On Tuesday our plans changed (as they often do) and we headed on back to the “Dirt Farm” in Casa Grande in a convoy with my Mom, Stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl. The “Dirt Farm” is where they live and call home. They gave this nickname to their ~4 acre “farm” where they have some chickens and ponies. It’s also where we often park the Urban Escape Vehicle on 50 Amp power when we’re in the area. You may recall that we parked the Coach here while we visited Germany for 5 weeks in December and early January.
We came back here directly from Quartzsite in order to park the Urban Escape Vehicle so we can take the pickup and trailer to Colorado Springs to help our daughter move.
So on Wednesday we downloaded and stored the ATV.
We emptied the trailer of all our items in storage and hooked it up to the Silverado with the intent to drive straight thru to Colorado Springs tomorrow morning (Thursday).
So if you don’t hear from us for a couple days, it’s because we’re on the road to Colorado where we’ll be helping our daughter pack up her stuff and move. We hope to be back in Casa Grande soon so we can get to the next Alpine Coach Rally in Lake Havasu scheduled for February 11 -15. Stay tuned…
Monday was the last day of the Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally XV” in the desert north of Quartzsite, AZ. The only thing left on the agenda (below) was “farewells and departure”.
It has been an absolutely awesome Rally! Everything came together perfectly and even the weather cooperated 🙂 It was sad to see folks leave, but there was some comfort in knowing that many will be at the next rally in February sponsored by Alpine SoCal to be held in Lake Havasu. The 27th Annual Western WInter Blast Pyrotechnics Show will be held at the SARA Park Rodeo Grounds on February 11-15th. Click (HERE) for my post(s) on this rally from last year.
Many folks watched as the rental service arrived to tear down and load up the rally tent we had rented:
It went down pretty quickly:
After the tent was down you could see people walking around and saying goodbye to each other as most packed up to move on.
‘See Ya Later’ Beth, Dave, Nicole, and Mary 🙂
Until next time… Tom & Marilyn 🙂
Bye everyone… C U again soon 🙂 🙂 🙂
The rows of Alpines thinned out as folks packed up, and hooked up their tow vehicles to move on.
Although, many also stayed put until later in the day or even later in the week as you can see from the pics (above) and (below).
It was probably around 10:30 or 11 AM when I finally got with my brother Steve and stepdad Jim to go 4-wheeling on the quads (ATVs). This is one of the main reasons they came here from Casa Grande.
Steve and Jim hooked up their trailer with the ATVs to the Dodge Durango. I already had my ATV on the back of the Silverado.
We drove to the southeast side of town and downloaded the ATVs for a day of riding.
Our first destination was a mountain with a bunch of antennae on top. If you look closely at the picture (below) you can see Jim and Steve coming up the winding road to the top.
View towards the town of Quartzsite from the top of Antennae Mountain (below). The mountain probably has a different name, but I’ll just call it Antennae Mountain.
I zoomed in on the town of Quartzsite and all the RVs in the picture (below) from the top of Antennae Mountain.
Antennae towers and array’s on top of the mountain.
Here’s Antennae Mountain from down below once we came back down.
We had a great time riding around for the rest of the day. We stopped at many of the same places that I wrote about earlier in the week when we went Jeep’n with the Alpine crowd.
Jim and Steve.
We stopped at the ever popular “Moe’s Cabin” again.
My Can-Am Outlander ATV in the Quartzsite desert mountains.
And another stop at “Dripping Springs”. We posed in front of the petroglyphs for some pics.
Jim powers up the steep trail.Steve spins up the hill on his rear-wheel drive only quad.
Antennae Mountain again (below) as seen from the other side.
Another great day in the desert. It was nice to finally get a chance to ride the ATV after being here for a week!
We were all pretty tired when we got back to the rally site. There are still about 10 Alpines or more that didn’t leave yet.
How about a couple more Arizona sunset pics:
Check back later to see what we’re up to… we might head down south to Castle Dome City before going back to Casa Grande. Stay tuned…
I’m a day behind on the rally updates. Better late than never, right?…
Sunday was day 6 of the Alpine Coach Desert Rat Rally. On the agenda for today (below) you can see it’s our last day of scheduled activities. The major events were a swap meet and an evening farewell wine & cheese party.
After the morning devotional, people started bringing in crafts and swap meet items to the rally tent.
Raymond put a few of his items up for sale.
I even tried to get rid of a few extra things as well but didn’t have any takers.
Around mid-day, my mom, stepdad, brother, Cheryl, Stilla and I went into town to check out the “Big Tent” at the RV show one last time.
Local favorite hangout near the RV show tent “Beer Belly’s Adult Day Care”.
We found food and snacks around the outer perimeter of the “Big Tent” to tide us over until evening.
We wandered around the RV show area and checked out all the vendors that hadn’t already packed up.
The only thing we found that we needed this time around was a new door mat for $5.
When we got back to the rally site, I saw a bunch of our Alpiner’s working on a generator.
It seems that Mike Hambarian’s belt broke. Luckily, in common Alpine fashion… fellow Alpiner Dean Sandmire had an extra one on hand to save the day.
Dean helped put on the new belt.Mike tightened up the pulley bolts.Back in service 🙂 Just have to put the covers back on.
Soon it was time for farewells. We had cheese and lots of hors d’oeuvres to go with multiple bottles of wine, courtesy of Guaranty RV Sales.
Frank Halasz and Norm Cannon poured copious amounts of wine.
Thanks were given once again to our Rally Hosts Frank & Dessa Halasz and Co-Hosts Norm & Beth Cannon for an awesome rally!
What a great evening. Everyone had a blast.
At one point, most everyone went outside the tent to watch the full moon rise.
(L to R) Nicole, Ann, Stilla, Marlena, and Lorraine.
In the late evening, it was announced that they needed volunteers to put up the chairs and tables before we left for the night. Unfortunately, most folks took it literally and before you knew it… almost everything was put away and stacked.
And then most everyone just stood around socializing… even without the chairs and tables 🙂 Go figure.
There was only one “smart” group in the bunch that left their table and chairs in place until they were ready to call it an evening:
And of course, it was a very popular table.
I don’t know if we finished off the wine, but a lot of folks tried. Here’s Norm (below) still pouring late into the evening.
It was an awesome farewell party… I don’t think anyone wanted the rally to end 🙂
Check back tomorrow for a recap of our last day and departure. Although, not everyone departed…
Our 5th day at the Alpine Coach Association “Desert Rat Rally” was another fun day of 4-wheeling followed up with a great catered Mexican food meal and the arrival of my Mom, Stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl.
Here’s our rally agenda once again (below) to refresh your memory – today was Saturday the 23rd:
After morning coffee and donuts, everyone that wanted to go on the scheduled 4 Wheelers Day Trip to the Desert Bar lined up between the Coaches in their 4-wheel drive vehicles.
Since no one else was taking an ATV, I left ours loaded on the back of the Silverado and we (Stilla and I) jumped into Frank Krauland’s Jeep once again.
Fellow Alpiner Bob Schiller also joined us to fill the fourth seat in Frank’s Jeep for the trip. Six Jeeps altogether convoyed north to Parker, AZ.
We all arrived safely at our start point next to a gas station north of Parker to air down the tires for the rough road ahead.
Frank on the left letting some air out of his tires. Bob Schiller on the right.
All six of the Jeeps aired down their tires and got lined up in a row, ready to go.
We started off the trip by going up a really rough section which set the tone for the rest of the day.
This picture (below) doesn’t do this hill justice. For some perspective, notice the Jeeps waiting at the bottom of the hill in the background. Frank made it up the boulder-strewn hill with no problem in his Rubicon Jeep.
Follow along with some more pictures of our 4-wheeling adventure:
At one point, fellow Alpine Coach owner, Mike Hambarian got too close to the edge of the trail…
… and started sliding dangerously down the slope. He fortunately got stopped but was stuck at a precarious angle. Naturally, his wife Donna clambered out through the driver’s side door.
We hooked up tow straps on both the front and back of Mike & Donna’s Jeep to keep it from sliding further down the slope.
We hooked one strap to a vehicle in the front; the other to a vehicle in the rear.
Mike jumped back in his Jeep and powered out of the dangerous situation with the help of the tow straps and the other two Jeeps.
Whew! Safely back on the road 🙂
After getting Mike’s Jeep back on the road again, and with all the excitement over; everyone piled back into their respective vehicles…
… and continued on down the trail for a little more adventure.
Here’s Frank navigating down a steep slope while I expertly guided him with hand signals while taking pictures 🙂 Who says I can’t multi-task ?!?
And finally, we reached our destination… the Desert Bar (←website link). You may recall that I wrote a post last Sunday about our previous trip to the bar when we took the main route; aka ‘the easy road’.
The parking area was so full that we had to park a little way down the road and hike up to the Desert Bar.
And here we are again at the Desert Bar. Click (HERE) for more pics from my friend at Google Images®
We got here later in the day than the last time we were here; the lines were long and the seating was scarce.
I must have stood in the food line for over an hour 🙁 By the time I got food for Stilla and myself, most of the other’s had already finished a couple adult beverages and were ready to head back.
After enjoying the ambience of the Desert Bar for a while, we took the main (easy) unpaved road back out and stopped in the town of Parker so Frank could wash his Jeep. A couple of the other folks in our convoy did the same.
Frank washing down his Rubicon.
Frank had to feed quarters into the air compressor to air his tires back up at the gas station next to the car wash. Thanks again for the ride Frank!
We got back to the rally site just in time for Happy Hour 🙂 Bill Figge made his famous Margarita’s. Greg Vaughan and Sandy Johnson assisted with dispensing the popular beverage.
Our illustrious Alpine SoCal Vice President Mary Langord 🙂
Everyone mingled and socialized while we waited for the caterers to finish cooking our authentic Mexican dinner just outside our rally tent on stove tops that they had set up earlier in the evening.
Rally host(s) Frank & Dessa called off table numbers at random for folks to go get their evening meal from the caterer. They also thanked all the volunteers that have made the rally successful so far, with a special thanks for the co-host(s) Norm & Beth Cannon.
Our caterers for the evening meal were from the Sonora Restaurant (below). Sorry, but I couldn’t find their website to reference.
The authentic mexican food was very good. And there was even second helpings for those that didn’t get enough, along with plenty of leftovers for folks to take home.
Lots of folks stayed and socialized for awhile after dinner:
Here’s our table (below), we called it the “cool table” 🙂 Unfortunately, we were in the corner right next to one of the loud speakers that blasted our ear drums every time an announcement was made.
(L to R) John & Lorraine Foster, Anne & Mike Fleming, Marcy & Greg Vaughan, Frank Krauland, and then Stilla.
Some of the ladies even started up a game of ‘hand and foot’ after the meal… we’ll have to learn this card game if we want to be included in their fun 🙂
(L to R) Lorraine Foster, Marlena Schierholtz, Marcy Vaughan, and Ann Fleming.
And then the day just kept getting better! My Mom, Stepdad Jim, brother Steve & Cheryl arrived just before our evening meal. They parked their Class-C near our Coach…
… and unhooked the trailer with their ATV’s.
They made the three hour trip from Casa Grande to visit us during the last couple days of the rally. Hopefully, we can visit the “Big Tent” on Sunday with them before it’s taken down. We also plan on doing some off-roading together on the ATVs (Yeah, finally!)
They came into the rally tent after our evening meal was finished and met some of our Alpine Coach friends. Afterwards, we joined another group of Alpiners and enjoyed good conversation and a campfire until we called it a night.
(L to R) Steve, Cheryl, Stilla, Mom (Arlene), stepdad (Jim), John, and Greg in the ACA Rally tent
In closing… Stilla snapped a nice picture (below) of a saguaro cactus near our camp site along with a couple more evening sunset pics for your viewing pleasure:
Our rally day 4 was pretty much a free day with no major scheduled activities unless you play golf… which we don’t.
Today started out pretty much just like all the others so far… folks congregated and socialized over coffee and donuts on the sunny-side of the rally tent.
In addition to the donuts, we even had leftover pizza from yesterday evening’s meal. I’m not quite sure the pizza went over so well for breakfast 🙂
The first thing this morning, Dave from Dave’s Diesel Diagnostic Services came by to perform testing on the Urban Escape Vehicle.
You may recall from my post a couple days ago that Dave gave a presentation about engine diagnostics and the Cummins Insite™ program. I went ahead and signed up for his diagnostic evaluation when I saw him working on the neighbors Coach. Today was the third day he’s been performing this service on many of the Alpine Coaches here at the Rally.
The Urban Escape Vehicle checked out OK 🙂 Now I have a baseline of all engine performance parameters if something starts to go south. Dave printed out a multi-page report for me to keep on file.
While Dave was finishing up with the diagnostic testing, we got a visit from Bernd Hanselmann. Bernd is a freelance photographer and journalist from Germany. His business is called Photoproduction Hanselmann (←website link). He first contacted us yesterday to ask if he could do an interview.
We answered questions and shared information with Bernd for a possible story in a leading German automotive magazine. I assume our “story” will be combined with others regarding full-time RVing and the associated lifestyle, or we may possibly just end up as part of his research on the Quartzsite experience. He took numerous photos of us and the Coach and promised to email and share a link once his story is complete.
At one point during the day a couple of Entegra Coaches rolled in from one of the RV shows in town. I was told that someone in the Alpine Coach Association arranged for them to be brought by for us to walk thru.
The Coaches got quite a bit of attention but I didn’t hear about anyone putting down a deposit.
Lots of nice details in these Coaches, but as usual when we look at new rigs… we just come to appreciate the quality and engineering in our Alpines a little more.
This 44ft Anthem Entegra™ can be yours for only $471, 694.00
Or you can have the 40ft Entegra Aspire™ for a mere $373,000.
At 4PM or so, the Redlands Truck & RV representatives came by to share their latest ‘goodies’ specifically for our Alpines. They have a large service center tent set up near the “Big Tent” in town to service all the Coaches here for the big RV show.
After the Redlands RV Service tech presentation, we held an unofficial Alpine SoCal get-together in the rally tent since we had around 20+ of our members in attendance here at the Alpine Coach Association rally. As the newly elected SoCal president, I got up and said a few words. I thanked the members for placing their trust and confidence in me to lead the 70 member strong SoCal group into the future. We also used the opportunity to welcome two new couples to the group.
(L to R) Lorraine Foster, Mike (aka Engineer Mike) & Ann Fleming.(L to R) Stilla, Frank Krauland and John Foster.(L to R) Ann Fleming, Marcy & Greg Vaughan.
Franks propane fire pit kept us nice and cozy and was the perfect addition to the great BBQ meal with plenty of side dishes and salad.
Frank even shared his blanket with Greg, because that’s what good friends do 🙂
‘Engineer’ Mike & Ann Fleming on the left. Marcy Vaughan on the right.
And so we closed out another fine Alpine evening in the desert with good friends. Check back tomorrow…
Not a whole lot of commentary on today’s blog post… most of the pictures will just have to speak for themselves. We’ve either been ‘on-the-go’ or got too busy socializing for me to spend much time on the blog today and I don’t want to get behind. Plus, the internet connectivity slowed waaayy down here with all the folks sharing the bandwidth. So here we go…
Here’s the rally agenda again (below), but instead of attending the scheduled Safety Meeting, we joined our friend Frank Krauland in his Jeep and went on a 4-wheel drive trip with 5 other couples in their Jeeps.
Updates on the whiteboard in front of the rally tent (below).
This morning’s donuts… ya gotta get there early to get some 🙂
Ultra-lights buzzed around over our coaches early in the morning:
Alpiners socializing in the morning sun just outside the rally tent:
Safety Meeting (below) with Mac the Fire Guy (←link to his website). We’ve attended a couple of his seminars before at other venues and he has a booth in the “Big Tent” at the rally show. If you get the opportunity, you’ve got to see his presentation. We passed on the meeting today and went Jeepin’.
Stilla and I jumped into Frank’s Jeep and we spent the day off-road… follow along:
Airing down the tires.
Old abandoned house we stopped to visit.
We stopped to check out an old mine:
Looking for Gold ?
We stopped at the ruins of another cabin with a mine pit (shaft) nearby.
We checked out the mine shaft.
Lunch.Roadside lunch break.
Friends Greg & Marcy Vaughan.
We finally found “Dripping Springs” 🙂 But it wasn’t dripping today. A really beautiful location.
Cabin ruins at “Dripping Springs”.
Indian (er… I mean Native American) petroglyphs at “Dripping Springs”.
The 4-wheel drive crew (most of them) posed for a pic at “Dripping Springs”.
Time to head back…
But first we stopped at “Moe’s Cabin”. A popular stop for 4-wheelers and off-road vehicles:
“Moe’s Cabin”.
I put a new card on the wall with the others. Our old card from last year was still there 🙂
Inside Moe’s Cabin:
Moe’s gravesite (?)
Hwy 10 bridge (below) where the smaller ATV’s can cross under the highway. We skirted the highway in our larger Jeeps.
Some of the Jeeps aired their tires back up with on-board air compressors before getting on the highway back home.
A couple of us had to stop at the Chevron™ in town to air the tires back up.
Frank airing up his tires.
What a great 4-wheel drive trip. Thanks for the ride Frank! We’ll have to come back to some of these trails again with my mom, stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl when they get here Sunday with their ATV’s.
We made it back to the Alpine Coach rally site off Plomosa Rd just in time for Happy Hour!
Norm Cannon came prepared for Happy Hour 🙂
The pizzas arrived courtesy of Silly Al’s Pizza (←link) in Quartzsite. If you ever get a chance… it’s really good, but good luck finding a seat for more than a couple people if you visit the place during the RV show week 🙂
Happy Campers:
After filling up on Silly Al’s pizza and salad, we had live entertainment by Art Michaud. His website (←link) says that he has a repertoire of over 1500 songs and has over 30 plus years of musical experience as a One-Man-Band/vocalist extraordinaire utilizing both acoustic and electric guitars, guitar synthesizer, bass pedals, drum machine and vocal harmonizer for background vocals. I think everyone would agree, he was really good and provide for awesome entertainment until late in the evening:
Party time!
Great times… Great people… 🙂
The crowd slowly dwindled down and we finally called it a night. And what a great night it was 🙂
Alpine Coach “Yard Art”.
A couple more Arizona sunsets from Quartzsite:
Sunset reflection off the side of the Urban Escape Vehicle.
Here’s your Day 2 (20 Jan) update to the Alpine Coach Rally now going on in Quartzsite, AZ. I’ll start off with another copy of our rally agenda for the week (below):
At 8 AM there were already folks milling around the north side of the tent catching the early rays of the sun and waiting on the donuts to arrive.
After the donuts arrived… they didn’t last long.
At 9 AM most of the guys could be found in the rally tent for the “Gearhead Session”. Our first scheduled speaker was Paul from ARP Happy Camper (←website link). He talked about Norcold and Dometic refrigerator systems and sold safety enhancements (controls). Since we have a residential 22 cu. ft. Amana refrigerator, I didn’t pay as close attention as most of the others.
Our next speaker was Dave from Dave’s Diesel Diagnostic Service. Sorry, no website seems to be available for Dave, but he can be contacted at david.e.atherton@gmail.com.
He gave a very informative presentation with lots of hands-on visual aids to describe common problems with diesel engines along with common-sense troubleshooting procedures.
Dave got a lot of attention and business after he completed his seminar as many folks signed up for his $75 diagnostic service. He uses a diagnostic connector that he hooks up to his laptop utilizing Cummins Insite™ (Service and Diagnostic Software) to give folks a report on the health of their Coach. I didn’t sign up for the service, but the week is still young 🙂
After a very informative “Gearhead Session” we had an Alpine Coach Association (ACA) Membership Meeting led by Tom Polk. Our Rally host Frank Halasz and the ACA Treasurer Steve Maurmann also officiated alongside Tom at the head table. I learned that the ACA now has 210 members. There’s only 70 members (Coaches) in the Alpine SoCal group with about 20 of those members here at the Rally. We hope to have an informal meeting on Friday, which will be my first one as president of the SoCal group. Some of you may recall that I was voted in at the SoCal Lake Powell Rally last year that I co-hosted.
After the membership meeting, I used the time to change the oil in the ATV. I already had oil and a filter on hand. I was able to knock it out in a short amount of time and didn’t even spill a drop of oil in the desert dirt 🙂 Many thanks to fellow Alpiner Greg Vaughan for lending me his surplus beach sand bucket to use as an oil pan 🙂
Looks like some heavy-duty planning is going on here with the Rally Host(s) Frank & Dessa Halasz, seen below collaborating with Tom Polk.
Stilla attended the Ladies “Gearhead Session” at 1:30… sorry, I forgot to ask her what the subject(s) were 🙁
Anyway, she had to cut her Ladies “Gearhead Session” short because we volunteered to make the trash run again at 2 PM and had to leave. We used to opportunity to also load up our Blue-Ox Aventa™ tow bar into the bed of the truck to go get it serviced. The tow bar has become rather loose and sloppy at the ball socket after all the miles of towing the Silverado around behind the Urban Escape Vehicle. I was told there was a Blue-Ox service tent next to the “Big Tent” at the RV show in Quartzsite.
The “Big Tent” in Quartzsite.South-side of the “Big Tent” in Quartzsite.South-side of the “Big Tent” in Quartzsite.
We found the Blue-Ox Tow Bar service tent on the south-side of the “Big Tent” in Quartzsite right next to the Redlands Truck & RV Service tents.
There sure were a lot of tow bars in for service and/or repair (above). We had to leave our tow bar with the technicians until Friday and paid a $30 service charge. Hopefully, when we get it back, it will be like new again and we can have a little more ‘peace of mind’ while going down the road.
We headed back to our Rally site off Plomosa Rd.
I took little ‘Coach’ for a walk around all the Alpines at our rally site and snapped some pics:
We now have more than 50 Alpines in attendance.
The rally attendees were busy doing all sorts of things. Some were just hanging out and socializing… others were getting some work done.
Around 4:30 it was time for Happy Hour again in our rally tent.
And soon the potluck dishes started arriving. Everyone brought in one or more dishes…
… until the tables were overflowing with food.
Lots and lots of potluck… these Alpiners don’t mess around when it comes to food 🙂
And lots of dessert too 🙂
Our rally hosts drew numbers to determine which tables would go first.
Pretty soon everyone had gone through the line and piled their plates with a sampling from all the various dishes. I’m sure no one went back to their Coach hungry.
And now here’s some pics of all the happy and well-fed Alpiners:
After dinner, the never-tiring “Engineer Mike” helped Greg Vaughan with a battery problem. It seems that Dave the Diagnostic Guy (remember him?) had come by earlier to do a diagnostic test and report on Greg & Marcy’s Coach and found it wouldn’t start. Uh Oh… Hope its not serious 🙁
This evening’s sunset.
And that’s a wrap for Day 2… check back tomorrow for a full recap of Day 3 🙂
Today was Day 1 of the Desert Rat Rally. This is the 15th annual Alpine Coach Association Rally held here off Plomosa Rd just north of Quartzsite, AZ. Here’s our agenda for the week (below):
The first thing I did this morning was to attach the sunscreen to the awning to make our patio a little more comfortable from the mid-day sun. The weather has been warm and mild so far with only a light sprinkling of rain in the late evening. The forecast calls for partly cloudy to sunny for the rest of our rally.
Tom Polk greeted Coaches as they came in throughout the day and directed folks to parking spots along with the help of a few others.
More and more Coaches rolled in during the day and the rows of Alpines grew longer and longer. We now have about 50 Alpines in attendance! Several more are still expected. Today was all about meeting and greeting as old friends met up again with folks they hadn’t seen for a while and new ones got introduced.
The check-in table set up in front of our rally tent and was a busy place all day long. Packets were handed out to all the arriving attendees.
Of course, Mike Fleming aka “Engineer Mike” stayed busy answering questions and helping folks with their various mechanical issues. And as usual, a crowd always seems to gather when an engine hatch or compartment is opened…
I volunteered to make the daily trash run at 2 PM, so I parked the pickup near the check-in table for a few hours prior as folks filled up the bed with their trash bags. John Foster jumped in to help me throw the bags into the dumpster at the local transfer station. Thanks John!
Happy Hour kicked off at 4:30 and shortly thereafter we had sandwiches from Subway® delivered. Our Rally host(s) Frank & Dessa Halasz greeted everyone, recognized new attendees, and thanked co-host(s) Norm & Beth Cannon for all their hard work and help.
The first get-together of the Rally was a success and the sandwiches were well received. Good food with good people 🙂
Now, how about some awe-inspiring Arizona sunset pictures to close out todays blog post:
Check back tomorrow for a full recap of Rally Day 2…
A crew arrived early Monday morning to put up our Rally tent. We’ll have all our meals and get-togethers here. I snapped a few pictures as the tent building progressed throughout the morning:
It wasn’t long before our tent was up and ready for the Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally XV”! Official kick-off is tomorrow (Tuesday the 19th).
I moved the Urban Escape Vehicle a little closer to the group as more and more Coaches came in today. We’re now parked right next to the tent.
Around noon, Stilla and I took the Silverado with the ATV still on the back into town to fuel up. It was nice to be able to pay under $2 a gallon for the gas… its been awhile since we’ve seen those kind of prices 🙂
After we gassed up the truck and the ATV, we decided to check out the ‘big tent’ at the RV show in downtown Quartzsite. Touted as the “largest gathering of RVs and RVers on earth” per the event website (←link here).
We fought the heavy traffic and crowds and were able to find a parking spot right near the entrance…
… then we did a quick walk-thru…
… of the big tent.
The big RV show tent seemed to have the same stuff as last year and seemed all-to-familiar. Lots of vendors selling stuff unrelated to RV’s. But there’s still a lot to look at and plenty of food stands with various types of cuisine.
Stilla outside the big RV show tent in Quartzsite.
I’m sure we’ll come back to the ‘big tent’ again later in the week, there’s always more to see.
We headed back to the Rally site and saw that many, many more Alpines had arrived while we were gone.
David & Nicole Guhse pulled in just as we arrived.
We spent the rest of the day meeting and greeting all our Alpine friends as they arrived. We also took the ATV off the pickup and finished setting up ‘camp’, i.e., putting out the patio mat, chairs, flagpole, and led lights for a little ambience.
Here’s our Monday evening sunset. Pretty nice eh?
Check back tomorrow for an update on Rally Day 1… let the fun begin 🙂
On Sunday we got word that some good friends already here in Quartzsite for the Rally were planning a drive over to the Desert Bar. This place is pretty cool. The Roadside Americawebsite says the following: “A solar-paneled oasis of beer, cocktails, food, and music off a desert dirt road in an old mining camp. Surprising DIY architecture; a new piece is added every year.”
We caught a ride with fellow Alpine owner and friend Frank in his Jeep and followed the others to the town of Parker and then on a primitive dirt road to the bar, a circa. 40 mile drive.
(L to R) Jim, Vivian, Frank, Stilla, Linda, and Jack.
We last saw Frank at the Lake Powell Rally. Jack & Linda were in Colorado Springs and stayed at the Elks Lodge with us when we saw them last. Jim & Vivian we met for the first time. Great folks, all 🙂
For more on this unique desert bar, aka “Nellie E Saloon” check out their website (HERE) or check out more images (HERE).
One side of the Desert Bar is only accessible by 4-Wheel drive. The parking lot (below) was filled with side-by-side ATVs.
Cooling tower for the bar (below). Water runs across the filter elements at the top of the tower and air is naturally drawn through the tower and down into the saloon for natural “air-conditioning”.
Solar panels on the roof. Only solar and propane is used to facilitate operations here.
A live band played on the upstairs stage.
Lots of food options are available at different locations throughout this ever-expanding place. It’s a good thing we got here early, by noon or 1 PM, the food lines were very long.
After our enjoyable mid-day jaunt at the Desert Bar, we headed back to our dry-camping spot near Quartzsite. We stopped for a short time at Jack & Linda’s site for liquid refreshments and watched the beginning of what’s supposed to be an awesome gumbo-type evening meal.
We headed back to our site to take little ‘Coach’ for a walk and later joined Frank at his Coach for some BBQ chicken and outside entertainment with his flat screen TV with surround-sound. Thanks for the hospitality Frank!
And our first full day here in Quartzsite comes to an end. More Alpines rolled in throughout the day, we probably have around 20 Coaches so far… more expected today (Monday) 🙂
