Just south of me, separated only by a chainlink fence there is a KOA campground, normally 2/3 or better filled with RV's and 5th wheel trailers. Most are "visitor's" and students. Now the place looks like an empty drive in movie theater! Heat? Maybe. Now in the coller winter months we get an influx of what the locals refer to as "Snowbirds", but it's a little too early ( or too late) in the season for them to come in.... I know the owners have UPPED the rental fees for the spaces, to the point it's getting ludicrous. They went from $300 to $400 in a week. But be that as it may be, I was surprised to hear a couple fire up early this morning and pull out. It's NOT unusual to see them leave in pairs, but recently I have seen them leave in 4's and more at a time. There used to be a place out west ( almost california) called "Quartzsite" but that town seemed to collapse a few years ago....The rockhounds quit going ( no more rock shows) and then the largest RV park I have ever seen, just disappeared. I mean there had to be at least 500 and more RV's there at any one time...Not today. Just a dirt lot. The last place I knew of was far east of me, in Apache Junction, but even that seems to have dried up as well. I wonder...where are they going and why now? I know a couple of people that own RV's and they'd rather NOT drive them at all in the Arizona heat....Hmmmm... Curious.....
hmm, that is curious. My mom is a snowbird. Drives a big RV from MN to AZ usually in Oct and returns to MN in May. I know she has gone to Quartzsite, or at least used to. last year she bought a spot at one of the places she visits. Used to be she could stay a max of 2 weeks at one location then had to leave to go to another and she even did some "dry camping" in the desert before returning to her original site. Now she get's to park the RV and leave it there
Gas at close to $4 a gallon makes driving one of those gas drinkers very expensive. The high cost of gasoline hurts lots of things.
One of my close neighbors is an Aridzonia SnowBird, and did the RV thing for years. Now He and his Lady, have a place in Bouse, AZ. and still drive up to Washington, and back, for their flight to Alaska, but can't afford to do much touring due to Fuel Prices. It was much cheaper for them to BUY, rather than rent RV Space, so they bought two years ago. .... YMMV....
