Arizona Trip -- Post 1

I flew out of Marquette on Thursday and tried to do a blog update from 28,000 feet up. I was just ready to send the data when the free wifi ended. I didn't want to pay, so I'll finish the frozen waterfalls posting later.

In the mean time, I would like to share with you the first pictures from the Arizona trip. I am sitting in my rented RV in a dirt "dry camping" area right in the middle of the chaos at Quartzite. There are over 100,000 RVs and lots of other people. The dealers are spread out throughout the city, but mainly on this one 3 mile long corridor. There are not just rocks for sale -- but everything you can imagine.

In Marquette two years ago a stolen Russion plane landed for refueling and repairs.  It was discovered that it was stolen and there the plane still sits.  I heard that someone purchased it, but for what ever reason it is still there.  The snowplows just go around it.

Here is a shot I took after we took off.  You can see the airport and that same Russian plane.

When I worked in Corporate America and flew a million and a half miles, I saw many sunsets from my airplane seat.  It  has been a while....

You know you are in Arizona when you see palm trees.  My friends, Gerald and Jill, who left Grand Rapids last weekend, picked me up in Phoenix and drove me to the RV rental place.  By the time we went grocery shopping, it was too late to try to drive across the desert to somewhere we had never been.  So we found a campsite.  Thus, the first night I only drove my rented RV about 10 miles.

Scenes from the campground....

Then the next day we drove the hour and a half to Quartzite.  What chaos.  But we found the Rice Ranch and paid our $7 to dry camp.  The picture below is my rented RV.

Here are both of our RVs, side by side.

In three hours or so I spent half my budget.  There is no question that the prices are better in Quartzite than at the Tucson show.  Here is a shot of part of the Western Woods booth.

There are more non-rock booths than there are booths that sell rocks and minerals -- at least where we were yesterday.  This is an ice cream maker that we saw.

And here is a sphere maker.  I have a lot of people ask me what they look like.  You can see the rough cut rock in the middle of the three grinding surfaces.

The sunset over the mountains lit up the sky.