April 30 - May 1, 2019: Yuma, Arizona and Quartzsite, Arizona
April 30, 2019: Yuma, Arizona
As we start on the next leg of our adventure, I am going to try and reduce how much text is on each page. If I am successful in this, I will have a quicker turn-a-round time on posting our pages. However, those that know me...we'll see if I can refrain from typing a lot - hee...hee...
Since we came out of the Baja and spent our first night in Winterhaven, California we thought we would head over to Yuma the next day to golf and have lunch. Then continued on our way to Quartzsite, Arizona for the night.
Desert Hills Golf Course
Yuma, Arizona
Nice course and it was great to golf again. The Baja is very expensive to golf so this was our first time golfing since November. What a great way to start the next leg of our adventure!
Great tee boxes, fairways, and greens on the course.
I think Craig and I missed the Baja and sand...if you look close...Craig is playing an orange ball and right behind him, you can see my pink ball : )
I loved this tree and it's trunk and branch structure
On the course we saw a ton of rabbits, fish in the ponds, and...turtles!
This was our lunch stop after golf. We randomly selected it and WOW...It was awesome! Crouse's Flat Top Grill. Great pulled pork and baby back ribs
April 30 - May 1, 2019: Quartzsite, Arizona
The drive from Yuma to Quartzsite was pretty uneventful. After the roads in the Baja, US95 was AWESOME.
Flat and green farm lands went on forever it seemed
We saw this 'blimp' and didn't know if it had anything to do with the US Army proving ground or a weather station that was nearby. Either way...someone was watching something... : )
Along US95 is the US Army proving ground which is one of the largest military installations in the world
We encountered a border patrol station. It was unmanned and we didn't need to stop, but were a little surprised to see it
Great mountains and this is Castle Dome
We stopped in Quartzsite for a night because: 1) there was a gum (yes...chewing gum gallery/museum that we wanted to visit; 2) Discount Solar is there and is one of the largest solar stores; 3) Quartzsite is famous during January - February for rock hounds and huge rock swap meets; and 4) Quartzsite may be the boondocking capital of the world!
For #4 you can see from the pictures below that it was great boondocking! There is so much BLM land around and it is FREE to stay on!
For #3 During the months of January and February Quartzsite population goes from about 3,500 to 250,000 at the peak during winter. Wow. Although it was not January and February when we visited, I would like to come back and see that.
For #2, we discovered that Discount Solar closes during the Summer. So...we missed it, dang!
We boondocked for the night on BLM land in an area called Scadden Wash. This was about 5 miles outside of Quartzsite. We pulled in just as the sun was setting
This was the view from our trailer.....NICE!
We watched the sunset from our trailer. Absolutely gorgeous!
Craig eating breakfast the next morning
And...the #1 reason we stopped in Quartzsite (okay, not really the #1, but...the COOLEST reason was....Jo's Gum Gallery. Those that know me, know how much I love gum and chew it all of the time, so this was a highlight of our trip for me.
I stumbled upon this awesome tidbit of information on TripAdvisor while looking for unique things to do along the way. This is a private collection of gum wrappers (with the gum still in it) from a wonderful gal named Joanne. Joanne has been written up in many articles, has over 4,000 gum memorabilia that dates back to 1914! Craig and I were in here for almost 2 hours! If you are every anywhere close to this, it is a MUST SEE!
Below are a variety of pictures from Jo's collection.
Notice the names on the packages? Zoom in to read the text and look at the shape of the gum
Did you know they made gum packaging in the form of a CD, cassette tape, VHS, and DVD? We didn't. Zoom in on these and look at the names of the band, songs, or movies. They are hilarious!
Yes, she even has gum from all over the world!
What a great time we had in Jo's Gum Gallery!