Snowbirds Flock to Remote Nesting Site

QUARTZSITE, Ariz. — Most of the year, only the hardiest of people can tolerate this area of southwestern Arizona: a bleak section along Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Los Angeles where the desert blurs into a gray broken only by a few towns and truck stops.

But to thousands upon thousands of snowbirds--winter refugees from colder Northern states--this little town is their Woodstock, a surrealistic metropolis that takes on a culture half swap meet and half carnival.

Row after row of recreational vehicles line trailer parks and desert camp areas as their occupants scurry here and there to visit friends and take part in events. There are 30-minute backups at Quartzsite’s only major intersection.

There’s a vast open-air market where the snowbirds--most of them senior citizens--can buy everything from necessities to bearskin rugs, get haircuts and discover supposed cures for aging.

License plates are from British Columbia, Utah, Wisconsin, New York--pretty much anyplace but Arizona. And while the town has 2,000 permanent residents, the local Chamber of Commerce estimates that 1 million people visit in the winter.

“We definitely have a unique nomad situation out here,” said Mayor Patty Bergen. “You see these 70- and 80-year-olds and they act like 30-year-olds. They have something planned for every minute of the day.”

“Our kids think we’re nuts,” said Sally Christensen, who travels here from Bountiful, Utah, to live in a 28-foot trailer. “They think, ‘Mother, did you fall on your head?’ ”

Christensen first visited in 1994, made friends and has returned each year since.

Quartzsite isn’t close to anywhere, sitting about 180 miles west of Phoenix, or about 15 miles from the Colorado River and the California state line.

But in the winter its modest community center is a beehive of activity, with art classes, Spanish lessons, dances and potluck dinners.

“There is never a dull moment. There’s a dance every night of the week if you want to go,” Earl Pearce said.

Pearce and his wife, Edith, met at one of the dances and an unconventional marriage was born. When winter ends, he returns to his home in Idaho and she goes back to Manitoba, Canada. He calls it a nice arrangement.

Supporting the onslaught is no small task. Some people stay in trailer parks with full facilities, but most of them “dry camp,” supporting a local industry that provides trailers and motor homes with water and removes their sewage.

Quartzsite’s tiny post office has to operate seven days a week in the winter to keep up with the huge volume of mail--up to 58,000 pieces a day.

Just how the town became such a snowbird mecca is unclear, but the mayor suspects that it started with Quartzsite’s building a reputation for encouraging people with RVs to simply pull off the road and camp.

Now it’s more complex.

“It looks like a slum to city folk, but to us it’s a community,” she said. “That’s why they congregate here. It makes them feel youthful. It just turns back the clock.”