Your Quartsite Questions

[caseyc]

Hi everyone. I've arrived at Quartzsite but I can't find the group. Is E.Kuhn street the same as Dome East street? Can some post simple directions to the group coming from 10 East highway? Thanks!

 

[owl]

Get on main st, go to 95 south, cross over the freeway, when you get to the light go left you are now on east kuene. Keep going until you come to the barricade, turn right, about a half mile on your right you will see all the vans etc.

 

[SunnyR]

Hi. I just posted in another area here that I am finally free, and asking for help with thinking and logistics. I think I should have posted here, maybe.

Long story short, the bad weather diverted me southwards instead of west. I am in southern Georgia and need to decide whether to go to Florida or jump on Interstate 10 and head out there.

My main question is: If it takes another week for me to get there, will I still have time to meet folks and learn more how to live this life? I know folks stay longer but are they groups, like you are now?

My main needs are with power. I have a camper van, class B. I have a new marine battery and 750 watt inverter. I think I did not use the battery right because I don't think it keeps a charge as well as it should. Maybe I am wrong.

I wish I could have some solar and more battery power.

Bottom line, if I get there within a week or two, is that still good timing? (if I have hijacked someone else's question, please forgive, still learning forum)

Thanks, Sunny

 

[Mac J]

Anybody have an active camera to snap some shots for the forum?

 

[Bela's Mom]

Sunny, I know that you may not have the money right now but you need true deep cycle batteries. Marine batteries are not true deep cycle. Also, you need to be able to know what state of charge your battery is. It should not be taken down more than 50% before charging if you want it to last. It also needs to be fully charged for optimum life. The converter/chargers we have in our class B's are not that great at charging the battery to full even though the little light on the panel says that it is full. But you can get by for now until you get to Quartzsite and look into solar charging.

For right now, you need to get your battery fully charged. Do you have a generator? Are you camping where there is shore power? Does your vehicle alternator charge your house battery when you are driving? At minimum, you need to get your house battery charged to full after you have used it at night if you are dry camping on the road.
If you get stuck with a dead battery and you have no way to charge it, some auto parts stores will do it for you, like Advance Auto.
If your alternator does not charge your battery while you are driving, use as little power at night as you can.
Sorry to go on....I am excited for you that you have started your trip!

 

[caseyc]

Thanks Owl. I found the spot. I thought I was lost but it turns out the spot is empty because hardly anyone is here yet.

Get on main st, go to 95 south, cross over the freeway, when you get to the light go left you are now on east kuene. Keep going until you come to the barricade, turn right, about a half mile on your right you will see all the vans etc.

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Hi everyone
We've been offline for the last week while out boondocking for a little break.

Mac, I'm sure some of the folks will post some pics from the RTR camp.

Sunny, if you're coming out to Q we can help you get your power needs sorted out. 750 watt inverter is mighty big for the basic one battery system. Give a shout when you get out this way.

Casey, glad you and Adrian made it safe and sound. Enjoyed meeting both you guys this morning. Hope you found BK without any problem

 

[caseyc]

Thanks Jay. Great meeting you too! Now we know who Bindi is haha! I ended up going to Carl's Jr to have a fat western double bacon cheeseburger. Yum. I then proceeded to find a parking spot with shade and took a 2 hour nap!

---

For those who have Verizon cellular service, I can confirm both phone and 4G LTE internet speed work very well in Q.

---

Weather is very nice here! It was warm today, and last night was mild temps.

 

[Mac J]

Take pictures of every g&@ d$&@ thing. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's from the Q. Take us there.
I'm envious.
Moderators, can we set aside a thread or topic for this?

 

[caseyc]

An FYI for driving directions. E.Kuehn St is also known as Dome Rock Rd E according to my Garmin GPS. After you turn hard right at the road block barricade, travel on a road called Mitchell Mine Rd per Garmin GPS. Drive a rather long-ish way down a rather narrow gravel dark road. At some point will see a simple road sign with a left arrow. You have gone too far if you pass the left arrow sign. You need to turn hard right into a slightly paved gravel path approx 1/4 block BEFORE the left arrow sign. There is no sign indicating to make hard right into the path leading to campsite. You need to drive down approx the distance of 1-1/2 to 2 blocks down the gravel path until you see a group of vans parked. It's VERY hard to find this spot in the dark at night. Even finding this spot during daylight iis challenging. At least this was my experience. Good luck!

 

[peacetara]

Sunny, definitely come out! The Rtr doesn't even start until the 7th, and doesn't stop until the 20th, so you are totally fine, and lots of us full timers hang out even after the RTR is over. Tho I personally won't, I have a previous engagement somewhere else on the 20th, tho I likely will be back thru to visit after my meetings I have on the 20th. Plus it's nice and warm and sunny out here, with lots and lots of free camping

 

[akrvbob]

SunnyR wrote:
My main question is: If it takes another week for me to get there, will I still have time to meet folks and learn more how to live this life? I know folks stay longer but are they groups, like you are now?
============
Sunny, yes there will still be people here. The RTR lasts until the 21st and by then the crowds will have thinned out, but there will still be people left, but not nearly as many. And usually there will be a small group that hangs together afterwards, although most often they will move somewhere else. Last year about 8 of us went down to Yuma afterwards, this year I think a group of us will go towards Parker, but nothing is sure until it happens.
Bob

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Hi Tara, hope we get to meet you while you're here.
The weather has been really nice lately. A couple hours before sunrise it gets the coldest, but 4:30 this morning it was sweater temp.

Mac, I'll post some pics from around town and other stuff on... https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=5601&page=2
soon as I can. We have a very slow wifi connection, so its hard to upload sometimes. (I've got a folder of resized shots ready to post).

I hope other folks will add their pics too.

Oh yeah, I'm not a techie, but the wifi that's offered at the RV parks, laundry, and other places is so over worked that sometimes its worse than the old dial-up (for those who remember that). There's no hope of watching Youtube or downloading a movie unless you have your own service.

Damn good thing having internet isn't a requirement for us to enjoy our season here

 

[caseyc]

Actually, there's really not much to take pictures of. There is a small gathering of peeps here at this time. No planned events as of yet that I know of. Just a casual crowd hanging out in the desert. I took pictures of cactus trees this morning as there are lots along the path to the campsite. First time I've seen cactus trees in the desert as I've never been to any desert before. Heck, this is even my first time in Arizona! Downtown Quartszite had a lot of people today all over the place, especially at Burger King, Carl's Jr and McDonalds. Lots of families and kids running around downtown. Tomorrow I'm going to check out this one particular street that has lots of small shops that sell all kind of things. It's sort of like a tent city for a shopping mall is the best way I can describe it. I got there too late today at 5pm and the shops were mostly closed by then. I didn't realize the time difference that it's 1 hour later in Quartszite versus California time, duuuh!

Take pictures of every g&@ d$&@ thing. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's from the Q. Take us there.
I'm envious.
Moderators, can we set aside a thread or topic for this?

---

Jay, no YouTube or Netflix? Unacceptable, haha! And yes I remember dial up with AOL !

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Thanks for stopping by, Bob.
There's a wealth of knowledge gathering here and good people willing to share what they've learned.
Besides the RTR community itself, vandwelling is very common here, as it is in much of the west. You'll meet many of like mind.

Casey, hit 'em with some desert nature pics. Keep your eye open for roadrunners and you might get a glimpse of a coyote or two. Sunsets are often really nice without ambient light from town.
Give a shout when you're in town and we'll meet up on our bikes.

 

[caseyc]

Update here. There is now a thin pole about 3 feet high planted on the ground with yellow and blue thingies wrapped around the pole. When you see this, immediately make a hard right turn past the pole onto the gravel semi paved trail. Go about 1 block down the trail and you will see the group there. The pole is approx 1/4 block before the yellow color left arrow sign as I previously mentioned.

 

[Mac J]

Almost 200 posts about the Quartsite rally and I've only seen about 6 photos. Am I looking in the wrong place or is it hard to post pictures from the site due to WiFi etc?


Edited for spelling

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Sorry Mac, My wifi connection really sux and its hard to post pics even when I crop and resize as small as 1800 X 1000 pixels.
I've been wanting to try sometime around 4am, but I'm usually sleeping too solid to drag myself out of my warm bed.
I'll see what I can do.

Always welcome pics by others too...Please

 

[Mac J]

bindi&us I figured it was something like that. Don't fret about it, I'm sure others have the same problem and the photos will start popping up in the weeks to follow. It just surprised me that so many people talked about the rally and so few posted about it.

 

[caseyc]

Having been at the current RTR event for one week, I have some insight on this. First primary issue is that not everyone has internet access, especially in the rather remote campsite ground which is off the beaten path. Not everyone is self-sufficient with their own mobile wifi hotspot either through their phone or through a wifi emitting device. Although it's only a relatively short several miles to get to "downtown" Quartzsite for free McDonalds wifi, it's a pain in the @$$ to travel the long dirt gravel dark road to town and back. I was barely driving 10 to 15 mph through the remote path that gets you to town. I noticed that many of the campers stayed in place at the camp site rather than travelling back and forth to town. My guess is that the drive is just too much of a hassle. The other major issue (major in my opinion) is that this forum requires reducing the file size down to KBs (kilobytes) instead of MBs (megabytes). Almost all pictures taken with current cell phone camera (plus "real" cameras) produces at least a 3 MB or larger file size. This website won't take a full size picture and will give you a rejection notice if you try to do so. That means you must manually reduce the file size of each and every picture you try to upload to this site. For many people, I'm guessing this means going through the trouble of using a laptop computer for manually downsizing the file size. Fortunately, I have apps on my smartphone that can reduce the file size, plus be able to upload to this website through my phone via Verizon's great coverage at Quartzsite. Even though I can do all this through my phone at the spurt of the moment, it still require a bit of manipulation going through many steps to actually post a picture to this site through my phone. Anyone, thought I'd give some insight on this.

Casey

Almost 200 posts about the Quartsite rally and I've only seen about 6 photos. Am I looking in the wrong place or is it hard to post pictures from the site due to WiFi etc?


Edited for spelling