What is There to do in Quartzsite?

One of the most frequent complaints about spending the winter in the desert outside of Quartzsite is that there is nothing to do other than to sit out in the desert and watch that days go by. And there are days we are happy just doing that. There is nothing wrong with the occasional day of just sitting in your lawn chair reading a book and taking the dogs for the occasional walk.

That said, there is plenty to do in the area! If you are into geocaching there are literally thousands of caches in the area. There are both strings of caches as well as more scattered single caches everywhere. If you get on a string, it is nothing to hit 15 or more caches in an hour. We typically take our 4 wheeler when geocaching as it makes all but the most remote caches accessible it is also much quicker when traveling the rougher desert roads.

A wedding bell cache

This only shows a portion of the caches in the Quartzsite area

No 4 wheeler? No problem, there are still thousands of caches at are accessible by Jeep, truck or even a car.

Speaking of 4 wheelers there is always the 4 wheeler adventures back into the hills to explore abandoned mines, vistas and other attractions. Since we got our new tires we have been on several rides and although Dakota is not running to the 4 wheeler wanting to go for a ride, she is not running the other way either.

Adding Slime helps with the countless cactus thorns that will puncture your tires

You never know what you will run across in the desert....a pet cemetery!

One of our many walks in the desert

Hiking trails abound everywhere, we have not hit the trails yet this year but we did get our share in last year. I am sure it won’t be long before we hit the Palms Canyon hike that we did several times last year!

If exploring the desert is not your thing, there are plenty of things to do in town. It seems like there is something to do every day of the week and even more on the weekends. The QIA  Activity Center has something going on all the time. Spanish classes, line dancing, exercise classes and of course the ever popular bingo just to name a few.

QIA Activity Calendar

Click to Enlarge

Barb has been going to line dancing classes the past two Wednesday for 2 hours, She said the classes are a lot of fun with about 30 participants. There are several levels from beginning to level 4. Right now she is going to beginner but is considering level 2.

If none of that excites you there is also plenty to do and see with just a short drive. Yuma, Parker and Lake Havasu and even Algodones Mexico are all within 90 minutes. We spent a day in Parker this week running errands; grocery shopping, hitting the ATV and automotive store and even a movie. ($6 on Tuesdays). We saw Office Christmas Party as we were in the mood for comedy. We had low expectation but this movie was actually hilarious and it was not crowded at all. Something that I am sure will change as the season progresses. 

We are making good progress on our project list crossing off the tires on the 4 wheeler, brakes on the jeep, the detailing outside of the truck and completing the wax job on the rig.

Install new brake pads on truck
Install new brake pads on Jeep
Install new fuel filter on truck
Change differential fluid on truck
Detail truck inside and out
Get new tires for the 4 wheeler
Change oil in 4 wheeler
Repack Bearing on rig
Seal RV Roof
Replace sun roof on rig
Wash and wax rig
Buff out scratches on rig
Put up our adventure stickers from the last several months
Fishing reel maintenance

It seems like every time we complete one item on the list we add two. Waxing requires you to touch every square inch of the rig which led to more projects; while waxing the skirting on the passenger side I noticed a pencil sized hole in the aluminum skirting. Upon closer inspection I saw that there was a piece of angle iron coming off the frame that was touching the aluminum and eventually rubbed a hole through it. It was very tight under there and the only way to get to it was to use a hacksaw blade with my hands and cut 1/8” off the corner of the angle iron so it was no longer touching the aluminum. Next step figure out how to fix the hole.....Very bad design!

You can see how the angle iron would rub the side when going down the road

Hole from the outside

It won't rub anymore!

Add on project #2…..The front of the rig nearest the ground really takes a beating from rocks and gravel. Last year I replaced the rubber edging and painted it with Flex Seal, well much of the paint had come off the rubber edging so I taped it off and gave it another coat.

Before......

....After

 #3…..Then while changing the brakes in the Jeep one of the lug bolts had some thread damage and broke when trying to force the lug nut over it. This required me to take the rotor off to get the broken lug bolt out and wouldn’t you know the axle nut was froze too so I had to go buy a 36mm socket and a breaker bar but we eventually got it done.

One of these lugs does not look like the others......

But our most memorable event of the week occurred when I emptying our sewage into our Blue Boy. Until our friends Red and Pam get here with their macerator pump we either have to hook the rig and drive it over to the dump station or we have to use our Blue Boy and take it to the dump station 42 gallons at a time. Before I go any further, I know many of you are hoping that this story ends with me covered in poo, I am sorry to say I remained poo free.

Everything was going well, I got the Blue Boy filled to capacity hooked it up to the 4 wheeler and started the slow trek to the dump station. As I was driving along I would glance back to make sure everything was going well until one time I looked back and saw a wet line behind the Blue Boy I stopped to look and saw a pea size hole (pun intended) in the hose and was leaking as I went down the road. We saw a couple of Blue Boy catastrophes last year and evidently it was my turn. Well at least I did not lose the whole load in the middle of the road like one guy last year! I jumped back on the 4 wheeler and beat feet to the dump station with a trail of pee following me. Guess, I have another new project!

Temps in Quartzsite this week

Temps in Douglas, North Dakota this week!

We have been watching the crazy weather across the country and are glad we are camped out in this warm little corner of Arizona as opposed to our farm friends in North Dakota!

So as you can see there is plenty to do in the area and we did not even get into the Big Event and all the Jeeping trails. But even with all that if you find yourself getting bored look us up, I bet there is a project that you can help with!