(Sorry, haven't posted in several weeks so this is a long backlog.)
We’ve been here now almost 2 weeks. What to say about Q, as they call it?
Interesting, unique, a bit wacky, a bit tacky – the frontage road on the south side of I-10 consists of 2% sticks and bricks businesses and 98% temporary vendors, here mainly for the winter RVers, and it looks like a big flea market. On the frontage road to the north (Main Street), you’ll find the majority of the town’s sticks and bricks businesses with about 25 % temporary vendors.
Most of the restaurants in town have the same meat and potatoes menu, with lots of fried food and a real scarcity of green vegetables. There are a few Mexican restaurants (some with no Mexican involvement at all so again a bit disappointing) - I guess I really should call them restaurants that serve ersatz Mexican food. There is one that qualifies as a Mexican restaurant and we like it – eat there several times a week – excellent chile verde and yummy beans), a pizza place called Silly Al’s (haven’t tried it yet) and 5 fast food franchises. Of course, there are lots of those temporary vendors selling food as well – but its just more of the same. There are a couple of small grocery stores, a dollar store and a Beall’s.
You get the idea!
We ride our bikes around and explore the permanent and the temporary parts of town. We’ve made a trip to Blythe CA – about 27 miles to the west (actually we had to have the truck towed there) - and another drive to Parker AZ about 35 miles to the north. Blythe has an Albertsons and Parker has a Safeway and a Basha’s (I’d never heard of it – it’s smaller than the Safeway). We have a trip planned to Lake Havasu City (about 75 miles north) where there’ll be more choices. We particularly want to find a Pet Smart and a health food store AND an off-leash dog park.
This is definitely not my cup of tea so, although we’ll enjoy our sojourn here (why ever not!), I can’t imagine ever making a second trip here. One of our goals in coming here was to learn more about RVing, get some upgrades and some repairs done.
We’ve already scheduled –
toilet repair, day/night shade repair, a fix for the truck/RV electrical hook-up that our person in Anchorage screwed up (which resulted in our having to have the truck towed to Blythe our first week here), and today we go to arrange our Satellite TV with DirecTV and DVR set-up.
We’ve yet to get out into the desert desert. Having gotten a fair amount of rain lately, the desert should be blooming. That should add to the allure of the place. In our RV park, many of our fellow residents here have elaborate Xmas light displays – also nice! And there have been some spectacular sunset - very nice!
