We Survived the Quartzsite Big Tent!

The Big Tent, The Main Event, The Big Show……call it what you want, it is basically a week of chaos here in Quartzsite. RV’s pull in by the thousands the week of the show and traffic comes to a standstill.

We went to the Big Tent three times over the week to take in the sights. Between the dogs in strollers, wagons or just on leash and the people who just stop in the middle of the aisle to talk, it is a serious test of patience. But hey, it is all part of the experience right? This year seemed to have a slightly higher percentage of RV related items compared to last year. LED Light booths, tire pressure monitor vendors, RV décor, axle vendors, work camper booths and a handful of parks had booths inside and outside the tent.

Just a sea of people

We made a couple of purchases during our visits; a replacement sensor for our tire pressure monitoring system, a couple of stick clips to seal your bags of chips, a couple of LED lights and one purchase that has me wary and suspicious..... Our favorite booth was a metal artwork booth (Mountain Metal AZ on Facebook) with a lot of wildlife designs. Barb picked out a welcome sign that she said she was going to put above our door to in place of the wooden sign that bonked me on the head a couple of weeks ago. Well, as she was picking out the perfect piece she kept testing the edge of the 18 gauge steel to see how sharp they were. I think she has given up trying to crush me with stuff and upped her game to decapitation! Hopefully those 3M strips hold the metal better than they did the wood!

If anyone is looking for ideas for our next Christmas gift here it is! 

Our new sign above the door, also known as the decapitator!!!

What continues to surprise us is the number of non-RV related booths. I guess in a roundabout way they relate to RV’ers and the demographics that flock to Quartzsite for the show but much of it is not what we are looking for. There had to be a dozen booths that advertised an age cream or powder and an equal number of booths touted that they could fix whatever else ailed ya…bad back, bad arches, bad heels, they had a cure. A ½ dozen booths demo-ing mobility carts only added to the chaos.

Who doesn't need an animated dog with sunglasses?

So many clever captions come to mind......

One of many aging cream booths

How about a cooking demonstration?

Toys for the kids perhaps?

I have no idea what this guys deal was but he was in bed all day

What RV'er doesn't need a hot tub?

There were times you could go and avoid most of the crowds, just stay away from the first few days and mid mornings and you will find it a little more manageable.

There are also a ton of events going on throughout the week. We attended Bloggerfest here at La Posa South where 20 or so couples attended. It was great to meet in person some of the bloggers we have been following or have been following us. We were reminded once again that Daisy and Dakota are the stars of our blog as more than one person recognized them before know who we were.
One interesting thing was that almost every blogger there started blogging for one of two reasons; one was to keep a journal of their adventures to refer back to in the years to come and the second was to keep their friends and family in touch of what they are up to. Interestingly almost everyone of them said that their families are the people who read it the least!

A covey of bloggers

 Two people we were looking forward to meeting were Shawn and Kim from Missouri. Shawn had been following our blog for a while and it was nice to meet them in person.

Kim and Shawn

The festivities all but over several of us made plans to attend a BBQ event in town from 4-8 Saturday afternoon. Barb had been craving ribs for the past couple of days and we starved ourselves in preparation for this big event! So at about 4:15pm we, along with Steve and Dianne, and Harry and Vicki headed over to the event. When we arrived at the event with our anticipation levels high and our hunger even higher, the smell of BBQ was in the air and there were numerous BBQ trailers throughout the area. Walking in there were people gathered around the stage and they were announcing the winners of the contest as we took mental note of the trailers to hit. After they announced the first place winner and presented them with a check for $10,000 they thanked everyone for coming and started packing up. Wait, what? It’s over? There is no food? We are only 20 minutes late! Noooooo! Ends up the after event party was starting at 4 and all the trailers were shutdown. Still determined we ordered a couple of beers and walked the area looking for any scraps of leftovers. Nothing…..

So we drove by Silly Al’s…packed, Grub Stake….packed….so we head back to our rig and put  together some quick horderves where the six of us watched the sunset over the mountain enjoying great company and great conversation.

Thanks for the pictures Steve!

Speaking of Steve and Dianne, they hosted a 42 mile ride one afternoon with a total of 7 ATV’s attending. Cindi and Roger, Susan and Guy, Rowdy and Missy as well as Jim and Brenda went on a ride to many of the attractions on the northeast side of town.

Steve leading us off!

The mountain behind us reminds me of Abe Lincoln

Bottleneck at a narrow wash

Dianne and I in the Dripping Springs cave

Lots of petroglyphs in this area

Some kind of mineral in the quartz.....copper?

An abandoned mining cabin

People leave the weirdest things in these cabins!

A collapsed mine tunnel

The Ocotillo are really getting green!

This is our last week here as we are scheduled to leave next Thursday morning to head south. As a result we are trying to jam in as many things as possible, it is going to be a busy week!