Saturday, January 16, 2016

The Big Camping Show in Quartzsite

Today we drove to Quartzsite to attend what is billed as the biggest camping/vacation expo in the USA.  I dunno.  I lived in Las Vegas for 8 years and would go to the Cashman Center for various craft or health shows.  It gets my mom and I exercise while also getting the chance to look at people's exhibits. This RV show was a lot like the Cashman Center shows.  About the same size.  I have a tough time believing this is the largest...but it was pretty big.

What we most wanted to see was RVs.  After my accident where I hit a post with my trailer, and then the subsequent pain in the ass I had to deal with due to my inability to be able to back in to a space, we've been really thinking about getting a Class C.

I'm glad we didn't jump on early ones we saw because in addition to the towing/backing up issues I'm having another problem we need remedied.  I a quiet place to work.  It's tough to write smutty romance at the dinette with my mom across from me.  I also sick of dealing with our cat Precious harassing me for treats when I'm right in the middle of my flow.  My mother also wants to watch TV and talk loudly on speaker phone without disturbing my sleep.

We need a room where we can close a door.  Where I can go during the day to do my work, and where my mom can go to sleep or to watch TV or take phone calls.

This is our ideal solution.  I mean--look at that desk!  http://www.campingworld.com/rvsales/class-c/2006/gulfstream-endura/493344/

We're open to other options also, like a Class A with a rear bed *and* a toy hauler garage with another bed.  Just give me a door I can close and I'll be happy.

Well, there weren't many class Cs to look at during the show.  We avoided a whole clump of RVs we park neared because an obnoxious high-pressure salesman we'd had the misfortune of dealing with last time in Quartzsite was guarding them.  We went through a bunch of others, but just can't find our floor plan.  We also can't spend a hugetastic fortune.  Price is definitely why we haven't pulled the trigger thus far.

I still owe $22k on our current rig, and that's more than it's worth.  It's sad, but we have to trade this in if we want to a new one and it's going to cause salesmen to screw us.  They will just charge us the price of their rig PLUS what we owe, without giving us credit for the trade-in.  Every dealer pulls this crap.  It's like we pay for two RVs but only own one.

Anyhow, we still wanted to look to think about options and decide what to save up for in the future.  there were Class As, Class As, Class As....bleh.  Finally we just went into the expo and walked around the booths.

Now, here's the interesting thing.  A lot of booths were companies set up just because they were looking for workampers.  These are RVers who live on the site in their RVs with free hook-ups and work for them.  Amazon.com has workampers in all their distribution centers.  They were there looking for employees as well as the Sugar Beet Harvest (starting pay $12.70/hour, and you're sorting at a receiving station, not picking beets) and Yosemite National Park (minimum wage and no free camping).

I foolishly signed up to be considered for the beet harvest, because I'm a crazy idiot who likes to do crazy things for money.  I've done some research and know I would never be able to handle this job.  Hopefully no one will call.

What I do want, however, is to be a workamper at a park, working 20 hours a week in exchange for an RV space.  I really should start looking into that again.

Also...if anyone's interested...here is the novel I wrote in January:


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