2008 Travel Installment #2

Thanks for all the phone calls and emails we are receiving. We really appreciate hearing from everyone.

We keep hearing about all the snow in Moscow….and keep putting on hats and sun glasses because of the bright sunny days in Quartzsite, Arizona. The vendors continue to amaze us with their items for sale. To date, we and our friends have purchased over 20 of the “amazing price” windmills at one of the vendors. Tony continues to find tools and bargains that are too hard to pass up.

Two more trips to the Grubstake restaurant for Tony’s favorite fish & chips. Tony’s second cousin Linda & Mike from Lewiston arrived for their first experience in Quartzsite. Mike and Tony went on 4-wheeler to take pictures of boon dock camping at it’s best (boon docking – camping in the desert with none of the in-town amenities such as water, sewer, and electricity – thousands of motorhomes do this around the area, but this picture shows a “little bit” of a more primitive campsite than most). Next picture is of another "boondocking camper" (not quite so primitive).

We spent an evening out in the desert around a campfire – people bring their own wood to burn and usually put it in a washing machine tub to contain the sparks with legs welded to the bottom of the tub. All the holes in the tub provide a lot of light around the campfire. One of the couples (14 people in all) has started collecting “Vaseline glass”. It is yellow-green glass that is made by adding 2% Uranium Dioxide to the ingredients when the glass formula is made. The unusual thing about it is that with a “black light”, it glows http://www.vaselineglass.org/ . Another evening campfire was made available by another couple within walking distance from our RV park. We learned more there about metal detectors, or as the wife put it - it was her "gold detector". Another evening was spent with a California couple - as we were sitting in their motorhome, another motorhome pulled up beside them, put down the jacks, pushed out the three huge slides, and knocked on their door....the salesman and bossman from a lot where they had been looking at motorhomes. Not sure the outcome of that yet, but it was a pretty good sales technique. Our friends from Washington should be arriving today - with luck they will be able to park across from us.

We made the mistake of bringing along a Christmas present we received – the world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle – a 529 piece puzzle, double sided, depicting the same artwork on both sides, rotated 90 degrees. Spent a little time each day for almost a week until we got it done. Any of you that want to try your luck, just let us know and we’ll bring the puzzle to you.

We have ridden our scooters around the vendors – it is so much easier than walking up and down the rows….but the amusing stares and comments are the same as they are in Moscow when we ride around town. We stopped to watch a chainsaw artist…he made the bear making look so easy. He asked me if I wanted to give it a try with his chainsaw…it was tempting, but I didn’t try. Next to his spot was a motorcycle sales vendor.

We continue to do geocaching and have even introduced another couple to the hobby. On one geocache adventure, about 10 miles out in the desert, we ran into another geocacher from Canada (picture). This is our first experience at meeting someone new at a geocache.

Another geocache was out in the open, camouflaged to look like a cement block. See if you can find it.

On one of our trips far out into the desert, a gate had to be opened and closed – Tony was elected to do the honors. Unfortunately on the way out, he closed the gate with him on the wrong side of the fence. Mary & I managed to find a geocache after some mountain climbing.

One quirky geocache was found in a tree – see the picture of me with the dinosaur. Another cache was near a water wheel at an RV park – here a man walking by mentioned to me that I should be wearing gloves because of the potential scorpions in the area.

The giant big top tent opened up on Saturday – 69,000 square feet of covered exhibit areas. Some of the interesting things we saw were people getting their teeth whitened for $99.00 in 15 minutes (three customers in the picture);

pet strollers, even double decker ones;

two unusual golf carts – the white one was a Cadillac escalade.

We found an item we have never seen before - the Snap Capp (http://www.snapcapp.com/ ). They come in all colors and purple caught my eye. Tony was demonstrating the "no leak" snapcapp to friends, but forgot to put the lid on tight....another embarrassing moment for the Englishman! (mainly because he was demonstrating over someone else's leg).

Look at the website for many photos and information about this “largest gathering of RVs and RVers any where on earth” (http://www.quartzsitervshow.com/ ). Tony found yet another miniature RV vehicle to add to his collection on the dash of our motorhome. We saw zcoil tennis shoes (http://www.zcoil.com/) and learned about the "necessary" armadillo dollar (http://www.armadillodollar.com/ ), travel lawns to go where you go, and laptop stands to hook on RV chairs.

We spent an afternoon with friends from Nampa, Idaho. We got together with Linda and Mike for a few meals during their stay. On Tony's birthday they had a BBQ . Mike's Dad, Dan & Jeanne, gave Tony a miniature flask to go on a keychain that they had found at the Quartzsite vendors. Mary & Butch took a birthday cake for the event.

We hung up a hummingbird feeder beside the motorhome and it only took a couple of days before our first hummingbird sighting.