We Finally Made it to Quartzsite!

About 55 coaches gathered for this year's rally

January came and went, and here it is February already. It was a busy start to the year. We left Palm Springs and headed to Quartzsite, Arizona, on the 17th for the annual Alfa Roadrunner Rally. "Alfa Roadrunners" is a club for owners of Alfa motorhomes. The very first year we owned our Alfa, we made the acquaintance of some Alfa Roadrunner members and they persuaded us to join the club. We have been planning to attend their annual Quartzsite rally ever since, but have been sidelined twice so far from one thing or another.

Running concurrently with the Roadrunner rally is the big annual RV Show at Quartzsite that draws RVs from all over the country in the thousands. The whole area turns into one big RV campground due to the wide open spaces of free or cheap BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. Venders of all sorts gather in the Big Tent and you can buy all kinds of things you might need for your RV along with a boat load of stuff you probably don't need. We did a little of each.

The highlight, however, was the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of fellow Roadrunners, some for the very first time in the two years we've been members. 

The rally started out with a delicious dinner to welcome newcomers and old-timers alike. There was a social hour gathered around a blazing campfire every evening with either a potluck dinner or potluck appetizers. We arrived with full tanks of fuel and fresh water, and empty waste water tanks, and managed to dry-camp for ten full days with only one pump-out. I never thought I'd be able to do that!

Mark got some help with our batteries from our club tech guru, Dale Pritchard. What he did, with Dale's advice and assistance, was to connect the coach batteries to the inverter batteries. This change provides better power management. When we're disconnected from shore power, our inverter lasts longer before we need to start the generator to charge up the batteries. Then when we do charge up, it takes much less time to complete the charging process. 

We also finally purchased a flagpole so we can fly the flag when we're parked. That's been on our list for a while. 

On one of the days, we took a drive with some of our Roadrunner friends out to the Desert Bar , which I'm told is fairly famous--at least in the area. It's located out in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a winding rocky dirt road. It took us an hour to get there. I was picturing a little shack of a place, but was I ever wrong. It is a bar and grill that serves drinks, burgers, pizza, and such, along with live music entertainment. They have three full levels of seating that can accommodate hundreds of people -- and the place was packed out. We had trouble finding a spot to park. Word to the wise-- if you ever decide to go there, don't attempt the drive in a delicate car.

On one evening, some of us who were interested, gathered away from the camp a bit to do some star-gazing. One of our members was somewhat knowledgeable about the subject and, with the help of his laser pointer, identified many of the stars and constellations that the rest of us might have heard of but couldn't locate if our lives depended on it.

Probably the most beneficial part of the big tent experience was that we discovered (from talking to an RV roof company) that our RV insurance would cover a roof replacement because of the damage from the tree limb back in September. (You can read about it here.) We never considered the possibility that insurance would cover that kind of and accident. But we called them, and after a brief visit from an adjuster, they approved the claim right away and put a check in the mail to us. We have already lined up a place to do the work when we get to Florida.

After Quartzsite, we headed to Mesa, Arizona, where we camped for a week at a very nice Encore park. While there, we connected with Mark's niece, Becky, and her husband Ty. We also spent an afternoon with my good friend Jenny and her husband Troy. 

Troy, Jenny, Me, Mark

Other than that, I mostly just caught up on the laundry, which had piled up a little over the previous couple weeks. Our one excursion was to the Barleens Dinner Show in the Apache Junction area. It was great fun. The show we saw was country music, but they also do rock & roll, jazz, and variety shows. This establishment is run by the same family that does the Cody Cattle Company dinner show, which we saw when we were there a couple years ago. These folks are incredibly talented entertainers and we highly recommend the event if you're ever in the Phoenix or Cody, Wyoming, areas.

Our next stops are Tucson and Carlsbad Caverns. Until then, happy trails & safe travels!