March 16, 2005

March 16, 2005

Congress to Quartzsite, Arizona

DAY 271

 

Today was sunny and warm.

There are two "pilgrimages" almost all full time RV'ers aspire to. One is to go to Rainbow's End in Livingston, Texas. Been there, done that ! The other is to go to Quartzsite, Arizona. Here we are ! I don't "get it" !

Quartzsite is the RV "boon dock" Mecca. A sleepy little town out in the desert, in southwest Arizona, becomes home to a couple of hundred thousand RV'ers every winter. Most everybody dry camps / "boon docks" out in the desert on BLM ( U.S. Bureau of Land Management ) land. Thousands of vendors set up shop out here in the many market areas. It becomes a large city for the month of January. Most of the activity has died out already. Most vendors are gone. Most campers are gone. I think the challenge lies in camping without services for an extended period of time. This place appeals to the solar powered, hippy / flower child crowd. I actually prefer to hang around with people who shower with soap and hot water on a daily basis.

This morning we hitched up and prepared to leave North Ranch. We paid our bill, and I drove the rig over to the maintenance garage to adjust the air pressure in the trailer tires. We left North Ranch heading a few miles north on Hwy. 89 to Congress. At Congress we turned southwest onto Hwy. 71 which we followed to Aguila. At Aguila we turned west onto Hwy. 60, and followed Hwy. 60 to Interstate 10. We got onto I-10 heading west, to Quartzsite. At Quartzsite, our first stop was the little tourist information centre. As we walked back to the rig after picking up some tourist information, I noticed the trailer seemed to be leaning to one side. The curb side front tire on the trailer was flat !

Well ... more than flat ! The curb side front tire was non-existent. The curb side of the trailer was resting on the rear tire, and the front rim. The rim was somewhat chewed up. I don’t know if a new tire can be put on it, or if it will need to be replaced. The “flapping” rubber remnants of the tire caused quite a bit of damage. The wiring to the trailer lower side marker light was stripped of its coating. The exposed copper wiring had short circuited, and blown the fuse in the truck for the lights. The trailer lower side marker was torn off. The front brace from the fibreglass skirt to the frame was all bent and twisted. The fibreglass where the front brace was attached was damaged. The screw through the fibreglass into the brace had torn through the fibreglass. The middle brace from the fibreglass skirt to the frame, between the two tires, was also all bent and twisted < SIGH >

While Joanne prepared lunch, I assessed all the damage, and tried to figure out the repair priorities. We ate lunch, and I began the first task of removing the chewed up rim with the remnants of the tire sidewalls on it, and installing the spare tire. Then I cut off the damaged wiring, taped the ends of the exposed wires, and clipped them up under the side steps of the trailer, out of the way until I need them when installing a new side marker light. Then I searched for the blown truck fuse. I knew where the fuse panel is under the hood of the truck, so I opened it up and began searching for a blown fuse. I couldn’t find one, so into the owner’s manual I went. Of course ... I should have known. Dee-Dee has two fuse panels ! I found the second fuse panel, and inside, the blown fuse. Now I had repaired enough to be able to drive from the tourist information centre to the grocery store. While Joanne shopped for groceries, I worked on straightening the front skirt to frame brace as best as I could.

After getting groceries, we headed north on Hwy. 95 out of Quartzsite to the first of the BLM camping areas, about 3 miles from town. We pulled into this desert camping area, and found ourselves a place to park. There are no defined camping sites. There’s not even defined roads. You simply pull off the highway into the desert, and drive around until you find a place where you’d like to camp amongst the thousands of other rigs. Okay !

While Joanne prepared supper, I began to work on repairing the damaged fibreglass. I think the fibreglass needs to be repaired, so that the brace can be reattached, before we travel any great distance.

DSK