Sunday, January 29, 2006

Busy, busy, busy January

January is a busy time in Quartzsite!

It's the time when all the shows start (rock, gem & mineral, swap meets, etc.) which bring many people to town. Then, toward the end of the month (21st through 29th this year) the big Sports, Vacation, and RV Show brings even more people here! During the RV Show, you might as well park your car, or have loads of patience, because the streets are clogged with gawkers and people looking for a place to park. It is estimated that between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 people come through Quartzsite and spend some time here during the winter months -- many of them during January! There are thousands of RVs parked out on BLM land which surrounds the town, not to mention all the people in RV parks. When coming into Quartzsite, whether from the east or the west, once you come over the rise where you can look down into the valley where the town in located, you'll see a sea of white RVs.

January started out quietly with my 60th birthday on the 5th. We had breakfast at Taco Mio and Earl gave me a Mexican fire pit which I'd been wanting for the yard.

This year, because of the price of gas, we decided to do most of our grocery shopping in Quartzsite. We've found that between the Family Dollar Store, the Quartzsite General Store, and the Roadrunner, we can get most everything we need -- and the General Store has excellent meats. There are a few things we use which we cannot find here, so we make a run to the Albertson's store in Blythe, California every so often.

Terry & Kate Klein stopped at our place for a week's visit in their 30' Lazy Daze. We had lots of fun visiting with them -- eating and playing Jokers. I fixed a roasted chicken the first night they were here, and one night we had ham hocks and beans which Kate had prepared in her thermal cooker -- yummy! Another night, we had a potpourri of "stuff" cleaned out of our freezers.

Jane & Ron Frisch (the couple we'd met at White Tanks Regional Park over Christmas) came by on their way to the Mothership (the Lazy Daze factory) to order a new rig, and treated us to breakfast at Taco Mio.

We also had dinner at the Snowbird Cafe with Bill & Giesla Pollock and Ron & Donna Monroe who are in town for the boomerang -- a large annual gathering of the Boomer BoF (Birds of a Feather) from the Escapees RV Club out on BLM land.

Earl and I took one night to drive up to Lake Havasu City where we camped out on BLM land just south of the city in preparation for our blood tests the next morning. Before camping, we drove into town to do some shopping at the Wal Mart. Because we had to fast for 12 hours prior to our blood test (which weren't scheduled until 10:50 AM the next day), we couldn't have breakfast or even a cup of coffee, so we were hungry by the time we had blood drawn! We stopped by I-Hop for breakfast, then went by a pet store to pick up some food for Maxx.

We walked over to the RV Show on three different occasions, purchasing a new level (a starred EZ Level), Rescue Tape (a type of "miracle" electrical tape), Pure Power (the black tank "chemical" we use), and some microfiber towels for both us and a friend of ours, Sarah Shong, who could not make it to the RV Show this year.

Today is the last day of the RV Show, so we can soon expect traffic to return to normal...at least a little.