Snowbirding 2019: The Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Maria Langer

A quick overview of my experience with the craziness that is the Tucson Gem and Mineral Shows.

Posts in this series:
• The Long Drive
• At the Backwaters Campsite
• In Mesa and Gilbert
• A Quick Stop in Wickenburg and Forepaugh
• Off Plomosa Road
• Camping at the Big RV Show
• A Trip to Organ Pipe with the WINs
• The Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows
• Wickenburg Gold Rush Days
• Constellation Park Interlude
• White Tank Mountain Park
• Bumming It in Phoenix and Apache Junction
• A Dose of Civilization
• Return to the Backwaters
•

It rained almost all the way to Tucson from Organ Pipe National Monument. I got into the outskirts of the city before noon. I’d used Google Maps to direct me to a laundromat and it’s probably a good thing that I did. When I went into the camper to fetch my laundry, I saw that my roof was leaking.

I stripped the bed and set up pots and pans under the leaks atop a rubber-backed mat. My goal was to keep my bed dry.

It looked bad. Water was pouring in around the big skylight over the bed and through seams in the sealing slightly forward than that. My comforter was catching most of it. I moved quickly, fetching pots and pans out of the drawer under the stove and positioning them to catch the water. This was not a good situation, but I admit that I was surprised. I’d been in the camper in heavy rain before and had never had a leak.

That’s when I noticed that the skylight wasn’t fully closed. It was open just a tiny crack. I pulled it down the rest of the way and latched it securely. Could that have anything to do with the leaks?

Once the situation was under control, I brought my laundry in and sorted it into two washers. Then I went back out to pull my comforter out from under the pots and see how much water had soaked through. I was lucky; very little water had gone through to the blanket and sheets, which were pretty much clean. I brought the comforter into the laundromat and threw it in a dryer.

Then I went back into the camper with Penny and heated up a can of menudo for lunch. Nothing like hot soup on a cold day.

First Shows

Not my first time

I should clarify something here. This isn’t my first experience with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. I’d been to the show once before, in 1995. That’s the winter I lived in Yarnell, AZ to get away from the cold winters at home in New Jersey. My future wasband flew out to join me and the two of us drove down to Tucson, badly damaging my MR2’s front bumper in an accident along the way, to meet up with my future wasband’s cousin, Rick. Ricky believes that certain crystals have certain metaphysical properties that can make your life better. He was in Scottsdale visiting his aunts — really long story there — and met up with us to go to the gem and mineral shows. We were late (because of the accident) and he was pissed.

I honestly don’t remember much about that trip except a general feeling of being overwhelmed. I don’t know what shows we attended, although I don’t remember any of them being big. And I don’t remember what, if anything, any of us bought. I don’t think a trip could be any less memorable. Maybe it’s because I was still stewing over my accident and that nasty dent in my bumper.

After I had lunch, empty and repositioned the pots and pans under the leaks, and got my clean, folded laundry stowed into the dining area of my camper, I headed toward my first show. But before I tell you about that, let me tell you a little about the Tucson Gem and Mineral Shows.

Every year, from the last week or so in January to the second week or so in February, Tucson is basically taken over by at least 50 individual gem and mineral shows. They range from small shows in the lobby of a motel or the parking lot of a shop to huge, multi-tent shows spread out in big parking lots and expo centers. There’s an app to keep track of them, but it isn’t very well designed; it just tells you where each show is and lists each show’s vendors. You basically have to know which show you want to go to to make the best of the situation. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. And worse than that, I was driving a truck and pulling a 12-foot cargo trailer that I would have to park at each show.

Penny on the Table
While water dripped into pans on the bed, Penny’s bed was relocated to my dining table. She didn’t seem to mind.

But while I waited for my laundry to dry, I did some research with my friend Google. I knew I wanted to go to the show at the Kino Gem & Mineral Show because that’s where a friend of mine was showing his lapidary work. I also wanted to go to the JG&M Expo, which was a wholesale show. I had a list of possible shows and I separated them into areas. I figured I could hit at least two of them that first day, which was a Sunday.

So I headed to the Kino Sports Complex. I found a parking spot not far from the main area, near a few other large vehicles or trucks that were towing trailers. It was still raining on and off and there weren’t many people out and about. That’s probably why parking was so good for me. I put Penny in the camper and adjusted the pots and pans on the bed. The dripping had pretty much stopped, but I left the pots and pans in place. I made sure Penny had plenty of food and water and left her alone, locking the camper door behind me.

The Kino show was mostly smaller tents, although there were a few large ones with multiple vendors inside. Very much like what I’d seen in Quartzsite the previous month. The very first vendor I found was Nadri Gems, my source for about 90% of the cabochons I bought in Quartzsite. The guy I usually worked with was there, too, and he remembered me. (How could he not, considering I’d spent about $500 so far?) Knowing this would be my last chance to buy the kind of stones they sold, I filled a tray and made another big purchase. He took about $20 off the total for my purchase.

I walked around the rest of the show, looking at various merchandise. I bought some cord to fix a wind chime I have and a bunch of beads from another vendor who had been in Quartzsite and had already pre-qualified me for wholesale pricing. I was looking for turquoise and certain tools — that was my main reason for coming — and wound up buying a few small turquoise cabochons from a vendor in a big tent that had water running over the astroturf on the ground beneath the booths. (I was glad I’d worn my hiking shoes; the soles were thick enough to keep me above the floodwaters in various places I walked.) I got into a conversation with him about Sonoran Sunset, a stone that had been in high demand from my customers. He told me “there’s a guy set up behind the Howard Johnson who sells that.”

I kept walking around. A lot of the booths were closed because of the rain. I never did find my friend’s booth. There was just too much to look at but it was the same stuff over and over. After my long drive, camper leak situation, and laundry, my internal battery was down to 50%.

I went back to the truck, let Penny out for a run around the wet parking lot, and got into the truck with her. Then I told Google to take me to the next show, JG&M. I was very surprised to find that it was actually quite close by. In fact, I could have walked. Instead, I parked outside the gate where there was room for my rig and walked around the fence to the main entrance.

This was a huge show — actually three shows: Gem Mall, Holidome Show, and JG&M Expo — set up in multiple huge tents. I had to register and because I have reseller information, I could get a wholesale buyer badge. This is a huge benefit to me because it saves me the cost of sales tax. (The jewelry I make is taxed when I sell it.)

Inside the tents were mostly beads. Honestly — I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many beads in my life. All kinds of beads, all kinds of prices, all kinds of gimmicks and sales to get you to shop at one booth rather than another. There were “bead shows” in Tucson, too, but I couldn’t see any reason to go to them after seeing all the beads at this show.

I did wind up buying some beads. I had a blue opal cabochon that was blue and dark gray. I wanted beads to match it so I went from booth to booth and pulled out the cabochon to match. I eventually found what I was looking for at a price I was willing to pay and bought them. I didn’t buy much else, though. Other than beads and imports and finished fine jewelry for jewelry stores, there was nothing much else that interested me.

Well, on second thought, that isn’t really true. One guy did have leather necklaces with sterling clasps that I use for my pendants. Good prices. He also had some display items, including a “neck” that could hold seven chains. I stocked up on the necklaces and bought a neck.

Penny on the Bed
Penny waited for me nestled into my comforter, which I’d stowed on the dry side of the bed while in transit.

When I was finished there — understand that I really breezed through — I decided to try to track down the guy with the Sonoran Sunset. I asked Google to take me to the address of the Howard Johnson. For the first time, Google failed me. It led me to an address inside the local university property, nowhere near where I wanted to be. (Yeah, I know: operator error; garbage in, garbage out. But Google should know what I want!) I pulled into a parking lot and tried again. Fifteen minutes later, I was driving on a narrow road past a handful of small motels, including the Howard Johnson. There were tents set up just about everywhere, but because it was getting late — nearly 5 PM — and the weather was still iffy, many of them were closed. But I figured that since I’d come that far, I should go all the way. I found parking in a muddy lot nearby, left Penny in the truck, and went in search of the Sonoran Sunset seller.

And this is where it got weird.

You see, the motels had been rented out to gem and mineral dealers. They had stripped the furniture out of their rooms and set them up as little showrooms. So as I walked past the doors to the motel rooms, they were all open with their front window curtains pulled aside and set up as shops. One after another with cases of stones. No beds, no night tables, no furniture at all. Just display cases. In some cases, they’d even draped the walls with curtains so the rooms had absolutely no resemblance to a motel room.

I wandered around, past the rooms and tents that were open. I looked at a few things. I never did find the Sonoran Sunset guy. He was either set up in one of the closed booths or not there at all.

Casino Del Sol

By this time, it was getting late, my internal battery was down to 20%, and I was very interested in finding a place to camp for the night before it got dark. My WIN friends in Organ Pipe had mentioned Casino del Sol so I asked Google to guide me there. It choose a weird route through a few neighborhoods but eventually put me at the entrance to the parking lot for a hotel casino complex.

Understand that Arizona does not normally have gambling. Most native American tribes, however, do have gambling. I’m pretty sure this one was for the Tohono O’Odom tribe. I call it the Indian’s Revenge — they suck us in to gamble and make money to support their people. I’m not a gambler, but I have a certain affinity for casinos — one of my favorite ways to spend a day in Vegas is walking the strip, through as many casinos as possible to see how outrageous they have become.

Casinos, of course, usually make an excellent overnight parking spot for RVers. Not only do they have big parking lots and access to restaurants and other amenities, but they also have excellent security. I’ll take a casino parking lot over a truck stop (or Walmart parking lot) any night.

Casino del Sol took overnight RV parking to extremes. There had to be at least fifty rigs parked in one of the outer lots and some of them looked as if they had been set up there for a while. This wasn’t parking — it was camping. I later found out that they had a two-week limit for free RV parking. Two weeks! No wonder so many people were camped out there.

I parked on the other side of a parking lot divider from a motorhome. Penny and I got out just as the motorhome’s owners got out. “Do you mind me parking here tonight?” I asked. I’m pretty sensitive to people parking right next to me and wanted to make sure they weren’t.

“Oh no, not at all,” the woman said. That started a conversation about where I was from and what kind of dog Penny was. I asked about restaurants in the casino. I was thinking about prime rib again. “There are restaurants,” they told me. “But they’re expensive.” They told me about a certain special on a certain night of the week that was a good deal. I don’t remember the details because I knew I wasn’t going to be around. Then they got into a car with another couple and drove away in search of a cheap dinner.

After settling in Penny, I went in for dinner. The steak place, which was supposed to be really good, was closed on Sunday nights. (WTF?) I wound up having Chinese food and sushi. It was good. It was my first meal in a restaurant in over a week. While inside the casino, I discovered that there was another gem and mineral show there, To Bead True Colors/Colors of the Stone, although it was closed until 10 AM the next morning.

Back in the camper, I stowed the pots that had been collecting water earlier in the day. The leaks had stopped — but so had the rain. I put away my laundry and made the bed, which was remarkably dry. I got everything organized.

And then I went to bed.

Breakfast and the Casino Show

I made myself coffee in the morning and took Penny for a walk. Beyond the regular parking lot was a gravel and dirt area where even more people were parked with RVs. We walked between the two areas. Then I put Penny in the camper and went into the casino for breakfast and to check out the show.

I learned a lot at breakfast. I sat at a table for two in the outer part of the only restaurant that served breakfast and they sat another woman who was by herself at the table next to me. She was a jewelry maker from Toronto who came to Tucson every year. She used her budget to cover the cost of transportation, a room in an AirBnB, jewelry making classes, and tools and materials at shows. She was having breakfast before going to the show in the casino.

We chatted for quite a while. I realized that I had the wrong focus in Tucson. I shouldn’t be buying stones and other materials — I could get that cheaper in Quartzite in January. Instead, I should be focusing on educational opportunities and seeing demos of tools and equipment I might find useful for my work. I should be building skills and getting new ideas. She gave me some names and I jotted them down. It will completely change how I approach Tucson next year.

Words of Wisdom from an Unlikely Source

Some of the few actual words of wisdom I remember from 29 years with my wasband is this: “Any job is easy when you have the right tools.” (He used to say that when we watched “This Old House” or “Yankee Workshop” on PBS.) Every time I buy the perfect tool for a task, I think of that.

I have a shit-ton of tools now and lots of jobs that were impossible for me 10 years ago are now very easy.

I got on the express line to sign up as a wholesale buyer for the casino show and, with my badge hanging from a lanyard, went in. This show had a lot more of what I’d come for: tools. I saw a few demonstrations and even got hands-on experience stamping metal the correct way (with the correct tool). I also learned the most valuable thing I learned in Tucson: how to quickly and effectively polish my wire framed pendants. (Hint: it involves a Dremel (or flex shaft) and a specific radial polishing wheel.)

One of the booths sold the full range of Wubbers hand tools and had two women doing demos — they just happened to be the founder of Wubbers, Patti Bullard, who had designed all the tools, and her daughter. Their demos gave me some great ideas for new bracelets and chains; I bought three of their tools. (You can see Patti Bullard’s tool demos on YouTube.)

Chain
In just 10 minutes, Patti Bullard showed me the basic skills I need to make bracelets and chains like these. I’ve since made a prototype of the beaded bracelet in copper.

I also found a booth selling precious metal clay tools — I’d decided to explore that when I got home — and bought a few items to make it easier for me to get started. There were lots of hands-on classes going on and I regretted not planning ahead and signing up for some of them.

Two More Shows

I was done before noon. I took Penny for another walk and pulled out with my rig, which I’d already prepped for traveling. My destination was the JOGS Tucson Gem and Jewelry Show at the Tucson Expo Center. Google Maps guided me. I ended up at a huge X-shaped building near the freeway. The parking lot looked crammed. Against all odds, I drove in, stopping by the valet parking station to ask where I might park. The guy was very friendly and pointed to an area with a few U-Haul trailers. I thanked him, squeezed into a narrow entrance to a disorganized dirt lot, and backed into a spot next to a U-Haul relatively close to the main entrance.

I went in, registered as a wholesale buyer, and walked into the show. The very first booth I saw was all tools — exactly what I had been looking for. Well, not exactly. The truth of the matter is that what I really hoped to buy in Tucson was a large jeweler’s anvil. Spoiler alert: I did not find one. But I did look at a lot of different tools for different jobs.

The rest of that show was about 60% beads and 20% fine jewelry for resale. There was another Nadri Gems booth — those guys are everywhere — and I bought two very nice azurite with chrysocolla cabochons. I bought some more beads. I bought some display pieces. Although I tried to do the building without wandering off path too much, I eventually failed, lost track of where I was, and had a senior moment: which way was out? Too many of those bead booths looked too much alike. I finally got back on track and headed for the exit.

There was a food court outside and I treated myself to Salvadorian food — a sort of thick-shelled soft taco with beans and chicken. Tasty.

I went back to the truck to stow my purchases and let Penny out for a walk. I liked my parking space and I knew that my next destination, which was closer to downtown Tucson, would probably not have such accessible parking. So rather than drive, I put Penny in the camper, locked it up, and called a Lyft.

I was headed for the Kent’s Tools Jewelry & Lapidary Tools and Supply “Show.” I put “show” in quotes because when I got there, the “show” consisted of one guy who made cabochons and did pretty basic wire work under a tent in front of the shop’s entrance. The shop, of course, was Kent’s Tools, which is like a candy store for anyone who is serious about making jewelry or working with stones. This shop has everything — although it was out of stock on the anvil I was looking for — with good prices and a knowledgeable staff. I bought some texturing hammers, a soldering tripod with screen, a metal stamp, some polishing wheels, a brass hammer, and a bunch of other things to outfit my shop at home. All my purchases fit in a big shopping bag. Lyft took me back to JOGS.

Another Night, Another Casino

At this point, I felt done. It was late afternoon and I’d bought most of what I’d come to buy. I didn’t feel capable of looking at another single bead and knew that any show I went to would have lots of them. So I decided to try Tucson’s other casino, Desert Diamond, for an overnight parking spot. It was near the airport and a lot closer to the freeway than Casino del Sol.

The Desert Diamond Hotel.

There were a lot fewer RVs parked at Desert Diamond, and that was okay with me. I found a parking spot on the edge of the lot, not far from an open area where Penny could run loose. Rather than go in for dinner, I decided to have a light meal in my rig and try to organize some of the things I’d bought.

I was asleep by 9 PM.

I the morning, I went into the casino for breakfast. I walked in through the nearby hotel entrance because it was chilly out and I didn’t want to spend more time outdoors than necessary. I got a real treat along the way. The hotel’s design and architectural details are reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright, making a pleasant walk through the space.

Hallway Door
The hallway outside the hotel’s conference rooms and the detail from a door between the hallway and casino. Nicely done!

Breakfast was okay. The only place open was the buffet, which was nearly deserted on that Tuesday morning. I had a fresh-made omelet, too much breakfast meat, and some yogurt with granola. I hate eating at buffets because I always eat too much — although I usually love the variety.

The Metal Bar

I had gotten the idea — okay, I got the idea from YouTube — that I could use a piece of railroad steel as an anvil. The trick, of course, was finding a piece of railroad steel that was only 1 to 2 feet long.

So after breakfast, I worked my phone. I called a handful of metal fabrication places in Tucson and hit what I thought was pay dirt at one of them: the guy I spoke to was pretty sure they had a piece of railroad steel somewhere “out in the yard.”

Of course, when I got there, no one knew who I’d spoken to or what I wanted. No one seemed interested in looking around the yard, either. One guy, trying to be helpful, showed me to an area where they stored rolled steel. They had these two inch square solid bars with rounded edges. I asked if they could be cut. “Sure,” he said. I saw that the price was 83¢/pound and wondered what a one-foot long bar would cost. More than $100? He laughed. Probably about $15.

Ugh! I missed my turn for I-10 heading westbound out of Tucson and Google Maps guided me in a convoluted U-turn. Operator error!

So I told him I’d take a foot. I went to the checkout area and chatted with them men there. One of them had a hobby of making guns and he showed me a few photos on his phone. A few minutes later, a man came in with a one-foot long piece of the solid steel bar. They weighted it: 14 pounds. With tax, it was about $13. I carried it out to my truck and stowed it behind the back passenger seat.

One Last Stop

I did have one last stop to make on my way out of town: an outlet mall just off the freeway. I needed a new pair of jeans and I like to wear Levis. So I hit the Levis store and walked out with two new pairs of jeans.

My next stop was a lunch date in Mesa, AZ. I hopped onto I-10 westbound and headed north.

Snowbirding 2019: A Dose of Civilization

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Maria Langer

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After too much time cooped up in the boonies in my camper, I get back to civilization.

I woke up to another beautiful Arizona day. The storm that had soaked and snowcapped the state the previous week was long gone.

I checked the map and realized that the road I was near — Bush Highway — wasn’t really close to the one I needed to be on — Beeline Highway — to get to Fountain Hills. Oops. No matter. Instead of having a 20 minute drive, I’d have a 40 minute drive. It wasn’t like I was in a hurry. My destination was the big art show in Fountain Hills where my friends Janet and Steve were showing and selling Janet’s paintings. They’d been just about rained out on Friday but Saturday had been a good day for them and that day, Sunday, looked like it might be good, too. As long as I got there before 10 AM, I’d likely find a parking space for my rig. Other than that, I was in no hurry.

McDowell Sunrise
Mother Nature treated us to a nice sunrise. That’s Four Peaks again in the distance.

My Rig
My rig in its overnight campsite. I had to make an approximately 160° turn to get out of there.

After a light breakfast, I packed up my grill, which was about the only thing I’d taken out, and headed out. My biggest challenge was getting my camper pointed down the narrow road I needed to be on; it took several moves to make the turn.

At the gate, I had to unlock it and get it opened to leave. Someone was waiting right behind me and I was very happy to see him stop and close the gate once we’d both pulled through.

Wild Horses

Rather than double back toward Phoenix, I decided to continue east along Bush Highway until it met up with Beeline and then head west from there. It was a very pleasant drive with great views of Four Peaks and other snow covered mountains.

It wasn’t long before I started seeing signs indicating that I was in a wild horse area. From road signs to signs painted on the road itself, I was repeatedly warned that there were wild horses around. I looked. I didn’t see any.

Until I did. About a mile or two short of Beeline, at least a dozen horses in all horsey colors grazed on a hillside near the road. People had stopped with cameras to take photos. If the parking situation had been a little better, I probably would have stopped, too.

Wild horses have become a bit of a problem in the west. You see, unchecked, their populations explode, with herds all over the state. I knew from flying in Arizona for so many years exactly where I could find them: along the Gila River west of Chandler, along the Verde and Salt Rivers east of Phoenix, west of I-17 not far from Prescott Valley were just three places. I’d also flown over them in remote areas of Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Washington. I’d even been hired by the Yakama Nation to help them round up horses the previous spring.

While there’s some sort of romantic notion that wild horses belong in the west, there are clearly too many of them. In Washington, on the Yakama Reservation, their populations grow beyond available food supplies, leaving them to die of hunger during the late summer and through the winter. They’re also competing with cattle for grass and water, which isn’t a good thing for the cattle industry. Although some groups are able to round up and auction off some of the horses, that’s an expensive proposition and there aren’t too many people who want a wild horse.

What’s the answer? In my opinion, population control through sterilization. I’d hate to see the horses shot — although there are apparently people who think this is a viable solution. But because all solutions cost money and money can be really scarce to fight problems like this, it’s more likely that nothing sufficient will be done and the problem will continue to plague the west.

Anyway, I didn’t stop so I don’t have photos. Sorry.

At Fountain Hills

The community of Fountain Hills seemed to be still asleep when I arrived at around 9:30 AM. I drove into town on the main road until it ended with a road block for the Art Show. Then I turned right and slid into some curbside parking on an otherwise empty street. I figured I was about 3 blocks from where I had to go.

Penny and I cut through a few parking lots until we homed in on Janet and Steve’s rig parked in a private parking lot right off the fair area. Steve was inside, getting ready to go. Janet was already at the booth. Steve pointed. We went.

Most of the booths were still closed up, although a few showed some signs of opening. The event started at 10 AM but Sundays are usually a slow start day because so many people go to church.

I watched Janet finish opening her booth. She had a single booth at this show because of its high cost. Rather than fill it with both her acrylic paintings on feathers and oil paintings on canvas, she’d stuck with her feather art, which seems to sell better anyway. Her booth, as usual, looked incredibly professional with its solid gray panel walls and other display components.

When Steve joined us, we walked the show together. It was huge. About 75% of the booths were open at 10 AM; they were all open by the time I walked it a second time more than an hour later. In general, the quality of the work on display was pretty darn good, although there were a few too many buy-and-sell vendors. (Honestly, I counted four vendors selling the same damn ceramic garlic grater under different names.) I should mention here that there were actually three shows: the main show Janet was part of and two much smaller “scab” shows that set up nearby to grab the same crowd. And there was quite a crowd; by noon the place was really buzzing with shoppers.

Fountain Hills Show
Here’s a look down the Main Street of booths. You can see the fountain in the distance.

I came very close to buying a mobile of fish made from silverware but controlled myself. I did, however, buy a refrigerator magnet of a Volkswagen Beetle for a bug owner friend of mine. I got some ideas about displaying my own jewelry at shows and a few ideas for making various jewelry pieces.

After walking the show twice, Penny and I took a walk around the “lake.” Fountain Hills is famous for its fountain, which is one of the tallest in the world and goes off every hour on the hour (weather permitting). I used to take my helicopter passengers to see it if the timing was right on one of my Salt River tours out of Deer Valley or Falcon Field years ago. I saw it shoot off twice that day. The walkway around the lake — which is really just a big pond holding water for the fountain — was 1.2 miles long and we did it at a brisk pace.

The fountain at Fountain Hills around midday on Sunday, February 24.

Penny, by the way, had become quite a celebrity. Several people wanted photos of her. Others called her Toto. Too many asked what kind of dog she was. I finally told them she was a Quincy Terrier and let it go at that.

It was nearly 2 PM when I was done with Fountain Hills. I said goodbye to Janet and Steve and headed back to the truck.

Back to Gilbert

Meanwhile, I had been in touch with Jan and Tiffani, my friends in Gilbert. Jan was recovered from his cold. They wanted me to visit. Tiffani put out two carrots: a shower and laundry. How could I resist?

On the way to their house, I stopped at Sprouts and Trader Joe’s to stock up on a few items I was unlikely to find elsewhere. Sprouts had those Cutie oranges I’m addicted to for just $1.99/bag. I bought two bags.

Lounging poolside. Tiffani was amazed at how good my pedicure looked after six weeks. I still didn’t like the color of my nails.

Penny & Ruby
Penny and her friend Ruby joined me on the lounge chair after a while. It was a perfect day to relax outdoors.

When I got to their place, they weren’t there. They, like so many of the people who lived in the Phoenix area, had gone for a closer look at the snow. Now they were stuck in rodeo traffic in Apache Junction. They texted me the combination to their door. I went in, checked on their dogs and cats, threw in a load of wash, and then retired to poolside where I very nearly fell asleep in the sun.

When they got back, we relaxed together and separately while watching and not watching the Oscars. Jan had gotten the 16-inch telescope we’d gone to look at during my January visit. He’d had his backyard observatory modified and a mount installed for it. Now he was working on calibration. Tiffani liked to spend evenings on the back patio, reading on her tablet. While I watched the Oscars and followed it on Twitter, the two of them came in and out, mostly to refill their wine glasses.

When it was all over, Jan bought The Favorite on Apple TV and Tiffani and I watched it. I agree that the actress who played Queen Anne deserved an Oscar. But what a disturbing movie!

The Corvette
Jan’s Corvette.

The next day, Jan went to work and Tiffani and I ran errands. We started off in Jan’s Corvette, which Tiffani told me to drive since she doesn’t like driving on freeways. We dropped Penny off to be groomed at PetCo. Along the way, the car was making a weird rattling noise, like something was banging around by the front driver’s side tire. Tiffani said she thought they’d had that fixed.

So we took the car home and she called an Uber to take us to Scottsdale. We picked up medicine for her cat, than walked a half mile to a restaurant I’d eaten in the previous year, The Mission, which is in touristy Old Scottsdale.

Along the way, Tiffani explained the difference between tourists and tourons. They were easy to distinguish; tourons act like idiots, blocking the sidewalks so they can get photos of themselves in front of things like cactuses.

Dessert
Pumpkin bread pudding with ice cream.

We had an excellent lunch at the Mission, eating outside on the covered patio. I highly recommend it, especially the guacamole made table side by someone who apparently makes guacamole all day. Tiffani tried to get the server to give her the check, telling her it was my birthday. I denied it and begged for the check since Tiffani was Ubering us all over the valley. The server compromised: she gave me the check but also gave me a free dessert for my birthday. (For the record, my birthday is in June.)

From there, we took another Uber to PetCo to pick up Penny and then back to Tiffani’s house. I promptly went into the bedroom for a nap and managed to sleep through their Chinese takeout dinner, which was okay because I was completely stuffed from my huge lunch.

I should mention here that the main reason I was staying a second day is because I had applied for an art show in Litchfield Park and the woman who was in charge kept promising she’d be in touch to let me know if she had room for me. This had been going on for two weeks now and the show’s setup date was the upcoming Friday. I’d called and emailed her several times and although she never replied to the email, she made only promises of future contact on the phone. I didn’t want to nag her, but I also didn’t want to be 100 miles away when she finally called and told me she had room for me. So I was delaying in the Phoenix area just in case she got her act together and called. But it didn’t seem like that would happen and I was pretty much done waiting.

We had another relaxing evening together and apart. Jan showed me the Orion Nebula through the telescope and I couldn’t help but wonder how incredible the view would be if he had darker skies. Tiffani read her book on the patio. I watched jewelry making videos on their ginormous TV.

In the morning, I stripped the bed and threw the sheets into the washer with the last of my laundry. Jan made us breakfast. By 9 AM, they were leaving. By 9:30 AM, the guest room bed was remade and I was stepping out the front door with my laundry. I locked up and headed out for the next stage of my travels: more roughing it along the Colorado River.

Snowbirding 2019: Off Plomosa Road

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Maria Langer

Some rockhounding and a campsite on the edge of the desert crowd.

I left Wickenburg for what would be a 17-day stay in the Quartzsite area just after noon on Friday. The first part of that stay was completely unstructured; I’ll tell you a little about it here.

The First Rockhounding Hike

On my Christmas wish list was a book called Gem Trails of Arizona and my brother got it for me for Christmas. I packed it and took it south with me. The same book was being sold by my next door neighbor at the Flagg Gem and Mineral Show in Mesa and I had a chance to thumb through it. I was motivated to try a few of the sites and, since one of them was right along my route to Quartzsite from Wickenburg, I figured I’d start there.

Understand that I’m only interested in one kind of stone: stones I can polish into cabochons to put into jewelry. Crystals don’t interest me very much at all. Neither do minerals that show all kinds of cool features that might interest collectors. If it can’t be polished into a cabochon, I’m just not interested.

That said, this particular site, titled Brenda Jasper in the book, was said to have “some very colorful jasper. Specimens show a variety of markings and inclusions, including yellow and red flower patterns, moss, paisleys, and some streaked with purple and blue. In addition, there is a host of multicolored materials, as well as some possessing only single shades of yellow, orange, purple or red.” Putting aside the redundant nature of this description, this sounded just like what I was looking for. I had some experience polishing jasper and it was all good. Best of all, the site was a short walk from the main road, Route 60, and the description mentioned a parking area about a half mile away that I’d likely be able to get my rig with its trailer into.

I used Google Earth in an attempt to find the place and its parking area on the map. What I found didn’t match what was described, but it might be close. It looked like plenty of room for me to park. I set up Google to guide me there. About an hour after leaving Wickenburg on an uneventful drive, I arrived. I eased the truck and trailer off a lip between the road and the parking area, moved up enough that someone could get in behind me, and killed the engine.

I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place. After all, the place I’d parked wasn’t mentioned at all in the description. The description also said that I’d have to crawl under a fence, but when Penny and I crossed the road, there was a narrow gap in the fence that was clearly designed to let people but not cattle through. Beyond that was a trail and we started up it, heading south.

I immediately saw small pieces of what I assume is yellow jasper. I picked up a few that could be cut into cabochons without slabbing. There was red jasper, too, and I collected some of that. We hiked up the trail and into the rocky hills. Up there I found some small crystals, which I left behind. None of them were very impressive, although they might make a good find for kids just starting out as rockhounds. Best to leave it for them.

We spent about an hour wandering around and I collected a bunch of rocks that I thought might polish up nicely. Even though the book’s instructions on how to get there were not exactly accurate, I had definitely found the right place and some usable rocks. As for the more impressive patterned and multi-colored materials, they’d either been picked out or required digging, which I was not prepared to do.

Here’s a view from the saddle of the little mountain we climbed during my rock hunt. That white dot in the middle of the photo is my truck with the camper on top.

Satisfied, we went back to the rig, climbed in, and continued our drive.

Plomosa Road

What I learned at Plomosa Camp

Over the next few days, I learned a few things at this campsite:

First, because my solar panels are mounted on the front of my camper’s roof and tilt slightly down toward the front, knowledgeable friends had advised me to park with the front facing south to maximize solar energy collection. At this campsite, I parked with the front facing southwest, despite the fact that I like my camper door (in the back) to face south to maximize sunlight indoors. Yes, I collected more sunlight — while the sun was out. But I was also unhappy because of limited light inside and the fact that I could see neither sunrise nor sunset through the camper’s windows. (It reminded me of the cavelike condo my wasband had in Phoenix.) And since we had two overcast and rainy days, solar collection wasn’t sufficient to keep my batteries topped off during the day for part of the stay so I had to run my generator anyway.

Second, people in RVs use their generators too damn much. One night someone nearby had his running until after 11 PM. Seriously? What the hell are you doing in your box that you need a generator running that long? Shut off the fucking television and talk to your companion. Play cards. Read a book. Have sex. Go out and look at the stars. None of these things require a noisy generator. Stop being so fucking selfish.

Third, during a government shutdown when there are no BLM rangers around, people pretty much ignore the signs and park wherever they damn please. So by the end of my stay I was no longer on the edge of the camping area; there were people parked around me in every direction.

I had spent enough time studying the rockhounding book to know that the 14-day camp area on BLM land adjacent to Plomosa Road would be a good, free location to camp that was central to several other rockhounding sites. With that mind, when I got into Quartzsite I turned north on route 95 toward Parker, then made the right turn onto Plomosa.

Plomosa is a paved road that runs between route 95 and the small town of Bouse. The camping area stretches along the road to the north and south, limited mostly by a few washes and sandy areas that RVs can’t easily get through. There were a lot of RVs already parked out there and I didn’t want to be near any of them. So I headed out on Plomosa, planning to park somewhere beyond the throng.

My plans were dashed, however, by a sign on the road that said, “No Overnight Camping Beyond this Point.” Crap.

I turned around and pulled off the road the first place I could. Okay, I thought. I’ll go north in the desert beyond all of these people.

Dashed again. Another series of signs about 1/4 mile into the desert that said the same thing. They basically formed a barrier beyond which the BLM simply didn’t want you to camp.

Fine. I parked 50 feet in from one of the signs. I was on the edge of the camping area with no one anywhere near. That would have to be good enough.

I disconnected the trailer, then pulled the truck and camper around so the door of the camper was at a 90° angle to the back doors of the trailer. Then I dropped the camper legs and pulled the truck away. I set up the saw horses under the camper, since I expected to stay for more than just a few days and wanted it as stable as possible.

Here’s how I set up my camp on Plomosa Road. I use the saw horses any time I expect to stay for more than a few days.

Here’s an aerial view of my Plomosa Road campsite, snapped with my drone before the camping area got crowded. My camp is at the bottom; this shot looks southwest.

By this time, it was late afternoon and I was done for the day. Mother Nature rewarded me with a beautiful sunset.

Sunset from my campsite on Plomosa Road.

I made myself a quick dinner, relaxed, and was asleep before 9 PM.

More Rockhounding

In the morning, Penny and I got an early start on a rockhounding trip to two sites farther up Plomosa Road toward Bouse. The first site — or group of sites — was called “Plomosa Road Minerals” and promised quartz, jasper, agate, calcite, and other stones I knew could polish up nicely. And the directions seemed clear enough, even offering a mile marker on the road as a landmark.

But it wasn’t that easy. When I got to the mile marker, it wasn’t clear which road I needed to turn at. It was another BLM camping area and there were dozens of people camped out there. There were far more roads than the directions indicated.

I spent too much time looking for rocks and not enough time taking photos of the desert around me. Here’s one of the photos I did stop to take.

I did my best to find Site A, which was the closest and seemed to be the easiest to find. But it wasn’t clear where I was supposed to go. I wound up parking near a mining claim on a hill and wandered around far enough away that I wouldn’t violate the claim. (At least I tried to.) I found a handful of stones that looked interesting, although I have no idea what they are.

I tried to find Site C next and failed miserably.

When I tried to find Site B, following the instructions to the letter, I got lost when it said to head toward “a small mountain range” and there was no mountain range anywhere near or in front of me.

Then I decided to try using the GPS coordinates provided in the book to zero in on a site. They were presented in degrees with decimal minutes — for example, 33° 49.78′ N and 114° 03.95′ W — and I needed to convert them to decimal degrees to enter them into Google maps on my iPhone (since I still can’t figure out how to type a ° symbol on iOS) — for example, 33.8296 -114.0658. When I entered the coordinates, the pointer showed me a location that was nowhere near where the directions sent me. In one case, the GPS pointed to a location on the other side of Plomosa Road from the location indicated on the piss poor map in the book.

I checked the book’s introduction to see why the coordinates might be off and found this paragraph [my comments added]:

This edition provides GPS coordinates to assist with finding the sites. Coordinates were taken using a DeLorme Earthmate GPS PN-20 [perhaps pre-WAAS?] and/or supplied by David A Kelty, author of The GPS Guide to Western Gem Trails [which is probably the book I should have bought]. It is important to understand, however, that determining exactly where to take the reading is a little difficult [How so? Find a rock, take a reading. Seems simple to me.] and might actually be misleading [ya think?]. In some cases, if a site is quite extensive, an approximate mid-point coordinate is given [which makes sense]. In other spots, due to mountain or canyon wall interference, a GPS reading was taken and then either confirmed or modified [?!] using a computerized mapping program. Please do not think the the GPS coordinates will place you exactly on top of the absolute best part of any given site. [I don’t expect that, but I do expect them to match the directions and get me to the rocks.] They are provided only to assist in confirming that you are at or near [within a few miles, apparently] where you should be. The maps [which are NOT to scale] and driving instructions should be your primary source of information in regard to site access [so you’re pretty much screwed because those stink].

As my inserted comments indicate, I was starting to realize that the book was not to be relied upon. Although revised in 2009, I suspect that the author didn’t make much of an effort to visit every single site in the book. That would explain the unclear directions, erroneous GPS coordinates, and crude, inaccurate maps.

Still, I’d done okay with the Brenda site. Maybe this group of sites was a bad one. I’d try another: Bouse Hematite & Jasper. This one provided instruction from Bouse that included a cattle guard as a landmark. To make sure I had the right cattle guard, I drove all the way into Bouse. While I was there, I had lunch at a cafe — the only one in town. Then I was back on the road, following the directions.

I knew there would be a problem when the directions said to turn right 0.3 miles past the cattle guard and there was no turn there. Instead, there was a turn at the cattle guard. I turned. I tried to follow the directions and I think I may have gotten close. But there was nothing worth picking up when I finally stopped for a look.

By that time, I was pretty much done and started heading back to the camper. Along the way, I caught sight of an old mine off in the distance. When I found a road that might take me close, I followed it. I parked the truck in a turnout just before the road descended into a sandy wash. Penny and I got out to walk around. I eventually found a handful of stones that may have included jasper and chrysocolla. The mine sites were really nothing more than survey sites. We got back in the truck and headed back.

When we reached the camper, I discovered that a group of about 10 fifth wheel campers had parked nearby. I’d be listening to their generators whenever I was at camp for the rest of my stay.

Moon Mountain

The next day, I went into Quartzsite for propane and water. It had been cold at night and I was using my heater. Just because I’m camping doesn’t mean I need to be uncomfortable.

But I also thought I’d take the opportunity to try to find one more site from the book: Moon Mountain Petrified Wood. This site promised petrified wood, agate, and jasper. If I found it, I felt I could trust the book for more rockhounding. If I didn’t, I figured I’d stow the book in a cabinet for the rest of the trip.

The search started off bad. It directed me to Avenue 24E or Moon Mountain Road. There was no Avenue 24E in Quartzsite but there was a Moon Mountain Avenue. Unfortunately, Moon Mountain Avenue ends with a roadblock and a few tentative 4×4 trails into a sandy wash beyond. I turned left and then made a right onto a road that seemed to go the same place as Moon Mountain Road on the book’s crappy map. It was called Boyer Road and later called Boyer Gap. I followed it along a bumpy graded road heading northwest into the empty desert. The book told me I’d be heading toward “distant cliffs in the northwest” but the only rise I saw out there was what looked like a small mountain range and it was very far away. Was I on the right road?

I continued bumping along until I found a fork in the road that may have been the one in the book. I kept right. The road got worse. The book’s directions said to “continue approximately 9.5 more rough and sandy miles.” I was driving at about 15 miles per hour. The thought of spending more than 30 minutes bumping along a road that may or may not be the right one and may or may not take me to a viable rockhounding site was depressing. I tried plugging in the GPS coordinates and it told me I was going the right direction. But Google Maps satellite view didn’t show any kind of road at all where the coordinates were.

Was this another wild goose hunt?

It could be.

Did I really want to drive all the way out there and not find what I was looking for?

No. I turned around and went back.

At Camp and Beyond

I filled my propane and water bottles back in town and went back to camp. There were more RVs parked nearby. In fact, the camping area was really starting to fill up. This didn’t surprise me much. Quartzsite’s peak time for winter visitors was during the big RV show that ran (this year) from January 19 through 27. It was January 13, a week before the craziest part of the month would begin. The desert dwellers were beginning to arrive in force.

One of my camp chores was to pull all the nails and other metal debris out of the fire pit I drove over when I parked my camper. (I honestly didn’t see it.) I bought a high-powered magnet in Quartzsite just for the task. I got this is what I got the first time I worked the pit; I got the same amount when I did it again a few days later in preparation for getting the camper back on the truck.

I did camp chores: topping off my water supply, installing the filled propane tank, taking out my portable barbecue grill to grill up some more of the ribs I’d smoked at home and brought with me, vacuum sealed and frozen. I took it easy. I wrote blog posts — I was terribly behind in my trip reporting (and still am).

I also took out my drone and sent it up for a few flights to document the RV-filled desert around me. I was in Quartzsite to do drone photography (again) although I really wanted to do more work with my jewelry. I did finally spend some time making a few pendants.

Here’s a look west down Plomosa Road just after dawn one day. The desert was just starting to fill with RVers.

On Monday, Penny and I headed up to Parker. I needed to do laundry before the RV show started, since once I was set up in the big RV show tent I didn’t think I’d get much time to take care of things like that. I figured I’d also do some grocery shopping, get some documents printed, and then head down to Ehrenberg to check for mail. A neat little loop. That took most of the day. Although I really like the laundromat in Parker, the number of winter visitors competing for washers and dryers makes doing laundry almost a blood sport.

That afternoon, after we got back, it started to rain. Hard. I love a good desert rain, but this was more of a deluge. Visibility dropped to less than a quarter mile and the mountains around me disappeared. So did a lot of the RVs. The desert me, which was mostly flat there with a slight slope, developed pools of water that flowed like little streams anywhere it had flowed in the past. It kept me and Penny inside the camper for the rest of the day.

The view out my back door at the peak of the rainstorm.

A Day in Quartzsite

The next day, I headed into Quartzsite for my meeting with the RV show owners. I’d be doing some drone photography for them and they wanted to make sure I knew exactly what they wanted. After chatting for a while inside the big toy hauler they were using as an office, I went out with Kenny in a golf cart to tour the rain-soaked venue.

The big RV show tent had gone up while I was in the Phoenix area or Wickenburg. This really disappointed me, since I was hoping to create a time-lapse movie of its erection. After all, how often do you see men raise a 65,000 square foot tent? It would have made such a cool movie. Maybe next year?

At that point, they were putting the finishing touches on the interior of the tent, which Kenny drove right into. I got to see where my little 10×10 booth would be. I got to think about how I could get aerial footage inside the tent without violating FAR part 107 — specifically, flight over people. Show management was expecting huge crowds on Saturday morning and they wanted to make sure I was able to show just how busy the show was.

Here are some of the stones I bought that week.

Afterwards, I headed over to Tyson Wells, which was between shows. The rock show had just ended on Sunday and Sell-A-Rama was due to start on Friday. My friends Janet and Steve would be out in a day or two to start setting up for the next show. The weird thing about Tyson Wells is that if you’re signed up for two consecutive shows and have the same spot in both shows, you can keep your booth open on that week between shows. So about half the venue had open booths. Before the week was out, I’d do my big stone shopping trip, buying more than 70 cabochons from my favorite shop.

On To My Next Destination

On Wednesday morning, I packed up my camper, put it back onto my truck, and connected the trailer again. It was time for a little “luxury” — a sort of full hookup campsite at the RV show in Quartzsite. As I drove away from the now crowded camping area, I wondered how long it would be before someone else slipped into my vacated spot in the desert.

Snowbirding 2019 Postcards: Well Documented Mining Claim

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Maria Langer

I took a short walk out in the desert this morning with Penny, who is feeling much better now. We were parked only about a quarter mile from pavement but were the only campers in sight in any direction.

Along the way, my eyes caught sight of something that didn’t quite fit: a white pole coming out of the ground. I walked over to take a look.

A neat white stake near the intersection of two gravel roads out in the desert.

My first thought was “mining claim.” But this one was unusually neat and had a weird, enclosed container on the top.

Someone had made a neat little container and fastened it to the top of the stake.

It was obvious that the container was designed to be opened. So I twisted off the cap. Inside, was a rolled up, folded piece of paper.

Inside the container was a copy of the mining claim form.

As I suspected, the paper was related to a mining claim. It was an actual copy of the claim form the described the claim in detail and provided the name of the claim owner. I had never seen such a document at a claim site before.

I put the paper back into its neat container and capped it tightly.

I picked up a discarded plastic water bottle in our way back to camp.

Snowbirding 2019: At the Backwaters Campsite

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Maria Langer

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Vacation on the Colorado River.

After my long drive south from home, I settled in for a two week stay at my favorite campsite along the Colorado River backwaters. This is south of Ehrenberg, just off a maintained gravel road on BLM land.

BLM, in case you’re wondering, stood for Bureau of Land Management long before it stood for Black Lives Matter. BLM land is federal land and there’s a ton of it in the southwest. It pretty much surrounds the Quartzsite area and stretches all the way to the river. Because you can camp in any one spot for up to 14 days for free on most BLM land, it’s a haven for snowbirds in self-contained campers. In fact, the availability of BLM land all around Quartzsite is probably what makes Quartzsite the January snowbird destination it has become.

Mother Nature treated me to a nice sunset the day I arrived at camp. Here’s the view from the levee road about 200 yards from my campsite that evening. That’s some California farmland south of Blythe on the other side of the river.

A Little about My Little Rig

These days, I travel with a Lance slide in truck camper. That’s the kind of camper that sits in the bed of a pickup truck. Although not as spacious as the original one I bought years ago to replace my 36-foot fifth wheel with four slides — that huge setup, which became my home for nearly two years, was overkill for one person and a tiny dog — it has everything I need: kitchen with sink, stove, oven, microwave, and refrigerator; bathroom with toilet, sink, shower, and medicine cabinet; queen bed (it came with twins but I replaced them); dining table that can seat three; heat (which runs on propane and DC power) and air conditioning (which requires AC power), and plenty of inside storage. Lance is one of the premier brands of this kind of camper and it really shows. It’s well designed and very comfortable. Best of all, because it’s small I can take it nearly anywhere and I can still tow something behind me. (Last year, I brought my boat along.)

My rig is self-contained — with limits, of course. Its three tanks — fresh water (what comes out of the taps), gray water (sink and shower waste), and black water (toilet waste) — hold 30 gallons each, which may not seem like a lot, but with just one person to utilize them, it’s not bad. Fresh water is the limiting factor here and I carry two empty 6-1/2 gallon jugs so I can haul water back to my rig and refill the tank when supplies get low. Of the two waste water tanks, only the gray water tank can be dumped without harming the environment; I use bio degradable soaps and have a hose to direct water into thirsty desert greenery. I don’t do that unless I absolutely must. The longest I’d ever gone without dumping the black water tank was 10 days, so this stay would (hopefully) create a new record at 14. And no, in answer to a question by others who wonder, the toilet tank does not stink. I use some eco-friendly chemicals in the tank and have been pleasantly pleased by the complete lack of smell, perfume or otherwise.

For power, I’ve got two deep cycle batteries and 200 watts of solar panels on the roof to charge them. A solar controller tells me how much power is going in when the sun is out and what the current battery voltage and charge percentage are. I’ve seen incoming power reach 5.4 amps — without even being pointed toward the sun. On a typical Arizona cloudless day, the battery percentage will go from a pre-dawn low of 40% to 50% — mostly because I run my forced hot air heater at night — to 90% by noon. (It won’t read 100% for reasons I still don’t quite understand.) If the weather is cloudy, which does happen even in the desert, and I can’t get enough power into the batteries with the solar panels, I have a 2KW Honda generator I can run for a while to charge everything up. I generally don’t use AC-powered appliances like the microwave or a coffee maker but I admit that when the generator is running, I might take advantage of its AC power to reheat leftovers in the microwave.

For Internet, I’m at the mercy of my provider and location. I’ve been a Verizon subscriber for more than 20 years now and that’s mostly because it really does have the best network coverage. Even so, I’ve been in more than a few locations where coverage is poor or non-existent. When I camp, I like to get away. And honestly, do we really need Internet access 24/7/365?

My Camping Companion

This year I was joined at the river again by my friend Janet, an artist that lives mostly in Colorado. We’ve been friends for about 20 years now and that’s at least as long as she and her significant other, Steve, have been going to Quartzsite in January to show and sell her artwork. I’ve been camping out on the river with Janet (and often others) since my first snowbirding trip south in 2015, when I hauled my old fifth wheel down for the last time and killed my old truck doing it. Although she and Steve live in a fifth wheel (remarkably like my old one) year-round, she has a much smaller pull trailer she uses at shows and that’s what she brings to the river to camp in. Last year she and I camped a bit farther down the road.

I arrived on Thursday afternoon; Janet came in on Friday. She arrived in a new (to her) used truck that had a van front and a box back. It was called Wild Blue because it was blue and had previously belonged to the air force. This was an upgrade from her old van, which was getting “tired” after a long life on the road. In the future, she and Steve would configure the back with shelving to secure and store her art show booth panels and artwork. But for now, it was mostly empty, holding her kayak and some of her art supplies. Like me, she planned to work on this vacation.

Janet had Lulu, her geriatric pug along with her. Lulu is nearly blind and deaf and needs to be carried up and down stairs and placed in appropriate places to sleep or do her business. Assisted living. But she has a good appetite and doesn’t seem to be in pain. She definitely communicates when she’s hungry. I was pretty surprised to see her; I thought she might have died by now. Now she’s thinner and frailer, but still wearing that pink hoodie on cold desert mornings.

I’d been sick all day when they arrived — I’m pretty sure it’s something I ate in Vegas on Wednesday night. (I like to think it wasn’t the oysters because they were the best part of the meal.) I’d been dozing all day on the bed with no appetite and nausea that I was barely able to keep under control with Sea Bands (pressure point nausea prevention that usually works like a charm for me). So when she arrived, she found the campsite pretty much the way it was when I arrived the afternoon before: camper and truck parked separately but nothing else done. It was a good thing she didn’t need my help setting up because I was pretty much useless. In fact, I was so out of it that I went to bed before it got dark, leaving her alone by the campfire she’d built.

The Shop Tent

After sleeping about 10 hours, I was 80% recovered. By noon I was 90%. By Sunday, I was back to normal. But in the meantime, I needed to finish setting up my camp so I had room to live inside my stuffed camper.

You see, the only major drawback I had on this trip was the amount of stuff I had to bring with me to show and sell my jewelry at the two shows I was scheduled to attend. That included a 10×10 foot tent shelter with all its canvas, three folding tables, a tall director’s chair, table cloths, easels, all the jewelry and cabochons I put on display, selling supplies, and the tools and materials I need to create more jewelry. I’d also decided to practice my soldering skills so I brought most of my soldering equipment. Although I would have loved to bring my CabKing cabochon maker, I had a hard enough time squeezing the above listed gear and my additional camping equipment — generator, water jugs, bicycle, etc. — into my camper and truck. Living with this stuff inside my rig was not an option, but I had a solution: I’d put up the tent shelter and set it up as a shop.

When it came time to packing my gear, I got creative. Here are three folding tables and three cases of cabochons secured at the foot of my bed. These didn’t really get in my way during the trip and could have stayed here.

I should also mention here that last year I bought a custom canvas setup for the space under the sleeping area of the camper, so when it’s off the truck, I can put on the canvas and create a sort of garage. I’d set that up for my bicycle and generator and other stuff.

So that’s what I did on the Saturday after my arrival. Janet helped me with the tent — the damn thing is tough for one person to assemble alone. I staked it down, put on the sides, and even spread a mat on the floor inside. Then I moved the tables out from where they had been secured against the wall inside the camper at the foot of my bed and the chair from the back of the truck. Little by little, I brought out everything I could, freeing up valuable living space inside and making my truck usable for transportation by two people and two dogs. (I wish I’d taken a photo, but I don’t seem to have any pictures of our campsite at all.)

One of Janet’s tasks was to remove feathers from a wild turkey’s tail fan. I shot a narrated video of her that we put on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Janet set up a little shop just outside Wild Blue. There was no wind and the weather was perfect in the sun — a good thing because she was working with feathers. For the next few days, she’d work on a new project there while I tried to practice soldering in my tent.

Mother Nature also served up some pretty dramatic sunrises. Here’s one from my camper’s back door early during our stay.

Recreation

Of course, it wasn’t all work for us. In fact, it was very little work for us. We spent a lot of our time just taking it easy.

I got Penny to pose atop my Hobie kayak bag to give some sense of the size of the bag. Although it’s big and rather unwieldy, it has wheels and handles that make it easy to move around. The whole kayak, including seat, pedal drive, paddle, and pump fits in this bag.

After camp was set up, I pulled out my new kayak and pumped it up, thrilled to see that it required very little pumping to get it up to the right pressure. We brought our kayaks down to the backwater and launched them. I struggled a tiny bit getting the pedal drive in place and secured and then gave it a workout. I realized that although I could also paddle, the high seat position I’d chosen made it difficult to do so without getting wet. I’d lower the seat the next time I assembled it. We’d go out a few times over the next two weeks. Janet likes to fish and although I do, too, I don’t like it nearly as much as she does. So while she fished, I pedaled around. The backwater is about a mile long — very quiet with calm water, ducks, and herons — and makes a perfect place to explore.

One of the days we went paddling, the conditions were perfect for some nice reflection photos. This shot would have been better if I hadn’t been shooting through a plastic bag.

Here’s Janet in the kayak with Dually. Dually absolutely loves to go boating and, remarkably, can stay balanced on the kayak.

We went on a power walk most mornings. Sometimes we took a short route that was about a mile and a half. Other times we took a longer route that was more than two and a half miles, much of it in sand. Penny ran all over the desert, following the scent of rabbits we never saw, and snooping into burrow holes. After Christmas, we also had Dually, Janet and Steve’s big dog. When he could, Dually would get a drink out of the backwater channel, wading in up to his chest sometimes.

We ran errands in Ehrenberg — post office, water, etc. There’s a shop there that caters to off-the-grid campers; for $1 I could fill both of my water jugs. We refilled our propane tanks — I’m not shy about using my heater or water heater and went though 10 gallons of propane in two weeks.

Yes, there’s at least one Trump Shop booth in Quartzsite this year. I find it hilarious that Trump supporters have managed to cash in on the popularity of the con man in the White House.

We went into Quartzsite a few times. The shows were just setting up before Christmas and were almost fully set up by New Year’s Day. We always need a few tool-like things for camp and we know just where to get them. There’s a discount grocery store we visit, too. I think one of the challenges for me is to outfit my camper and camp as frugally as possible. If you know where to go in Quartzsite, it’s easy enough to do.

Every night we’d share a meal together which was usually a joint effort with food from Janet’s place and food from mine. For the first time ever, we both seemed to have brought along enough food that shopping expeditions were unnecessary. We had a campfire most nights and, on occasion, we’d use its hot coals to roast sweet potatoes or even potatoes from my garden — I brought whatever I had left — for dinner that night or snacking the next. (There’s nothing quite like sweet potatoes roasted in foil on a campfire.)

One night we roasted two regular potatoes to go with our steak dinner and one sweet potato for me to snack on the next day.

The Christmas Break

A typical breakfast for me consists of a breakfast meat sautéed with veggies and topped with one or two eggs. After my trip to Blythe, I could include chopped nopalitos — prepared prickly pear cactus pads — in my veggie mix.

Steve came just before Christmas and he and Janet left with both of their dogs to visit Steve’s family in California. I had the campsite to myself during that time. (I blogged about my quiet Christmas in the end of this blog post.) While they were gone, I went grocery shopping in Blythe, right across the river in California, where I picked up nopalitos that I often mix in with the other veggies in my breakfast scramble. I also went on a bead buying expedition in Quartzsite. As a jewelry reseller with all the necessary paperwork, I was able to get wholesale prices without having to pay sales tax. That’s a huge savings given Quartzsite’s outrageous 10% sales tax. I don’t use a lot of beads in my work, so I bought enough to last a year.

It’s around then that the wind kicked up just enough to put a thin layer of dust all over everything in my shop tent. It took me a while to realize why I was having trouble keeping my hands clean and why the polishing wheels I used on the rings and bracelets I made were turning black. When I noticed that I was hammering dirt into the silver I shaped for a new design of earrings, I gave up in frustration. The shop tent was not working out — at least not there.

A new earring design requires me to hammer lengths of heavy gauge wire flat. The conditions in my tent shop were too dusty for me to make more than a few pairs.

Dreams of a Cargo Trailer Shop

I made this rosary from carnelian and obsidian beads, sterling silver cross and medal, and a lot of fine silver wire. It took a long time — each bead is separately attached in its own segment — but I’m very pleased at how it turned out.

When Janet returned and moved her workspace into the back of Wild Blue, pointed into the wind so she was sheltered even with the back doors wide open, I joined her for work on a new project: an heirloom rosary in sterling and fine silver with carnelian and obsidian beads. It was nice sitting in the sun, sheltered from the wind and dust. I started thinking about a cargo trailer I could set up as a mobile shop.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had that idea. Twice over the past six months I’d considered buying a cargo trailer to bring south with me. I’d even priced up new ones at a trailer place in Moses Lake near where I live. But I have a lot of stuff and did I really want more? No.

But I was started to think that I needed it. Not only would it give me a good place to work while I was traveling every winter, but it would reduce the amount of stuff I had to load into the truck and camper when I broke camp and moved to my next spot. So I did something my friend Bob would be proud of: I started searching Craig’s List. I found a few good candidates in the Phoenix area that I could check out on the next leg of my trip.

Time to Move On

The two weeks on the river went quickly, as it always does. My first show, the annual Flagg Gem and Mineral Show, was in Mesa, AZ with setup on Thursday, January 3. I’d be spending that whole weekend with some friends in nearby Gilbert.

The roof of my camper with the kayak (left) and tent frame (right)fastened to the roof rack. Getting them up and down on my own was not an option.

I started getting things together on Tuesday and did most of my packing — including taking the shop tent down — on Wednesday. A friend came by to visit and I enlisted his help getting the tent frame up onto the roof of the camper so I wouldn’t have to put it in the back seat area of the truck. Janet helped me get the kayak, now back in its bag, on the roof. Janet broke camp, too, although I don’t think she had nearly as much stuff outside her camper and truck as I did.

On Thursday morning, we hooked up our rigs. I pulled out first; I needed to check for mail again and wanted to top off my water tank. We met later on at RV Pit Stop in Quartzsite where we dumped our tanks and I refilled a propane bottle. Then we met up again in the big parking lot behind Tyson Wells.

Although the rock show hadn’t officially started yet, about 80% of the vendors were set up and open. The vendor I’d been waiting for was there and I told Janet to go on without me as I spent about an hour browsing cabochons. This particular vendor sells certain stones that I use a lot of at a good price. I planned to stock up for all of 2019. I wound up buying 32 of them and will likely go back for more before the end of January.

By that time, it was 1 PM and I had a 2-1/2 hour drive ahead of me. We parted ways and I headed out of town, stopping only long enough to buy a very messy burger from a vendor nearby. My hands smelled like fried onions for the whole drive.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

Tag Archives: camping