The Rose

 Our friends Ray/Millie and Mike/Sherri are full time RVers that we camp with in Quartzsite. One day we decided to have a "Harass-the-dealer" day.   Many RV dealers bring rigs to sell during the RV show held yearly during January. So the 6 of us set off to look at coaches and see how many sales people we could harass. Little did we know.......
Meet "The Rose". She is a 2003 Rexall, 39 foot long, diesel pusher (diesel engine in the rear, instead of the front)......  and she is now ours.  John and I had been looking at used motor homes for a year waiting to find a diesel pusher class A that has some of the things our gas powered coach didn't.

She has 2 slides, one in the living room, one in the bedroom. She has a dinette instead of a booth, a television in the living room that actually faces the couch (not common in motor homes), an electric fireplace in the living room, a walk through bath and several closets in the bedroom. She came with 3 solar panels on the roof and a bra ( the black covering on the front that protects the front from bugs and stone damage). Here are some pictures after we moved all our things from one coach to the other. We put them side by side and our friends pitched in to move everything. It took days for me to find an initial place for everything and I'm sure I will be adjusting as I find better places. I also have a few other changes in mind as I find the window treatments too busy for my taste. These are minor things to change.

The fireplace is below the TV and is also a heater for cool evenings.

A small china cabinet is between the dining and kitchen areas. Lots of windows to enjoy the scenery.

I'll keep you updated on any changes.

OMG...... I forgot the most important thing!!!  It has a satellite dome on top..... No More Antennas !!!!

Off Roading in Quartzsite

While in Quartzsite we spent many hours in the jeep driving to various scenic places that were only accessible by driving over dirt/sandy roads in the desert. One of those destinations was called Dripping Springs. We started off on a paved road, turned off onto a gravel road that quickly turned into a sandy, rock strewn path through a wash. The book we found the trip in, said the road was mostly a moderate drive with a small area of difficult terrain....... NOT. At one point, John had only 2 of the 4 wheels on the ground. I thought Ray was going to roll over..... that's when we decided to turn around and go back. Here are a few pictures of the area.

Millie and I got out of the jeeps at the same time to take pictures.... in opposite directions.

One of the other excursions was to Palm Canyon. It was an easy drive and then a half mile hike up a canyon to see 1 of 2 places where palm trees grow naturally in Arizona. It really was an unusual place to find trees. They were nestled in a crevice of a mountain. You had to do some serious climbing to actually get near the trees. We settled on staying at the viewing area at the end of the hike.

The only way to see these exquisite scenes is to drive off the paved road and head into the unknown. We really enjoy these adventures and are lucky to have friends like Millie, Ray, Mike and Sherri who like to do the same thing.

We're at the "Q"

We left Lake Medina on January 3rd after bringing in the New Year dancing to a country western band. John has decided that if we want to dance in Texas we had better learn the "Texas Two-step" because that was about all they played...... oh, I forgot the "Cotton-eyed Joe" and the "Boot Scootin Bogey"... none of which we knew. But we had fun anyway.
We stayed at Camp Walmart through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. We were joined each night by at least a dozen other RVer's. Most of us couldn't enjoy this life style if Walmart didn't allow a quick overnight stop in their parking lot. We actually passed snow on the side of the road when going through New Mexico.
We arrived in Quartzsite ..... the big "Q".... on Saturday. We stopped at a campground nearby for 1 night to dump our gray and black tanks, charge the batteries and fill the water tank. We will be "dry camping" for several weeks... maybe more than a month. For you non-RVer's, that means we will have no electricity, water of sewer connections. We must rely on what we carry on board the coach.
Here is a picture announcing you've arrived....

We drove to the area we parked last year to stake out a spot for our small group. It was difficult to find the exact spot, but where we thought we should park was already occupied. I walked around looking while John struck up a conversation with some others and they invited us to share the area. They are moving Tuesday and the rest of our group wasn't due until Tuesday so we would have company until the others made their appearance. Meet Debbie and Jessie Lee.... full time RVer's lastly for Reading California.

John and Jessie talked about RV stuff like Solar panels and pulling weight and Debbie and I talked about her American Indian heritage and enjoyed the scenery. Here is an Arizona sunrise over the desert....

and here are 2 Arizona sunsets....

It is just beautiful country. Well, as it turned out everybody arrived early... Monday morning. Here we are sitting around the fire in the evening Monday night. I think Ray and Millie brought some of that cool weather with them from Florida.

From left to right, sitting.... John (with his long hair), Debbie, Jessie, Ray (standing), Preston (sitting), Mike (standing), Sherry and Millie.

Today we took our first off-road Jeep ride through the desert. Here we are stopped to check out this abandoned house... know to us as the pony express house.

This is just the first of our Arizona adventures.....  especially with this crew. I'll keep ya posted.