Quartzite Arizona

Quartzite is a very strange place. In the summer it is incredibly hot – like 125! And there are hardly any people there. In the winter, starting about now, but more in January, the snowbirds arrive and the desert around the little town fills up with motor homes. Like 10s of thousands! Why do they come there? Don’t know for sure except there is a huge rock and gem show there in the winter months – there are warehouses full of beads, warehouses full of crystals, precious and semi precious stones from all over the world, stone carvings, teak, you name it. This is where the wholesalers come to get their bargains. It looks rather like a very large swap meet. The first picture is a warehouse filled with cool things made from rocks, geodes and crystals. The display is of lamps made from salt crystals and further inside the warehouse are big slabs of rock that can be used for a variety of things, hung in a window to show the light coming through, as a table top.... whatever you want. The next shot is of several pallets of geodes from Brazil - mostly amethyst. The next is a street view of the site. Lots of venders!

Its $40 for a long term stay to camp on the BLM lands (Bureau of Land Management) – 2 weeks. However, if you stay further away from the town you can stay for free or a very cheap permit. Just pull up some ground. There is a place right next to Interstate 10 that is also free but it would be noisy. We found a spot in an RV park where there was internet, power, water, showers and laundry. We do like to be in touch. The next afternoon we rode our bikes over to the show to do a bit of shopping.

We were hoping for a bright and early start, however, we had to return to the show to buy a few more things, gifts for others and gifts for us. We left Quartzite at 12noon, stopping for lunch and last minute groceries at Yuma and hope to arrive at Portrero for New Years Eve dinner – king crab legs and steak and champagne with Dawne. It is 5:30 now and we have 30 miles of the twistiest part of this route ahead of us. Here’s hoping we arrive in Portrero before we get too hungry!!

Well the road sign says 55 mph but we went about 35 most of the way – very twisty~ we arrived at 6:30, were greeted by Dawn and had a wonderful New Years Eve dinner of King Crab legs and wine. Dawne and I then serenaded Lorne with our music and we brought the New Year in with champagne (Calgary time) and turned in.