Tough Women

This lady is from Nevada and in her 40’s I’d guess.  This all she has except for her little red car which is too small to sleep in.  This tent is too short to stand up in.  It gets down to the mid-thirties (1.7 C) every night.  I am cold every morning in my RV and run my heater for an hour or so.

 She is here for the entire winter.  How does she do it?

This woman is from Maine and probably the same age as the lady above.  Only she has her daughter with here, I’d guess 11 or 12 years old.  They have a larger car, an SUV and she told me they sleep in it when it is cold like it is.  They have been living like this for five years.

 Last year I met a lady from Georgia and this is all she had, a Nissan Cube.  No tent.  No shade.  Just a camp chair.  She had her little dog and a ginger cat with her.  Last winter we stayed in Quartzsite until the end of April when it got too hot and we finally moved on.  I had to drive down and see if she was still camped.  Yep, out in the desert all by herself and it had been in the 90’s (32.2 C) most of the month.

I wondered how she could do it being so hot as it was.

There are many more like that (men too) out here living with very little shelter which is especially noticeable with all the big RV’s all around them.  Think how tough the pioneer women were to follow their crazy husbands on a six month long journey westward into the unknown relying on rumors and poor advice as to the route to travel to some destination that rarely lived up to what they had been told.

The Not-So-Really-Big RV Show

Quartzsite is the place to come in January to get really good deals on new and used RV’s,

that’s if you believe the dealer’s hype.

 Above and this photo is the show ground for RV Country sales.  

They drive these units in from wherever just for the month of January. 

The other big dealer is La Mesa RV.  This is their lot.  Empty.  

They didn’t bother bringing any units in this year, probably due to COVID.

That can be a good thing for the other dealers.  Less competition.  More sales?

This is a used unit.  I wonder what they traded it in for as it appears to have had custom graphics  

applied and this style or model is a relative new type of RV.

Oregon plates.

The Big Tent is Up

In spite of the pandemic and Arizona competing for the most new COVID-19 cases per day,

 the show must go on.  As I had read somewhere awhile back they have decided to widen the aisles and have one-way traffic flow.  That should make everyone safe.  

The one and only time I went in the tent was back in 2019.  Well make that two times I went in.  The first time it was so packed we were shuffling along at cat speed and I just wanted to get of there, and in doing so I forgot to take any pictures.  So I went back a couple days later for you folks and the blog photo.  Fortunately that day wasn’t like being in a cattle chute at the Chicago stockyards.

In this photo from 2019 you can clearly see how widening the aisle and having everyone walk the same direction will solve any problem of an infected one spewing COVID cooties on others.

Trust me, my first visit was so packed I couldn’t see any vendor on either side.  I was hemmed in tightly stuck behind an old lady with a walker.  I was pushed along for a quarter of the way through before a hole opened up and I made a dash for a side exit.

Never again.

 

We Are in First Place!

I picked up this paper while in town yesterday.  The Coronavirus article reported that on Monday, Jan. 4, Arizona jumped to the worst in the world in 7-day average for new virus cases, normalized by population. It was around a year ago I posted on the blog how where we were in La Paz county had the fewest reported cases and deaths of anywhere.  “It is all desert.  No one is here.  Safest place to be.”  Hmm...  

The town of Quartzsite has no mandated mask wearing policy except on town properties such as the library and community center which are both closed.  Otherwise business is as usual.  Seems the Senior Center hosted a Christmas Day Dinner followed by a Saturday night Bingo and multiple positive cases resulted from this little soiree.  Those old people!  What can we do with them?

 I made my way down to Family Dollar for a few items.  Always an adventure.  See the dark haired lady at the far end of the checkout?  She was coughing and hacking the entire time there.  She probably had a cold or maybe the flu (what I fear more contracting than the coronavirus).  Maybe she was just a smoker.  Let’s hope.  At least she had a mask on.  At least I was twenty feet away from her.  I saw a sweet looking old couple in there shopping with me.  They were hi risk and not wearing masks.  To wear or not to wear, that is your choice here in Quartzsite.  But you really need to exercise caution and be careful in places like Family Dollar with all the coughers and hackers and Bingo night at the Senior Center and those irresponsible gambling old farts. 

Oh yeah, another article in the paper reported that La Paz County Health Services had on hand 400 vaccines.  Remember now, we’re in first place in the world.    

Propane For the Heater

There are several places in town to buy propane.  I like to go to Patties RV Park for it has easy access and I can pay right there at the fill station.  At the Union service station I have to go inside and stand in line waiting on people buying gas, snacks, beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Prices are about the same at all locations, $2.30 a gallon.

 This little one gallon tank I bought last year replacing the standard large five gallon tanks typically you have with your bar-b-que.  This I can carry on the bike.  The large one I could not.

The tank goes in the back hanging off the ladder.

The line goes inside through a hole I cut in the back.

It then comes out from under the bed and hooks up to the Mr. Heater.  That is all the tank is used for.  Now you are probably wondering “Doesn’t the RV have a heater?”  Yes it does but it is very inefficient.  Mainly it is the fan that blows the air in through all the ducts.  It uses a lot of energy and runs down the battery.  I suspect the heater part uses more propane also.  This little heater warms things up fast and that is just using the low setting.

The little green propane bottles will connect to this heater also and if I run out from the one gallon tank I can screw one of them on.  The one gallon tank lasts about two weeks and that was using the heater a lot when we first returned since it was cold.  

Beans Here

The days are beginning to warm up some.  I heard lizards today in the brush for the first time since we returned.  Yippee!  It will be in the 70’s (21.1 C) everyday in a week or so.  I am so excited.  After today’s hunt I had to get up in my loft and relax some.  I think I might be out of shape.

Another plus with the warm weather is that Dad doesn’t whine as much.

Really, he needs to get a grip when it gets a little bit cold.

 

 

 

The Kitchen Gadget Vendor

This guy is here in Quartzsite on vendor’s row every year.  If he doesn’t have what you need in the line of kitchen items then you don’t need it.  I was hoping he had a taco holder, a rack to hold the tortillas in place while you fill them up.  Well he did but it was metal and I don’t need a fireworks show when I put my filled tacos into the microwave to melt the cheese. 

 I did get this pan scraper made of hard plastic.  It works great in cleaning my cast iron skillet.

The curved corners fit perfectly the curve of the skillet bottom.

I looked online for a taco holder but they come in packs of more than one. 

I may end up making something.