Quartzsite Gathering - Fun & Games

I tried to count the number of fiberglass trailers after I took the Friday afternoon picture, but more kept arriving and they wouldn't hold still.

Saturday morning found 14 trailers in the area that had been home to four earlier in the week.

A bunch of us said goodbye to Jerry, Wanda, and Sally

as they pulled out Saturday morning, headed for home.

At 9 o'clock the swap meet opened for business

and not much later, Betty and Catherine were frying up

sopapillas for all interested takers.

Before they were done, another group of volunteers were sorting the soup cans by type, and filling three stock pots full of soap to heat.

I never heard them say the soup was ready - the line seemed to form automatically.

Leroy, who claimed to have a 4" Casita that I never saw, came around asking about which soup was best.

Funny, I never saw Leroy without his handler, Lance. Lance's Casita was definitely longer than 4 inches.

There were 17 teams entered in the ladderball tournament this year, and a few people could actually play it fairly well.

Cathy and Eric trounced BJ and I in the second round on their way to winning the 2nd Annual ladderball tournament.

Phil and Catherine were especially pleased to be on the ladderball tournament podium, taking third place and winning a Scamp Owners International hitch receiver plug. It will look good on their truck while towing their BigFoot trailer.

It was reported that 102 rigs attended the Gathering this year. We certainly enjoyed it and I think everyone else would say the same. A big thanks to George & Betty and their faithful volunteers who make it all happen.

The Quartzsite Gathering Grows

I'd wanted to get photos of the growing group each day from the same point, but the group got spread out enough that I moved my location. If you look real closely, there is a Casita in the distance right about the top left corner of the door on the Casita in the right foreground. I counted 46 trailers when I walked through after taking this photo.

Of course, there are lots of Casitas in clusters.

The next three Scamps that came in also clustered together, I think because Joy picked a good spot.

On Thursday, the registration tent officially opened. It served as a place to collect the soup cans for the Saturday soup pot, and as a distribution point for a couple buckets of lemons.

The proprietors of Little House Customs stopped by to say hello on their way home from a trade show in Las Vegas. I really enjoyed meeting Larry for the first time

The Scamp count grew to five on Thursday afternoon when this '38 Ford showed up towing a Scamp 13. With 280 watts of solar on the roof, he is able to run his refrigerator on 12 volt during the day.

The Thursday group shot from nearly the same vantage point as Wednesday. There are at least two rigs out of the frame to the right, and lots hidden by trees and large rectangular shadows. I think there were 60 rigs when I counted after the photo, but it's getting hard to keep count.

The panoramic shots are 4000 pixels wide. Open them in a new window if you want to study them.

Quartzsite Gathering 2015 - Before

I'd toyed with coming to Q on Sunday afternoon but there was something about a big game and lots of traffic on the west side of Phoenix that made us reconsider. Lots of game traffic westbound on Monday. We were faster than one of them...

Even though I was here for a few days a couple weeks ago, it's always good to be back in quirky Quartzsite - at least this time of year.

We settled in with our backs to the crowd so the solar would face the sun. Cell reception seemed poorer this year as compared to last. I'm getting a good workable signal with the antenna and Sleek amplifier, but essentially useless without.

We brought along a bucket of lemonade supplies. While it's still very early, so far there hasn't been any interest.

This picture was shot about 3 p.m. on Monday and doesn't show all the rigs. There are three more huddled in with some large trailers about 200 yards west, and a couple others scattered up to 1/2 mile south. As usual, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.

The moon rose, and the sun started to drift towards the horizon, putting a golden glow on the community of Quartzsite. Amazing what the right light (and some distance) will do to make a place look better.

As usual, the sunsets have been beautiful!

We went around yesterday when there were 23 units here to see what sort of diversity there was. Just about half of the people here now are from out of state.

We're starting to develop a bit of "Blogger's Row" with Lynne & David from Casita in the Desert, Casita in the Mountains next to us and Jerry & Wanda from EggRollings just beyond them. After the picture, but before this post was published, Glenda & Jeff from Casita Escapes found a spot among us.

We're expecting the entourage of Casitas from Buckskin State Park to arrive today so hopefully tomorrow's picture will have lots more rigs.