Hand painted stone marker at the entrance to Quartzsite cemetery |
Snowbirds - aww. 'Snowbird migration' sounds fluttery and adorbs. Cue Anne Murray, amirite? What this actually is, though, is a massive influx of retired folks who come south for winter in their RVs. If Vegas has from time to time seemed to me like a city inexplicably spread out over a desert valley, then this is like a cross between an RV park and a - huh. Retirement home? Skin growth? I can't come up with nice similes for this. (Better stop then, because a) being kind, b) it behooves me to show some sympathy, given how easily I could imagine us hooking into this peregrinatory lifestyle and c) I saw this early snowbird in Quartzsite last week, he was driving 25 in the left-hand lane of a 35 mile road, sporting a 'Gun owners for Trump 2016' bumper sticker on the back window of his around-town vehicle.) All up, I feel that buffalo migration would be closer. Land behemoth migration gives a better idea but doesn't quite have the ring. And after all, they are white (the RVs, that is, overwhelmingly so. Demographics? IDK) and they are coming south for winter.
ohai, im in ur desert campin in my rv |
cool enough for enjoyment. I can't help wondering how the local infrastructure copes - water supply, sewerage, health care, etc. There are more RV parks in and around than you can shake a stick at, and the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that manages otherwise unallocated federal land throughout the country, has even set aside some 'long-term visitor areas' where you can pay a season fee to pick a site and stay. That's at one end of the accommodation spectrum. At the other are parks with low stone walls and wrought-iron arched gates for each site so you can get the full illusion of suburbia: parks with cafes, gift shops, and other services on site.
Ohai, I'll be ur rv suburb today |
We stopped at one of the cafes. It was not a cafe as urbanite would know it, but 'recognisable through cross-cultural gear meshings' as Stephenson has it (Cryptonomicon, page ref gah who am I kidding.) The decor was country diner/restaurant, and so was the menu. The pink fundraiser baseball caps on sale were an ... authentic cultural touch? Lucky find? Future heirloom? (Motto picked out in rhinestones: 'Make Quartzsite Great Again!')
The main street as I saw it seemed to alternate between fast food, gas stations, and either Wilderness Gems or Geoff's Emporium, for those of you from that Auckland ambit: dusty stores full of amazingly varied discount stock lines (USB 0.9 cable, anyone? Mini slot head screwdriver? Not-quite-vintage old-new-stock postcards of other places in Arizona?)
There's a huge gem and mineral show here at the end of January. (Also plenty of good rockhounding around the area, of which more another time.) The number of rock/gem/mineral/bead/jewellery shops seems in proportion rather to the winter population than the summer, and includes what is without exception the best jewellery supply shop I've ever seen. (It has a camel out front, just in case. Camels are part of local history as the 'ships of the desert' were trialled for desert travel and freight service in the late 19th century).
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There's an enormous open air flea market too ...
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sunset light from just north of Quartzsite |
The surrounding land is brown and flat, with hills rising on all sides at various distances - closer to
east and west, which makes sense as we're still in the Basin and Range geological province here. However it's Sonoran desert, which means saguaro cactus, a novelty I didn't get tired of yet. It can be quite beautiful (in parts - in its own austere way - on a blue clear day) and we saw a couple of really lovely sunsets.
I say brown and flat, but it is already dotted with white even at Thanksgiving as early arrivals pick out their spots and hang up their hats. Come mid January, and they'll be cheek by jowl.
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