Four Bars

Quartsite, Arizona
February 6, 2012

Here we are at Quartsite, Arizona.  A town that goes from a population of about 2,000 in the summer to 50,000 in the winter.  All sorts of retirees living here.  Home of the biggest gem and mineral show in the USA.  It was in January so we missed it, thank goodness.  There are still tons of people here and we are checking out the place.

You can "dry" camp for free here on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land.  So, naturally here we are.  This is the view from our first night's camping spot.  Very few people here.  This picture also shows Mark on his cell phone, realizing that this particular spot we picked has no cell service because of the hill just to the west of us.

Another view from our campsite.  These are the hills that are blocking the cell signal.

View to the north.  There you see a few campers.  Apparently this place was so packed you couldn't see the ground when the gem and mineral show was here last month.  Again, glad we missed it.  Just us driving in threw up a bunch of dust.  I couldn't imagine thousands of people here.

This is the view from our next camping spot.  That big hill that was stopping our cell signal is now to the east of us.  Notice the beautiful rainbow.  That came out because Mark is so happy to have four bars on his cell phone again!