I found some videos on YouTube last night about the "Big Show" in Quartzsite that's going on right now, and it looked a little crowded. It's too early to tell for sure, but in one video, the guy went in the big tent 30 minutes after opening, and there weren't as many people in there as I'm used to seeing.

The last time I went in the big tent, I got there shortly after opening on the first day, and it was so packed with people I couldn't really move when I wanted to, I had to flow with the crowd. And it was then that I decided I was done with the "big tent" at the "Big Show. " It didn't look like that was happening in the video; it looked a little crowded, but not what I had experienced previously. Maybe they were limiting the number of people in the tent, he didn't mention that, but it's possible. But he did point out what I had experienced previously, which is something that made me lose interest in the big tent was how few vendors were selling things actually related to RVs instead of your usual infomercial crap. But I didn't give up on the stuff going on outside the big tent; there was a lot more room to check out the flea market stuff, so I still enjoyed that.

But eventually, the crowds during the weeks of the show got difficult for me to want to deal with. Long lines at the gas stations, hard to get a seat at a restaurant, me having to move farther and farther out into the desert to get away from the people and their noisy contractor generators running all night, eventually I just gave up on the whole thing, and decided Quartzsite was more fun and laid-back for me before the Big Show comes to town.

I think the best thing about the "Big Show" is it takes a lot of the boondocker's away from the boondocking areas in Arizona, so there's plenty of room for me. Box Wash is a good example. There's only four boondocker's here, and that includes me; it kinda makes me wish the "Big Show" went on all winter long.

                                                   theboondork

There's only four of us boondocking at Box Wash, if you look carefully you can see three of us in the picture.

A herd of desert buggies head down the Jeep trail towards the four-wheel-drive road at the end. These desert buggies are a way of life in Arizona, and in a lot of towns like Wickenburg it's legal to drive them on the roads.

I've done this before, but I figured I would do it again since it's been a while and show everyone the boondocking situation at Box Wash. Like I've mentioned in previous posts, I don't know how long this area will be available for boondocking because the BLM... I guess nowadays I have to spell out,
"Bureau of land management," so people know what I'm talking about since there's more than one now, gave it to Maricopa County, so now it's basically owned by Phoenix, Arizona. They're planning on turning this place into a Park, where you will still be able to camp, but it will cost seven dollars a day to get in the gate and $30 a night to camp. And they will have enough rules and regulations to make sure you can't enjoy any of the things we all come here to do now.

So the first picture is the Jeep trail that leaves the large parking area where a lot of us boondock and goes about 1/4 of a mile with boondocking spots all alongside it. There Is a turnaround at the end and you can come back. But don't let the term "Jeep trail" fool you, all that can be accomplished with even a large RV.

This is a typical pullout next to the Jeep trail; some spots are bigger, some are smaller, and some of them, like this one, have room for more than one RV if you brought your friends with you. All of the boondocking spots have beautiful views of the mountains, hills, and desert.

this is a smaller spot but I've seen medium-size class "C's" in here. It's actually a nice spot because Box Wash runs right behind it and there's a slope behind that fire ring that you can walk down to the large sandy Wash.

I think this pullout would hold the biggest class "A" bus. I'm standing in another pullout on the other side of the Jeep trail taking this picture. the Jeep trail is that lighter dirt area in the lower middle of the picture.

there's room for several RVs in here and you don't have to back-in you can turnaround at the end of this long pullout. That's the Jeep trail on the right.

This is a real big spot, I think you could get two class A's in here. That's the Jeep trail on the far right.

  when you get to the end of the Jeep trail there's a cul-de-sac where you can turnaround. That's a restroom on the right side. You can't see it because of the restroom, but there's an entrance to a hiking trail that wanders through the desert just as far as you want to go that's got some of the tallest Saguaro's I've ever seen. On the left side you can see a gate for a road that's for four-wheel-drives. You can walk or bicycle the road of course and it goes for miles and miles, but it's too rough for the FamilyTruckster

Sunrise this morning. Lucky for me since the sun has to come up over the mountains my sunrise doesn't happen until about 8 o'clock giving me plenty of time to sleep in.

My first full day back at the Box Wash boondocking area in Wickenburg, and it's always great to be here. Box Wash is one of my top five favorite places to boondock in Arizona. Nobody asked me what my top five places are, but I will tell you anyway. In alphabetical order, they are...

AJO – – there are a lot of great boondocking areas in Ajo. So you can have a choice of being close to civilization or out in the boonies away from people. And it's one of the places I will go if Arizona is crowded and it's hard to find a place to boondock because I think I could always find a spot in Ajo.

 BEN AVERY GUN RANGE near Phoenix – – if you like to shoot, you can't beat Boondocking or Camping at the Ben Avery Gun Range. They have numerous ranges for handguns, rifles, shotguns, and even archery. They have close-in ranges, thousand-yard ranges, trap ranges, skeet, bunker trap, Olympic archery targets, field archery; Ben Avery's is Disney World for shooters. And it's only a couple of miles from restaurants and major big box stores. It's a great place to work on RV projects because there's a Home Depot 2 miles away, and Ben Avery's doesn't care what you're doing to your RV as long as you're not disturbing your neighbors. In fact my experience has been, your neighbors, and the Ben Avery employees, will be the first ones to lend a hand, or a tool if they see you tearing your RV apart

LAKE HAVASU – – Lake Havasu has some excellent boondocking areas, some before you get to town and some after leaving town. And the ones after you leave town are only a few miles from a Walmart. It's a great place to walk around town and see the sights and plenty of hiking in the boondocking areas. And of course, it's got the London Bridge you can walk on that was disassembled in London, carried through the desert, possibly by mule train, and reassembled in the middle of nowhere. But if you build a bridge, they will come, and indeed they did, if for no other reason than to see the bullet strikes in the bridge courtesy of the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

TUCSON – – this is definitely a favorite of mine to boondock at the Pima County Fairgrounds and enjoy the various events taking place during the winter. There are two National Parks in Tucson, so there's plenty of outdoor stuff you can do, especially if you have a Lifetime Geezer Pass to get into the parks for free anytime you feel like it. There's plenty of nearby shopping and free casino parking lot boondocking if you're so inclined.


 QUARTZSITE– – what can you say about Quartzsite? A town that is built around RVers in general, and boondocker's in particular. The place where being trailer trash is a badge of honor, living in an RV is perfectly normal, and it's impossible to run out of boondocking spots, where it's easier to say where you can't boondock than to say where you can. Quartzsite should be like Mecca, every RVer should have to go there at least once.


Now there are many more places to boondock in Arizona than that, and over the years, I've stayed at a lot of them. Remember, I was camping and boondocking decades before becoming a full-timer, and I've camped and boondocked from the Florida Keys to right near the Canadian border in Washington state. But for strictly boondocking, I've gravitated towards Arizona over the years, particularly the desert areas, because in the winter, it seems to have the most number of comfortable days. And to be comfortable to me means a  humidity low enough that high temperatures don't feel so bad, and low temperatures are still tolerable.

                                         theboondork

A Donkey at Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Ranch doing his impression of an Orangutan, he also does a great Chimpanzee.

Notice how I'm looking up at these Ostriches. There really tall birds, but I've got a lot more toes than they do.... and they know it.

This is Clara, she will smile whenever you call her name. Too bad there's not more people like that.