A quick trip to the desert

I seems that staying home for too long is not my thing.  While talking to a friend the other day, the mention of a gem & mineral show in Quartizite, Arizona came up.  I have been to this annual event several times which is just over the Arizona border from California on Hwy. 10.  Well that`s all it took to get me motivated and I had the camper loaded up in a few days.
My original thought was to spend about a week so I could poke around in the desert and check out the many show locations.  It is about a 5-6 hour drive with the only down side being the route goes right through Los Angeles.  This usually means a lot of traffic and I was not disappointed.
The mineral show had hundreds of vendors in about four locations around the small town.
The best part (aside from the show) is that you can just drive out into the desert and park each night for free.  It also means that it is very quiet and great scenery.  I have an area that is about 4-5 miles out from Quartizite on some old dirt roads that I really like.  By now I know you are saying - enough with the words, how about some pictures.  OK.

In the first picture, the dark hills way in the background are where the town is located.  The other shot shows an old mine site (on the hill) that I had to check out, it is about a mile away.  I could not figure out what they were mining, but I did not find any gold!

Above is a cactus near my camp spot with my boot in the picture for size.  I really wanted to take this one home with me but it was to big.  It was about two feet tall and would have been very dangerous to handle.  The other shot show the sunset starting to color the evening sky.

I did not take any pictures of the show since it was just a lot of people with tables set up, selling "rocks".  I spent two days there and having seen all of the show areas "twice" (I didn`t want to miss anything)  and then decided to head home.  One reason for not staying longer was the weather.  It was 10-15 mph winds on my last day and predicted to reach 20-25 mph the next day.  The dust is an ever present factor in the desert and the wind makes it worse..........

I will leave you with a few more sunset pictures and the last one is the actual type of road the I was driving on out in the desert.  I did pick up some (sifted) dirt to try my hand at "gold" panning when I got home.  Also a few small cactus hitched a ride with me and will find a new home in my cactus garden.
Enjoy the pictures and do not tell the border crossing guards about the cactus!

If you look closely, you can see other campers at the left in the distance (the white things).  I really like being away from the crowds.   The town is at the left end of that hill and beyond.

I did manage to find about a dozen mineral samples to add to my (over crowded) collection.

Happy Trails.