Our ninth January trip to Quartzsite in 11 years. This trip included a post-rally caravan to Las Vegas and finally Death Valley.
Saturday the 18th was the first official day of the Quartzsite rally, and we made the rounds a couple of times as Nikki got acquainted with the attendees.
This is a 360-degree view of our group taken from the roof of a neighbor's coach:
A record 32 people joined me on a trip to the top of Q Hill. They don't get many when I'm not around to talk-up the trip!
As always, Blue Bird gatherings are big on the food aspect, with several potlucks including the Prime Rib dinner shown here.
We had extremely good weather this year, with low winds and mild temperatures. The lack of clouds meant that most days did not have the usual spectacular sunsets, but there were a couple of good ones.
On one of the days we joined a 4-wheel trip over the mountains to the East of Quartzsite. It got quite rough in places, and we experienced a flat tire among other things. Unfortunately, Nikki got very sick (which may not have had anything to do with the trip) so we left the group along with a few others and took an easy way out, up the east side to I-10 while the main group took another trail back across the mountains.
Most Blue Birds have musical horns, so we had a small concert in the desert. Won't make sense if you don't have sound turned on. Also shows how fast it gets dark in the desert in the winter!
This year, when the rally ended, 20-odd coaches continued with a rolling rally, first to Las Vegas, where we stayed at the Circus-Circus KOA on the strip.
Among the places we visited during our stay was the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, home of the History Channel's Pawn Stars program.
The final stop on our rolling rally was Death Valley. We stayed at the Furnace Creek campground, the first time Joy and I had been here since 2004.
Lots of varied vehicles in the Furnace Creek parking lot.
A large group of us traveled up to Scotty's castle, where we took the guided tour.
Scotty's Castle
1933 Packard at Scotty's Castle
Our guide talking about Death Valley Ranch as Scotty's Castle was called
Scotty's Castle
Scotty's Castle
Scotty's Castle
Scotty's Castle
Pipe organ console at Scotty's Castle
Lunch on the lawn at Scotty's Castle
We took the long way back from Scotty's Castle, heading east into Nevada then down through Beatty and finally the jeep trail through Titus Canyon. The canyon gets pretty narrow, so the road is one-way only.
Airing back up after leaving the canyon
A view down the valley from the mouth of Titus Canyon
This is a video of highlights of the trip down Titus Canyon.
That was the final adventure on this trip. We returned home exiting the valley on the Western side, then down and around to Bakersfield, and north to home. Not much planned for the rest of the year as I will have surgery to replace my right ankle with an artificial one.
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