Because We Can - Fulltime RV'ing

 

Desert Dreaming

For the fourth time during our travels we find ourselves parked in the desert near Quartzsite, Arizona. No roads, no sites, no hookups, just desert all around. To be sure the view around the coach includes other RVs, the town and even I-10. But somehow what we see is quite different from this view.

Quartzsite is an interesting place with it's own version of the four seasons: Semi-deserted, Immigration, Over crowded, and Emigration. It's a place where everyone who visits comes away with a different interpretation of what they have experienced. Experiences which, if you read the different forums, overhear the people as they shop at the Quartzsite flea markets or talk to people at Q, run the gamut from the greatest place on earth to the worst place on earth. Since each person views the world around them based on our own set of circumstances, it's not for us to say you'll love it, or you'll hate it. What we do say is experience it.

Since there is anything from a full hook-up site to simply parking in one of the free boondocking areas, why take someones word for it, try it for yourself, the worst that can happen is a few days in which you are miserable. The first time we were here, it was January 16, 2006 and the following was what I wrote about our arrival.

We arrived in Q just at dusk, barely leaving time to find a spot before darkness set in. We passed the first RV boondocking area about 6 miles north of town, but did stop at the next one called "Hi Jolly" which is about 3 miles north of Q on Hwy 95.

The actual entrance road was not too bad if we had been on it, the alternate entrance road we took with Bob blazing the trail had a few "big bumps" and then we heard some loud noises and crashes very similar to the sound of breaking glass as we bounced across some major ruts and not so small ditches. Heck, it was a good place for a road if they'd just of built one there.

Bob envisioned all kinds of things breaking, including the monitor screen. Low and behold all that noise from one small, badly shattered tea pot. The cabinet above the sink had opened and had partially emptied with no other damage other than to Bob's pride. We then drove back a rocky road and parked among 100's of other rigs. Later, after a supper of tuna melts and salad we went outside to listen to the sound of Quartzsite. The hum of hundreds of generators purring in the starry nite (sic). Tired from the long drive, we turned in early.

Think how easily it would have been to have arisen the next morning, immediately packed up and then headed down the road with bad memories of our experience the preceding evening and spending our future telling everyone what a miserable place Quartzsite was. What we did was ignore that first impression and really experience Quartzsite. At the time we didn't know that there was a saying which summed up what that experience was, but this past summer while on a Rick Steve's tour of Europe, our guide, Ben Cameron, used it as the mantra of the tour we were on. If the experience doesn't meet your expections, change your expectations. It's the way we have lived our Life for years, we just didn't know what it was called. Now when something unexpected happens we just laugh and say, "Well, maybe we just need to change our expectations." Life, meant to be experienced, not merely lived.

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