This morning we changed our plans. We were planning on staying in Phoenix but I realized that just outside of Phoenix is a RV Mecca, Quartzsite AZ. I only know about Quartzsite by its online reputation. This area normally has less than population of 1000-ish during the summer. During the peak of winter the population is as much as 1 million (cue Doctor Evil voice here). I think the peak is during the big RV show that was 1/20-1/28 this year. The cool thing is this is a big BLM free camping site. What is BLM you ask? Bureau of Land Management. BLM camping is federally controlled land typically free to camp up to 14 days in a 28 day period. Quartzsite has many cheap full hook-up RV parks, but if you are willing to go “dry camping” in the desert it is totally free. On the RV forums Quartzsite is famous for friends meeting up in the desert. I just had to check it out. So……
Quartzsite is pretty cool. The BLM land is vast and has many places to camp. The BLM sites are in the middle of the rocky desert. We picked a site only hundreds of yards from a nice paved road. Quartzsite is surrounded by desert mountains and is much more picturesque than I expected. In a rig like ours with generator and satellite it’s still not exactly roughing it. The nearest camper is about 100 yards away but we could have easily found a spot with no-one closer than 1000 yards. It’s pretty close to town at about 10 miles. The weather at this time is absolutely perfect. Very dry, high 40’s at night and 75 peak today. The sunsets are awesome as only the desert or ocean can provide. Quartzsite is only here because of RV’rs and everything caters to us. There are 3 or 4 big RV flea markets with all sorts of tools, RV supplies, and curio’s. I was pleasantly surprised. We are staying here 2 nights, totally free.
We got here about 4pm and just ate here in the coach. We watched the sunset with a nice Margarita in hand. We ran the Genset (Generator Set) about 2 hours and watched a movie. Sweet.