Fun with Friends in Quartzsite!

The Long Term Visitor Centers are really starting to fill up. With this comes seriously slooooow internet. It is so bad that several of our friends who work out of their rig and rely on the internet have vacated the area. This will continue until after the show.

Along with this influx of people come a number of really cool, unusual and truly bizarre accommodations. I say accommodations as you cannot call some of these rigs. You everything from $500,000 rigs to tiny houses, people living out of van and other living in tents.

Easily over a million dollars of buses in this shot

A couple of tiny homes even dot the landscape

And you even have your tenters.....

The line at the dump stations is also growing. The wait at the peak of the show can be up to 2 hours! If you time it right, you can still get in and out in a few minutes as it seems everyone rushes to the dump and water stations first thing in the morning but in the late afternoon (happy hour/dinner time) you can usually drive right up without a wait.

More new arrivals means more happy hours! Friends Harry and Vicki arrived this week, we celebrated by going to the Desert Bar. For those of you unaware of this bar it is located several miles outside of Parker and several miles down a VERY rough road. The bar is totally off grid and operated solely on propane and sun power. The number of solar panels there is incredible!

Following Harry up the rough and dusty road

One of several solar covered patios

(l-r) Sue, Les, Ray, Deb, Dianne, Steve, Vicki, Harry and Barb

The band played everything from Johnny Cash to Grand Funk

Our most bizarre incident of the week when we were on a wheeler ride with Steve, Dianne, Roger and Cindi. We were giving Roger and Cindi a tour of some of the local attractions; Erdman Mine, Yum-Yum mine, the Indian grinding holes and a couple of stone houses.

Indian Grinding Holes

The Yum-Yum mine goes pretty far back into the hill, probably a few hundred feet. You can see fairly well the first 50 yards or so but after that you need a flashlight.

The entrance to Yum-Yum Mine

Light at the end of the tunnel

A chute deep in the mine

We get in about 100 yards and you cannot see your hand in front of your face without a flashlight and this creature appears on the side of the cave wall!

We don't know exactly what it is/was but think it is a coyote based on the pointy nose. It had either died in the cave or if someone brought it in but seeing that was definitely bizarre!

After that encounter we all decided that we needed a beer and headed to Beer Belly’s for some refreshments and music.

Barb relaxing in the giant chair

then Cindi gave it a try!

Speaking of beer, as many of you know we love to visit breweries but this area of Arizona seems to be devoid of such establishments so instead of driving hours to find one, we brought the brewery to us! We had our first (of what I hope is many) Quartzsite beer tasting. When Barb was at Total Wine and More in Phoenix, she picked up a variety of beers using their Build You Own Six Pack promotion. Now we just had to find someone who appreciated beer...hmmm....The Colibaba's!

So we had then over for this event and tasted a variety of beers.

Deb and Ray stopped by as well rounding out our group and making for an enjoyable evening. Each night we sit outside and wait for the sunset to see what lightshow nature will provide, we are rarely disappointed......