We were sitting at the corner of the Borrego Salton Sea Way and Highway 86 after dumping our tanks at the Arco station there (free!), completing our awesome and overly-social Anza Borrego boondocking experience. The world was ours to discover, on our own schedule – we could go anywhere we wanted to.
We literally pulled out of our spot that morning with no plans for where we’d head next. We just love waking up in the morning not knowing where we’ll sleep that night.
We had several boondocking contenders on our list:
- Camp along the Salton Sea
- Head down to the Hot Springs LTVA (the BLM’s acronym for a network of ‘Long Term Visitor Areas‘ which require a 2-week or 7-month permit to utilize)
- Over to the wildlife preserve at Mittry Lake north of Yuma
- The Kofa Wildlife Preserve south of Quartzsite
- Or maybe up to Lake Havasu City for the hot air balloon festival about to start?
We had no firm plans other than checking out the big show at Quartzsite – eventually. We also were starting to get more and more invitations for happy hours and meetups in Quartzsite leading up into the Big Tent opening the following weekend.
One such invitation came from our dear friends Forrest & Mary who had just arrived to the Plomosa Road area a few miles north of town, one of the free 14-day boondocking areas.
They were joining up with the DOVEs group, which is a chapter of the Escapees RV Club that works with the American Red Cross to deploy volunteers in their RVs to disaster relief areas. We joined last year, but haven’t had a chance to get through our training yet.
Forrest reported that the area was wide open with good cellular signal.
So we threw caution into the wind and headed east to Quartzsite – deciding we’d arrive there unannounced for a couple days, and hopefully get a little low-social time before braving the chaos that we knew the experience could be.
We did a quick overnight stay at one of the short term visitation areas with a designated camping area inside the Imperial Sand Dunes recreation area (it’s confusing as to whether or not this area requires a permit or not for an overnight, but we opted to chance it anyway and interpret ‘short term visitation’ ourselves).
And then it was the final miles into Quartzsite. We pulled off Highway 95 onto Plomosa Rd, checked in at the host trailer to get our 14-day free permit and then Forrest & Mary met us out at the BLM Road 811 intersection to help guide us in. We shared many hugs. We’ve been kinda hopscotching each other now for a year since we spent last winter together in Cedar Key, Florida.
We picked a spot about a 1/4 mile from the DOVEs encampment so we’d have some space to ourselves but yet still be within stumbling distance.
We nested a bit by decorating our spot, putting out our lawn chairs, setting up the ground deployable solar panels and I even built a little rock border around our landscaping.
Ahh… home. I just love the process of settling in for a stay of a week or more. Almost as much as I love moving a week or so later to discover new surroundings.
It was glorious. For a couple nights, we had lots of space around us – no RVs in near site. We could leave the windows open and dance around naked inside (ya know, in case we wanted to.)
And perfect 4G signals on Verizon and AT&T… infact, it seems both networks upgraded their towers (Verizon to XLTE and AT&T to LTE) while we were there.
Then, the chaos encroached. It started with one RV who decided to set up camp not more than a few hundred yards away from us. We could watch their TV at night through open windows from our coach, which meant they could probably see our naked dancing too.
With big wide open spaces all around us, it felt at first a bit intrusive. Then their buddies started to join them, and before we knew it we were surrounded by an informal gathering.
In such situations… you have choices.
You can pout, pick up all your toys and find another space.
You can be sulky and complain all the time.
Or you can just go with the flow and embrace it as part of the experience. Which is what we did.
It wasn’t too much unlike arriving to Burning Man on an early entry pass – as the gates open, the city fills in around you and the cacophony of generators fill the day & night with noise.
After visiting many of the other boondocking spots outside of Quartzsite, that’s almost exactly what it’s like – a collection of groups camping together (ie. ‘theme camps’) and individuals on their own.
You’ll go from a tightly packed encampment where you wonder if folks realize an advantage of boondocking on big wide open lands is not being able to hear your neighbor’s water pump every time they flush the toilet to then folks respectfully giving each other hundreds of yards to themselves.
Some fellow techie-RV-blogging friends, the Botts of OutsideOurBubble.com, came over one evening to share in sunset happy hour with us.
David brought over his drones and shot some amazing aerial footage of our bus from the sky. In this snippet you can get a good sense of the Plomosa Road area we camped in – all of the RVs off our front yard where not there when we pulled in. You can also get some great views of our solar setup. (Thanks David & Brenda!)
I’ll be following up over the coming days with some more of our Quartzsite fun – from some of the social stuff we were up to, shopping the Big Tent and our impressions of the event overall.
And there where of course magical sunsets every night.
We try to avoid the crowds near Q, and have found a couple of spots that are off the beaten path, but still kinda close to town. We went back last year in February, and there was hardly anybody, anywhere.
March 11. My birthday and it’s a free day. Might have to attend. Currently in Barstow CA on way to Pahrump NV and explore Death Valley. Getting by, barely, with technology. What will I learn at your seminar? Is there a schedule out there some where?
Hey Paul.. we’d be delighted to have you join us. Our full schedule is listed in this post, along with descriptions of the seminars: https://www.technomadia.com/2015/01/come-join-us-upcoming-events-in-quartzsite-tucson-austin/
It was nice to fianally meet you and show off my LiFePO4 bank, even if all of us were pretty socialized out at that point.
Great to meet you too Blars.. and finaly put a friendly face and attitude behind the name 🙂
That drone video was just awesome. Hopefully, I meet you guys one day. Bought your book on Kindle when I was planning my RV journey a couple years ago. Took advantage of it too. Thank you.
Drone video is so much fun..and David is a master of it! What a lovely momento to have. Thanks so much for supporting our efforts with your book purchase, and hope it was helpful in your journey. See you out there on the road!
it was fun to get to finally meet you two at the RVillage gathering… however next time we will chat more that the simple handshake and hello… a bit too crowded for good socializing at that event
Oh goodness what is a great turn out.. but yeah, way difficult to say more than hi. We quickly get overwhelmed in such environments.
We just got home from the Q. Found out that you guys had been there from RJ, Ed and JC. We must of been at the big tent at the time. We were at the GM rally for 8 days from Northern Cali. 1st time taking the bus there. It was interesting!…
Dave
Hope it was a fun adventure! Yup, we stopped by for a short bit on Friday the 16th – just as the catered meal was coming together. Didn’t get a chance to say hi to many folks. But looked like fun!
That’s my Montana centered exactly in the center of your ground level shot (ours is the darker model).
Was that your exact Montana.. as in, you parked in front of us and never came over to say hi? 🙂 Or do you have one like it?
That was exactly me. We were there a week (1/17 – 1/24) . This year I was the co-wagonmaster of the Montana Owner’s Club at the Quartzsite circling of the Montanas. If I had know that was you, I would have definitely come over and said “hi”. It would have been my pleasure to finally meet you after following you for so long. But don’t worry, I know our paths will cross again sometime in the future.
That was some mighty fine parking.. we were super impressed with how that oval came together. Well done!
You chose wisely grasshopper…..seems like the time and place to just go with the flow 🙂 Am so bummed we are missing today’s gathering – next time!!
Oh right.. had heard something about a blogger meet-up happening today. We left out a couple days ago.
Looking at the video, it looks like the Doves no longer camp close to the Boomers. I might be wrong just from the limited drone video footage. Both would came way out, taking the dusty road (Mitchell Mine?) at the east end of Plomosa.
Quartzsite is a happening place in January and much quieter other times of the year. Stop by in December or March and you can have some solitude.
The DOVEs this year were off Plomoso Rd (north of town) – and a bit away from us. Boomerville this year was on the south side of town down a long dirt road, right next to the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. Don’t know where they were in year’s past.
The only other times we’ve been to QZ where in July and November.. definitely a contrast 🙂
I think it’s impossible to have a bad time in Quartzsite. Even when surrounded by gigunda RVs.
I really missedbeing there this year.
Just pulled in to Plomosa and it’s not near as crowded as La Paz short-term south of Q.