Thanksgiving in Quartzsite

Thanksgiving Day came along.  It was the day we had planned on getting back on the road and traveling a short 120 miles across the Arizona border and landing at Quartzsite.  Every RVer knows exactly where Quartzsite is and every RVer knows exactly what happens there in January.  Quartzsite is the small little town of about 2000 that jumps in population to nearly a million during that month.  However, this was the end of November.  We didn’t expect it to be packed at all.  We also didn’t expect the roads getting there to be packed.  We were wrong.

We weren’t wrong on the town being half empty.  It was.  We were wrong on not expecting the roads to be packed.  They were.  I figured everyone would already be where they were going for their holiday feast.  That wasn’t the case.  The traffic seemed to come in clumps.  There were very few opportunities to get a picture of a near vacant highway.  This was one of those.

We could have pulled onto Plomosa road and hung around for free without hookups but why?  We were only going to be around for two nights.  The Kofa Mountain RV park is a Passport America park and for $20 (tax included) that’s where we decided to stay.  Our site was big and the people very nice. 

Once setup we had to drive around and check out the little town.  There are a few vendors but very few.  Some were even open on Thanksgiving day but most were closed up tight. 

Empty streets but the Stagecoach Restaurant and Motel is fixed up and now open!

It appeared that some of the lots were starting to get a few RVs on them but nothing like the dozens of lots offering hundreds for sale.  I guess they’ll start pulling those in towards the end of December.

It’s always interesting to drive through the popular boondocking spots around Quartzsite.  There are many who head in that direction every fall intending to set up “camp” for the whole winter.  We discovered many are already there.

Next on the agenda was trying to find Denise (http://sassysondaroad.blogspot.com).  She’s a pretty special  person and we knew where she normally parked so headed in that direction.  Sure enough.  We found her and Benny.  After catching up we made plans to meet at Silly Al’s on Friday.  We had actually thought that’s where we’d have our Thanksgiving dinner but they were closed.  That’s right.  Silly Al’s was closed!!

Next we figured we’d try to find another blogger, Barbara (http://dewelldesigns.blogspot.com).  We knew where her spot had been in past so we had an idea where we might see her and Katy. Sure enough there she was.   After chatting for a few minutes decided to do more catching up with her at Silly Al’s too.

That was Thanksgiving day.  With Silly Al’s closed there went our plans for Thanksgiving pizza.  Instead we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner at the Quartzsite Yacht Club.  What a good choice that was!  The dinner was $9.95 and it was fabulous!  We were served so much food, we couldn’t finish it. 

I am so happy to be in Arizona’s time zone.  I’ve had trouble adjusting my internal clock from the daylight time of Washington state where we spent six months to the Pacific standard time when daylight savings time went away.  As a result I found myself getting out of bed close to 4:30 AM every morning and going to bed too early at night.   Now when I look at the clock in the morning instead of it saying 4:30, it’s going say 5:30.  I like that much better.

Next, Black Friday rolled around.  We didn’t have to worry about any lines in Quartzsite.  There really aren’t that many people there yet and hardly any stores to visit.  The vendors that were in town were opened.  We wandered through K&B Tools, Gamblers and all the antique stalls.

Silly Al’s pizza in the evening was just as good as we remembered.  We met Denise and Barbara for dinner as planned.  It was probably the busiest place in town.  We loved chatting with both of them and discussing many other little bloggers in Blogland.  We did have a picture taken (Barbara?).  I’m just not as good at remembering my camera as I used to be and the one I took with my phone wasn't a good shot at all.

Saturday morning we were on our way into the Phoenix area.  Traffic was really light.  It was nothing like the Thanksgiving day traffic we were in when we moved to Quartzsite.  We were thankful traffic was light because Phoenix traffic can definitely be a mess.

‘Tis life on the road.

Each of us is a book waiting to be written and that book, if written, results in a person explained.