Christmas in the Desert

Merry Christmas to you all…hope you are all having a fabulous holiday season!   I really planned on getting some sort of tree this year but that just didn't come together, however I have our Christmas stockings out along with a few other decorations…just enough to feel festive.  I don’t have many decorations since storage is at a premium in a fifth wheel, but I kept a shoe box sized container of things that were my favorites.

the moon over a saguaro cactus

The last few days the weather hasn’t been the best, very gusty winds and overcast, so most of our time has been spent indoors reading, surfing the internet and I‘ve been doing jigsaw puzzles. Last night we got the edge of the last storm that hit CA, nasty!!  Extreme wind and soaking rain but it only lasted about an hour, by about 10 p.m. it was quiet and calm.  Looks like today is going to be a beautiful day in the desert.  We have friends over in southern CA and they really got hit with the storms…I guess Wilderness Lakes (we left there about a week ago) is a bit flooded…so glad we aren’t there!!

A few days ago we drove over to Bouse, AZ to spy out some more desert camping areas.  The area we liked best was off of Plomosa Road just after going over the range of hills.  It’s very pretty desert with lots of desert vegetation.  The down side is no cell service.  It’s not the phone we’d miss, we don’t get many calls, it’s the internet!  Yeah, I’m an internet junkie, I  admit it.  But it is another area that a person can stay for free.

I had someone ask how authorities know if you are camped for more than 14 days on BLM land…well here in Quartzsite you are supposed to check in with the Camp Host when you arrive.  There are some signs pointing out the Camp Host and when you sign in they give you a couple slips of paper to display in your RV and vehicle that lists the date you need to depart on.    If you don’t sign in with the camp host there are Rangers checking.  As a matter of fact the Ranger stopped by our place yesterday, he didn’t have us on his list but we showed him our paperwork and all was fine.

Well, again… Merry Christmas and happy trails!

Another beautiful sunrise in Quartzsite

A view of our site in Quartzsite

Another view of our site in Quartzsite

Here's a few pics of how the vendors set up in Quartzsite...