Boondocking at Quartzsite

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The last step of our preparation for boondocking in Quartzsite AZ was to empty our black and grey holding tanks and fill up our fresh water tank. Supposedly our fresh water tank is 105 gallons but I really don't have any means to verify that other than that when I went to fill the tank at our campground, it took what seemed like forever! The water pressure at Leaf Verde RV Park hadn't been great so I'm guessing that had a lot to do with it. We also wanted to top off our diesel tank since it is the source of both our heat and domestic hot water when we are not hooked up to utilities. We found a station about 25 miles before Quartzsite that had a reasonable price and easy access. 

The drive along Interstate 10 west gives a great view of all the RVs that were already camped near town for the big RV show. You could see clusters of several hundred rigs scattered in one direction and several hundred more in a different area. The ones that were parked just off the access road for the interstate seemed to be just a bit close to the noisy expressway for our liking. The Newmar group was meeting in one of the boondocking spots about 7 miles south of I-10 - Roadrunner BLM Camping area. We had GPS coordinates for the location and some directions. "Turn west on 53rd St North (formerly LaPaz Valley Rd) about 200 yards and then go northwest into the desert."

The last instruction about going northwest into the desert was only slightly frightening. I was anticipating sand and tracks going every which way. But the area is much more of a hard packed sandy gravel and some of the driving 'lanes' were apparent once you were on them. Ted (our rally host) had placed big Newmar flags at strategic locations to get you to the right spot. It was good because there were many other groups of rigs here and there, and from a distance they all look about the same.  We pulled up to the first volunteer from the group and he hopped on his golf cart to bring us to our spot for the next week or so depending on how well we do with our holding tanks.

There were already nearly 80 Newmar rigs situated in our little corner of the desert. Six of the motor homes formed a 150 foot ring around the designated gathering area. Near the middle was a big fire ring and stacks of firewood people had brought along. They had multiple tables and canopies up along with all sorts of grills, smokers and propane stoves to help with food prep for the next 5 days. The first day we were here was nearly 80 and sunny but the forecast was for less than stellar weather the next couple of days. We ended up with just about 90 rigs in total, well less than the 113 that had registered but I suspect the weather forecast kept some folks away. 

View from Our Roof on First Morning of Rally

From talking with some of the folks that have been coming back here year after year, we have learned a bit about how the BLM land works around here. BLM stands for Bureau of Land Management. The federal government owns and controls many of the large land parcels here in Arizona and southern California. There are basically two types of lands where boondocking is permitted. One type is a dispersed camping area like we are at. As you enter the area, there is a campground host where you are supposed to register and fill out a form that gives you permission to stay here for 14 days for free. In our case, the rally host had gotten the forms from the host so we just did the paperwork at our site. According to the rules, after 14 days you need to move out of the area and go elsewhere. You may choose another dispersed BLM area but it must be one more than 25 miles away. So in theory, one could bounce back and forth between two free sites every two weeks.

Another type of BLM land is a Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA). There are several of these just a couple miles north of our area and a few others scattered about the general area. They have dispersed camping as well but also have dumpsters for trash, a dump station for your holding tanks and a place for potable water to fill your fresh water tank. The area we are in has none of these amenities. But the LTVA does cost money, not much money. You can either get a two week pass for $40 or a yearly pass for $180. Actually the yearly pass is only for something like 6 months, but nobody in their right mind would be out here in the summer. Several of the people putting on our rally had purchased 2 week passes for the LTVA so they could bring all our groups trash up to the dumpster each day.

The rally organizers had all sort of activities planned for each day. On some days, there were vendors that came to give some sort of presentation to the group, usually with the intent of selling what they were pitching. One of the morning Mac the Fire Guy came for a talk and demo. We had heard a lot about this guy on several RV podcasts we listen to but had never had the chance to see him in person until now. He is a full time RVer and a retired fire chief that now travels the various RV shows giving presentations and selling smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. 

Unlike the other vendors that simply explain why you 'must' have what they are trying to sell you, Mac explains the dangers of fire in RVs and just how little time you would have to exit the rig if it were to catch on fire - about 20 seconds! But to make it more interesting, he travels with another retired fireman and they put on quite the demo after the talk. First he has a skillet that he pours in a mixture of gas and diesel and then sets it on fire. As is burns, it catches the plywood 'wall' of his demo stage. Next he had one of our fellow campers try to put it out, but with what turned out to be a dud fire extinguisher. This was to show that many of the standard extinguishers in our rigs don't function. Another camper was given a working one and put the flame out. Next he starts the fire up again and shows how well the small foam extinguisher he is selling works.  It was a good demo but we already have a few of his extinguishers in our rig. 

Oh No! The Place if Burning Down

The Fire is Out

In the middle of the afternoon we would all get together for drinks and munchies followed by some sort of dinner provided by the host along with sides we all brought. When there are 80-some sides to try, there is no chance to taste them all. The strange thing was that dinner was usually started by 4:30 and at first we thought this might be prompted by most of the attendees are on the older side. But it turns out the planning was more so that we would all be done prior to sunset around 6 o'clock because this place gets really dark at night. Generally we would then sit around the fire talking with our new found friends, learning about where they are from and where they have traveled to trying to pick up info for possible future trips we don't even know about yet.

Enjoying a Camp Fire with Friends

With so much to do and so many people to talk with, we found ourselves not going anywhere for several days except for the occasional walk around the nearby desert areas to get a geocache or three. We did meet quite a few very interesting couples, some that I'm sure we will run into again during our travels. There were numerous couples from Canada. While most of them were from the western portions of that country, one couple had driven here all the way from Nova Scotia to spend the winter in Arizona. 

So how has the boondocking been working out for us? First off, boondocking can mean various things but the idea is that you have your rig setup somewhere without any hookups, be it electric, water or sewer. Technically if we stop at a Walmart for a night while we are traveling long distances between campgrounds, we are boondocking. With the size of holding tanks we have, doing this for a night or two in a row is really no issue at all. For this stop we're hoping to stay for 12 nights in a row! 

With the delay between writing these posts and being able to upload them, I can say that we did manage to stay for the full 12 nights. Our coach is an all electric one. Most rigs (including our travel trailer and first motor home) have propane tanks to run a cooktop, possible oven, furnace and an RV style refrigerator. Ours has no propane which is good from a fire hazard standpoint, but more problematic from a boondocking standpoint. Our rig has eight, 6 volt golf cart batteries that run all the interior 12 volt DC lighting. Plus there is a 2800 watt inverter that will convert the 12 volt DC into 120 volt AC to run many (but not all) of our AC loads. The main one being our residential refrigerator which is as big as the one in our home we just moved out of.

These batteries will store enough power to keep things going for roughly 12 hours before they need to be recharged. This recharging is normally done by us being at a campground with an electrical hookup or shore power as it's called. Besides keeping the batteries charged, the shore power can be used to run air conditioners, the electric stove top, convection/microwave oven and so forth. When we don't have shore power, we can use the built in generator. It can run any of the electrical appliances and generally most of them at the same time when required. We have found that if we run the generator about 2 hours in the morning to charge the batteries for the day, we can also use the electric stove for breakfast or even the air conditioning units in heat pump mode to take the morning chill out of the rig.

By the time 6 PM rolls around, we kick off the generator again to heat up dinner as well as recharge the batteries for the night. One other trick we picked up from one of the rally sessions here is that before we go to bed, we simply turn off our refrigerator since we will not be opening the doors until morning. The temperature only goes up a few degrees and we don't deplete the batteries as quickly.

In terms of heat, the first few nights we were here, the temperatures only dropped to the low to mid forties overnight outside which brought the indoor temperatures to about 55 which was fine for sleeping. In the morning, after starting the generator, we would warm up the rig with the heat pumps and by then the outside temperatures had gotten warm enough that heat was not needed. 

We did have several nights when the outside temperature was getting into the mid to upper thirties. On the first morning that this occurred, it had gotten down to 49 inside and was too cold to use the heat pumps to heat things up. This meant we needed to use our main furnace. Again since we don't have propane, our furnace is a diesel fired burner that heats up an antifreeze that is then circulated to several heat exchangers with 12 volt fans blowing air across them. We have obviously used the furnace before but never without being hooked up to shore power. We weren't sure how much current draw these fans would put on our battery bank. It turned out that even on those nights the furnace was running, the battery level was fine in the morning.

So with electricity and heat working out fine, the only other resource we needed to manage was our water usage. As I mentioned, the fresh water tank holds 105 gallons. The grey water tank holds 65 gallons and takes water from the sinks, shower and washing machine. The black tank holds 45 gallons and only the toilet is plumbed to it. Water conservation was going to be the biggest possible obstacle for us to stay out here for the full 12 days we were planning. We had filled 5, one gallon containers with water to use for drinking or coffee so that would help some with conserving the water in our fresh tank. We also switched to using predominantly paper plates and cups to cut down on the amount of dishes we needed to wash. When we did need to wash dishes, we would use a bowl to collect most of the water and then use that to flush the toilet, again saving the use of fresh water. Not doing laundry while out here and taking very quick "Navy" showers also reduced our fresh water usage and saved on grey tank capacity. 

The limiting factor in how long we can make it is our black tank. Although the lower temperatures have meant that the need to shower as frequently as usual have been reduced. I suppose it doesn't hurt that everybody else out here in the desert is experiencing the same thing and we have no real fancy places to go in Quartzsite so our hygiene levels are plenty adequate. 

It does get dusty out here at times and even though the windows are nearly always closed because the temperatures haven't been that warm, we are finding the inside of the rig gets fairly dusty. The outside of the rig and car are simply hopeless in these conditions. 

So would we be willing to do this style of boondocking again? I think the answer would be yes. If we were to limit our stays to the 7 to 10 day range, we would not need to be so hardcore on water conservation. We didn't find the noise from the generator was that objectionable. Once the crowds die down from the big RV event, it will be much more quiet and peaceful.  But the flip side to that statement is that we might not have anybody else around to talk to and interact with

Since we had filled up the fuel tank about 30 miles out of Quartzsite, I was able to fill up before heading out and get a good estimate of what it cost us to stay on the free BLM land. We used just under $23 in diesel to run the generator and the heat at times. This works out to be $3.54 per day. Not bad and would have been a little less had the weather not been as cold as it was.

Pretty Sunset Over Our Vehicles

Our Rig Beneath the Stars