The 'Q'

We have been hearing about Quartzite for a decade......I have been reading blogs of fulltimers for that long and it seems as if at some time in their journeys they all end up at Quartzite at least one time.  We were going to go last year, but our plans changed, but this year we had friends who were planning to attend, so we resolved to go with them, and so we did.  The main focus of Quartzite in January is the RV show that starts the middle of January and runs until the end of January.  Tens of thousands of folks converge here each year to sell and buy RV related products.  The area surrounding downtown Quartzite is BLM land where you may park an RV for up to 14 days......if you get further out there is BLM land, I believe, where you can pay a monthly fee and stay the whole winter if you so desire.  We chose to stay close to downtown as our main purpose here is to visit the RV show for a few days, and to get our windshield replaced.  For Mike and Liz it is to acquire an affordable solar system for their Forest River Georgetown Class A motorhome.  For Steven and Linda it is to contact a mobile RV technician who can come to their Travel Supreme and repair their slide which is malfunctioning at the time.....but we all plan to visit the BIG white tent.  

We were hit by a flying rock on I-10 near Indio and the small star shaped crack developed overnight into this.....

Friday was a sort of kick back and rest day, so I took a short hike to take some pictures of the local Saguaro cacti population......near our encampment there are dozens of these beautiful cacti....

 Saguaros 

......and if you are careful and observant you will find very tiny cacti just barely eking out an existence....... 

As I wrote previously, tens of thousands of folks arrive in Quartzite the middle of January and their RV's literally dot the landscape for miles around......

.....for miles around (internet photo)

The BIG white tent....the center of the RV show (internet photo)

The RV show officially begins January 16th, but there are already hundreds of vendors set up along Dome Rock Road as you approach the BIG white tent.  Michael and I decided to head over to check everything out around 1330, and then head over to two of the more prominent solar installers in town......Discount Solar, and Solar Bill's.....Michael went in with the intention of getting written estimates from each vendor to later compare and help him narrow down his choices.  Discount Solar provided a very detailed quote with a dozen line items and pricing for each, while Solar Bill just handed Michael adding machine tape with a bunch of figures on it, but nothing spelled out.....personally, I had a much better feeling about Craig from Discount Solar than I did from the nice folks at Solar Bill's.  Every item on display at Discount Solar had a price on it, while nothing at Solar Bill's had any pricing whatsoever....I thought that was odd.

 Ini, mini, miny, moe.....which one to choose?

(internet photo)......some of the vendors along Dome Rock Road

As Michael and I were driving back to our encampment late afternoon we spied a automotive glass truck and stopped him to ask about windshield repair....we both have cracks in our windshields.  Rick from Nomad Glass followed us back to our coaches, and provided estimates for the replacement of our glass.....having been in the insurance business for over 40 years and not only dealt with many, many glass claims from customers, but replaced numerous windshields on my own vehicles over the years, I was very impressed with Rick's knowledge and expertise.  Not only that, but Rick owns a 1973 Newell, which he just purchased at auction a few months ago, so he knew exactly what kind of glass I needed!  We decided on the spot to have him order the glass and install it next week.

Due to windy conditions most of the day we all decided to stay inside and skip our sunset fire, but I still managed to capture a few shots for the blog.......we love the sunsets here, and the mostly cloudy conditions we had Friday provided the perfect ingredients for an interesting sunset......

Thanks for stopping by!