Our Quartzsite Experience

Every RVer we have spoken to told us that we must spend time in Quartzsite Arizona. It is THE PLACE TO BE if you RV during the winter months... January and February. So off we go to Quartzsite to join our friends Ray and Millie Surrette from Massachusettes, that we met in Texas. When we arrived, Ray had already been here for several weeks with his friend Mike Phelps....  this one looks different in a speedo. They were kind enough to share their piece of desert land with us. We are on the left with the white car, Ray and Millie are the dark RV and Mike and Sherry are the light RV with the white jeep. We had a campfire circle in the center and had some great communal pot luck dinners.
Here in Arizona there are large parcells of land designated as BLM land, owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Anyone is permitted to camp on the land for 14 consecutive days without a fee... but a permit is required.  You have to be "self-contained".... in other words you have your own water and sewer storage. We spent 7 days in the desert and still had water left in our tank. We were proud of how we did for our first extended dry docking experience. Our on board generator gave us electricity to run the convection oven and micrwave. It also recharged the batteries we used to power our lights.
Quartzsite has a population between 400 and 500 during the summer months but at this time of year it swells to over 10,000.... all RVer's. Because of this population boom, there are various "shows" here ranging from antique cars,  jewelry, rocks and minerals, to RV dealers and parts. Supporting these shows are Flea Markets and Swap Meets. You could shop for 8 hours per day for 30 days and still not see everything. It is amazing.
However... we experienced a few days of RAIN. I didn't know it rained so much in the desert. I have been told that this weather is highly unusual. One night we had gale force winds... needless to say I was rocked to sleep. There was flooding in various places but we stayed high and dry.

Our trip back to Cottonwood, we decided to travel through the moutain range and were treated to a sight we haven't seen  yet this winter....SNOW. It appears the rain we experienced at the 1720 foot elevation of Quartzsite was snow at the 7100 foot elevation of the Prescott area. It was beautiful to look at, but I was glad we were JUST PASSING THROUGH.