Quartzite Day Two

Greetings from the desert!

It's been a long day. It started with a 7 AM conference call. Now anyone who knows me is aware that I am NOT a morning person. I am a member of a Search Committee that is looking for a new Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA. Most of the other members are either in the mid-west or east coast, so they were well into their mornings already while I was just barely awake... But I think it went well as a first meeting.

The Alpine Coach Association had their business meeting this morning followed by a catered Mexican lunch. It was sort of funny to see a couple of hundred people sitting around in the desert in lawn chairs earnestly discussing by-laws. After the lunch -- which was suisse chicken enchiladas, pork taquitos, refried beans, rice, chips and fresh fruit salad -- they had what they called a "gearhead" session. Basically, it was an opportunity to share ideas, problems and solutions with everyone else. One fellow started it off with a horrendous story about insurance after an RV repair shop burned down with his coach inside. I bet everyone there went back to their coach and reviewed their insurance policies!

This afternoon Forry and I took the toad into Quartzite itself. We have heard so many stories about the area that we were curious to see it. If you think there are thousands of RVs parked in the desert out here, there must be twice as many in Quartzite itself! Every half block or so there is another RV park. Some of them are pretty nice looking with pools and fenced areas while others are not much more than a flat area with water and electric hook-ups. Then there are "RV supply" places where you can get fresh water and propane and dump your tanks. We went by this one neat house that had a iron fellow in a sombrero sitting on one end of a porch bench with his sweetheart on the other. (Unfortunately in the picture, she is hiding rather coyly behind the cactus.)

And yes, Sister Dena, there are flea market type stalls and shops all over the place. They have a really big Hobby, Craft and Gem Show the end of January followed by a Classic Car Show the first week in February. The big Sports, Vacation and RV Show starts this Saturday. The big shows are in a HUGE tent at the edge of town, but there are vendors set up anywhere and everywhere there is a little bit of space.

Besides being a haven for early prospectors, Quartzite is famous for having the US army and navy's only camel post. There is a large rock cairn topped with a copper camel at the cemetery commemorating Hi Jolly (the local pronunciation of Hadji Ali) the camel driver who came to the US with the camels from Arabia. Q is also famous -- or infamous -- for the owner of the local used bookstore, the Reader's Oasis. Paul Wimer has run the bookstore from the early 1990s. Things were a bit looser then and the town was a bit wilder. It's only been the last several years that Paul has been convinced for public decency to at least wear a nether garment. When we first came into the store, he was wearing just it and his hat. When I went to pay for my books -- and get the obligatory picture -- he had put on a sweater as he said "it's a bit chilly today..." (He's a lean scrawny soul, brown as a berry! )

So went our second day at Quartzite.