I live in Edmonton part time. For six to seven months each year I’m "on the road again" in my Mountain Air motorhome. I have that "what’s over the next hill" complex. As a retired school principal, I now have the freedom to travel whenever I want and to get away from the cold and blowing snow of Alberta’s winters. As a result, December to March finds me basking in the warm climes of Palm Springs, Quartzite, Lake Havasu, Tucson, the Rio Grande Valley, Texas Gulf Coast, or elsewhere in the "Sun Belt".

Since rejoining the Snowbirds in the Sunbelt, we have hung out at the FMCA (Family Motorcoach Association) Western Area Rally in Indio, California and Newmar Kountry Klub Region 1 Rally in Quartzite, Arizona. We’re now in Casa Grande, Arizona (between Phoenix and Tucson) for a week before heading for Texas.

Over 1,700 motor coaches parked on the Date Festival Fairgrounds in Indio for the four-day festival. The motor coach rally, offered a variety of seminars including highway safety, insurance, satellite dishes, and travel tips. Motor coaches as well as furnishings for RVs were also on sale.

For the Newmar Rally we boondocked in the desert six miles south of Quartzite. It’s such a dramatic sight–all those RVs in the middle of the desert.

Quartzite! How to describe it? Most descriptions are at best inadequate. No matter what you’ve heard or read about Quartzite, most first time visitors to the area are totally unprepared for what they see. Having said that, here goes…

Firstly, you should understand something about the geography of Quartzite. It is desert, about 900’ in elevation, so it tends to be warm. Around Quartzite are about 35 townships (over 1,000 square miles) of land, mostly under the control of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), onto which people just go and boondock and rough it in their generator and/or solar-powered rigs. Some people camp 10 or 15 miles away, but most people are within 5 miles or so of town in the Designated Camping Areas (14 day free camping) or the Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVA). The BLM requires a permit to use the LTVAs ($20 a week or $100 for the entire season), and they provide a few important services like drinking water, sewer dump, and trash bins–which, of course, you pay for. Water is a scarce commodity in the desert. Parking is easy; you just stop where you are and you drop anchor. All in all, our time on the desert at Quartzite was absolutely delightful. The temperature was exactly what it should be (75-80° F). It was, indeed, perfect.

In the summertime, the population of Quartzite consists of about 2,500 permanent residents, who live in small homes on grass-less lots, mostly north of the freeway and Main Street. The weather is hot. Approximately two months of constant, near 115° F days. Wintertime provides the Quartzite area with sunny comfortable days and evenings. The winter months also convert the tiny, desert town into a credible-sized city, mostly on wheels. Vendors and Snowbirds fill the open spaces of Quartzite and even overflow into the desert in all directions. Swap meets, flea markets, yard sales, and trade shows spring up everywhere, vying for the attention of RVers escaping their cold homelands. It is impossible to be bored in Quartzite. When it comes to fun and entertainment, there is something in winter’s Quartzite for just about everyone. The surrounding desert provides hiking and 4-wheeling opportunities, along with the chance to study unusual plant and animal life. There are bingo games and classes for art, crafts, and even gold mining and rock hounding. There are places to square dance, line dance, or ballroom dance. And if none of these activities suit you, there is always shopping. Actually shopping is the main activity, and as the saying goes, "If you can’t buy it in Quartzite in the winter, it isn’t for sale." The busiest times are the last week in January and the first week in February. That’s when the biggest rock show and the RV Show are held. But people camp in and around Quartzite from mid-October until April, and there is always something going on.

Oh yes, the Newmar Rally! We had a super time, meeting, socializing, etc. with people we’d met at the Hill Spring (in southern Alberta near Waterton Lakes) Newmar Rally in June, before we bought our Mountain Aire (Newmar) motorhome when we had been invited as S.O.B.’s (some other brand), and making new friends. Was that a run-on sentence or what?!? Food was great–roast pig, prime rib, BBQ sandwiches, pancake and sausages for breakfast. What can I say? Life is great!

And now back to the present–Casa Grande. Casa Grande is small town America. A mecca for winter tourists and center for the surrounding agricultural and manufacturing region, Casa Grande is strategically located in the heart of Arizona’s Golden Corridor between Phoenix and Tucson at the intersection of I-10 and I-8. Cotton is the key crop; other farmers in the region raise alfalfa, barley, wheat, and several types of vegetables and fruits; also pecan and pistachio orchards are quite common. We’re here until Sunday when we start the long trek to South Texas.

. . . to be continued next issue.