Word: bloomquist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Here you can do as you diddly darn," says Gerry Bloomquist, 65, a retired dress-shop keeper from Minnesota who is wintering in the outskirts of Quartzsite, Ariz. She sips a drink, relaxing in front of her 33-ft. Holiday Monitor recreation vehicle, or RV, in a lawn chair set on a piece of Astroturf. "My grass," she calls it. While the sun, rattlesnakes and tarantulas bed down, Bloomquist and tens of thousands of other tanned retirees enjoy another happy hour parked out in the desert, gazing at the mountains, puttering around their mobile homes, filling hummingbird feeders, thriftily sidestepping...
There are several species of snowbirds: "boondockers," like Bloomquist and her husband Len, 75, a retired farm-equipment dealer, park their mobile homes and set up housekeeping; "tailgaters," who use their vehicles as shops on wheels, selling all manner of goods; and "tourists," who just drive around. Quartzsite is not the only winter oasis that attracts such migrants. According to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, some half a million Americans go south each winter in motor homes, most to established cities in Florida, Texas and Arizona. Quartzsite is for those who prefer to rough...
...People can't figure out why we're out here and why we aren't bored," says Gerry Bloomquist, enjoying the sunset with her neighbor Mary Lueth. Back home in Minnesota, the Bloomquists and Lueths live an hour apart; here in the desert they live at either end of a laundry line. "Oops, there's our noise for the day," cracks Gerry, looking up at four Army helicopters...