Event of the Month

Event of the Month Hi Jolly Daze: When Boondockers Return to Quartzsite

Far out on the western Arizona desert there sits Quartzsite, a most curious as you will see in a moment community. A block or so west of its main intersection of U.S. Route 95 and the Interstate 10 bypass, one encounters a pyramidal monument made of rock. This is the burial place of Hadji Ali. Hi Jolly the Americanized version was an Arab imported by the Army to drive camels across the arid Southwest in a short-lived transport experiment of the 1850s. He also is an excuse for a celebration, held on the third Saturday of every November, called Hi Jolly Daze. The festivities start early with a pancake breakfast that probably serves up more calories than you want to think about. Then there's the big parade that commemorates Quartzsite's past and present with colorful floats, bands, a veterans' color guard, and the town's own professional clowns. After the parade, everyone heads for the park for a barbecue, a bicycle run, bingo games, relay races, carnival fun for the youngsters, and music for dancing. It's a day full of fun. Another reason for the celebration: to welcome back to Quartzsite the annual migration of the snowbirds the winter visitors. It's the snowbirds, mostly retirees who spend their time RVing, who make Quartzsite such a curious community. In summer the town has a population of maybe a couple of thousand. By the time of Hi Jolly Daze, there are upward of 30,000 congregating in and around a community that doesn't have much more than a few stores and restaurants. (In midwinter, particularly in February when the annual rock-hound show is held, that population - you're not going to believe this swells to about a million.) The desert is paved with RVs thousands and thousands of them. The locals call them "boondockers." "It looks like somebody kicked the top off a big anthill," one of the snowbirds told me when I looked in on Hi Jolly Daze a year ago. They've come to Quartzsite because it's inexpensive, because it's warm, and because it's a chance to renew acquaintance with their fellow boondockers.

Those erstwhile camels, by the way, were Jefferson Davis' idea. He was Secretary of War then. Later, of course, he became president of the Confederacy. The idea was to use the beasts to move supplies across the Western desert. Seventy-some camels were imported from the Middle East and with them Hi Jolly, an expert handler of the cantankerous, halitosisridden critters. The camels worked like a charm. They could go days without water. But they frightened the mules. The muleskinners didn't like them. Mule dealers didn't either. They hated losing the business and let the Army know about it. Then the Civil War broke out, and the experiment was abandoned. Some of the camels were sold to zoos and circuses; the rest were turned loose to wander the desert, scare unwary prospectors, and, ultimately, to perish. Hi Jolly himself died broke in 1902. It's said that buried with him at Quartzsite are the ashes of the last surviving camel, name of Topsy. But his true memorial is Hi Jolly Daze.

WHEN YOU GO

This year's Hi Jolly Daze takes place Saturday, November 19. Admission is free. Quartzsite is 131 miles west of Phoenix on Interstate 10. There are a few modest motels in town and more to choose from in Parker, 59 miles north on U.S. Route 95. While in the area, check out Hi Jolly's tomb (on west end of bypass 20), a 47-arm saguaro (2.3 miles west of Exit 17 on Dome Rock Road), and petroglyphs at Tyson Tank (two miles south of town). A few miles farther west of Quartzsite via Interstate 10, the Colorado River attracts year-round recreationists with a variety of water sports. For more information, contact the Quartzsite Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 85, Quartzsite, AZ 85346; (602) 927-5600.