Is Quartzsite on a down hill spiral?

In it's heyday, coming down the grade, all you could see were the white tops of RVs in the distance.  It would take 2 hours to get from one exit to the next on either frontage road.  The main event on the north west side on town would be packed with vendor.  The north east end had Clouds.  In the middle was the 4 corners area packed with vendors on all 4 corners.  Parking anywhere was a premium.  All this was before Tucson became the mecca for rocks.

Friday we did a day trip to Quartzsite.  Coming in from the east there were very few campers on the BML land.  Once where there were thousands no had less than 100.  Clouds is long gone with the expansion of the east exit.  The Main event is an empty expanse.  Tyson Wells in the middle is filed with vendors, but few rocks.  Flee market at best.

Desert Gardens is what was happening when we were there as the Pow Wow doesn't start until Wednesday.  Not many people milling around.  Those we know that were selling there said it has been very slow.  I hope it picks up for them.

My main goal was to get Ocean Breeze jasper of which I did manage a few good pieces.  Not the selection from 2 years ago.  Jim said it just doesn't pay to haul tons down as now one is buying large quantities of uncut.  Sad!

I did buy a small amount of Purple Cow Jasp -Agate from the McDermitt area.  My budget didn't allow me to get too much at the prices they wanted. There too, they didn't bring big boulders so my spheres of it will be smaller in size.

Visited Glen Archer of Outback Mining.  None of the Australian materials that I was looking for.  No Marra Mamba or 

Golden Amphibolite of which he has a small amount but didn't bring.  :-(  I did pick out some Wyloo Agate, looks a lot like turkish stick agate, and green common opal with magnesite.  Both look interesting.

Zippy had some good looking Indian Paint Rock at a reasonable price.  He bought an old collection out of CA.  Even though I had just gotten a 120# boulder at the Flagg show in Mesa, I had to have another piece.

Andersons had some stunning Shattuckite from Az.  Picked out a few small pieces as the price was prohibited to getting large.  2 of the 3 will be for Alan to cab.  This is what broke the bank!  Not to self:  Always leave the checkbook and credit cards at home!  He also had a trash can full of Chrysocolla/Malachite from the Copper World mine the we just couldn't leave there.  This was after consulting our chrysocolla expert Bruce.  Many photos and phone calls later it went into the back to the jeep. Poor Shadow had significantly less room for the ride home.

Hope to get some sphering down today.   The saws should be busy.  The bank is broke.

Thanks for reading.......