Quartzite is not just a small desert town... it's a phenomenon - a happening! Look it up on any map and all you'll see is a "4-corner" town in the middle of tim-buck-two! It's got about 2,000 residents year-round, BUT in Winter starting in January, the population swells close to 1 Million people! and they all live in motor-homes and trailers, and when it's over, by the end of March, they all drive away! You have to see it to believe it.
Basically, what happens, is a super huge rock-hound show. It all started as a small group of folks doing a small show-and-tell rock display, with about 1,000 people showing up. Now, on top of that, it's also a huge flee market (takes 2 weeks just to walk around and see it all). There's also an awful lot of jewellery making and selling going on, and add to that a slew of trailer and motor-home dealers and what you got is a whole mess of people spending a whole mess of money with all of them camping in the desert!

Here's a picture of us on top a small local mountain overlooking the scene down bellow, and as far as you can see behind us... RV's in the desert. That's just a small part of it, as it goes on to the right of the picture and most of it is in behind the photographer as that's where the majority of campers are found.

Often, what happens, is folks meet other folks, and after a while you get a bunch of them together who meet year after year. What they end up doing is they "circle-the-wagons" a centre fire-pit and it looks like this..

Quartzite has characters. Here's the local bookstore owner who finds it too hot around here, 12 months of the year! Velma met Paul last time we were here and I swear this guy has less clothes on this time than last. So I cut the darn picture right at his b#%&s. Paul, by the way, says he was in Sudbury at one time, in the 70's as a male stripper! He remembers it very well as he ended being charged for it, went to court, and was eventually dismissed. Small world!

The main reason for Quartzite are the rocks.
There is a group of rock-hounds here that have formed a club, the QIA, and have a fully equipped club house. They offer courses on all facets of lapidary. Some of the States' best jewellery designers hail from this group and are renowned for their work. There is art here that I've never seen before.
Take a look at this polished geode with a cowboy painting superimposed. Or a perfect stone used as a pendent.

You'll find rocks here by the truckload. In the following picture, the first one are of polished geodes. There are geodes of all sizes. The second picture is of large geodes, cut in half showing the crystallization; and these are only the black ones. There are thousands of large geodes in Quartzite, most going for $300-$3,000 dollars for a half! The third picture is of tables full of sliced and polished stones, from one of many vendors. The last shot is of petrified wood. They're lined up like stumps, ready for the fire... but at $300-$1,000 each stump, it makes for an expensive marshmallow roast. There are literally hundreds of vendors like the ones below, and they come from all over the world, displaying their rocks. Some South American vendors have meteorites for sale while others have Jurasic Park amber!

If you like necklaces, here's one of many vendors selling only necklaces. All you see are necklaces, on every table and all the walls, and you can buy these by the strand, by the 10 pack, or by the 100 bag.

The local lapidary club (the QIA) has outings to take the members on. Within 50 miles of here there are about a dozen places, either in the desert or in the mountains that still yield gemstones and gold nuggets.

But, after a week, we're rockin-on-outa-here. Tomorrow, we head out to Imperial dam, near Yuma.

Jan 22, 2009, Yuma, AZ, Arrived at Noon, Gas $1.83 Diesel fuel $2.05

Well, since we've arrived in Yuma, we have been busy, and that's why the WEB site is only being updated a few weeks later. Sorry for the delay and here we go. First off, for the folks in Donna Texas who were anticipating our arrival and report on the Fountain of Youth GC in California. We have decided to spend a month in Yuma. But, we will be going to the FoY campground for a few days, once we leave here, and we'll give you our impression of the place then.

We dropped anchor about 15 kms north of Yuma, at Imperial dam, BLM, LVTA. BLM is the Bureau of Land Management, the same as Crown land in Ontario and the LTVA designation signifies that this area has limited services, such as potable water and sewer dumps. It is located next to the Yuma Proving Grounds. YPG is a military test area for bombs and tanks and such stuff, and you can sometimes hear the bomb blasts during the day. The Golden Knights Parachute team also practices here.
Many snowbirds come to various LTVA areas to spend the Winter in the middle of the desert. On our last trip we were here for a month, and we returned for a few days to meet up with a couple, Mike & Beeds, nice folks we had met then, who are still coming down every Winter, plus to take a few desert walks. Imperial Dam LTVA is a very scenic area surrounded by mountain ranges, has a large lake, is on the Colorado river and offers many desert walks. This picture is of a desert walk we did with our Montreal friends and this view overlooks the LTVA area in the right-centre of the scene along with the beautiful mountain ranges of Dome Rock, on the horizon.

The desert scene is very different this time around. When we were here last, in 2006, it was a very dry year and nothing was green. This year, there's been some rain, and everything that can grow is growing and is green. It's nice to see the various desert plants such as the Ocotillo and Beaver Tail cacti in bloom. Below is a collage...the first picture is of the purple grasses, and I don't know the name of the plant, the second is a barrel cactus just about ready to bloom, the third is of an ocotillo cactus bloom and the last is of a beaver tail cactus bloom.

 
When you look over the hillsides, you see a tinge of green most everywhere you look and vegetation seeds that haven't germinated in a few years are now growing. Even the cacti are growing to huge sizes and this picture to the left is and example of a huge Ocotillo. Most are half the size. Sure makes for a pretty desert scene.
The shot to the right is of us on a walk in the Senator Wash... a large "ditch" at Imperial dam LTVA which a few weeks before our arrival was flooded with water. Flash floods are always something you have to consider and we're told that when it happens, the water shows up like a wave and it has taken lives because of it.

We spent a day searching for a park in Yuma and settled in at the Bonita Mesa RV Resort in the Foothills area of Yuma on the north Frontage Rd (service road) of Interstate Hwy 8. It's an average park and we were lucky to find one that could take both usand Pierre & Judy as the parks in this part of the Country appear to be very busy. This park surely does not compare to the one we were at in Donna, TX. As a matter of fact, the only one we found that came close to it, in Yuma, wanted $775.00 for the month and I would have to say that Donna was still a superior park. Take note folks, down in Texas... I would expect that park to have some increases over the next few years when compared to what we're seeing here and in Phoenix. But we'll keep that our secret... :-)
Here's me doing a needed wax job on our site, after a month and a half of travelling. Our friends from Montreal are just a street over.  And the truck turned another milestone getting here so it also got a wax job as a treat.

Yuma is a great little town of about 80,000, and is real easy to get around with hardly no traffic jams. It exists for three reasons... the weather, as about 40,000 snowbirds converge here in the Winter, and most Canadians are from western Canada. It offers cool nights and almost always sunny days. It's dry climate is ideal with over 240 sunny days per year, and Winter daytime temps ranging from the mid 60's to high 70's. It's also a large military area with the local airport housing the US Marines' third largest training base plus you have the Yuma Proving Grounds base north of Yuma, and finally, there is farming.
This area has irrigated desert farmland through a large and elaborate system of irrigation canals that range for about 15 miles around. The soil is beautiful sandy loam which was deposited as the river bed of the Colorado river, as it meandered all over the place during the past many thousand years. The farmers grow mostly lettuce, cabbage and broccoli in the Winter with straw and cotton in the summer, as summer temps average 105-120 degrees for 3 months. Of course there are also huge lemon and orange groves and this area produces all of the Medjool dates sold in north America. Would you believe that everyday, there are over 800 transport trucks leaving this area loaded with farm produce... and that does not count what goes by air freight from the many refrigerated plants located in and around the airport! Everywhere you look, if there are no mountains, there are farm fields. As the above picture depicts a beautiful scene of mountains in the background, there is the Colorado river in by the trees you see, and farmland on either side of these trees. The farmland in the foreground is of lettuce, red and green, and farmland been recently tilled over after being cropped. 
And when your down by the river, you sometimes find nice spots like the one above. This was taken on a walk we had north of Imperial dam. Here's a few more picture of the different walks we've taken to date. Pierre and Judy as we leave early one morning. The mornings are oftentimes very cool. On the right is a 1,100 foot rise in elevation walk to signal hill. This walk was very gruelling as it basically involved walking uphill all the time on a concrete road that goes to the top of a mountain full of antennae. On the horizon is the City of Yuma.

And the last walk we were on, to date, was with a local walking club, made up of members from our RV Resort and another one nearby. Here, we were 22 walkers that morning, and we walked around the mountain you see in the background... a nice, scenic 6 mile walk-a-bout!

Since we've been in Yuma, we've been watching the price of diesel fuel drop even more, and the price of gasoline rise. Today, February the 19th, saw the price drop to $1.81.9 for a US gallon of diesel... a 4 cent drop from this picture as it was taken yesterday. Finally, things appear to be settling back to some form of normalcy as the price of diesel is lower than gas. It's unfortunate it took a recession to make it happen.

A few days ago we went just west of Yuma, to visit a new tourist attraction in the making. It's a person's dream, I'd have to say, of a theme park whose theme escapes my mind. Since it is still under construction, it really is too early to comment, but basically it has these very long granite murals depicting historical events of the earth. Something to immortalize and ensure that these events survive, it seems, the possibility of human extinction. There is also this sun-dial made with an arm pointing exactly at 12:30, which was the time I took the picture at, and is also pointing to a pyramid. Perhaps in a few years, this attraction will reveal its true reason for existence. Oh... did I forget to mention that this attraction has also been proclaimed to be "THE centre of the earth" by proclamation of the local municipality.

On Tuesday, we finally went to visit an old friend of mine from Timmins. We meet with Rick and Lil, Lil's sister Joanne and husband Marc, plus Lil's parents. It was very co-incidental to meet folks that I haven't seen in over 25 years, especially to end up meeting them down here in Yuma!
 
So we packed the trucks up and we went for a tour of north Yuma... Picacho State Park, Imperial dam LTVA, had a shake-date and visited the Golden Knights parachute practices at the YPG. This picture to the right is of our friends from Montreal, myself "the tour guide" then Lil and Rick from Timmins.

It's always a treat to watch the Golden Knights parachute team perform. They are the Army's professional team that travel the air shows and put on a real nice demonstration of aerial sky-diving formations and precision landings. These shows are on everyday that's not too windy in the Winter at the YPG.

Next to the YPG is the Imperial dam. When I tell folks the Colorado river ends at Yuma, they invariably look at me as if I'm crazy... BUT, as you can see from the picture below, it really does not look like a river from here on in, does it? The picture is of the water just coming out of the dam control gates. In fact the Imperial dam was mostly built for the All American irrigation canal that goes to southern California farmland. Theses water you see here are divided into three canals... One is for the Yuma canal which irrigates all the farmland in this area, the other goes to California, and the third is water allowed to continue onto Mexico, in quantities in accordance with an agreement made at the time the dam was built. The water you see flowing here actually goes through huge settling ponds you can just see in the distance, where the sand and silt is removed from the Colorado waters, before being diverted into their respectful canals.
That's why I say, this ends the Colorado.. though a lot of folks still consider the canal going to Mexico, the Colorado river, since the canal at times does follow the old waterway path of the Colorado river.

Feb 28, 2009, Leaving Yuma, AZ,  Gas $2.09 Diesel fuel $1.77 Temp in the 80's and at 200' elev.

We're leaving without finishing the Yuma section, so I'll git-a-'er once on the road. I've got a mine museum, a downtown Friday night car show, and Rick & Lil's parting lunch for us to tell you about. For now, we're breaking camp and heading into southern California, and up along the eastern side of the Salton sea between it and the Chocolate mountains. See y'a later.

I'm back, and found time in Parker, AZ to bring this site up to date.

North of Yuma we visited a mining town museum, created from old mining buildings found throughout the Castle Dome mining district, an area of about a radius of 30 around. The folks here are doing a bang-up job of it too. All the buildings are authentic as well as the artefacts and the mining equipment.

The first shot is simply a shed, the second one is the inside of a hotel once found at Castle Dome City along with the church in the third picture. See the dome on the mountain to the left of the church? That's where the name came from. For $5.00 bucks this museum is about a three hour walk-a-bout tour and well worth it. After that tour we venture out into the desert nearby. This area is also located in what's called the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. A few miles in behind the museum, we found the remains of an old mine and as you can see from the fourth picture, there are still old foundation around and from the fifth picture, there's the mine drift that goes underground about 700 feet. We went about 300 and that was enough as we could no longer see daylight from the entrance, which is in behind Pierre!

Yuma every Friday night is special. They close off downtown and hold a car show, have entertainment, open some shops and have street vendors. The downtown is restored to it's early 1900's - mid 1900's era and when there's a car show, it really feels like your back in the 60's. We had met another couple from Montreal at our resort and loaded the trucks and went for pizza and walk about downtown. Here's the six of us and a shot of the cars.
 

This Friday there must have been 40 - 50 cars in total and for a small town, this place rocks with vintage muscle cars. When they leave at about 8:00 pm, it must be a heart thumping rush to hear all those engines roar away.

After that, you simply walk another block north and take in a movie. As you can see, even that building is restored properly to a 50's era. That night we went to see Slumdog Millionaire... what a show that was.

And, as all good things must come to an end, Rick and Lil helped make it happen by arranging a nice lunch for us, before we left, and it was also their leaving Yuma that Friday as they had to return home. A good time was had by all and hopefully, good health keeping us all, we'll meet again many times hereafter.

The horses are hitched, fed and well rested. We're on the road again...and you won't believe the price of food for the horses!

Check this out...diesel... $1.73 per US gallon!

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