Quartzsite, AZ

Took a ride out here on Saturday, 1/18/2014.  Stayed at the Eagles club #2594 in Coachella Valley.  It's out on the far edge of the valley, a good 30 minutes to Palm Springs itself.  There are a couple of truck stops just down the road, TA and Love's.  This Eagles had full hookups, electric water and the smelly stuff.  The smelly stuff was a little too far away to hook up hose to, so had to backup, empty, then pull forward again.  In a way this was OK as supposed to leave tanks in the closed position at all times, according to the guy I listened to at the FMCA Rally.

I should've taken a picture when in Quartzsite, AZ, but it was a MADHOUSE.  Wall to wall people, very little room to move around, traffic lights took forever, and then some.

Came here for a couple reasons, one to see what all the hub-bub was about, the other was to pick up a propane heater.  Accomplished both missions.

Picked up an Olympian Wave 6 Propane Catalytic Heater.  New they're over $300.  "Refurbished", at the show, they were $135.  A substantial savings if someone was to ask me.  That night I went to a local hardware store and picked up all the parts, including a flaring tool and a small pipe cutter.  These two tools, which will only use one time, added about $30 onto the bill, and the bill for all the parts, fittings, hoses, etc (tools too) came to an additional $100.  However, at the current place am at in Pahrump, there is a little workshop with tools, so maybe I can return the ones I bought when go back to Palm Springs.

Don't have any pictures yet of this purchase, or this project, but will be accomplishing it this week and posting what went through for the install process.  It looks to be fairly simple.  One thing which I have tried to avoid is working with gas, such as natural gas or propane.  In this case I actually have to work on it as, well, it's only me, and Mia.  Can't farm out the work with this one.

Already have a spot picked to hook it up, under the stove.  There's a nice copper line will be cutting into and it promises to be an easy thing, albeit several hours.

At Quartzsite, they have one main tent, think like a BIG circus tent.  Inside, and outside, they have all the vendors and it's a typical RV show thing.  Some good deals to be had, as well as some not so good deals. There were some Jug-O-Juice companies, some chintzy magnetic bands things, even saw a chintzy insole.  Most things like that I saw was not quality, and none of them seemed to only want to make a buck, and not care about why customer was looking.

While here saw some familiar faces from the FMCA rally, as well as other people I have come across in my travels.  They had an Escapee booth (and I'm a lifetime member).  Had to stop in to thank them.  I also ran into some other Escapee's I met in Yuma.  It was funny seeing them up here, fun was had all around.  I even helped someone drag her husband away from some booth.

There were booths there for all sorts of things, from Workampers (such as temporary help at Amazon or camp hosts at campgrounds), to Jug-O-Juice-O-Matic's, to Honda Generators and the like, and cooking pans too.  A large range of activities.

Next year I plan on staying in town for a week, hopefully dry camping out on BLM land.  If not there were quite a few cheap RV parks in town (very squishy squishy) if worse came to worse.  Also very cheap.