Quartzsite 2010 rally happenings and photos

[Wendy]

Any of you who are close by, please do make it here for the potluck tomorrow. Group picture at 2 pm Arizona time (MST), potluck to follow at 2:30 ish. We are guaranteed good weather.

Tonight, we had a wonderful Happy Hour. A bit chilly but no rain and no huge winds. If you weren't there, you should have been.

As for the picture of the group that held Tom's motorhome down in the high winds, that's the motliest looking group I've ever seen And I'm surprised the coach didn't tip over with all of them on one side at one time !!!

Wendy

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Saturday AM from Quartzsite:

o Looks as though we are going to have a great day for our pot luck!! At 9:00AM I cannot find a cloud -- and the wind must be less than 5mph.  As others have mentioned, we can now expect the desert flowers to sprout so photography around area should be the way we like it.

o Would like to again mention how great it has been to see the turn out for the daily 2-mile walk. Checking with the faster walkers, they have been doing 15-16 minute miles each day now. And the weather has not stopped the walkers. I did my 2 miles a bit late yesterday and noticed during the stretch heading South, there was quite a headwind to walk against.

o Happy Hour last night was at the end of the weather pattern, so was about our coldest yet -- however, we just added more logs to the RVForum built fire ring and continued to enjoy.

Here are a few images I took under those cloudy skies. The sunset image though was a sign that things are getting better. The initial panorama was taken a few days ago from the Main Street/Kuehn Street overpass looking SouthWest over the Tyson Show and then the Big Tent.

The second image, group10.jpg, was taken using a Canon 10-22mm EF-S lens at the 10mm end. Another advantage of having a DSLR body at a rally attended by pro photographers Ray and Liza. Thanks, Ray, for the loan of this incredible lens.  Ray and Liza are the couple on the right side of image #5, GroupByFire.jpg.

Note: To get the full impact of the panorama, you may want click the filename vs. the image. That should open it in your default graphic package.

 

[Betty Brewer]

As self appointed Social Director for the day  I would like to thank the wonderful chefs for the fantastic potluck and thank the heavens for the clear blue skies.  Yum,  who made the spinach pear salad?
Further I would like to thank the  good sports who played my silly games and won those silly prizes to celebrate 15 years of Quartzsite Rallies.  I wish all of you had eaten more cupcakes which you will see at coffee in the morning! 

Please take a note.....
I am missing the deuce of spades, 10 of hearts and jack of spades.  Please check your hats and your pockets! No way I can win at solitaire without them.

What a framily.  As we continue this wonderful Quartzsite tradition I am wondering if  maybe we should consider mixing it up a bit and think about moving  our venue to the nearby  Plamosa areas where BLM land has 14 day free camping.  I've heard several make that suggestion  for future  rallies. Costs are way up over the years and those  who come in for a short time would benefit greatly and the more the merrier!  Just look at the savings to our budget and the "taxes."  And firewood issues may be resolved?

You were wonderful sports and I  thank you for the participation. Hope to see all of you again next year.

Betty

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Quartzsite Group Picture:

Have attached a copy of the RVForum 2010 picture. This the first low res version. The original RAW file is about 20mb and the JPG about 5.5mb. I will place them on my server tomorrow so you can download - make prints or whatever. If you are still at the rally on Sunday, stop by with a flash drive and I'll copy them for you.

Thanks to all for your help and patience in setting up for this picture -- I really appreciate that. Lorna, Wendy, and other members were especially helpful in the logistics of setting up the chairs and carpets - plus getting everyone lined up properly. I wanted to have cactus in the background, and that meant Don Miller had to jump start his truck to move it 5 feet for me!! Thanks, Don.

Thanks also to Ray & Liza for the loan of the wide angle lens -- and for the shots taken after the group shot of the surprise presentaton to Chris. I have our images of the surprise presentation that I will post here tomorrow.

 

[Jim Dick]

Bob,

Nice photo! Boy, that rally sure has grown from the first year that Fred & Daisy wrote about their experiences working there. If it wasn't for them many of us would never have met!!!

 

[Tom]

I split these messages from the rally signup topic, hopefully making it easier for folks to find the rally reports and photos. I may have inadvertently left a message or two (or more) in the original topic and, if so, I'll catch them on my next sweep and attach them here.

 

[Betty Brewer]

Thanks Tom,
I did post a  thank you message on the Birthday bash and potluck that was missed.  I want to report that I am missing a few cards, not marbles, just  playing cards from our games.

What a fun group!

Betty

 

[Tom]

[quote author=Betty Brewer]I did post a  thank you message on the Birthday bash and potluck that was missed.[/quote]

Ah, I misunderstood what you said in our coach this morning Betty. Your 'thank you' message was posted in its own topic, and I assumed that was done for a reason. I've now merged it into this topic, so all the 'QZ 2010 happenings' are in one place. I also found several other 'missed' messages on my 2nd sweep, and merged them here. I'll make another sweep and hopefully find/merge any remaining ones.

 

[TJNCJ]

This is Chris, Tom's other half, posting my first message in the nearly 17 years The RV Forum has been in existence.

I wanted to say a big thank you to rally attendees for the kind gift of flowers presented to me on everyone's behalf by Betty yesterday. I also appreciated reading the nice comments some folks wrote.

Tom and I always enjoy attending rallies and meeting everyone. We also enjoy having people stop by our place on their way through town.

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Here some images taken just after the group picture by Ray and me. Actually, the one of Phil as I was setting up was just before that. Ray was given an almost impossible task in that the group shot was facing the sun -- so he was shooting in the opposite direction into the sun. He handled that very well . . . 

I am currently uploading all of the pics I have posted, plus the RAW, high res JPG, and a cropped JPG that is about 1.8mb in size. They are pretty hefty files (29 and 64mb) so that will take me awhile. Upload via satellite has always been the downside of satellite for internet. Will hopefully have the up sometime later today. As soon as they land, I will post here with the URL's for your download.

As mentioned -- if you are here in QZ I can copy both winZip files to a flash drive for you.

 

[BernieD]

Sorry we missed so many Forumites by the time we returned today. The weather threw a big monkey wrench into our INTO Area Rally and all of Thursday's activities were rescheduled and added to Saturday's, so we just couldn't make the Potluck/Birthday Party. We're back at the site and at least there are a few still here that came in after we left last Monday.

 

[Tom]

I have numerous photos from attendees (and my own) that will be uploaded shortly to a new album in our photo albums (click the photos button in the menu).

 

[Ron from Big D]

Bob:  Thanks for the pictures of the group.  Low Res and hard to make out those in the group photo.

Sorry we missed this year, but based upon the weather, glad we didn't come.  It was warmer here in Dallas.

 

[Jeff]

Ron:

We had a couple of days of wet weather but this was the cleanest QZ of our five, little or no DUST! ;D We also had lots of new framily to meet.

Missed you and Shirley; no trip to Parker for golf.

 

[Betty Brewer]

This is Chris, Tom's other half, posting my first message in the nearly 17 years The RV Forum has been in existence.

I wanted to say a big thank you to rally attendees for the kind gift of flowers presented to me on everyone's behalf by Betty yesterday. I also appreciated reading the nice comments some folks wrote.

Tom and I always enjoy attending rallies and meeting everyone. We also enjoy having people stop by our place on their way through town.

Chris,

If this rally  charged you to action after 17 years of Tom's RVForum activites then I'd say we  had a very successful rally.  I'd like to  include the  requested comments of long time and short time Forum members on the Value of the  Forum to them.. Also very special addition is a poem written  By Helaine long ago but still  applies. .

Betty

 

[Betty Brewer]

On  Sunday 1/24/2010 eight  4x4 vehicles  ventured out on the road to do "the Ridge" led by Terry Brewer.  We were thrilled to have so many interested  in an off road experience out here in Quartzsite.  We left by  10:08 am and returned  by 3:30 in time for Happy Hour.  I will  post photos when I  process them.  It was one of my personal  highlights of  Quartzsite 2010 times.  We had lots of  laughs,  one flat tire, many photo opportunities, lunch with a million, billion dollar view and cemented more friendships.  We learned Lois loves the more adventurous roads, we learned Lorna can drive anything, we learned Tim is a quick  tire changer, we learned Donna likes wineries ( none here), we learned Claire and Carol are really good sports, we learned Paul and Sherry  are Jeep troupers, we learned Wally can drop a beer on the road, we learned Frank's CB is very  good, we remembered how to  squat in the bushes, we learned Jim has done this run  before, we learned Lou has not done this before,  we learned what good friend can do as  a group.  What a beautiful group of folks.

Betty

 

[bigskymt]

  The $40 fee was not an issue but in retrospect we would have preferred to camp free and donate that money to RV Forum.
  The Forum Staff did an excellent job of making sure everything went smoothly.......everything from Coffee to Trash P.U. to Exercise to Happy Hour.
  Bob made sure all new arrivals were greeted and welcomed.
  What a great bunch of dedicated people.
  We look forward to next year wherever it may be.

 

[Bob Buchanan]

The RVForum Group picture is now ready for download HERE.

The WinZIP file, GroupFiles2010.zip, should contain three versions of the image. One is the untouched RAW file, the second is a full res JPG, and the third is a cropped image with titling similar to one I posted as an attachment -- only this one is about 1.8mb in size.

For the past 4 years or so, I have been asked to take the group image at the RVForum Rally. There has been a long standing rule that any pictures posted on forum threads as attachments can have no constraints as far as usage. Within the past few days, Tom has posted that rule on this thread -- perhaps as reminder. So, as in past years, there are no constraints on the on usage of the RVForum group image -- nor has there been a constraint in past years on the group picture I have taken.

Had a bit of problem yesterday with my server - so was not able to get the file containing the rest of my rally pictures uploaded. I will be working on that again this AM (Monday). It should be ready later this AM. I will post as soon as the link is working OK. It is a larger file and contains ALL of the pics I took at this rally. As in the past, with the rule in place about usage, all of these my images of the rally have been attached to posts here -- so there is no constraint on their usage. There wouldn't have been any constraint if they had not been posted.

Several of us here have on-line portfolio's -- mine is on Flickr.com. I have referenced several images there in the past. If one picture is copyrighted, they all must be copyrighted on Flickr. So to anyone around the world looking at my stuff, they can download, but must have my permission to use my work commercially. Some of my better forum images are on my Flickr account.  If ever used commercially, it would be a courtesy to me to let me know how they are used -- tho I doubt any of my forum stuff would have any commercial value.

Hope you enjoy the RVForum 2010 group picture . . . 

 

[Ned]

Thanks, Bob.

 

[Ernie Ekberg]

Ron, you can see me in the forum picture- I'm on the right close to Bob with a red jacket.
Ernie- in Morristown, Az, with elec, TV!! and wifi