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Southeast (Gulf Coast), Texas, United States

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Winter Trip -- 2014

We left home on Wednesday, 08Jan2014 to begin our annual January trek to Arizona and the desert around Quartzsite.  We normally head to Quartzsite to camp with a lot of our friends………. Tiffin Owners first, and then the old RVAmerica crowd at a different site in the desert. 

We visit with the RV’ers, shop for RV “stuff” at the big tent that is set up each year, and visit the local stores and flea markets that handle a lot of stuff applicable to RV’s and RV travel.

The beginning of this trip was 35 miles southeast of home to Port Lavaca, Texas, where we attended one day of a rally for the Texas Bluebonnet Allegros Club at the Texas Lakeside RV Resort.

We could only attend for one day due to our schedule to meet up with other Tiffin owners on the way to Quartzsite plus since we don’t have ‘local’ channels on our satellite TV system, I needed to be in either San Antonio or El Paso on Saturday afternoon to get the playoff football games on OTA!.

I also needed to be at the rally on Friday because I had arranged a tour of the ALCOA plant in nearby Point Comfort, where I worked for 34 years before retiring in 2005.  A couple of good guys that I used to work with, Dwayne Maly and Mike Scott conducted the presentation on the plant function and the tour.  They did a really good job……… as I was told by the 16 RV’ers that went on the tour.   Here is a picture of the plant sign and the folks in the safety training class………..

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I accompanied them to the plant and sat through the presentation, but when they went to take the tour, I left to meet Patsy at the campground and get on the road to Quartzsite.

Patsy and I left shortly before noon, and after spending Friday night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Fort Stockton, TX on I-10 in west Texas, and we arrived in El Paso about 1:00PM Saturday…….. in plenty of time to watch the Saturday games.

On Sunday, we left El Paso early, and drove to Tucson, AZ and got set up in a campground in time to watch the Sunday afternoon games!!

Since the games on Sunday lasted into the night, we stayed at the Tucson campground both Saturday night and Sunday night.  On Monday, we headed to a campground in Gila Bend, AZ, Holt’s Shell, where we met up with our Tiffin friends. The road to Gila Bend from Tucson is I-8, and is where you really begin to see the tall Saguaro cactus plants…….

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In our travels through the ‘fracking’ areas north of Victoria, TX on the first day of travel, we drove through steady rains, and the rain combined with the dirt left on the highways by the oil field tanker trucks left a real mess on the Bus. We looked much like the vehicles coming from the north with the “snow mud” on them.  At the Gila Bend campground, we decided to wash the Bus:

Before

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After

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About the time that we finished up the wash job, our friends showed up at the campground.  We shared a dinner in one of the coaches, and made plans for driving to the desert camp site the next day.

We arrived at the camp in the desert on Tuesday, and we stayed with the Tiffin owners until the following Tuesday.  Here are some pictures of the coaches parked, our fire ring that was used nightly, and a couple of pictures of some of our gatherings!

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On the second Tuesday, we moved closer to the tent area where the RVAmerica group was camped.  That Tuesday was the day that most of them began showing up!  Here are some pictures of the second camp site one evening during a nice sunset…..

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While we were visiting the vendors, Patsy and I came upon the Progressive Insurance booth and they were taking pictures of people with Flo and turning them into postcards….. so we did it!!!  They also gave us the file to download!

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We bought several items while in Quartzsite including some high dollar Cummins parts and some new KONI shocks for the Bus.

Here are some other pictures of the Quartzsite “Town Area”…….

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The following Friday, 24Jan08, Patsy and I departed from Quartzsite and our friends and headed toward Phoenix. 

More on our Winter 2014 trip in the next posts.

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