stone fire rings abound.  We chose a spot on a small rise with a view of the valley and stopped early.  There are a few RVs widely scattered about, but we have the area largely to ourselves.  This area is called Big River, a bit of a misnomer since there is only a dry wash just below where we are parked.

We used the time this afternoon to go for a couple walks, to catch up on some Bible study, and to chat with grandson Alex.  Cell service is good enough  for a video connection with only a little bit of stuttering.