Wednesday, January 20, 2010

We went to Q!

It rained and rained.  All day, once it started.  We went to the big tent, and milled around inside looking at all the wares offered for sale.  I must have been in the scrooge attitude, since I didn't buy a thing.

The look in this guy's face kind of told about the rainy day.  I took the picture to show the inside of the big tent with all the booths, but instead he became the standout.  Must have had water on the lens too.



The one thing that really interested us, was the folks that were selling a caravan down into old Mexico.  They put together the wagon train concept of RVing where you head from prearranged campsite to campsite.  Most of them speak Spanish fairly well, so that is the bridge to getting along in Mexico. They call it a wagon master and a tail gunner, following along behind to make sure no one is left behind in some sort of trouble. It was really pricey though, and the thought of dropping $3,600 is something this tight wad was struggling with.

We got into the discussion about Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel, as compared to Mexico's plain Low Sulfur Diesel, and what that would do to my late model engine.  They, of course, wanting to sell their trips, said aw heck it don't make no difference!  So if it doesn't make any difference, why do we go thru the exercise anyway?

The one thing that it would do is cause the engine to go into regeneration more often.  If I left the USA with my 80 gallon tank full, it would take us about 700 miles, so if the trip was 1,200 miles, you wouldn't need too much of the higher sulfur fuel anyway.  I wouldn't want to void any Cummins warranties though.  That could get really expensive really fast.

Rain or no rain, the food tents were the big hit outside.  Since most sell things that are concentrated sugar, such as Ice Cream, or mini sugar donuts, its all off limits for me.  Can you tell its raining from looking at all these folks?




As always, my back and neuropathy got the better of me and I had to go back to the car.  It was parked on the outskirts of the parking lots, and quite a hike for me.  That is always a limiting factor for us when we go to see these activities.  The able bodied folks take all the close in parking, and those of us with problems, can't even go.  I shouldn't start a rant, but that is part of the reason for the motor scooter, since you can usually park up by the bicycle racks near the front door.

We drove over into California, just to look around, and that is when the clouds began to open up.  There is a range of mountains to the West of Q, and they must have been holding back the rain.  Blythe didn't seem overly inviting, as we didn't find any shopping.  We didn't have any way of searching the internet, other than my cell phone, which is really slow and too small to read.

The rain followed us back to Q and by then was coming down hard.  The West interchange was jammed with folks at a stand still.  As we headed East, we could see the backup of vehicles all the way to the parking lot at the big tent.   We must have got out just in time.

Back here in Mesa, we went to Garcia's Mexican restaurant, finding it to be almost empty.  The cold rain had chased all the Arizonans inside for the night.  Remember they don't see stuff like this too often, where for us Midwesterners it is more common place.  50 and heavy rain describes most of the fall in Kansas, LOL!

About midnight, the rain stopped and the sky cleared.  It was gone as quickly as it came!

Retired Rod

2 comments:

  1. Just think of all the money you saved by not buying anything, and Blythe not having anyplace to shop!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Quartzsite looks pretty much the same as we remembered from the past 2 years we have visited. Thanks for posting those pics, now I don't have to bother going!

    ReplyDelete

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