It has been three years since Tobey and I have been to Quartzsite, so we decided to take off from Scottsdale and come over for the weekend. We left around noon and had an uneventful drive over – that is a good thing!
We headed north out of town on Highway 95 and are camping on BLM land at the Hi Jolly camping area. After leveling the RV, we took our motorcycle off the rack to go into town and had our first mishap! SOMEHOW, it got away from us on the ramp and crashed over, with Tobey under it. Fortunately, he only got a small scrap on his leg and the motorcycle only got a broken turn signal lamp. Our neighbor came over very quickly and helped pull the motorcycle off Tobey and get it righted. It reminded me of the first time we loaded our old scooter into a trailer to pull it before we got the rack on the RV. It was a fiasco and the scooter had its first crash! We will get used to this loading/unloading process again.
We headed back into to town and got a new lightbulb and Tobey was able to repair the cycle for 95 cents. Not bad!
From the auto parts store we headed west on Main Street to see the Hi Jolly Tomb Memorial. Back in 1856, Jefferson Davis was the War Secretary and had the idea to use camels to transport freight and goods in the southwest. He imported 70 camels and a Syrian caretaker, Hadji Ali, to carryout the program. His American masters called him Hi Jolly. The Civil War began and Jefferson Davis went on to become the President of the Confederacy and abandoned the project. The 70 camels were set free to fend for themselves near Quartzsite. Hi Jolly remained and lived to be in his 70s. He was well-liked by the locals and they built the memorial of petrified wood and quartz in his honor.
We stopped at one of the flea markets and walked around for a little while. Because it was after 4 pm, many of the vendors were closing up so we headed back to the RV.
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