As we begin our 5th year living on wheels we arrived in Quartzsite, AZ Wednesday evening and will be spending the next 2 weeks testing our skills in water and electricity conservation, flea market finds and relaxing in the sun. Quartzsite was our first destination in January of 2009 when we began this journey.
This is what the desert is all about! Amazing sunsets and very cool skies.
As RVer’s we are a symbol of “Green” that no one usually thinks of when they are thinking conservation. We spent 14 days in the desert without the amenities most people take for granted. We parked in the desert on BLM Land that costs $40 for 14 days with hundreds if not thousands of other RVer’s on lots of acres of nothingness! In 14 days Paul and I used less than 100 gallons of water, ran our generator about 2 hours a day on 1 gallon of fuel per day (have to watch American Idol!) and about 5 gallons of propane (it was cold!). In our past life we averaged about 100 gallons of water per day and who knows how much electricity!!! OUCH!! The RV never moved so we didn’t burn any fuel and there is no where to go so we spent about a 1/2 tank of fuel in the car just trying to find new stuff – more about that in a minute! We did read at least 3 books each, played cards for hours and caught up with friends that we only see occasionally. One day, near the end of our stay I did get a bit “bored” and we had to go for a drive into the mountains. And, even though we were in the desert without all the conveniences of home we did watch the Super Bowl and cheered loudly when it seemed that the home team was going to pull it out – next year!
The desert can be beautiful. Note to self: look up more!
The desert is not my favorite landscape but it can be very interesting. We have met many friends along the way and a lot of them come to Quartzsite this time of year. We met up with Lonnie and Becky from Idaho one afternoon to learn about Geocaching which we have been hearing about since before we moved into the RV. This is a worldwide phenomena that has perfectly intelligent adults (and kids) running all over the world hunting for cache (a buried treasure) that a fellow Geocacher has hidden with the only path to finding it is GPS coordinates. There are 1,989,883 active geocaches and over 5 million geocachers worldwide. Lonnie and Becky have been doing this for a couple of years and have found about 1000 (I think!) The afternoon we spent with them we found 14. It was a trail that had been set up for a Geocaching Rally they were attending in Quartzsite. I happened to mention another couple, Robert and Diana that we met while doing Spring Training and since this is such a small world, Robert and Dianna were parked right next to Lonnie and Becky at their rally of 40 rigs!
Paul and Becky following the compass to get to the cache.
Found it! Open it and lets see what we have found!
Sometimes they are very small!
Paul texts Robert and we got together with them a few days later! Robert and Diana have found over 2700 caches in only a few years! Paul and I are not sure if we love this new sport (I am not sure what else to call it!) but it is another way to get out and explore this world we are living in. Plus we get a little more exercise.
Paul and I did a little exploring on our own one afternoon and discovered we can find these things on our own with the help of the GPS and the compass! We found 3 one afternoon within a couple of miles from our home in the desert.