Latest / Arizona Unscripted / Episode 11: 🌵 Arizona Unscripted - Quartzsite Celebrates America's 250th Anniversary!
Transcript
- Arizona Unscripted: Welcome to Arizona Unscripted. ⁓ I'm your host, Bart, alongside my wonderful co-hosts, Diane, Jim, and Catherine. And from time to time, we'll also be bringing on special poppin' guests. Almost every week we're gonna be bringing in something, somebody interesting or group interesting about that's interested in Arizona and tell us more about their wonderful part they work with in our lovely state. Anyway, Arizona Inscripted is all about Arizona, its people, its places, its events, and local issues that shape our everyday lives, from small towns to big cities. From hidden gems and great local food to history, culture, and the challenges facing our communities. We're here to have a great time in real conversations with real Arizonians. So our goal is simple: celebrate what makes Arizona unique while bringing together voices from every corner of the state. So whether you're a lifelong resident, a newcomer, or just someone who loves Arizona, we hope you'll feel right at home. So grab a cup of coffee or something cool. Sit back and join us as we explore the people, places, and stories. That make Arizona one of the most fascinating states in America. Welcome to Arizona Inscripted. And with that, I'm gonna bring in Diane, Jim, and Catherine. Hello, you you you guys. Hey Bart. Hi. Hey. How you doing? Fantastic. I'm feeling good. I'm ⁓ my I'm not so warm here now. How are you doing? What's the temperature out there in the various areas? Today it's wonderful because we're down below a hundred. So we're celebrating that. This morning it was eighty five degrees and seventy seven percent humidity. Well makes us feel better. Yeah. That's great. ⁓ and beautiful. Are you gonna be wine tasting at all, I presume, maybe? No, I am not a drinker at this point in my life. I'm grateful for that. So but ⁓ in my friends home here where I am, he's a vintner and there's a whole room full of bottles of wine. Wow. He'll probably be tasting, but I won't. But it's fun to be up here. It's beautiful. And what a what a quintessential quintessential area, right? Napa Napa. But still, you know, Arizona is better. Well I'm looking forward to being back home, although I'm enjoying the cool weather while I can. But yeah, Arizona is great. When you ⁓ well, Diana, I think we have a special guest today. Go ahead and why don't you bring bringing ⁓ so we have Rain here with us and ⁓ absolutely fabulous person. I adore Rain so much. She's coming in from La Paz County. We also have Daniel and Patty from Graham. We've got Kathy from ⁓ Coachese and we've got Sue from Greenlee. ⁓ and Carol and Jim from Mojave. Yeah. ⁓ nice, nice. So Rain, welcome. Hi there. Hi. Great to be here. Thank you for doing this. Yeah. It's so great to have you here with us. And we've been talking about celebrating all the things. So Route sixty six being a hundred years old and our country being two fifty and so many fun Arizona two fifty things happening. So we would love to have you talk to us a little bit about what is going on in your area with that. Yeah. So ⁓ I'm down in Quartzite and ⁓ the the folks started talking about America 250 in our parks cultural ⁓ beautification advisory board. It's a very long name. And ⁓ we advise the town of Quartz Council on different events and how to beautify the town and different things. So we started talking about this quite a while ago because nobody was. And the the town, ⁓ a lot of municipalities are short staffed these days. And ours, ours is as well. So the funny thing is we had all these brand, really exciting ideas. And the and the staff was like, huh, how are we gonna do that? So ⁓ We put it out there to the community and our local VFW ⁓ 769 has really picked up and the ball and decided to run with it. So on July the fourth, well, first of all, they actually had a brand new mural. We have a America 250 mural here in town. So who who did the mural? I mean, was it like some the youth, the VFW and our art guild and volunteers? ⁓ like collaborate like a collaborative mural. Okay. Yeah. And it is it's located at our community center. ⁓ we have a another building there that's called the Annex. And so it's facing the street. And on Saturday at 10 o'clock, they're gonna have a ribbon cutting. So that's fantastic. ⁓ my gosh. That's like go ahead. I did get it, the big picture on the front page of the Desert Messenger in the May edition, because I'm like, yes. Awesome. That's wow. Now is the mural ⁓ so it's all is is it like ⁓ of course we can't see it, I haven't seen it, but can can you describe it for our for everybody? I mean, I'm just curious what's what's really has it got like Fireworks going off, you know, the constitution, what's happening? What's what's what's it's got ⁓ different it's kind of like a like a quilt. So there's different sections, there's a different little squares. And ⁓ there's an eagle, there's the Lake Havasu, the London Bridge. There's ⁓ London Bridge. That's awesome. There's miners, there's a camel, of course. ⁓ yes. Yep. And they just they were out there working early in the morning ⁓ because you know it's kinda hot to be painting, but it was it's a wonderful addition to our community. And so we are hoping to get more artwork and more color into the community. And then these are all this is all volunteer, we're not paying anybody for the mirror, right? This is because they're all it's collaborative work. Is it just a volunteer thing generally? It is. Wow. That's fantastic. What a great community thing. My gosh. I love it. So that is like a huge, huge thing. That's a huge yeah. And by the way, you might want to bring your mic just a little closer. We're doing online editing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, that's good. I would love for you to share a picture of that and we could put it in the comments in the podcast to be able to see that for the listeners. That would be awesome. I'll try to figure out how to get it to you. So what activities do you guys still have coming up? So on July 4th, the VFW, they're starting early. They're gonna have a sidewalk chalk art contest starting at seven o'clock in the morning. Wow. That's too early. Not when it's a hundred plus degrees outside, it's a right. And then then they've got kid kids games at eight. ⁓ they've added the cornhole tournament at 9 30. And then we'll take a break and go over to the community center for the ribbon cutting at 10. And then at 11 o'clock, we have corn on the cob eating contest. Yum. It's all American, right? ⁓ my gosh. There's music ⁓ from the country gentleman entertainment. So that's from me. Eleven o'clock to three PM. Okay. And then then there's a cookout at noon. Mm. And one o'clock is apple pie eating contest. Yes. I might be driving to quartzite. And then wait, at two o'clock, they're gonna have the sidewalk egg frying contest. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ classic. You gotta try that. Classic. Here we are. So I hope it's gonna be hot enough. ⁓ and then they're also gonna be doing bingo inside. so for folks that don't wanna watch the crying contest, they can they can go play bingo. And then at three o'clock there's a raffle. How fun. And so they are really going for the Americana feel, which is And is a raffle like is it a like a fifty fifty type raffle or is it gonna go into like ⁓ you know gifts and things? Yep. And they usually do something really fun. Yeah. Sounds like a pretty full day. But wait, there's more. ⁓ my gosh, there's more. The town of Courtsite is hosting their event. ⁓ that's gonna be at the community center. Okay. And that that starts at six thirty. Okay. ⁓ And they're gonna be having free hot dogs, popcorn, watermelon, ⁓ apple pie and ice cream. And and so then there's also a presentation that's gonna happen. ⁓ a guy dresses up, he comes down from Lake Havasu, and he'll be talking about the constitution ⁓ or the ⁓ the independence. And he will usually he had He's done that last year and so he brought copies of the Declaration of Independence and and tells some really interesting stories. So he'll be doing that and I believe there'll be some ⁓ music in the background as well. And then of course we have our fireworks at nine o'clock. Fine. Yeah. Wow. What a great day. So just really come out there with your chair. It's like is I guess you bring your own chair, I presume you might bring your chair. Or are they gonna be some seating? Okay, bring your own chairs and blankets and and they'll have food there, it sounds like, but you want to maybe bring some you want to bring a picnic too? Or do you want to just ⁓ or do both? Grab some of the food around there. ⁓ yeah, come check out the fun at the community center. Hmm. Okay. And ⁓ so we had a we did have a lot of ideas and I'm really glad to see some of them implemented. ⁓ but the community is really stepped up in a good way. And ⁓ and then in the last edition of the Desert Messenger, it came out on June 17th. In the middle of the paper, I had a ⁓ flag that took up both pages. ⁓ nice. So the senior center is hosting a ⁓ patriotic home decorating contest. outside and some folks were saying, you know, we have a lot of RVers here in Quartzight. And they're like, yeah, we don't have a place to fly our flag. So we we put the flag in the paper. ⁓ yeah. And so so you can take it and put it outside your R V, put it in your windows or use it that way. How fun. Yeah. So I'm just years ago. And And it was like, yes. And the interesting thing is I had announced it at a meeting ⁓ the month before. And the other newspaper actually came out before me. And she also put a flag in her paper too in the middle. So that's great. They should have they should have plenty of flags to choose from. That's awesome. Rain, I wanted to ask you in this last issue. You also had a section where people had ⁓ sent in their thoughts on the 250th anniversary. It looked like you had a couple pages. I wondered if you would talk about that a little bit. Yes, that was that was a lot of fun. that would be yep, June 17th. So I put it out there for folks to submit their ⁓ information, their wishes. and for the future. And so that's neat. ⁓ it was actually on the back side of the flag. And so there's a whole bunch of them. ⁓ good positive messages. Uh-huh. And I can do you get any comments from people on that? Brain, did you get anybody write back a notes about that? Yes. So it's called America 250 Courtsight Wishes. ⁓ So I wish for peace for all the people and all the creatures of our earth. That's wonderful. That was from Sandy Childs in Portsite. ⁓ there's another one. Sharman said, Don't erase history. Embrace it. History reminds us of where we come from, what we should and shouldn't do. to make a better future. That's that's pretty neat. That's neat. Yeah. Yeah. And I forgot one other thing. The town of Quartzite is doing a time capsule. Wow. And they will be collecting messages at the community center up through Saturday. Wow. ⁓ at the at the fourth of July. And they're not going to take everything in the donations, they're going to pick and choose what they want to put in the time. Is that right? They've they've narrowed it down to ⁓ like pieces of paper. So what I'm gonna do is like an eight and a half by eleven is what they wanted. And I had actually designed a half a sheet that we put out to the community in March for the Buck Connors days, and so we did get a lot of those messages back then, and so I will put that back out to the community of hey, you know, put out some good messages. And ⁓ I will be putting the whole edition of the Desert Messenger in that time capsule with those wishes and ⁓ the good messaging that we hope for the future. Yeah. That includes great. Would that include the mural? Like would that with the edition I I you mentioned the mural but be was it going to be an addition, you think? Thank you. I will add that. Yes, that is such a great idea because I would love to see that put in there. So how fun is that to put together a time capsule? I remember doing that at graduation from high school and you put it into the future, right? It gets opened by people that we might not ever see or a time that we might not make it to, but it connects us through the generations of super near years. I love it. I read somewhere where a time capsule was opened and all the paper was bad. Because they the only the only ones that came through were the ones that were laminated. ⁓ because if it's in steel the the condensation ruined them. Yeah. So it's a good idea to laminate the paper before you put it in there. Or who had the resin who was it that did the resin stuff and they put it in resin? That was Jan last Jan Clapp from our art guild talked about how they opened the time capsule in Havasu and it was also made from cement. Yeah. Which was too porous for us. And that was why they had so much problems. So hopefully the quartzite time capsule will actually last into the future. We hope so. And there's another one that is still buried that should have been opened in twenty twenty five. And that's at Celia's Rainbow Gardens. And if you ever come to Quartzight, you've got to check it out. It's ⁓ it it's it's an amazing little oasis. And it's located at the town park. So ⁓ that's going to be coming up in the future. We will see how we can get that opened. And then ⁓ that one was mostly for the elementary school, like three or five years ago. So ⁓ wow. That'll be that'll be fun to to see what we're doing with that. ⁓ yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm super excited for all the Arizona two fifty activities across the state. And ⁓ hopefully we can have ⁓ guests on in the future to talk to us about what's happening in the communities because what a fun thing. We talk a lot about road trips and connecting and going and seeing the other counties. So that's a great way to do that is to plug into those Arizona two fifty things. Yeah. It sounds like in in this case because there's people coming coming from all around the region, yeah. How far away people come, do think that to this event? I mean it sounds like a great event. It's gotta be miles away, right? ⁓ to Courtsite? Yeah. I don't know. I'm looking forward to seeing folks. ⁓ which is I'll be doing some ⁓ more posting on Facebook. To see, yeah, get to get it out there. Yeah. Yeah. Because I've I'm wondering with the gas prices, they should probably carpool. Well, and how fun is that to go with friends anyway? Right. Exactly a special thing, right? I mean, that's what we do. Come on, come on, Diane's carpal. Then we get in our although we could get in one of Diane's cars, maybe not though. I don't know. We we definitely need to do like a road trip from Mojave County to see. For those that don't know, she's like a ⁓ you're not a race car driver, but I mean you want to I love I love race cars. That Mustang you wanted. I know it. Well, Jim's got a really fast car. So don't fit too many people in it though. No, that's true. So Jim's car actually adds to the wind in his area, right? So fast. That's right. Well, yeah, I gotta tell you, if you come to Quartzight, you gotta slow down on Main Street and check out all the Camels that we have. Yes. I love the camels of quartzite. So I I heard Bart kind of chuckle when you mentioned camels, Rain, and I betcha he doesn't know the history of camels in in quartzite. Do you Bart? I don't know the yeah, I don't know the history of camels and haven't. ⁓ Rain, Rain, can you educate Bart about the camels? Yeah, please. ⁓ yes. So in you know, in the civil war. Or before the Civil War, there was an experiment and the US Army thought it would be a great idea to bring camels across the desert. ⁓ and so they went to what is now like Turkey and they got some camels. And the f there were actually two trips. They brought back the first boat of camels and They should have hired hijali then, but they didn't. They didn't listen to the experts. And so they brought back the camels and nobody knew how to deal with them. And so they came in through Texas. And then they realized they better get, you know, the experts. So they went back and they got some ⁓ camel herders, and one of them was hijolly. And actually it was like Hajjali, but the soldiers could not. say that really well and so they ended up calling him high jolly. So they he was the expert, he was the camel herder and he worked with the US Army for quite a while. And they went up to like ⁓ it was Beale and it's kind of like where this Route 66 is. Okay. ⁓ going into California. They did not come through quartzite. ⁓ however high jolly retired here in Fortside. Wow. And he died here. So we love our high jolly theme of the camels. And you know, there's stories that he died with his camel. There's there's all kinds of different stories. And we have an amazing monument in our high jolly cemetery here. Wow. That is one of the most visited sites in Arizona. Our cemetery. I even have a picture of myself and my family there. It's super cool. That's super cool. We all have to go check it out. And so our welcome signs have camels on it. And a lot of folks have adopted the camel as our mascot. That's awesome. What a great story. There's all kinds of camels ⁓ that are life size statues and artwork. ⁓ all all along Main Street in front of our businesses ⁓ at the cemetery. And back when the Arizona Centennial happened, we had a board and one of our lasting legacies on that board was to ⁓ bring in camel statues. So we have silhouettes also, like there's three at the cemetery, there's one at Okay. A W C in different places around town. So y'all have to go to courtsite and check it out and get you taken with a camel. Makes me want to take a road trip. Right? I know, totally. Thank you, Rain, for sharing that. We are super excited to see how things go there in courtsite and looking forward to seeing a photo of that mural. Okay. Yes, I am. Gonna go there. I gotta check it out. The camels. Come on. I mean, I never you know, you really sh camels should have been the perfect thing, right? That was probably the military's idea. Probably like it's desert, you need camels. And they they l they can go a long way without water. They without water. Yeah, they store their own water. I mean, come on. And the the thing about the camel experiment is that it was a good idea. It did work. But then the civil war happened and the money went elsewhere. So it just they say it's a failed experiment, but it really is not. It's just that's okay. So it could have worked. It just didn't have enough money and resources to really finish it out, right? It was a partial experiment that didn't quite we actually do have live camels that come to courtside every year. Okay. So you can ride a camel, pet a camel, ⁓ Now the Chamber of Commerce is hosting Camel Palooza. ⁓ It's in January. And I don't have the dates, but it's a weekend event. I mean, do you ever get the question like why are there cam why are they even worried about the Civil War and being so far away from the from the from the war? Did people ever ask that question? Like, why are they even why are they even ⁓ military out there anyway? What's going on? Yeah, it was it was trying to get the military to the route to California. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Get supplies. Yep. And it worked. Caravans. Caravan. Wow. Yeah. Well, thank you, Rain. What a what a great story. I mean, that's something that I hope people get get a chance to go out there and check it out because that's that's it's fascinating. Even even especially with the two fifty celebration on top of that. I mean, we've got, you know, the heck. It it's definitely part of our our history. And and that's the thing. We're trying to get people to recognize Local history. Gotcha. Even even though we haven't been here for 250, we are part of Part of you, yeah. Right. I have to ask so for all those people coming out there that really want to get some special food, is it you know we we try to highlight, you know, some local restaurant or something or some eatery out there, maybe when we do a show. Is there any place that you would recommend for folks to go to? ⁓ yeah. We have Mountain Quail Cafe. Which is right on Main Street next to McDonald's. And then ⁓ Filiberto's is a Mexican place. But they say you have not been to Portsite unless you have been to Silly Owl's Pizza. Yes, that's right. Silly Owl's Pizza. ⁓ my gosh, Jim, it's a road trip. Silly owls. So what makes a good beer there? Yeah, what makes silly owls silly owl sounds like a great name. So what's that? Is it some kind of special place? I guess some silly pizzas. They're delicious pizzas. And and their salads are very cold. They're always really, really, really good. And the choice of food is just amazing. And they have it it's just a happen in place. ⁓ during the season, they've got live music and karaoke and just It's a really great place to go to, just in general, just a great vibe. Sounds like wonderful. Wow. Hey, Daniel coming in from Graham County. Hello. Hello. I I am guessing that nobody has decided to promote camel burgers. Actually, ⁓ we have a new place that ⁓ they were a small place and they're they're moving to a larger restaurant they're not open yet. And at their it was called ⁓ Scooters Cafe. And they did have camel burgers. Really? ⁓ wow. Yes. And were they popular? Was it ⁓ I mean Yeah they sold out a way way too often. Yeah. ⁓ that day ⁓ Thank you all for being here at the table with us today. And we look forward to future conversations about Arizona two fifty and what is going on throughout the state. Yeah, I think I'm good. I'm not gonna have a camel burger yet. No camel burger. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Rain. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye bye. Take care, everybody. You too. Thank you, Ring. Thank you for being here today.