RC Flying at Palm Creek

Rick has flown RC aircraft for many years and was very happy to learn that Palm Creek RV park has their own RC field right in the park. The club members fly only electric aircraft, but there is a very wide variety of planes and helicopters being flown.


Rick's favorite aircraft is called a Slo Stick and is very maneuverable, light, yet inexpensive. I have a small, but powerful electric brushless motor installed that will pull this plane literally straight up! I also added ailerons which allow the plane to perform much better in rolling maneuvers.
This shows the Slo Stick, radio and Li-Ion batteries. These batteries allow flights of 20+ minutes, at which point you can change batteries and fly again. This type of plane is perfect for the fulltime RVer!

Here is a model of a Corsair model that flew very well. I would say that about 40% of the models are scale types (models of a specific, real aircraft), while the rest are models of all different kinds. One guy even has a ducted fan electric "jet" which is a spectacular performer. If you get a chance, give this hobby a try!

Cody Visits the Dog Play Yards in Palm Creek

Palm Creek is a very nice RV park and has done many things quite well. One thing that we have really appreciated is the creation of a pet area and a non- pet area. The pet area has about 1000 sites and constitutes about half the park. This is a very large area and you are welcome to walk your pet anywhere in the pet zone. They even have special Dog "pot" receptacles to deposit dog waste (and provide new bags to pick up the waste). These are emptied daily and as a result, it is very rare to see any dog refuse around.


Cody might be an oldtimer, but he loves the dog play yards at the park. In fact, he tries to pull us to the yard to go play. When he gets to go, he plays like a puppy! On of his favorite activities is to play with the other dogs. Since he is bigger than most of them, he will lie on his back to play at their level:

It is really amazing how well all the dogs play together and it is very rare to have any disagreement.

Here are a couple of Cody's pal who are thrilled to see him when he comes to the yard.

It is a Slow Season in Arizona this Year

We are now approaching the peak of the winter season here in Arizona, and I was interested in how full the Palm Creek RV Park was going to become. However, it seems that given the economic situation, a number of folks have not made the trip. Indeed, I was surprised to see quite a few empty sites in our park in February. Here, you can see a couple streets down from us where there are quite a few open sites. You can also see that the sites are very wide and level -- a nice place to stay!

Here is another view of a group of empty sites. Some of these fill up for a few days, but then the folks move on.

Speaking of difficult economic times, you have probably heard the term "Toxic Assets" with respect to certain real estate operations. As we tooled around Casa Grande, we were able to see a number of these toxic assets in person. Here is a good example -- the development of Mission Ranch.

As you can see, all the infrastructure for the development is in -- roads, privacy walls, streets, power, water, etc. It is ready to build homes, but unfortunately, the real estate market crashed and the market is stagnant.

The development even built these models, now enclosed in chain link fencing for protection. It is very sad to see these beautiful homes just sitting empty. We have seen quite a few such developments like this -- must be a huge investment that is now in trouble.