Quartzsite, Arizona is known for two things, and both of them have to do with the state’s 12.1 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land. With so much open real estate and an attitude of “live and let live,” the town of around 4,000 residents swells to over one million in the winter months, mainly due to RVers camping in the desert for free, and rock hounds who have been scouring the place since the 1960s.
Camping at this world-famous locale was in our Top Ten destinations when we were putting together our Blue Sky itinerary for our year on the road. We’d get a nice diesel RV, fit it out with a massive battery bank and a roof full of solar panels, and camp wherever the hell we felt like it, but mostly Quartzsite.
When Blue Sky met Gas Prices, that idea went straight down the gurgler, but we still planned to spend at least one night in this RVer’s bucket-list destination. We purposely planned to avoid the big January Tent Show that draws massive crowds, and instead would make the most of late October’s balmy weather, when the days are in the 80s and the nights are cool. We’d meet fascinating people, and congratulate ourselves for our reckless abandon.
But this is an El Nino year and climate change is real. Like Lake Havasu City, Quartzsite was seeing a longer summer than usual, and the day we were due to head to the desert for our overnight was forecast to be 107F. That’s the kind of weather in which city people temporarily living in tin cans die when they don’t have electricity to run their air conditioners.
We had to make a decision, and the best way to make a decision is to base it on reality. With that in mind, we agreed to drive to Quartzsite in Nippy on a day when the temperature was 103, and we’d sit in the car on BLM land with only the windows rolled down, to see how long we could last.
We were highly motivated. We really wanted the overnight experience. We’d been looking forward to it for four years, and the movie Nomadland, shot partly at Quartzsite, only served to increase our desire to visit that magical place. But we also know first-hand what it feels like to be in 100+ in the rig, with the kind of A/C that simply cannot keep up with extreme heat.
The drive between Lake Havasu City and Parker was gorgeous due to the mountainous pass along State Road 95, before the intermittent torture of 35 miles of teeth-rattling road surface the rest of the way to Quartzsite. We each racked up a few thousand points for facing our personal demons, and were pretty pleased with ourselves.
Plamosa Road’s BLM land was our goal, and it was the first boondocking area we reached. Much to our surprise, there was no one there. Not one single RV in a place where there should have been many. That scenario was far too remote for us, so we moved on to our next choice, which was Hi Jolly BLM land.
Hi Jolly had a small smattering of rigs in various states of nice-lookingness, mostly leaning toward the rustic. Some started leaning that way back in the 1950s. But we’re not RV snobs, and rough-looking rigs have great stories to tell.
Still, there was an air of slight menace about the one parked near the entry to Hi Jolly, and the road further in was made of angry stones, so we kept our distance, which is the polite thing to do when you’re boondocking, anyway.
We grabbed lunch to-go at the friendly Times Three Family Restaurant, then went to sit in the desert to see how long we’d last.
After 15 minutes, we knew we might have to switch gears. We didn’t make it a full hour before we agreed we’d take a different route to Mesa and stay at a campground with electrical hookups.
But it was okay. We drove around town, soaked up the atmosphere, talked to the locals (all of whom said they were surprised by how hot it still was, and mentioned the outdoor vendors hadn’t even shown up yet), and visited the grave of Hi Jolly, to pay our respects.
Hi Jolly (whose real name was Hadji Ali) was hired by the U.S. Army in 1857 as a camel herder for the Camel Corps, which was charting a wagon road across New Mexico and Arizona. The outbreak of the Civil War ended that adventure, and Hi Jolly returned to Quartzsite and became an entrepreneur.
Camels are now the town’s “icon,” and its quirky cemetery is named for that good man, who lies buried under the desert’s gravel blanket.
And what of the “naked bookseller” who is a legend in Quartzsite, and who we had hoped to meet? He passed in 2019, having spent his life mostly undressed, performing boogie-woogie piano tunes across the country and, in a way, having been the father of Male Stripping. We assume he was laid to rest in just the little “pouch” he wore for the sake of modesty, and is living his best afterlife under Arizona’s burning sun.
Veness Travel Media 