Hello from Quartzsite, AZ

Sunday morning January 18, 2009 (Fifth travelogue of this trip)

We are at the Eagle Bus Rally (map). Actually, this is a combined Eagle/GMC/Flxible bus rally (yes Flxible is spelled according to the company name). There are close to 100 buses here (33 Eagles). The space alloted is a bit small, so we are kind of close together, but it is not too bad. Some of late comers had to park a bit off site, but they are close enough that they can participate in all the activities (coffee and donuts in the morning and h'orderves or pot luck at night,plus nightly bonfires and our board and general meeting). I have attached a picture that shows some of the rally.

If you have been following our blog, you know that we came here from Indio where we did two trade shows. We need to catch up on the FMCA rally in Indio. There were over 1500 coaches in attendance and lots of activity in the vendor area. Talking to many vendors, I got the same answer: lots of interest, but not much in the way of sales. That was true for our booth. We think that we had good contacts – both in terms of quantity and quality.

After the FMCA rally, we pulled under the palm trees and camped for a couple of days. The weather was great, getting into the 80's during the day. On Tuesday we traveled a bit over 120 miles east to Quartzsite.

We have written a bit about Quartzsite in the past. It is a crazy place to say the least. In the summer the population is less than 4,000. However, in the winter that number grows drastically. I have heard that during the December/January time frame over 1 million people will send a few days in the area. Quartzsite is in a basin and when you approach from either the east or west, you will crest a hill and see a sea of recreational vehicles of every shape and size.

This time in January is the peak population period, since the huge RV trade show is in full swing. This is a huge tent with several hundred vendors (we do not vend there). In addition, there are acres of “swap meet” booths all over town.

When we are here, we dry camp (no electrical/water/sewage hook-ups). We have solar power (not too effective this time of year when the sun is low), a good generator and lots of water, sewage capacity. We could probably dry camp for a couple of weeks before we would have to dump and get water.

From here we head to Yuma, AZ to stay with some good friends for a week or two.

That is all for now.

Eagle Bus Rally in Quartzsite