Tuesday around Quartzfest and Quartzsite

After the cloudy rainy weather on Monday, Tuesday dawned

... with very interesting the clouds over the top of the mountains to the west.

Last week, Carl's laptop suddenly died.

It appears that his solid state hard drive stopped working without warning (evidently a known concern of solid state hard drives) -- but he is still doing debugging on it. The good news is that we are pretty sure that we have a good recent backup of the data if it needs to be restored. Do *you* have a good backup strategy for the data on your hard drive?

We decided to head into town to visit the RV show...

We found parking not too far away from the "big tent".

It was busy, but not jam-packed crowded. We got to talk with a number of vendors about their products, but did not find anything that we couldn't live without!

Back at the camping area, we didn't get rain, but it was obviously raining nearby. Carl positioned a picture to have Gracie (or maybe the Starlink dishy?) at the base of the rainbow.

Meanwhile the clouds to the west were painted by the sunset.

Another rainbow toward the east.

So pretty to the west!

We love the open sky views at Quartzsite!

Gorgeous!

Yet another rainbow landing on Gracie!

The skies were displaying God's Masterpiece!

We are continuing to enjoy our time in the desert!

Red in the morning...

... Sailors take warning!

Well, we're not sailors, but we do watch out for rough weather.

Monday started with a brilliant sunrise...

... so pretty!

We had heard that we may have a bit of rainy weather, so were not surprised when that moved in during the afternoon...

...the dry wash in front of us became a creek...

... flowing down into a larger wash just down from us.

It is important, when parking the RV in the desert, to avoid parking *in* a wash!

Later in the evening, Carl went over to attend an evening presentation -- it turns out that I could see the presentation screen from Gracie!

He said that he was glad that we had LED lights in the front windshield of Gracie so he had a beacon to use to return to the rig after the presentation!

Moving to the Quartzfest

We had planned to leave the SKP Christian Fellowship gathering area on Friday to move to the area where the Amateur Radio group was going to camp, but decided instead to just drive to the area in the Jeep and check out where we could park Gracie near where the other Sunlife Radio Club members were parked. 

We first went back out to Bouse to visit the transfer station (trash), laundry, and produce market.

In the afternoon, we headed to the Road Runner camping area and found a few of the Sunlife Radio group, and had a plan for where we could park Gracie when we moved on Saturday.

We had thought we might go visit where the Bluebirds park, and where the Safari Trek group parks just to visit with some folks already there -- but the traffic on Highway 95 was pretty heavy, so we decided to try to avoid a trip back through the area by the big tent. The place where the Safari Trek group parks is a bit south and west of Quartzsite, west of Dome Rock, and I thought that there might be a way through back roads to get there...

...the Garmin indicated that we could take a route over to the area west of Dome Rock so we decided to try it -- it seemed that parts of the road went *in* the washes instead of just crossing them, but we haven't had appreciable rain so it was in good shape.

 We ended up back in the big tent area (the tent itself doesn't open until Saturday, but there are lots of vendors in smaller tents around the area) to look for a clip to latch our closet sliding door (one broke while we've been at Quartzsite) - but didn't find any.

On Saturday morning, we prepared to move about 9 miles south to the Road Runner Camping area...

... from the roof, I got a couple of pictures of the rigs still in the Christian Fellowship camping area...

... rest of the rigs. We got up on the roof to lay the solar panels down flat. We've decided that we're not going to be getting on the roof to raise them anymore -- we just don't need to be doing risky activities!

On the way through Quartzsite, we stopped at the "RV Relief" station to dump and get fresh water...

Prices at the RV Relief station are determined by the length of your RV -- not exactly precise, but larger rigs generally have larger tanks.

On Sunday afternoon, the Quartzfest held its opening ceremony - hosted by Kris (on the right) during which various folks who would be leading sessions were introduced and allowed to tell about their sessions.

The participants of Quartzfest listening to the opening ceremony.

We plan to be at Quartzfest until Thursday or Friday and then to head back toward Mesa.

Thursday at the Rally

Thursday was a busy morning as we would be hosting the Solos for biscuits and gravy breakfast.

Recipe that we use year-after-year

Happy biscuit makers!

Happy sausage gravy maker!

We had a fire going for early arrivals to gather around and chat.

We welcomed the Solos who came down for breakfast and enjoyed getting to chat with some folks over biscuits and gravy!

In the afternoon, we had a time of sharing...

Pastor Jerry played the saw...

Others shared favorite Bible verses or things that they had been learning from God.

It was a blessed time to be together.

Our rally wrapped up with one last clean-out-the-refrigerator / leftovers / impress-us-all potluck. Some were leaving Thursday afternoon starting on their journey to Rocky Point, Mexico. Carl and I had planned to make that trip, but had decided at the end of December that we did not think it was wise to go at this time. We were sad to see the end of our rally, but planning to re-locate to the Ham Radio Quartzfest for the next week.

Wednesday, prep for Thursday

On Wednesday at the rally,

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise!

Pastor Jerry shared in devotions.

In the afternoon,

... the guys started the sausage cooking for the biscuits and gravy that we would be making in the morning...

... while the ladies put together the biscuit mix.

A posed picture of the ladies...

... and of the guys.

All preparations complete for the breakfast with the Solos (an SKP group of single RVers), we walked down the desert to join the Solos for a hot dog dinner...

... enjoying a beautiful sunset as we were there!

When we returned to our camping area, we had a campfire. Angie contributed magic colors into the fire!

Thursday would be an early busy morning as we prepared biscuits and gravy for the Solos!

"The Bin Store"

We went down into Quartzsite to walk around the vendors in the Tyson Wells area. The flag pole rings that attach to the flag on our flagpole had dried and broken, so we needed to replace them, and the light on the top of the flagpole had gotten broken last week when high winds blew our flagpole down.

We found the flag pole rings at one of the stores -- there are three sizes, for "top", "middle" and "bottom" (of the flag) -- we needed two "bottom" so got them. We looked at some of the other stores, and saw a store marked as ...

..."The Bin Store".

It turns out that it is an "Amazon Returns" store -- for at least some of their returns, they sell them if people want to purchase them, on a sliding scale...

They restock the "store" on Tuesday. Each item is $20 on Wednesday, $15 on Thursday, $10 on Friday, $6 on Saturday, $3 on Sunday, and $1 on Monday.

We went on Monday, planning to get there about 9:50am, before they were to open. They had opened early (the worker said that there had been a line) and there were folks inside acting like sharks at a feeding frenzy! We figured that the folks are people who will resell the items -- getting them for $1 each means that it will be easier to make a profit on the items. We got a few things -- 5 items for a total of $5. When the prices are higher, I would need to research to find out what the value of the items were before I would want to buy them; at $1 each, if we could use an item, I figured it was worth it! I got a blazer, inflatable back/neck pillow for travel, pine scented wax cubes (we use them for a nice scent in our closet and lavatory), a rain hat, and gold-colored earrings.

Monday around the Rally

On Monday, 

... Steve and one of the fellows from the Solo's group drove down to Yuma to get pallet wood for the campfire.

The brown bag auction benefitting CARE (either "Caring Affordable Respite Experience" or formerly "Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees") was held in the afternoon where great fun and frivolity ensued!

We smoked cream cheese as our contribution for the evening meal.

Carl took a picture of Gracie with the desert beauty around her.

Gathering for supper

Adult bibs were one of the popular items sold in the brown bag auction -- since we were having chili beans as the main entree, they were a popular item to wear at supper too!

 Gayle is modeling her bib, and George has his turned around like a superhero cape!

In the evening we enjoyed a campfire.

Sunny days and cool nights in the desert!