Summary: We drove to Quartzsite, Arizona.

Tuesday, January 22nd: We found the Hamfest at Mile Marker 99 off of Hwy 95 (five miles south of Quartzsite, Arizona) by all the antennas. Talk about "antenna farms"!!! We set up our campsite and then walked around.

As we were walking around, we asked a few people if they knew a back way into Quartzsite because we saw all the traffic heading that way as we drove through Quartzsite. Somebody mentioned a wash. We saw a couple in a Jeep, so we stopped them to ask them if they knew the area. They said they wanted to know a back way, also. We told them about the wash, but that we didn't know anything else about it. They said they were headed that way and would try it out.

We continued walking around, looking at all the campers and antennas. They had a really good turnout!! Carl was really interested in all the different kinds of antennas. There were some really strange ones!!!

We went back to our campsite, which was just on the outskirts of the area where all the Hams were, and were eating lunch when the couple I mentioned earlier drove by. They stopped to tell us that they couldn't find any wash going into town. We discovered that they were Ranger Jo from Mesa Verde National Park and her friend!!! The more she talked, the more we remembered her!!! What a coincidence!!

There weren't any events going on at the Hamfest that Carl was interested in, so then we went to RV show. We decided we would try to find a back way into Quartzsite, even though Ranger Jo and her friend hadn't had any luck. We found a dirt road that headed directly into Quartzsite. We passed lots of campsites along the way. We parked just south of the big RV tents and only had to walk across a gully to get to the big tents!!!

There were four huge tents, plus all the vendors around on the outside. By the time we got there in the early afternoon, it was getting really busy and crowded!! We walked around and actually found a really cool folding table that will work better than the old table that we've been using. It's aluminum, all one piece, folds up like an umbrella and will work great when we're dry camping and don't have a picnic table to use for the BBQ!!! We also picked up a couple of lightweight, collapsible walking sticks, in a carrying case even, that we can use wherever we travel.