Surprising conclusion
Now that I've been running around Quartzsite for a few days, both in town and in the desert boondocking areas, I've concluded that it is not nearly as crowded as it used to be.
It's not all that hard to see if you've spent time in Quartzsite during the Big Show. All of the BLM boondocking areas that I've been to look pretty busy, but not compared to the way the Big Show used to be. One example is that I got some gas yesterday at about 9 a.m. and was the only one in the gas station—and I've never experienced that before during the Big Show.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are still a lot of people in town and a lot of boondockers out in the desert, but it’s not an overwhelming crowd like the kind of crowd that made me stop coming here during the Big Show. I've been to several of the major BLM boondocking areas now, and I've easily found a place where RVs didn’t surround me, and I was still within a few hundred yards of a paved road.
I haven't had a chance to talk to any of the flea market vendors yet to ask them, "How's business?" I drove down the road through the middle of the biggest flea market area, which was packed. There was no place to park, so maybe I'll try again later.
I don't know if this is an "off year" or not, but so far, I haven't suffered any crowd problems, such as not finding a suitable place to boondock or getting gas, so maybe I won't fear being in Quartzsite during the Big show as much as I used to.
Theboondork
Boondocker’s gotta boondock, and Quartzsite offers a variety of places you can stay.
The town of Quartzsite at sundown. Quartzsite is about 3 miles away from where I’m boondocked.
When I put these pictures on the Internet, they are very sharp. But by the time the Internet finishes with them, everything looks blurry to me. In the original picture, there’s a gas station next to the McDonald’s sign, and I can read the price of diesel fuel on the sign.
That’s I-10 on the right, so in Quartzsite, you can find a spot to boondock pretty close to one of the busiest cross-country interstates in the country.
In Quartzsite, if you don’t mind getting your tires a little dirty, even a class A motorhome can find a spot to boondock In the grandeur, and solitude of the desert.
And look at the hiking right outside their door, everything from “no problem !” to “ya gotta be kidding me !”