Keeping Busy in the Q (Quartzsite)

Hard to believe, but we have been so busy that the blog has fallen to the bottom of the pile of “things to do”, so now I will catch up!

We always said that we would like to see the desert after a flash flood – we got our wish and it was spectacular! Dry washes became rushing rivers, dips in the hiway became lakes that vehicles splashed through and many roads were impassable. All this after less than an inch of rain! Quite the sight to see.

Hiway 95 to Yuma

a fairly main road in town!

one of the dry washes

We continue with the occasional craft fair, not selling much but always picking up new ideas and sharing our creative ideas with others. It seems everyone out here is a crafter of some sort, more interested in getting new ideas than actually buying anything.

The annual Christmas Light-up parade was fun to watch.

We attended a local fund raiser, a soup & chowder dinner, 13 cups of soup plus a yummy dessert! 

Eating out includes tacos, waffle breakfasts in our RV park, monthly pancake breakfasts with the rock club, $3.50 lunches at the Seniors centre, hobo stew (Christmas leftovers with random cans of food added – a rock club tradition), biscuits & gravy (actually pretty good!) and Christmas dinners – rock club & RV park. Yes, we even cook for ourselves now & then!

soup & chowder - yes that's for one person!

live entertainment at the taco tent

waffle breakfast at our park

Christmas dinner in our clubhouse

Christmas dinner

Hobo stew, complete with cans for eatin' out of

The weekly rock hounding trips continue every Tuesday but we are trying to limit our collections. I have found the market stalls that sell finished cabochons (stones for pendants) for $1-5 and up. This is so much easier than taking raw rock and cutting it, shaping & polishing it to create the cabochons! But we do enjoy the desert and the hunt for rocks.

some interesting metal art

some, yes some, of the finished cabochons that I will wire wrap - all costing $5 or less each!

There are now 2 places in town to play pickleball, indoor & outdoors – we go when it fits into our schedule. We even bought our own racquets. It is good exercise and a lot of fun.

pickleball

A neighbor in the park, Jerry, has taught Robin the art of knapping – not sleeping, but making arrowheads & knives from obsidian (volcanic glass). He is now obsessed – he spends most of his time in our tent chipping away, but he seems to be having fun!

Robin's first arrowhead

Robin's arrowheads

the first knife

knives #2,3 &4

I am continuing in the creative wire weaving classes which I enjoy – always something different to make. We both took a stained glass class and made a “suncatcher”. I have wire wrapped a few pieces of petrified wood and hope to continue with fancier stones.

We can now conjugate verbs in Spanish! And we even sort of know what that means. Definitely not conversational yet, but a lot smarter than when we started! And this is a free class!

The rock club is our main source of social involvement – we have volunteered at a spaghetti supper and at the Christmas dinner – it’s a great way to meet folks and be useful. We did everything from washing dishes to baking all the buns to selling 50/50s.

We even took in an Elvis tribute artist concert - on Elvis's 84 birthday. 

A fellow from the park owns a gold claim nearby which we got to visit – luckily when they were done for the day so no heavy lifting of rocks for us! We got to descend down a ladder about 15 ft into a cavern but did not venture into any tunnels. Apparently they are successful in getting at least a few flakes every day (after hauling rock, crushing it, sieving it and finally panning it)! Too much work for me!

me coming out of the hole

Robin and Bill in the hole

It is now the heart of the ”Show season” here in Quartzsite – there are show grounds all over town, filled with tents selling everything, literally everything that you can imagine! The main focus is rocks, gems & fossils plus anything related to this such as equipment. Plus RVs, antiques, food, clothes and junk!  You can find Moroccan fossils, Madagascar fancy rocks & minerals, malachite from the Congo in Africa, minerals from Australia, amazing massive crystals, beads, slabs of any kind of rock imaginable, finished cabochons and lots of finished jewelry. It is literally mind boggling. And of course, along with all the vendors comes all the shoppers – stores buying their stock, jewelry artists buying their materials, collectors adding to their collections, etc, etc. It is not particularly safe to drive anywhere as no one is paying attention to the road, they are ogling all the sights (plus many are really old) and the traffic is getting crazy. Luckily we can walk pretty much anywhere in town and we do.

setting up the tents

one of many RVs for sale lots

"chairs"!

?? birdhouses??

raw rocks & crystals

fossilized shark teeth from Morocco

rocks and more rocks

Crystals

fossils

more fossils

more crystals

tents

fossils

this is "Fordite" piles of paint from manufacturing cars which is cut and made into very expensive jewelry!

barrels and barrels of fancy rocks

setting up "The Big Tent" for the upcoming RV Show

one of many show grounds in town!

We had a lovely surprise late in December – we got a call from the Mexican farmer couple that we met last year north of Cabo ( we were fossil hunting on their property and they took us home for coffee & a visit). Their niece called for them – to wish us a Merry Christmas and wondering when we were coming back to visit. Maybe next year, who knows.

Our RV park activities are mainly card games – we have joined in for a few Pegs & Jokers games, plus the twice a week coffee & donut mornings.

had to throw this one in - Robin goofing off at the Walmart in Parker!

Our latest excitement is the booking of a cruise – we came prepared to do that this winter but originally thought the Caribbean – instead we are driving to Los Angeles and doing a 15 night cruise to Hawaii in late February! We found a deal too good to pass up, one more place off the “bucket list”.

That’s all for now, back to our full schedule tomorrow, still living the dream!