Boondocking: Living Without Hookups
Where Lies Quartzsite's Future?
By Russ and Tiņa De Maris

It was kind of a dusty Cinderalla story. A little-known fuel stop along Interstate 10 between Palm Springs and Pheonix was "discovered." Her "Prince Charming," wasn't rich, but cut a dashing figure. It started out with folks backing their pickup trucks up to dusty roads and "tailgating" rocks, gems, and minerals. Soon other vendors got in the act, and it was said that during the season, "If you can't find it in Quartzsite, it just doesn't exist."

Quartzsite, Arizona became a national gathering spot for RVers. When the cold winds began to blow up north, the 'birds and fulltimers would flock into this sleepy little burg. No glass slippers, maybe, but the economy of this spot that 3,000 souls call their year-around home gathered strength. As the dollars rolled into city hall, the ideas began to take root.

It didn't take long for the two major highway intersections, a bane to everyone's existence at high season, to be retrofitted. Gone were the "four way" stop signs. Turn lanes and stop lights became the order of the day. Narrow bridges along the town's main street, the venerable "B-10" were soon widened. Senior living apartments sprang up from the desert like verbena after a rainstorm. Local land owners soon found themselves with city water in their tap, as opposed to something they themselves pumped out of the ground. A local politician wrote in the town's newsletter, that soon Quartzsite will be, "A real town."

Wait a minute. Some of us thought that Quartzsite already was a "real town."

What is it that makes Quartzsite something other than a "two truck stops and a greasy spoon," wide spot along the interstate? What accounts for the growth in the Quartzsite area, the demand for a genuine Walmart store? What makes Quartzsite, Quartzsite? You got it, all those folks with motorhomes, fifth wheels, travel trailers, vans, cars, tents, and for a few that we sometimes overlook, a tarp and a bicycle under a bush. It's all those folks who come here for the heat in the winter, the sunshine, those crowds we love to complain about, and yes, those vendors who put up tents and hawk their wares.

But there's a rumbling in the mesquite bushes, ladies and gentlemen. And it's not the sound of passing jets from the air base down Yuma way. Its the sound of disgruntled vendors. It's the sound of what some call "progress."

Last year the vendors at "Four Corners," took a hit. It was learned their spots would not be available come fall of 2005. A major RV dealer bought out the old Silver Buckle Saloon property, and the old gravel lot gave way to asphalt and Class A motorhomes -- not lived in, mind you, but for sale. La Mesa RV had made its new sales staging area in downtown Quartzsite.

This year the denizens of "Rice Ranch" got their pink slips. Dozens of vendors on the North Side of this trading palace will have to vacate come March 2006. Yet another RV dealer is taking over the space, and vendors with permanent structures -- the kind that folks at town hall like to see -- will have to yank up their buildings and vamoose. Vendors had already stampeded out of the "Main Event" when they said their rents went through the roof.

Officials at town hall point with pride to the town's progress. Plans are already in the works for new, two-story condominiums. The top floor will be (by Quartzsite standards) palatial residences. The ground floors will be dedicated to "vendor spaces." Developers are sure people will be happy to plunk down their dollars and set up shop.

A Canadian snowbird told us, "We liked Quartzsite's rough edges." Past-tense. If the decline in "winter visitors" matches the falloff of vendors, the good folks at town hall won't need to worry about how to spend all the sales tax revenues. Maybe they can save money by shutting off the power to those two new stoplights they may not need. Prince Charming will be riding off into the sunset.