I imagine times were simpler before you could keep tabs on everyone on Facebook, or chat with them on messenger, or share your words with everyone instantly by updating your blog, or catch up on all those missed TV shows you love by streaming them illegally!
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| The internet owns me. |
This might be why the second the golden arches of McDonald's shone out of the twilight skies of Quartzsite, Arizona we veered towards it with the excitement of a small child holding a 12 pound bag of candy.
POWER!
Glorious electric magma of my motherboard, feed into this laptop like the magical internet creator that you are!
I will never again take something as simple as electricity for granted.
Though this particular McDonalds did not offer Wi-fi, we were able to plug and charge our equipment while writing blog posts to be posted later about all the happenings since Indio, CA. We also had the opportunity to get a taste of the kind of people that were roaming around this new city.
Quartzsite promised flea markets, precious gemstones, and van-friendly accommodations. Couple this with the cool-sounding hot springs from TJ's bucket list and it seemed like the place for us.
After our arrival, and several hours of people watching later, this proved to be largely untrue.
I would say 99% of the people here are at least seventy years old. And weird.
The epithet of this observation comes in the form of an elderly woman who walked past me in McDonalds. She was wearing white, orthopaedic, velcro sneakers, a Thomas Kinkade-inspired sweatshirt with some sort of softly-lit cabin scene printed on it with puffy paint, and a star-spangled sequin cowboy hat. Now, I'm not sitting here trying to pick apart a person based on their wardrobe, but I think there's a certain number of observable differences that separate me from this woman that make it pretty clear that we're probably not going to become instant best friends.
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| Add a sour face and this is it. |
I looked around the restaurant and every single other person in there was blue haired, dressed like the '90s were going out of style, and they all wore the same scowl on their face that basically said "I'm retired and I hate young people. Back the fuck off my shit."
I'm thinking that the eight monstrosity RV's outside all belong to this particular set of snowbirds as well.
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| Dennis Weaver. Not our new McD's Friend. |
As it turns out, he used to play baseball against a team from Trail, BC, which is about ten minutes from where I grew up. He is also in the midst of writing a Sci-fi Western novel with a super secret plot line that he would not divulge to us.
It was about 9PM when we left the restaurant, ready to find a place to park for the night, but before we could hop in the van and leave, we noticed another strange character standing next to the driver's side of the van and staring at the side.
TJ and I painted a big ol' mural on the side of the van before we left Canada; it's a copy of an Alphonse Maria Mucha painting that we doctored so the woman is holding a dogwood flower instead of a lily, and the scenery behind her looks like coastal BC mountains instead of rolling French hills.
Our new friend was a little less affluent-looking than the old people we saw inside, but he was most definitely on the elderly side of things. He was staring so intently at the mural, and didn't really notice us as we approached, but the second he did see us, he did not stop talking about the most random shit for the next fifteen minutes.
I don't remember much of what he said, but I do remember that he ended his monologue with a deep appreciation for the van mural, and how he thought the flower represented some pretty spectacular symbolism.
We looked on confused as to what this symbolism might be.
He then gestured to the two of us and said, in a deeply reverent tone: "Vaginas".
Not sure whether to run screaming for the hills or be deeply offended, we calmly thanked him and wished him well before jumping in the van and driving far away as fast as possible.
We found an out-of-the-way parking lot with a few other campers in it and parked for the night.
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The next day really cemented that this place wasn't really our scene.
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| I mean it's not Georgia O'Keefe or anything...right? |
Our new friend was a little less affluent-looking than the old people we saw inside, but he was most definitely on the elderly side of things. He was staring so intently at the mural, and didn't really notice us as we approached, but the second he did see us, he did not stop talking about the most random shit for the next fifteen minutes.
I don't remember much of what he said, but I do remember that he ended his monologue with a deep appreciation for the van mural, and how he thought the flower represented some pretty spectacular symbolism.
We looked on confused as to what this symbolism might be.
He then gestured to the two of us and said, in a deeply reverent tone: "Vaginas".
Not sure whether to run screaming for the hills or be deeply offended, we calmly thanked him and wished him well before jumping in the van and driving far away as fast as possible.
We found an out-of-the-way parking lot with a few other campers in it and parked for the night.
_______________________________________________________________
The next day really cemented that this place wasn't really our scene.
We woke up in a sea of giant RV's and quickly realized that in the dark the night before, we had snuck into a pay parking lot through some sort of back entrance. Not wanting to actually pay anything, we hi-tailed it out of there in search of coffee and a laundromat.
Dennis Weaver (or his doppelganger) mentioned that he thought the laundromat had free wi-fi and was right across the street from a bakery so we made finding this place the first thing we did.
As it happens, the laundromat had neither wi-fi nor did it have the means for us to get any change. This is all happening pre-coffee and TJ before coffee is not good. For anyone. Extremely frustrated, we went in search of sustenance.
The bakery was also a place that we couldn't really identify with. It was a single-wide trailer run by a woman named Marge, and all the tables had bad humour books sandwiched between the packets of powdered creamer and sugar dispenser. Each table also appeared to be labeled with things like "The BS Table" and "The Impossible Table" and there seemed to be a weird affinity for pink in all of the decor.
The coffee was terrible, and instead of hanging around to check out the rest of town we decided that nothing thus far had indicated that we would find somewhere geared towards young female travellers and that perhaps continuing to the next spot was a better idea.
I think it would have been cool to check out the flea market, but honestly, moving on to somewhere we feel a bit more in tune with outweighs any funky item we might find there. I'm all about giving place a shot at a good impression, but there also something to be said for making the most out of your time on the road and knowing when to cut your losses.
We figured we'd try heading out and try to find the hot spring from TJ's list, but after an few hours of aimless driving and not finding anything, we got back on the highway and drove to the next city on the map: Casa Grande.
I can't say much for what this town has to offer, but we're here, we're parked in our first Wal-Mart parking lot, and I've just impulse bought the first three Die Hard movies for $5 each inside.
Send help.
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| SO. MANY. RV'S. |
Dennis Weaver (or his doppelganger) mentioned that he thought the laundromat had free wi-fi and was right across the street from a bakery so we made finding this place the first thing we did.
As it happens, the laundromat had neither wi-fi nor did it have the means for us to get any change. This is all happening pre-coffee and TJ before coffee is not good. For anyone. Extremely frustrated, we went in search of sustenance.
The bakery was also a place that we couldn't really identify with. It was a single-wide trailer run by a woman named Marge, and all the tables had bad humour books sandwiched between the packets of powdered creamer and sugar dispenser. Each table also appeared to be labeled with things like "The BS Table" and "The Impossible Table" and there seemed to be a weird affinity for pink in all of the decor.
The coffee was terrible, and instead of hanging around to check out the rest of town we decided that nothing thus far had indicated that we would find somewhere geared towards young female travellers and that perhaps continuing to the next spot was a better idea.
I think it would have been cool to check out the flea market, but honestly, moving on to somewhere we feel a bit more in tune with outweighs any funky item we might find there. I'm all about giving place a shot at a good impression, but there also something to be said for making the most out of your time on the road and knowing when to cut your losses.
We figured we'd try heading out and try to find the hot spring from TJ's list, but after an few hours of aimless driving and not finding anything, we got back on the highway and drove to the next city on the map: Casa Grande.
I can't say much for what this town has to offer, but we're here, we're parked in our first Wal-Mart parking lot, and I've just impulse bought the first three Die Hard movies for $5 each inside.
Send help.
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