Retirement living is starting to set in. The editor has no idea where we left off on the Flynn and Ollie travels, and must go back to previous articles to determine what travels to update our faithful readers about.
While still in Ehrenberg on the Colorado River, F&O made several trips into Quartzite. The Tyson Wells ‘swapmeet’, the official Quartzite big tent RV show, and an exploration of the general area were on the agenda over 3 days. They checked out some LTVA’s and visited the Escapee’s Boomer camp, the latter of which they fell in love with, and immediately made plans to move there when their time at the river was over.
For those curious about the Quartzite RV show, Flynn likes to refer to it as Burning Man for Seniors. Granted, many attendees are not seniors (as evidenced by F&O being there). The tiny town of Q is swarmed with RVers, thousands and thousands of them. They fill all the local private campgrounds (there are lots of those) and the BLM land, both free and paid LTVAs. The few restaurants in town have hour + long waits, dump and water stations are maxed out, and the two tiny mom and pop ‘grocery’ stores empty their shelves daily. The attendees are varied, but not a melting pot- mostly white & over 40, from every conceivable economic background. There are workers who come to sell wares – a small percentage. There are locals who work in the year-round businesses – also a small percentage. There are full-time retired residents, living either on BLM land or in RV parks – about 15 %. There are snowbirds who come for the season, a few months during the winter months – about 20 %. The rest are transient, coming to Quartzite for the show and perhaps a few adjacent weeks. Clubs, friends, and solo travelers all congregate to commune in the desert. Clubs and groups have signs along the BLM access roads pointing to where they are hooking up, but finding your peeps can still be a challenge as it turns out the desert is a pretty big place. If you want to be a hermit, no one will bother you. There is even a clothing optional designated area in one of the LTVAs. (no one wants to see a naked otter)
The actual RV show in and around the big tent is just one of numerous event locations in town. Tyson Wells has its own swap-meety-type thing directly across the street with hundreds of tents selling the usual wares from hemp hats to offensive political signs. There are a several decent food vendors, and if you need kitchen wares, RV supplies, anything wood carved, honey, wind spinners, or roasted nuts you will have no problem finding them. The entire town of Quartzsite seems to have been taken over with tent areas down each main road as vendors and crafters attempt to sell their wares to the purchasing power of RVers. F&O were able to pick up lithium batteries for Bebop for hundreds off retail, so yeah, the vendors are not wrong. Thank you Battle Born! They also found pool noodles, which if you are a RVer you know is an essential item which needs to be replaced fairly often.
On Thursday, after having scoped the entire situation ahead of time, F&O packed it up and moved to the desert to be with their new friends, the Boomers (an Escapee BOF). Don’t let the name fool you – there is no age restriction or mind-set here. Just a group who hang out, each to own, offer daily events, combine pump-out and trash service and enjoy having a community. Each day they post optional happenings, the time, and meeting place if you wish to participate. They have pancake breakfasts, a charity auction, a nightly happy hour, campfires, community dinners, scheduled walks and excursions to local sights. The location is dry camping, meaning Bebop got to stretch its legs as a self-contained unit for several days in a row for the first time. A big generator, the primo batteries, and ginormous tanks seem to handle the challenge without any problems whatsoever.
As F&O often do, they did a little cultural and natural sightseeing. First up was a trip to the sleepy town of Bouse, which is just a small intersection with an interesting history. There is a small museum, combined with the Chamber of Commerce-Visitors center worth visiting. The human working there that day was friendly and informative, as was her 4yo son who hand made the critters a Valentine (a few weeks early) to hang on our fridge. Turns out she and her family are work-campers, and have a fascinating story about living part time in Alaska… but Flynn digresses. On the way back from Bouse, there was a short stop to check out the ode to the Bouse Fisherman, which allegedly has some sand hieroglyphics of historical interest. Flynn thinks the club just sort of maintains it, cause otherwise it would blow away. Doesn’t really matter though, it was educatableist and a very short hike.
One day was spent cruising about 40 miles away from camp to the Kofa NWR to see the unique palms at Palm Canyon. This entails a 7 mile drive up a dirt road to the trailhead with lots of boondockers to ogle at along the way. It is fun to see how the real desert-dwellers live. Once arriving at the trailhead, it is a ½ mile hike up to the palms themselves. When Flynn says “up, he means up the whole way. Don’t let AllTrails fool you. This trail is not easy, and it does not level out. It is only steep in a few places, but there is always a grade. Add to that the large loose stones (of the 1-3 inch variety) the trail is covered with, it is slow going for a .5 mile trek. This is at least true for Flynn, but possibly not for the 20-40 year olds who are fit and stable. The palms themselves are pretty neat – growing in the crevice of a rock (giant) in the canyon. This is the only place these particular palms grow. They do not look much different than the palm seen elsewhere, but the locale is impressive. While F&O were there, looking across the canyon at them, a photography guide and his group were packing up to head across the non-trail to get a closer look. Even though as the crow flies it was probably ¼ of a mile, it would take them an hour to get there. Crazy. F&O turned around and crept back to Karl at a snail’s pace. No turned ankles!
There was one other excursion this week, but our faithful reader (or readers, if there is more than one) will have to wait until the next article to read about it. The editor would like to sit at this new campsite and enjoy the waning daylight here at Lake Pleasant, outside of Phoenix, in the zero gravity chairs and listen to the 49ers absolutely get crushed.
Fin
Flynn
Its always fun to hear what you’ve been up to! Have you seen any mule crossing signs yet? Maybe that’s just up in northern AZ where I came across them in my work travels.. They always amused me having only seen cattle and deer crossing signs in my Midwestern past.