Thanksgiving

We managed to participate in two Thanksgiving dinners here this year. On Tuesday afternoon we helped prepare for the Quartzsite Improvement Association (Kind of a community center building with a lot of activities). We made Jello salads and peeled and cut up sweet potatoes.
Janice and a new friend peeling sweet potatoes.

One of the two tubs of cut up potatoes.

Wednesday afternoon we went back and help with the final preparation, enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal and did a lot of dishes. On Thursday we went to the senior center and helped prepare and serve the Thanksgiving dinner there and did dishes again. We miss the kids and grandkids  while we are away, but we enjoyed the food and company here for the holiday.
Janice setting up the tables.

We saw this beautiful rainbow from the senior center.

Later in the day and through the night we had about 1-1/2 inches of rain. As dry as the desert is, the ground will not soak up much water. In my last blog post with the drone pictures, you could see a dry wash to the left of the RV park in the first picture. This is what the dry wash looked like this morning. Yes, that is water, not sand.

Looking from the opposite side of the bridge from the RV park.

Yesterday morning the wash was dry.
We went for a short drive around town this morning and we stopped to take a picture of the boat that someone lives in in the desert.

Quartzsite Drone View

Today was a quiet day here, so I put the drone up over our campsite to get a view of the area surrounding Quartzsite.
This is looking south with our RV park and the interstate hiway at the end of it. You can see a couple of the large flea market areas beyond the interstate.

Looking southwest with our RV park in the foreground. On the right is the main street through town.

Looking northwest.

Looking north, there is an RV park across the road and the dry wash is on the right. They say it has water in it after a heavy rain.

Looking east across the dry wash down the main street.

Looking southeast down the dry wash.

Pictures From the Petrified Forest

We have been busy since arriving here in Quartzsite. I finally took some time to post the pictures that we took during our trip through the Petrified Forest National Park on the way here. There are a variety of land-forms in the park. We followed the main road through the park to the other end and then stopped at several spots on the way back.

This is an old lodge built as a private business along the old Route 66 before the park was created. It was sold to the park and restored to its present condition.

There were many scenic overlooks along the way.

Here are some of the large chunks of petrified trees. There were many of them along the road.

We spent some time hiking up a dry wash.

A smaller sample of petrified wood.

This is a petrified log bridge. They built a concrete support under it to keep it from collapsing.

The formation in the bottom of the gully looked like a Virgin Mary Statue to us from this angle.

The dark part of the rock in the center of the picture is covered with petroglyphs,

There are more of them on this rock.

A close up view of the rock above.

Some native dwellings that are being excavated and studied.

More petroglyphs.

As we were leaving the park, the sun was setting, giving us some great views of the painted desert.

Quartzsite, AZ

Yesterday afternoon we finally arrived in Quartzsite, AZ. We filled up on fuel at the edge of town and then off to our RV Park. We checked in and filled up with propane before we set up. It had been a long day with a lot of anxiety coming through the mountains. We just put out the slides, plugged in the electric and called it a day. There was no 50 amp service at our lot, but they came and installed it today. We walked over to Silly Al's pizza for lunch today and after lunch, Janice made an appointment for a hair cut and then we checked out the local stores for groceries. Tonight there was a jam session at the recreation building here. We went over and enjoyed it.

What is Quartzsite? Here is a description from an RV site that tries to describe it:

"It can be hard to explain the phenomenon that is Quartzsite. Not accurately, at least. It can come off either sounding too amazing and grand or like a dust bowl full of crazy people. The thing is that it’s a mix of both. It is almost like a mecca for RVers. There are numerous places to park, services everywhere, and gatherings galore. Q, as it’s commonly called, is also known for windy days, swap meets, and a naked bookseller. It’s hard to capture how this all intermingles in the winter when this little town of 3,000 people sees over 1 million visitors!"

As we learn more about the area, I will try to share it with you.

Holbrook, AZ

Sunday we headed west again. We stopped for the night at the USA RV Park in Gallup, NM. We had stayed at this park in 2009 after dropping Brendan and the other scouts off in Albuquerque. We drove a little ways down the road this morning to the Petrified Forest National Park. We checked out the visitor center and had lunch at their restaurant. The road through the park is 28 miles long from the north entrance to the south entrance. They said that our motorhome would not fit into some of the look outs along the way, so we unhooked the Jeep and left the motorhome at the visitor center. We drove down to the south end and then stopped at all of the look out areas on the way back and also took a short hike up a dry gulch and back. We took a lot of pictures which I will try to post later. We made it back to the visitor center right after closing, hooked up the Jeep and drove about 25 miles to  the OK RV park here in Holbrook and set up in the dark. Supposed to be below freezing here again tonight. We have a little over 300 miles to go, so we might make it tomorrow.

Before we unhooked the Jeep at the visitor center, another motorhome parked behind us. Notice any similarities? It was a couple from Canada.

Still In Tucumcari

We had planned on leaving here this morning, but we decided yesterday to stay one more night. We went to Mass tonight, and we will leave here tomorrow morning. We headed out to have lunch today and stopped at a farm and ranch store here. Antiques, hardware, clothing, and some great smelling smoked meat. Time to do lunch! We shared a table with a local man who turned out to be very interesting. His parents had owned one of the Route 66 motels here in town and he was raised in it. He and his wife later operated another one of them. He had a lot of local stories. After lunch he took us to see a Queen Anne house that he bought for his wife and they remodeled and operated as a B & B. She passed away earlier this year and I think he was a little lonely. His wife was a local historian and he gave us a couple of books that she had written. Janice caught up the laundry here at the RV park this afternoon before Mass. Had to finish drying part of it after Mass. Tomorrow we head west again!