By Bonnie & Bill Neely
The new year began with us heading toward the strange place we had heard lots about from other RVers who live in the North most of the year. Winter is the peak time for these human Snowbirds who migrate to winter in the warm desert at Quartzite, Arizona. This is a little town of about 500 people, but somehow they cope with about two million visitors each winter, all arriving in different kinds of homes on wheels: from old beat-up vans, converted buses, to old RVs, and large luxury coaches. Quartzite has 50 RV parks, but the most popular place is the free Bureau of Land Management land, which offers miles of hot, dusty, flat, dry camping (which means no hook-ups, water or electric.) Sewer trucks, garbage trucks, and water trucks come through frequently to keep the place sanitary with so many people living there for winter months.
The rule is you can stay for two weeks, then you must move at least 25 miles away for several weeks before returning. The camaraderie is inviting, no one is pretentious, and these are a collection of over two million individuals who love their freedom. It was winter so we just had to see it for ourselves, since summer temperatures average 120 degrees there, and they have no hook-ups for air conditioning. We knew we would not want to experience that summer heat again in the desert, as we had the previous summer when we arrived at Joshua Tree and our RV engine died in the heat. We had no air conditioning as we waited for hours before the AAA men arrived to rescue us. January in Quartzite was the perfect time of year to experience this place, now immortalized in the 2021 Academy Award Winner Film Nomadland.
We only stayed that one January night in the mass of humanity but found everyone very welcoming, orderly, and law-abiding. Quartzite is a very hard rock mined in this area. It has a grainy, sandpaper-like glassy surface composed predominantly of an interlocking mosaic of
quartz crystals. Rockhounds flock to this area, so I wanted to visit a rock shop, and there we found many interesting stones that our grandson would love. The next day as we were leaving we saw the sewage truck making its round to clean out RV waste tanks, not a job we would choose, but everyone here was glad someone was making a living that way.
Going through Arizona we veered a little off our highway to go through the famous Petrified Forest National Park; however, we were very disappointed because the specimens were few and far between. The Park Ranger told us that through the years souvenir seekers had stolen many of the petrified pieces before laws were established to protect this unusual place. The few pieces of petrified wood we saw there were beautiful rocks of several brilliant reds, greens, purple, and yellow with diamond-like sparkles in the sunlight. The rocks are all granite crystal, composed of different minerals: iron, carbon, and manganese. These had once been trees, which over 200 million years ago had sunk quickly and deeply into an ancient river system. They were so quickly buried by the sediment that oxygen was cut off and the decay process slowed. As minerals seeped into the porous wood they had solidified into stone of many colors, and we could clearly see the tree’s cadmium rings in some of these beautiful slabs.
Farther along this Highway I-40 going toward Texas, we stopped near Winslow to see the Meteor Crater Natural Landmark , which is the best-preserved meteorite impact site on earth. The pieces that broke off the meteor are known as Canyon Diablo Meteorite. The diameter of the big hole is about three-fourths of a mile, and the depth is 560 feet. The iron meteorite hit the earth at about 29,000 miles per hour here about 50,000 years ago. Most of it was vaporized by the high impact, but some fragments remained, from which scientists have gleaned valuable information. At the Visitor Center we learned a lot about meteors and saw one of the biggest meteor chunks on display. The Crater is on privately-owned land of the Barringer family and, therefore, cannot be protected as public land by the USA government laws.
To learn the rest of this and many other exciting and hilarious tales, you can order my new book with 5 stars all over the Internet: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and YouTube: #RealVentures:DidWeReallyDoThat?!by Bonnie Burgess Neely. This makes the perfect gift for anyone, any age, whether a traveler or an armchair dreamer! My book is guaranteed to keep you laughing and sometimes gasping at our unplanned adventures during which my husband, Bill, drove mileage equivalent to the moon three times or around the Equator 25 time during 47 years of holiday RV travels. You’ll find my book with five stars all over the Internet, E-book, or Paperback. Enjoy! And Happy Holidays!
IF YOU GO:
#RealVentures:DidWeReallyDoThat?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadland
Meteor Crater Natural Landmark
Petrified Forest National Park
Real Travel Adventures 