Drive to Rockville, aka Quartzsite

It seemed like bad luck was following us once again on the second half of the trip. In addition to having our hot air balloon ride canceled, we had our door window also having a crack in it, and needing to be replaced. A guy in Chandler fixing our large windshield said that they had a mobile guy in Quartzsite, which was in Arizona. We might have gone to Yuma or another southern Arizona town by Mexico, but we did not as we got ready to leave after walking out the dogs and saying goodbye to the orange trees of the R.V. park. All we had done in Phoenix was shop and do errands, and see where Mom and Dad's honeymoon was (awesome and beautiful) and a failed hot balloon flight where it was canceled. (cool to see others fly but disappointing.) Speaking of that, Dad called them to confirm that no money had been charged, and they said they wouldn't refund it and that it had. They offered us another flight free of charge, but we had already spent a lot of money and we were leaving to Quartzsite. Dad argued and made his point and went through several lines of service, and it was a stressful morning and a late start as we pulled out. They did have an operative in Palm Springs area, where we thought we would be going. Hmmmmm....

We drove down the highway away from Phoenix. I blogged a little, and read some of my book, almost done with A Tramp Abroad, finally. I'd been reading it a super long time, ever since Southern Texas. Only one chapter left. As I blogged and looked at all the shrub and desert dust, we passed into Quartzsite. Dad told me it was with a Q. We rode down the hill from the highway, a lot of desert around, with brown and black mountains making up the horizon. There was an assortment of trinket shops, with an ample amount of little trailers and flags and old houses with a lot of rocky junk in it. There were tons of campgrounds among this mix. It was very dusty and probably very trashy too, all these signs advertising rocks and such, man it was crazy. Dad said that rocks and minerals were abundant in this area, and so that's why they named it Quartzsite, like Quartz, the rock. We came down to a gravel and dirt area with a few R.V.'s and a trailer with boardwalk. Inside it smelled of odors as a lady on the left with a counter and computers, desk and other rooms with no teeth in her mouth, young however, helped us in. We parked by a major road under a bridge where a Rotary billboard advertised the end of polio.

After pulling the sides out, Rebecca REALLY wanted to go rock shopping among all the cheap little stores, as she really likes rocks. I finished A Tramp Abroad however first with Mark Twain listing all the good ole American Country food he wanted to try after visiting Europe, and then I finished it. It was humorous and funny and cool to learn about other countries and people, but very lengthy at times and I was just ready to read a few easy books. I bought an Alex Rider Teenage Spy novel, number 6 in the series, Ark Angel. As we passed by some places with large chunks of rocks in the front and bones and all these flashing signs, plus a place with tents where they have a big festival. This was really a small town with nothing to do, so would we just do what Rebecca wanted with all the rocks and just go shopping among all these trinket shops? We parked in front of a chain link fence on the right with a sign saying "T Rocks." It had a building to the left of us, with a counter and some people with the roof overhanging. All the rocks were on cylinder flat on the top bins, and even though I wasn't too interested I did look around at all the statues. One of them looked like a circular oatmeal with all the oats on, literally!

Others were round and polished, although some were blue and sharp and kind of clear, all kinds of different colors and shapes and sizes. Rebecca was in hog heaven, picking up some, trading another, running two and fro and jumping up and down...boy did she love that.

I saw a long rectangular blue quartz from Brazil, which I got to mark the time at Quartzsite. It was not even as long or as wide as my pinkie finger. It was one cent on the scale, so the lady gave it to me free. Thank you. She had blonde hair. Rebecca got dogs out of rocks, and several other things. I read about Max giving a speech about things people should be aware of and getting a phone call where his ear was blown up. Very pleasant. The lady asked me if I was reading and I told her I was, and she talked about her daughter who couldn't get involved in books and all. I suggested a site called justread.gov or something, and I hope her daughter is reading now. She might be reading The Hunger Game's Series. Yuck.

We went home with a whole lot of rocks, even a turtle Mom wanted for MaPoc to ship to her. Although dusty, dinghy, and with nothing to do, I did enjoy seeing T Rocks and Quartzsite, although I could've done without us going there.

That night I slept in the back while Dad slept in the front, guarding against weirdos.

Goodbye for now.

T Rocks mean T Rex? Because they did have a lot of big rocks there,

Andrew.