The Agnew Family aboard the "Dog House"

We were up early today and on the road to Quartzsite just after 8 am — Ed wasn’t sure there was such a thing as 8 am (nice to be retired!). Quartzsite is a good hour and half drive from Yuma. The town of Quartzsite blossoms in the winter when all of the RVers arrive and we were curious to see what it would be like closer to peak season (we stopped there at the end of November when people were just starting to arrive). It wasn’t as busy as I had expected but there were a lot more RVs especially out on the BLM land and the flea markets had many more vendors. There was a Rock and Gem Show on this weekend which meant there were there a few extra vendors (wholesalers) there. I’m not sure what rocks normally sell for but I think the prices were very good as resellers were loading up pickup trucks with goods. You could buy the rocks in their originally rock form, cut, cut into slabs and polished or finished into smaller sizes to be used in jewelry. They also had geods in many sizes — some of them 3 feet tall.

The markets sell everything you can image — kitchen items, tools, quilts, carpets, fur pelts, food, cow skulls, etc. Zaph didn’t like the cow skulls — he kept trying to sneak up on them but would back away before he got too close (I thought it was pretty creepy too). Zaph, decked out in his Arizona hat and bandana, enjoyed the outing as he received a lot of pets and even some treats. As always you see some interesting sites — one family had their dog and cat with them (the cat was in a carrier that was worn as a backpack; a couple of dogs were is specially designed dog strollers and seemed to be enjoying the ride (we saw two types of strollers); three small dogs were riding in a little red wagon looking like they were having a great time.


One of the many flea markets


Many rocks and gems






Talk about your back seat driver


Mom... I don't want to be here!



Zaph sacked out after a hard day of shopping.