Two Rivers Renaissance Faire

   This is a fairly small faire but with three stages there’s always something happening. Performances include musicians, belly dancers, magicians, jugglers, sword fighters, trained birds and comedy with audience participation. Demonstrations also take place at the individual camps. Many booths sell handmade items and everything appears to be finely crafted.

  
  The ground is very hard packed with short grass so rolling around is easy. The faire area is small enough that getting from place to place is not tiring.

  The parking lot is large enough for any RV.   Faire
   32.67052, -114.59139

Fortuna Pond Boondocking

  UPDATE Jan 2023 - closed to camping, day use only

Boondocking  spots at Fortuna Pond are located along the shoreline with nice views of the water. This is a popular site with RVs lined up fairly close together but it’s peaceful and quiet with the exception of noise from small planes late in the evening and occasional bombing noise from the air force range. There are  some good sites nestled under the trees where small RVs and tenters who want a shaded spot can camp.

  Amenities include an accessible porta-potti and a trash dumpster but nothing else.

 Big rigs will fit but some of the short access roads are steep and uneven. Overhanging tree branches can make circling the lake impossible. Visitors with large RVs may want to camp on the north side of the lake and use caution when turning onto the road around the lake. The road from Ave. 7 E follows the levee and is 3.4 miles of washboard dirt so the trip in is rough. The directions on the BLM website are very accurate.

 Fortuna Pond
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Rubber Tramp Homes

   I loved the diversity of this gathering of rubber tramps. Many of the other groups camping here on Quartzsite BLM lands are very homogeneous with row upon row of huge class A motorhomes and fifth wheels but the rubber tramp homes run the full gamut from tents to class As. The tramps themselves are full-timers and part-timers, old hands and newbies, retired and still working, very young and pretty old, single people and couples – a wonderful group of people sharing their love of traveling and nature for what was a much too short two weeks. :-)

         

         

         

         

         

                           

         

         

         

See you all next year!

Rubber Tramp Rendezvous Photo Essay

              14 days of beautiful sunshine and gentle breezes

                      Morning seminars led by Bob Wells
                       A change of pace – poetry by Randy
          
                       Classes and gatherings in mid afternoon
                                     Meditation with Atlee

                        Question and answer with Technomadia

  Impromptu sharing of food with friends and planned community meals.
                    Potato bake hosted by Donna and Mark

                     Peter and assistants preparing soup with cans contributed by everyone. Sounds yucky but…

                                                          Yum!

                                  even the dogs agreed! :-)
         
                When we weren’t busy with all of that we were…
                            checking out everyone’s homes,

                                              walking dogs,

                                    enjoying jam sessions

                                      and drumming at sunset,

                             spending time with old friends,


                                       making new friends,

                            and marveling at the sunsets.


  Now this gathering of travelers is coming to an end and I’ve discovered that I didn’t take nearly enough pictures  and we didn’t have time to get to know and talk with everyone. We didn’t meet many of the people on the outskirts of the camp and we couldn’t keep names straight on half of the people that we did meet but this was the friendliest, most helpful, accepting group of people. We hope to attend many more RTRs!

First Day of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous!

  The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous is a great place for new RVers to learn everything about fulltiming while staying within a budget. The RTR, which is held on BLM land on the outskirts of Quartzsite, Arizona, lasts for two weeks with seminars almost everyday on a variety of subjects. For experienced RVers and van dwellers it’s a wonderful place to hang out, lend a hand if needed and catch up on what everyone’s been doing since the last RTR.
This is the fifth RTR and the first one that we’ve really attended. We did catch the last days of the 2013 RTR where we met many fulltime RVers and van dwellers so we’re looking forward to visiting with old friends and meeting all of the new guys this year.
I probably won’t be posting much for awhile but please check back in a couple of weeks. :-)

Gila River Lone Butte Casino

   We’ve stayed in this casino lot on previous trips but the policy on overnight RV stays has changed and it’s no longer permitted. Signs may be posted soon. However there is a chance that overnighting will be permitted again so it worth checking from time to time. The Gila River Indian Tribe owns two other casinos in the Phoenix area and I don’t know if the no overnight RV parking policy extends to all of them.

  The security guys were nice and let us stay the night before informing us in the morning of the policy change. The reason for the change is abuse by just a few RVers so when staying in any parking lot (casino or store) please pick up after your dogs, do not allow any dripping from your holding tanks, park away from the main entrance if there isn’t a dedicated RV section, do not leave bags of trash on the blacktop and follow all posted rules. Businesses are granting us a favor by allowing overnight parking and it takes just a few problems for them to decide it’s too much trouble.  Casino
33.28893, -111.94025

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

  Casa Grande, built by slathering caliche mud over a framework of vertical wooden posts filled in with horizontal branches, is over 600 years old. It was the center of an agriculture community of about 2000 people who constructed miles of canals from the Gila River to irrigate their farmland. The site was abandoned in the early 1400s for unknown reasons. Most of the buildings have deteriorated but the large size of Casa Grande has kept it fairly intact. The current roof was added in 1932 to protect it from further damage.

  The site has a visitor center, introductory film, and ranger or self guided tours the ruins.


  Everything is accessible. A short paved path leads to a good view of the ruins. The ground around the ruins is hard packed dirt and easy to roll along.

The parking lot has long RV spaces.   Casa Grande
32.99469, -111.532