We spent the night in Gila Bend, AZ. We were informed that there was an area where we could park overnight for free next to a Texaco station. There is indeed a large parking area next to a closed station however there were 4 units parked there with oversized loads that would not be moving until morning. It appeared that they would let them idle all night.
Across the street was a relatively new Shell station with gas, diesel, lp gas, a free dump station and a nice campground. If you are a member of Escapees, you can camp for $9.50 with full hookups. It is back off the road behind the fueling islands and was very quiet. That was certainly better than listening to those 4 big diesels idle all night.
The photos are from the Custom car show at Casa Grande. you can double click on them to enlarge them so you can see better. The Ford was pretty nice and the John Deere/Davidson was a sight to behold. The queen seat is an implement seat and the fuel tank is an old milking machine. What an imagination one must have to build a unit like this and then be able to make it operate in a reasonable fashion.
We are currently in the middle of the desert near Quartzsite. South about 7 miles and then west on a dirt/sand/gravel road about 1.5 miles. We are hear with several RV's that belong to hams with all kinds of antennas and solar panels, one wind generator and not sure what else. They were wanting name tags before the engine cooled. The real show does not start until the weekend and runs all next week. As we came in we could see units parked 2 0r 3 miles away and I would estimate there were maybe 3000 units. They say there will be in excess of 10,000 units parked all over the desert. They are expecting over 100 units in the ham area alone. So, we will see how that works out.