December 29, 2003

I headed south from Parker, AZ to Quartzite, CA. This is where all the motor homes evidently come for the winter. There are an unbelievable number of huge motor homes and fifth wheel trailers around here. The town is just cranking up for the big shows that are held this winter. I stopped and looked around a few of the vendors setups. It is something like Sturgis during bike week only this is two or three months of motor homes/ trailers. There are huge parks set up for camping in trailer park fashion. It looks like a lot of people just leave their outfits here and slide in for the winter. Everybody was bitching about the cold weather and it was nice to have a vest on for sure. I guess if I was just standing around a booth I would have liked some long underwear on. The vendors are just now setting up for the big bang opening on the first of the year. I think it started out years ago with rock and gems, but now there are all kinds of vendors. As I was headed into town I saw a couple of campgrounds run by the BLM. I found out in town that these are free for 14 day stay. They are dry camps only. It was starting to get late so I headed back out north and stopped in to see just what the deal is. There was a camp host and he is really a hoot. He got on the subject of illegal aliens, government control, conspiracy, etc. He just gives a little permit paper so the rangers will not hassle ya. There are really not many campers here and  all but a few are in those big rigs. I found a place at the very end that is somewhat secluded and backed the pod into a spot near a rock fire ring. I have my little tin reflector and set it up in the fire pit area and positioned it to reflect the heat light into the pod. I couldn’t believe my good fortune at finding an old dead tree on the road up to the camp. It looks like it was dead for years and finally fell over. It was a danger to be sure, so I whipped out my chainsaw and cleaned up the danger. I put the wood in the back of the pickup and safely moved the hazard material out of the way. It is really dense heavy wood and it makes a dandy fire. It’s not real cold but it is nice to have a little fire to look at and as I write this. I think I will hang out here for a day or two and check out the activities in town. Town is only a couple of miles, so it isn’t far to go. 

My neighbors are from Idaho and they just sold their house and are down here for the winter. They will move around from campground to campground on the fourteen day cycle to keep the blm happy. Evidently there is a lot of musical campgrounds happening. Evidently this is the slow period between Christmas and New Years. After new years the population of the area will pick up.

When I came back to camp I saw a guy with one of those huge motor homes with pullouts and a satellite dish out side. I stopped to ask if he could get the internet on his dish. He told me no. but that he had talked with one vendor in town that is set up and selling wifi service in town. So, the next day I went into town after Ely and I took a hike after breakfast. I found the small booth set up and spent a frustrating half hour with a very nice lady who couldn’t get my computer to hook up to the signal. I kept asking for the Geek and finally he showed up. We fiddled with it and I even let him drive it to no avail. He was really getting frustrated when finally he took the computer out in the street and pointed it ( showed the tower) to it. Evidently the truck was parked in front of their booth and it interfered with the reception. The bottom line here is that for nine dollars and sixty cents I get twenty four hours of internet time. That figures out to fourty cents an hour. If you buy more time you get cheaper rates. I doubt if I will use up the time by the time I leave but he said that the time is good until may first I think. If on my way back I could stop and use it again.

It hooks up between 1mbps and 11mbps which is way faster than anything I have had at home. I have been using the library computers along the road and they all seem to have screaming fast connections. It will be hard to go back to the old 21,000kbs land line if I get a line put in on the hill.

With this system can’t use my Outlook program and have to go to earthlink website to send mail or use mail2web.com.

I sit in the shade of bush as I write this. There is a guy with no shirt and only shorts and shoes on. Nice day for sure…