Quartzsite in January 2001

Here's the story.
(you can click on the image to make it larger)

Quartzsite is a little, dinky, winky, dusty town of maybe 2000 people, except in January and February. In those short months, the masses move in, the town grows to near 1.5 million people...vendors, tourists, RV'ers and foophy their poodle.

This is an example of the growth, from non-selling months to madness months!

I was given the opportunity in 2001 to help some friends sell their beads. This was before I sold them myself! I had been curious about the entire Quartzsite anyway, so I jumped at the chance. Besides...I got to be around beads....lots of them! What a deal!

Driving from Sacramento to Quartzsite, in one day was long...very long. But...I had my camera with me, and managed to stop a few times for some cool photos.

these are shots of the wonderful windmills you get to see when you are driving through Tehachapi. I have always loved these!

These are one of my favorites...Joshua Trees. I grew up with these, and let me tell you, they don't work really good for climbing in...take my word for it! But, they have these cool "fruit" things, really like round seed pods that we used to take apart and take all the seeds out of. The seed are flat, and there are a zillion of them. We didn't do anything with them really, just dissected them.

I made it in to Quartzsite late...fumbling around in the dark, trying to find the right selling spot...finally figuring it out, road weary and a bit ditzy from the drive. It was great though...Jamie, Guy, Vi and friends were relaxing in the RV, I felt comfortable immediately. I really knew then that I was going to have a great time.

J-Me and, there's Judy back there!	Guy Guy insists he is just the "bead slave"	Vi J-Me's Mom, and such a trooper!

I got in on Wednesday night. It was inbetween shows.

Wells...ok, here is how Quartzsite works. There are several large selling areas. The one we were at is 23 acres of selling space.

Beads, Beads, Beads!

Some of them run longer than others, some run only for a long weekend. Quartzsite has something going on all year long, but the crazy time is January and February.

I was guarding the van, while Guy was loading up. But, of course I had to keep my hands busy pricing beads. :)

J-me, Guy and Vi do this show then break their booth into two, taking 1/2 of their beads to Powwow, then, break the booths into thirds to travel down to Tucson for yet another show! It is amazing.

The RV...beads are stacked everywhere, and always more to need tying, pricing, marking.	An example of beads...my idea of really living...surrounded by beads!

Now, the traffic in QuartzSite...is atrocious! You cannot get anywhere quick, ever...well, quicker at night, because all the old people have crashed for the evening. Not anything against old people! I mean, I will be there one day, but I WILL NOT, repeat WILL NOT have a dog named Foophie! And it will not be wearing a little stupid coat!

Traffic in Quartzsite is like this allllll the time! This is one of the two main drags in town.	RV's and still more RV's! This is overlooking Pow Wow, on the freeway overpass. You walk...NOT drive!

It is really scary...being surrounded by so many old people. You hear sirens...often. And you know...you just know someone just had a heart attack, or suffered from sun or heat, or just keeled...not pleasant!

but...

One of the best things about Quartzsite is all the people you meet! One of the more interesting people I met there was Judy. She is very quiet, but once she gets to know you, she opens up, and we had some really terrific conversations. She lives in the South, loves lizards (and of course, I do to) but particularly iguanas. She comes to QuartzSite and Tucson to pick up goods to sell at her shows, and her website. IguanaWoman.com I really enjoyed the conversations I had with Judy.

FOOD
Here is the kicker. You have RV's, you cook. Quartzsite has restaurants...yes, they have some restaurants...but they run OUT of EVERYTHING! A&W ran out of Root Beer, for Gods Sake, Pizza Hut only had Mini sized pizza crust, and Subway was out of 2 kinds of rolls, ham, tomatoes, lettuce and seafood salad! Those were only the things we asked for! Amazing. At least Baskin Robbins still had some ice cream, and the Food Mart had Root Beer, and we were able to make a root beer float back at Tysons.

One night, actually, two, Alain and friends cooked a gourmet meal for all of us, while we tied off beads...our nightly ritual. We had vegetarian cooking at it's RV best! Thanks you guys.

Alain sells rocks and beads next to Wild Things. Also he showed me some of his art, he is an awesome artist! Check it out here!

Now, at night, we would sit around and prepare beads to sell. It went on and on, never ending...we were like the Energizer Bunnies. I told J-Me, only another bead fanatic would be happy to work on beads till midnight every night, just because...just because I get to work with BEADS!

Marking prices on beads	On and On
Fire Opals...aren't they pretty? Perfectly graduated by color!	Guy, checking out the newly purchased merchandise.

During the day...people would come, by the hoards. Everyone wanted to buy beads...including me! By the time I got done with the show, I had a tote of beads. I just kept adding and adding! I really knew of the dangers of being there for 2 weeks, I went into it knowingly.

I came in on Wednesday night, Sell-A-Rama started on Friday, Pow-Wow started on Tuesday, we drove J-Me down to Tucson on Thursday, Sell-A-Rama and Pow Wow ended on Sunday, and we left on Monday. Vi and Guy then drove down to Tucson, and I went home. 12 days of total fun for me!

I took some shots of a friend of J-Me, Guy and Vi's booth. His name is Ed, he sold petrified wood, it was an impressive collection. Here are some of the shots from that, it will give you an idea of the quality of merchandise you can buy at Quartzsite.

This was so beautiful in person, the photos cannot possibly do it much justice, still, I wanted to share. Somebody came along and offered Ed to buy the entire booth worth of wood...he very happily sold it! What a deal!

Now...before I went home, I decided to walk around the Main Event, since I hadn't had a chance to do that yet. I was there maybe an hour, when I came back to my car in the parking lot...I was seeing a strange streaked glare, I thought, thats a weird reflection!

Well, it wasn't a reflection. Someone had creamed my car! I was in disbelief...but much to my amazement, the guy was honest, he called the deputy in, they had made a report, and they left their card on my window to have me call them when I got back to my car. Amazing.

Poor little car. :(

Turns out, he was fully insured and my car was still driveable. But, the sucky part was that EVERYONE looks at you like you are a bad driver when your car is smooshed like that. So, I had this major "Don't look at ME like that!" complex going on.

We had been wanting to sell the car anyway, with 175,000 miles on it, only a 94, and the beginnings of transmission problems, we knew we wouldn't get much.

Here's where the best part comes in! Insurance gave us a check, we sold the car "as-is" to someone who carts them down to Mexico to sell (he said they suck up the sports cars) and with what we received from both parties, we got...

THIS!

Our newest baby...little Jimmy!

One more thing...
When J-Me and Guy finally got back in town, I went up to their house for a visit. They gave me such a wonderful gift, I am VERY honored...grateful...amazed, I really can't find the correct word. But, I absolutely love it. Here, I took a photo to show it off....

Isn't this just wonderful?

I so rarely get gifts of jewelry, this is very special.
Thank You, both of you.

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the beautiful desert!