Gathering in Quartzsite

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map


For nearly the past decade, a group of Newmar owners meet in the desert just outside of Quartzsite. They are all part of the manufacturer’s club - the Newmar Kountry Klub (NKK). The hosts call the event the Gathering in the Desert for good reason. Quartzsite has an annual population of around 3700 so there are stores, restaurants and other businesses. But it is a small place and really isolated from other towns since it is surrounded by desert. Much of the desert land is overseen by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). Out in the western US, many thousands of acres of land run by the BLM allow something called “dispersed camping”. What that means is that you can camp on the land for free (or very cheaply) but you won’t have any services. No water, no dump station, no electric but quite often isolation. The isolation aspect of camping in Quartzsite in mid-January is definitely thrown out the window. Many tens of thousands and by some estimates over 100,000 rigs will descend into this tiny place for a week or more to attend a large RV show.

This will be our third time to come to the event. We had attended back in 2017 & 2018.
The event is scheduled just before the big RV show opens in town on a Saturday. We show up the Monday before mainly to avoid some of the congestion driving thru town while the show is in progress. Although the gathering doesn’t officially start until Wednesday, there were already a dozen or so rigs here when we arrived.

Gathering in the Desert Before the Crowds

In years past, there was a crew that attempted to put some order to the parking situation. They are expecting over 100 rigs to attend and since the weather is looking pretty decent, the majority will likely show up. This year, the parking plan was a little bit more fluid but it worked out well for us since we were early and lots of options still existed reasonably close to the main gathering spot. We wander around and meet some of the group already here. Fortunately we all need to wear our NKK name badges so we stand some chance of remembering a name or two along the way. Our hosts Ted and Ruth Ann are having problems with their motorhome and it is in the shop. But that didn’t prevent them from doing the hard work involved to pull off something like this. They were in a rental Class C motorhome from CruiseAmerica. It had an impressive amount of cargo space to hold all the supplies that need to stay indoors to avoid having critters get to them.

Our Spot for the Week

There is a very large ring of rocks that denotes the fire area and a handful of tables setup to hold all the food that will be consumed during our stay. We all bring our chairs down and set-up around the fire ring. On Tuesday, we have a potluck dinner with those that arrived early and by then we are probably close to 40 rigs in attendance. Since we need to get our meals served, eaten and cleaned up prior to sunset, our dinner time activities start around 3 each afternoon.

Lining Up for Food

Lots to Choose From

 After eating, we all sit around the fire ring chatting with one another. We always find it interesting to hear about places other have been to since it often gives us ideas of options for future stops. We had a glorious afternoon weather-wise although once the sun sets in the desert, the temperature drops rapidly.

The following day was the true start of the gathering. It seemed like there was a steady stream of rigs coming in. I never heard the official tally but there were definitely over 100 rigs there by mid afternoon. We all gathered around to hear from the host and co-hosts about what was planned for the several upcoming days.

Getting the Rundown

Great Afternoon in the Desert

Ted Makes Announcements

One of the Cutest Participants

We had a very large crowd come dinner time. We found it difficult to get to meet everyone as there was only so much time. We did have great conversations with the people that happened to be sitting around us while eating. There were two large sheet cakes that were very artistically decorated to serve as desert. We were expecting our friends Lorraine and Michael to be pulling in and we really hoped they would make it before dark. Sure enough, I saw another rig pulling in just after dinner and I headed over to show them the spot we had saved next to us. It had been since the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in early October that we had seen them and was good to catch up again.

Cake #1

Cake #2

Ruth Ann and Teresa Show off Cakes

Firewood Ready for Sunset

On Thursday, we had a few seminars scheduled for the group starting early and going thru lunchtime. They generally had good attendance and were informative. One of the speakers had a demo of a fire retardant system that can be installed on your rig in potential fire prone areas. They lit a fire in a box of plywood and plexiglass. After the fire reached the proper temperature, the system basically exploded its chemicals and instantly doused the fire.

Early Morning Seminar

Fire Lit

3 Seconds Later - Fire Out

Solar Presentation

Dinner followed that evening with the main meat provided by the hosts and the sides brought in by all the attendees. We have found over the years that one does not go hungry at a NKK event! More sitting around the fire and talking with our fellow travelers until well after sunset.

Raging Fire at Twilight

The following day was much the same. Four seminars to start the day. The fulltimers had a round table discussion about becoming fulltimers and some useful tips regarding travel, mail and domicile issues. There were a number of non-fulltimers there but it wasn’t clear if we did a good job of enticing them or scaring them. Evening dinner was roasted chickens from the nearby town of Blythe which has a slightly larger grocery store than Quartzsite. The line for this meal was quite long but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. We even had an evening travelogue session from another owner that had recently done an RVing trip in South Africa. It didn’t sound like a very cheap trip but the pictures of wildlife were very good. Maybe someday?

Kassandra has Large Crowd

Fulltimers Round Table

Long Line for Chicken ...

... and Sides

Since the RV show opened on Saturday, there weren’t any real scheduled events for the gathering other than happy hour in late afternoon. We headed to the big tent at the show both weekend days mainly just to walk around. I had one service kit I wanted to pick up and you never know if we might see something we didn’t even realize we needed. The crowds were nearly overwhelming. We ended up parking in Quartzsite and walking across the bridge over I-10. We ran into the hosts from the Albuquerque rally at the Escapees booth. We both knew we looked familiar but it took us a minute to remember what the connection was.

We also checked out some of the booths associated with campgrounds or tourist bureaus. We picked up some good pointers from the people at the large booth about traveling to Alaska. Since the main route to Alaska goes past the area near Calgary where we will be this summer, they had firsthand knowledge that might prove useful. We also ran into a guy from eastern Washington state. He has a very large parcel of land that he has concrete pads and full utilities for RVers. It’s not really a campground since the sites are 5 acres and up! He is trying to sell them but permits people to stay on them for up to 4 weeks for free. Free sounded good and we had already figured out that his place could easily be on our route this year. After a bit more planning, we booked a 2 week stay on one of the lots. It sounds like it’s a beautiful area of the country and we haven’t been there yet so we are looking forward to seeing. We don’t have plans to buy a lot but who knows?

One last thing we managed to get was a month-long stay at a campground in Yuma. We had spent a week in Yuma a couple years ago in order to attend a Geocaching Mega-event. We weren’t sure how much more there is to see and do in the area but the deal was just too good. A month of camping for $259 plus electric! That’s under $9 a day and even with electric added, it should be about $12/day.

We really didn’t get out and do much sightseeing in Quartzsite for the week we were there.  Since we had spent close to 4 weeks during our early stays, we had already seen everything we wanted to see. This stop was truly just for the camaraderie of NKK members - meeting up with old friends and making a few new ones. Next stop, just north of Phoenix at Cave Creek.