From Tucson we spent 3 nights with our son and fiance; in Phoenix and then headed west along Hwy 10 towards the town of Quartzsite. We have heard from many people over the years about the RV "get-together" that happens in Quartzsite every winter but have never really understood what it was. Sometimes the description sounds like an RV Show other times it sounds like 300,000 people "dry camping" with their RVs in the desert. So we decided to drop in to that town and have a look for ourselves.

Well all I can say is WOW - it is all of those things and more. Quartzsite is a very small town in a desert valley. Approaching from the East the town seems packed with RVs and the valley has camped RVs all over the place. The small town has grown into a sizable small city with thousands of RV, jeeps, ATV, bicycles and people everywhere. It is indeed an RV Show (for about 2 weeks) and there is a large area set aside for that, but it also has large areas set aside for rock hounds to buy/sell their finds and stalls selling just about anything you can imagine. All in all the "season" extends from November to Feb and there are a whole host of events and activities.

OH- and by the way, it looks like one has to be over 50 years old to attend. All the people are old (including us). It's another example of Baby Boomers at Play.

The weather was great, warm days, plenty of sun and cool nights. We found a dry camp (at Rice Ranch) right in amongst the action and stayed 4 nights. This allowed us to spend some time working on chores, some time resting and when we needed entertainment we could go look at the activity.