Quartzsite and Home

What does this electrical outlet have to do with our blog? I'll explain later.

An easy day's drive east from LA on IH10 brings you to Quartzsite, Arizona. "Where and what is that," you might ask. In a nutshell, it's a wide spot in the road that is a small town (pop. 3000) for much of the year, but which becomes an RV mecca in Jan-Feb, at which time the population swells to over 500,000! It hosts several large RV and gem shows during those months. The land around Quartzsite is owned by the Bureau of Land Management (all of us) and allows free, or "dry", camping. We spent two nights here on the way to California and two more on the way back to Texas. We visited the grave of "Hi Jolly" (Hadji Ali) a camel driver who took part in the US Army camel experiment of the last century.
We were able to coordinate a visit with LeRoy and Shirley Davis, two of our oldest friends from missionary days in Kenya. Roger was their doctor in Kenya and delivered their first child there. They have been fulltime RVers as long as we have, and are based in British Columbia, but we hadn't seen them for many years. We met up at the "London Bridge." If that is a surprise to you, I'll explain that the developer of Lake Havasu City, Arizona bought the actual "London Bridge" from England and had it shipped to the US in 1971. (Click the link for the full story.) We enjoyed several good meals together and lots of good chatting time. Renewed friendships is one real bonus of this lifestyle.

Quartzsite contains many interesting sights, among them the Readers' Oasis Bookstore, owned by this gentleman

Paul Winer and, yes, he's a nudist. Here's a link to another blog with more info. This is one of the "must" stops in town. He has a huge selection of books, mostly used, and at great prices.

Here's a nice Rainbird Sprinkler head in a park.
Here are the reasons we were anxious to get back to Texas: Abey, Sunny, Lydia, Christian and the newest grandbaby: Phineas Roger! We've had some neat times with the grands: we spent a day at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch nearby It's home to many exotic animals, including these cute faces at our car window

Another day we spent at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, followed by burgers and milkshakes at Cheesy Janes a great little local eatery. The kids always want to go geocaching, too, so we stopped to find one on the way home. Which brings us full-circle: why post pictures of an electrical outlet and a Rainbird sprinkler? Mainly because all is not as it seems in the world of geocaching:

Here's the "sprinkler": actually a cache container.

And here's that "electric box": not connected to anything and
revealing a cache container inside. This is the kind of sneaky stuff that makes this such a fun hobby. Try it sometime!

We're here in the Heart of Texas for a few months, trying to stay warm! Thanks for taking time to keep up with us.