Exploring From Quartzsite

There are a lot of things close to Quartzsite we hadn’t checked out yet this year.  One of them was the Quartzsite Yacht Club.  It has no marina and is in the middle of the desert but it’s still a yacht club.  They even offer a membership.   What do you get for joining this yacht club?  Well, we have heard that other yacht clubs around the nation reciprocate by allowing you to use their facilities.  If that’s true you could save a bundle by joining one in the middle of the desert without any water around    We didn’t join but we did go for their Thursday night karaoke.  One of our friends, Ed, is an amazing vocalist. so we went to cheer him on.  He did an fantastic job just as we knew he would! 

 

There were a few other places I wanted to check out. I had to head west towards Blythe to check the first one out.  We were looking for a place to put our kayaks in the Colorado River.  Just across the Arizona / California state line I found a perfect spot.  It’s at the Quechan Marina.  Our plan is to give it a try Sunday afternoon.  The forecast is for a beautiful day so we’re hoping the weather man is right on.

I figured as long as I was already in California, I might as well keep going.  Next stop was the BLM camping site I had heard about right on the Colorado River just a tad south of Palo Verde.  I headed in that direction.  According to the map it was only an additional 20 miles.

If I was at the right spot,  it really isn’t BLM land.  It’s the Palo Verde County Park.  One Class C was there.  I’m not sure how they collect the funds for the park or if they do.  The park didn’t appear to be maintained.  The restrooms were locked and the signs not easy to understand.  However, the internet indicated the nightly fee was $15.  I’m guessing it probably isn’t collected but who knows!

The town of Palo Verde isn’t a place with a lot of shops and restaurants.  These are the two I noticed.

On the way back to Quartzsite there was a huge backup on the freeway  Several Sheriff cars were parked in the meridian and Border Patrol was busy at work stopping each and every vehicle.  This wasn’t the normal Border Patrol stop that everyone travelling through Arizona is familiar with.  This was a big one.  Many cars were pulled out of the line for full inspections.  I also saw one man in handcuffs so at least we can assume their “sting” was productive!

I made one more stop before heading back to the motorhome.  This time it was at the QIA Pow Wow.  It was another place with lots of vendors, no place to park and a zillion shoppers.

As much as I hate to admit it, we did stop by the book store.  It wasn’t ME that wanted to go but Terry was looking for a book.  Three Socks was there in all his finery.  I’ve very carefully blocked that finery out.

We’ve been running, running constantly for the last couple weeks.  We stopped by to visit George and Suzie  not long after we had arrived in Quartzsite.  We kept hoping to get back over to visit with them more.   We especially wanted to stop by for their daily 3:00 Happy Hour.  We finally got a chance to do that on Saturday.   We figured that we would probably hang around for about an hour but that didn’t happen.  They couldn’t get rid of us for over two hours!   We had a great time with them and with their friends …. all from Ontario, Canada.  (My goal was to beat George posting this but I had slow internet and a few more hiccups.  He beat me by 4 short minutes!!)

Sunday is the last day our little BLM sticker is valid.  We’ve decided that we definitely will refresh our motorhome in the morning by dumping and filling up with water.  However, we’re not so sure what we’re going to do after that … hang around another day?  Maybe hang around two more days?.  Well, the only thing we do know is that we’re going kayaking in the afternoon and we’re looking forward to that.  I must admit I’m getting a little worn out with all the activity around here but that kayaking trip will certainly be a blast! I really want to do that. First Freddy needed to get them down off the top of his 5th wheel.  That’s just what he did and now we’re almost ready to go.

‘Tis life on the road.

Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue ….  just live with it.-