Tag Archives: Amazon.com Camperforce

Mar2

The Big Tent

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The Big Tent is what folks call it, but the actual name of the event is The Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show. It’s been held every year since 1984, although the location within the town has changed several times. People travel to Quartzsite in their RVs (motorhomes, vans, campers, fifth wheels, etc.) from all over the country to enjoy the warm Arizona weather and see what’s new in the Big Tent.

The Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show has grown from 60 exhibitors and a small tent to this year’s 69,000 square foot fully carpeted indoor exhibit area at 700 South Central Blvd.

This year the Big Tent was open January 17th through 25th. I visited it on the Saturday opening day and on Tuesday the 20th.

I went to the Big Tent the first time because I was trying to get a job as a camp host. I’d been told that the best camp host company to work for would have a booth at the Big Tent. I was told I should go there to meet the boss in charge of staffing, that I’d be interviewed and probably hired on the spot.

It didn’t happen quite that way.

The big boss was there, but when I walked up, he was busy and barely spoke to me. He wasn’t unfriendly, just busy. I talked to another man who works for the company who told me to go to their website, see what jobs were available, fill out an online application, and wait for a phone interview. Why had I come to the Big Tent on opening day?

I’d arrived at the tent at about ten minutes early, but nobody was getting in early that morning. The line started moving at exactly nine o’clock.

By the time I got inside, the place was already packed.

I wasn’t surprised to see RV park booths, RV insurance booths, booths staffed with folks trying to convince people to drive their RVs north to Canada and south to Mexico. I wasn’t surprised to see an Arizona State Parks booth, a KOA campground booth, and a Good Sam’s Club booth.

Several casinos had booths, complete with wheels to spin. Spin the wheel, win a prize, but not until one coughed up one’s name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. I tried to win several times (and won nothing more memorable than multiple decks of cards), so I’m sure my mailbox will shortly be full of casino propaganda.

Several booths were dedicated to recruiting work campers. One of those booths belonged to Workamper News, the website to check out (I was told at the RTR) to get hooked up with work camping opportunities. Amazon.com was present, recruiting for its CamperForce. The sugar beet harvest people were there too, and I had a nice talk with a nice midwestern man, but quickly realized that sugar beet harvest work is too strenuous for me. Several companies looking to hire camp hosts were also in the Big Tent.

I was surprised to see multiple booths selling pillows. I understand that RVers use pillows. But why would someone buy pillows at at sports, vacation, and RV show? Wal-Mart sells pillows. Kmart sells pillows. Sears and JCPenney and the freakin’ Family Dollar probably sell pillows. Pillows can be ordered from Amazon.com. Why were these RV show pillows so special? I don’t know because I did not stop at any of the many pillow booths and discuss the desirability of their pillows.

On a related note, the funniest thing I saw in a booth was a man lying in a bed on a platform a couple of feet off the floor. He was selling some special RV bedding, and he was demonstrating this bedding by lying in a bed. The big come-on with this bedding is that one wouldn’t have to make the bed if one had this bedding. Basically, the bedding was a double sleeping bag placed on top of a mattress. There was no tucking of sheets and blankets because this item was a blanket pouch. Is making an RV bed so difficult that people would rather sleep in a double sleeping bag? In any case, whenever I saw this grown man lying down in bed while trying to convince people to buy his wares, it cracked me up.

I was also surprised to see people in so many booths trying to sell kitchen gadgets. I do understand that RVs have kitchens, which might lead RVers to buy kitchen gadgets, but it seems like those items too are available in just about any regular store. Do people get caught up in the frenzy of shopping at the Big Tent, only to wake up to reality later and find their yellow freebie KOA tote bag full of silicone bowl covers and long skinny plastic chip clips?

The least explicable booths were those selling makeup, hand creme, and jewelry (especially an “ion” bracelet some lady tried to slip on my wrist). I didn’t stop at any of those booths, but from my cruise past, I didn’t see anything that looked unique or revolutionary.

My favorite booth was the one run by Minute Rice. There was a wheel to spin and prizes to win. When I spun the wheel, it stopped on “emery board.” Boring! However, the nice ladies were also giving out two-packs of the precooked, microwaveable rice. There was even a choice: white, brown, or jasmine. And they didn’t want my email address!

I know I mentioned it was crowded in that tent, but let me just say again, the place was packed. At one point, the crowd in the aisle was at a complete standstill. There was a tall young man next to me, and I asked him what he saw up ahead. He said it was just a bunch of people standing still. As soon as I made it out of that quagmire (without ever seeing a reason for movement to have ceased), I ducked out of the next exit door into the sunshine. There were more booths on the outside around the perimeter of the Big Tent, but nothing held my attention long enough for me to stop.

When I went back on Tuesday (because I was in the area to purchase items from several of the booths in the Tyson Wells shopping area), the Big Tent was mostly the same. The Minute Rice ladies were gone (they must have run out of rice), but I made up for it by playing a couple of fun and silly games at the Progressive booth, where the workers were a bunch of young gals dressed like Flo! There (thankfully) weren’t as many people in the Big Tent, so we all had a little more elbow room.

The Big Tent (like Mardi Gras) is definitely something to see once, if one is in the right place at the right time. I’m not sure I would go there again. If I did go there again, I probably would not do so on opening day. And hopefully I’d own a working camera so I could get a photo of that man in the bed.

In 2016, I got a photo of the man in bed! Go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/03/02/the-big-tent-2016/ to see it.

 
Feb24

Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, Week 2

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A lot happened during the second week of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, so you might want to get comfy before you start reading this post.

Week two of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous started with a seminar on Boondocking in the National Forest and on BLM Land.

What is Boondocking?

RVers tend to have different ideas of the definition of boondocking.

Some say that is strictly parking out in the “boonies” without electric, water, or sewer hook-ups. Others use a broader definition and don’t have the “boonies” requirement – simply parking anywhere without hook-ups (also know as “dry camping”) qualifies as boondocking.

(Thanks to http://www.rv-dreams.com/boondocking.html for the above info.)

Mr. B talked primarily about dispersed camping on public land, including National Forests, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, Corps of Engineers land, wildlife refuges, and some state owned lands. He gave tips for finding free dispersed camping on public land using atlases, maps, gazetteers, and phone apps. The smartphone app folks at the RTR were talking about is US Public Lands. (See Mr. B’s review of it  about a third of the way down the page.) Mr. B also recommended DeLorme atlases and gazetteers,  and Benchmark atlases.

Many people  spend much of their time boondocking on public land. There are usually 14 day (or less) limits on camping in such areas. In some places the 14 day camping limit is strictly enforced, while in other areas enforcement is lax. It should also be noted that it is illegal to reside on public land, but that such land is open to the public for recreation.

At the end of the presentation, I was talking to two young women, when a third woman walked up and asked if I had a list of blogs that had been mentioned during the women’s meeting. One of the young women piped up that Silly, a woman attending the RTR, had gone around and taken photos of “everyone’s rig” and had posted those photos online. She went on to say that Silly wanted each of us to tag the photo of our rig and add a link to our blogs. I said, “She did what?” I was hoping I had misunderstood what had been said. But no, no misunderstanding. These women seemed to think it was perfectly ok for Silly to have gone around photographing rigs without permission. They assured me that no license plates were shown.

I was shortly marching to Silly’s camp. I was very calm when I walked up, but the look on my face must have been hellfire and brimstone, because the look on her face was nervous fear. In a low, even voice, I said, “I heard you took photos of everyone’s rig and posted them on the internet.” She answered nervously that she had just posted them on Facebook. She immediately followed with an offer to remove photos of my rig. I told her I would appreciate it if she didn’t post any pictures of me or my van anywhere on the internet. Then I left.

Maybe I should have told her that she had no right to come into my camp while I wasn’t there and take photos without permission. Maybe I should have told her that not everyone wants photos of their life plastered all over the internet. Maybe I should have told her a lot of things, but I only told her not to post photos of me and my stuff.

As soon as I saw (the Divine) Miss M, I explained to her all that had happened. She was none too please.

Later that day, I heard Mr. B politely ask Miss M if he could take some photos of her rig. She said yes, then told him what was ok to photograph and what she didn’t want him to take pictures of.

He came over to my van next and politely asked if he could take photos of my van. I thanked him for asking, but told him I’d rather if he didn’t. I then told him about Silly taking photos of rigs without permission and posting the photos on Facebook. He said that at one of the first RTRs, someone had taken photos of rigs and posted them online. One of the women attending the RTR was being stalked, and the stalker recognized her van from the photo online and came out to the gathering to hassle her. It seems like that would be a good lesson in why it’s a bad idea to post pictures without permission!

Tuesday was also open house day. On this day, folks were invited to go around and look at how others had set up their living space. My van and I had a handful of visitors.

The seminar on Wednesday was on stealth parking in the city. It more accurately could have been called stealth parking and sleeping in the city because it was primarily about sleeping in a van and not getting caught. I’ve been living in vans on and off  (mostly on) for five years, so I already knew most of what was covered. There’s also quite a bit of information about stealth parking on the Cheap RV Living website.

Wednesday was also the day of the potato bake! Ms. Dee and her husband M provided baked potatoes for the 70+ rubber tramps who wanted to gather and eat together. Everyone was asked to bring a topping for the potatoes, so we were able to dress our potatoes with quite a variety of yummies, from cheese to bacon bits to green chile salsa. Again, it was nice to have an activity around which to socialize. Thanks again to Ms. Dee and M for hosting this fun meal.

(I had forgotten when the potato bake was held and had to ask my RTR lady friends for help. Thanks to Mr. Jay for looking it up and to Lady Nell for emailing the info right out to me.)

Thursday’s seminar was on work-camping. Mr. B talked mostly about working as a camp host, but also touched on getting a job in a small town with a big tourist season, such as Jackson, Wyoming. He mentioned the sugar beet harvest in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana, but didn’t have many details about this work. Folks who’d been part of the Amazon.com Camperforce spoke about their experiences. (A couple of folks had great experiences, but a woman who’d worked in the Camperforce in a different state had a terrible experience.) At the end of the seminar, a fellow talked about his life as a traveling poker dealer.

I skipped Friday’s seminar on budgeting to go into Quartzsite.

On Saturday I went into Quartzsite and checked out the Big Tent.

I got back on Saturday just in time for the soup dinner. The soup dinner was set up like the chili dinner, where everybody was asked to chip in a can of soup to toss into the pot. Big thanks to The Cook who stepped in again and organized his small but hard-working crew to make several pots of really delicious soup. I remember there was a potato-leek soup and a very nice vegetarian option, which is what I ate. I don’t remember what the other choices were.

On Sunday morning, Mr. B talked about state residency for folks living full time on the road, as well as how those folks can receive mail. I’ve mostly got those things figured out, but I attended so I’ll have some ideas if my situation changes.

On Sunday afternoon was the second women’s meeting.

There was nothing scheduled for Monday morning, but Mr. B added in a “philosophical discussion” about the lies rubber tramps sometimes have to tell in order to live the way we do. I decided not to attend because I wasn’t all that interested in a philosophical discussion and because I suspected some of what I would hear would piss me off. I think I ended up going into town that day.

And then the RTR was over! Just like that!

Read about my first week at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.