Our Month in Quartzsite is Almost Over.....

It doesn't seem possible that our time here is drawing to a close.  I had this almost all written when it suddenly just disappeared.  I will try again, and save as I go along.  You will note that this is dated January 13th, but I am actually writing this on the 30th.  I won't even try to explain that..............
Before I go into much of what has been happening, I would like to post a picture of one of my new garden flags.  Diane & Steve gave us this lovely stand for flags, flowers and solar lights.  We love this eagle soaring over a lake in front of the snow-capped mountains.

  As you can see, I am using strings of magnetic beads to secure it to the stand.  I think that works quite well.
 Now I will include some pictures from this RV park and our neighbors sites.  This is one of the many permanent homes here in the park.  
 

I have never seen cactus in such a brilliant shade of purple.

One of our neighbors has four solar owls outside his RV. 


 And here is one of the owls after dark.  I thought that was quite spectacular.  I'm looking to get a solar owl for outside our home before long.

This amazing owl was on the porch next door to the guy with the four solar owls.  So it is clear that I am NOT the only owl-ish person around here.  The picture on the right shows how pretty the cacti are here.

The official start of the RV event was not until 20th of January, but many vendors have been open for the "snowbirds" since November or December and will be here until March.   I have to include a few pictures we took "downtown" here.

This guy is not for sale, but he stand outside of Gem World, where I spent a lot of time AND quite a lot of money too!

These guys were on display in Tyson Wells.  You can see which one Jim wanted to bring home....we did NOT, but somebody did buy the smaller ones.  Can you even imagine taking them home?  Even if we had the space, I don't want them.

We did have some pretty nice sunsets here, but I think the ones in New Mexico are still tops!

These two toy haulers are right behind us.  They tied their two awnings together, and then had camp fires under the awnings.  We thought that was not too smart since sparks might have set the awnings on fire.

This wooden airplane is in front of an RV park on Main Street.  It also serves as a water wheel when it is running.  Cute.

We had planned to attend the Escapees Happy Hour at the BLM land out on Plomosa Road on the 17th.  We drove up there, parked and began walking towards the gathering place.  There were hundreds, maybe over a thousand RV's and thousands of people milling around.  Music of every kind was blasting from stereo systems everywhere.  I have NEVER ever had a panic attack, but that day I believe I had one.  I turned around and saw more and more cars full of people arriving, and I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find our car or get it out of the crowded parking area.  I told Jim I forgot something and started back towards the car.  He asked what I forgot and I said "I forgot I don't want to be here."  He said "OK, we're out of here".  We got back to the car just before somebody parked behind it and we were still able to leave.  OMG I've never seen such a crowd in a such a small area.

Mary arrived that same day.  She is not staying in the same park we are at.  There are about 50 RV parks in and around Q, plus acres of BLM land where one can stay for free or for very little money.  However, those are dry camping places.....no water, no electric and no place to empty your gray or black water tanks.  We prefer full hook-ups if we will be staying more than three days!

Ray & Carol went to the annual Bluegrass Festival in Blythe from January 19th to the 21st, and then arrived in the park we are in.  They had family with them in two truck campers, and stayed in the dry camping area.   Ray came to our rescue one night.  The days have been warm, but at night it can get really chilly.  One night we closed the door and turned the furnace on.  I tried to turn the heat up, by hitting the plus (+) tab to raise the desired temperature.  Apparently I also hit the minus (-) tab at the same time.  The numbers switched from Fahrenheit to Centigrade, AND both the furnace and the A/C started at the same time!  OMG.  When we couldn't figure it out after almost ten minutes of pushing buttons and of course turning it off and back on, I called Ray.  He and Carol came over, and before too long he figured out what I must have done.  He shut it off, then back on, held in both the plus and minus and it went back to Fahrenheit and began heating us up.  Yay and thank you again Ray.   Boy did I feel stupid.


Our dear friends Diane & Jim Hubert from Silent Valley came out on Monday, the 22nd for a one week visit, and quickly learned that you need a lot more than seven days to see and do all we wanted to do out here.  Next year they say they will plan to be here at least two weeks.  We took them to the Big Tent and to Tyson's Wells for the swap meet.  We also spent a few hours in Gem World again with them.  On Friday we took them to see the Hi Jolly Monument.  One should not come here and miss the monument and the cemetery.

This is a tribute to Hadji Ali who was part of a military experiment to train camels for desert missions for American troops.  I think it was during the WW1.  They felt the experiment was a failure, and released the camels to fend for themselves, but Hadji remained and became a miner and lived out his life here.  The cemetery is still used for the local people, and is quite well maintained.

Here are a few of the head 
stones we saw.

This must be a significant name here in town as there is a street by that name too.  As you can see on the right, they even adorn the back side of head stones with beautiful rocks from this area.  After we left the cemetery, we went looking for which church we wanted to attend on Sunday.  This is not a church, but it was an impressive building, so we had to get a closer look.
This is what we saw in front of it, so we are still not sure just what it is.  We went on to see a few churches, but we decided on this one to attend.

We all agreed that it looked like a place 
we would feel comfortable attending.  We also liked the painted stone out front.  You can see a little bit of a cactus to the right of the painting.......Jim tried to suggest that would be a good place for me to sit so he could take my picture..........but I'm not that stupid.
All of us did enjoy the church service on Sunday.  We even met up with another couple who were there from Silent Valley!  Then we took Diane & Jim to see the Quartzsite General Store, because it is unique.

It is not like most grocery stores you will see other places.
After a quick lunch, Diane & Jim wanted to take us to a place called The Desert Bar.  It is located about 5 miles outside of Parker.  We were told it is on a "dirt road".  That is such a huge understatement!  The road is full of ruts, holes and boulders!  Most of the vehicles we saw were dune buggies and Jeeps, but Jim Hubert continued to drive there in his Kia van.  It was a terrible ride, but we were all glad we got there, because we will NEVER do that again!  Here are some pictures of that outing.

 
 The "church" on the right is just a facade for picture taking.

 There is Diane and Jim with their two adorable dogs, Lucy and Daisy.  Daisy is part Yorkie and she is as sweet as can be.

 You can look this place up online to read the history.  It is all solar powered.  In the picture on the left there are people up on that ridge in the back.  OMG.  

They have a "love seat" and rocker, which Jim is sitting in, made from horse shoes!  Also a turtle.

This is how one SHOULD make a trip like that.  I can't tell you how grateful we were for paved roads when we got back down out of those mountains again.  


While we were here, we had hoped to find some new or gently used back cushions for our dinette booth, as ours were quite worn.  We had no luck with that, so we found a guy who does re-upholstering, and we picked some nice material for the job.  It took him most of the day yesterday, bur we are quite happy with the results.
The blue piping on the cushions is almost a perfect match for the blue in our curtains, so it looks nice together.  The pix on the right includes Millie's "chair" and her blue place mat where she eats at the table.  Lately she has been a little more spoiled, and won't eat unless I spoon feed her, but that is going to have to stop!

Before Diane & Jim left on Monday, she went with us to a few more shops on Main Street.  In one Jim bought me this beautiful family of wooden owls made in Indonesia.

Aren't they amazing?



 
And Diane bought me this very adorable stone owl.  I just love the color and detail of it.  Again, thank you Diane, this will always have a very special place in my collection.  It will remind me of all the fun we had together here on your first, of many (I hope) trips to Quartzsite with us.  The beautiful plate behind the owl is a gift from Pastor Paul and Aiko from our home church in Garden Grove, CA.  In case you can't read it, it says "May our HOME be filled with dreams and love and endless blessings from above."   I know, without a single doubt that we are enjoying our dreams and love, and have received more blessings than we could have ever hoped for.  

We both enjoy pretty good health for our ages.

We have each other and our beloved furry four legged kids.

We have a loving family in different parts of the country to visit.

We have many wonderful and amazing friends, and make new friends through our travels.

Although we are far from rich (financially speaking) we are blessed with a rich life that allows us to see much of America and a chance to appreciate the incredibly awesome artistry of God's world.

And MOST of all, we are blessed because we KNOW that God loves us and He has a plan for our lives, and best of all, beyond this life.

We are so very grateful for all He has given us.  We try to always remember to take time to express our gratitude.  Many people waste their time, their energy, and their very lives wishing they had more things.  God has given all of us what we need.  We only need to wake up with the gratitude and the wisdom to realize that what we have is most certainly enough.  Please don't spend one single minute feeling sad, or envious about what you don't have.  Realize you don't need it.  God gave you what you need, so enjoy that.