Quartzsite, Arizona

Heading to Quartzsite, Arizona

After a two week stay in Las Vegas, that lasted a full two months, we are ready to hit the road...finally. Our stay at Callville Bay coincided with some of the coldest weather they have experienced in the last twenty years. We ran water all night long but every day as it warmed above 32 degrees we'd see fountains of water from broken lines other campers.

Quartzsite has a summer population of 4000 but when the northern states and Canada come down for the winter, (snowbirds) the town swells to over 200,000 folks and tens of thousands of RV's in every shape and size. One of Donnas and my favorite place is Silly Al's. It was so crowded that I had to park across the main road in Quartzsite.  

Silly Al's is famous for their pizza's. Donna and I have been coming here for the last three years and it is no exaggeration that I have been thinking about this pizza for the past three months, it's that good. Along with Amber Bock draft, I would put it up against any of the many cooking shows that Donna watches.

One of the reasons the snowbirds flock here are the thousands of acres the BLM allows free, or very nominal, camping fees. Some of the areas have a much higher density than you would find in downtown LA, but if you look around you can actually get an acre or two by yourself. 

Everyone understands the concept of free camping, but the "nominal" fee I was alluding to is $180 for 7 months camping on BLM land...hard to beat that price. If you arrive early enough you can actually get a very scenic spot for the winter.

Because most of the BLM land is "open range" with no services such as power, water or sewage, your rig must be self contained and you'd better have a power source such as generator, solar or wind generation. When your tanks fill up this spot is a "must" for dumping, fuel, water and propane.

For a couple of personal reasons, we decided to spend the month here at Scenic Road RV Park. Monthly is only a few hundred dollars for the 30 days, but if you want to spend the season it also is a reasonable rate of $1200 for 6 months...and it is downtown.

Near our park is the "The Grubstake Social Club". We have not tried it yet but the place is super crowded every time I had driven by.

I did stop by to check out the Grubstake's happy hour and found the bar three deep in grey hair.

Because of the snowbird population there are huge shows every day. This is opening day at the RV show. which is a tent the size of a football field, but since they are all retirees no one was in a hurry or pushing. Besides the RV show there are rock show,, gem shows, classic car shows and a host of others.

Think of Quartzsite as a swap meet on steroids. No kidding, there must be a thousand acres and many more booths selling everything under the sun. New or used makes no differance. If you want a used toilet, I saw 20 or 30 of them. It is so big I suspect that is why folks spend the whole winter here.