The calendar said fall, but we were still enjoying summer temperatures in Las Vegas.  The Thousand Trails Preserve was beginning to fill up, however, and they began their winter program of assigning sites to new arrivals-it was getting busy at the park.   During our last week in Las Vegas we got together with friends Don and Bonnie Wolfe,  Judy Metzler and Jeff Rubic and Mary went to lunch with old school friend Karen Aborn.  And, of course, we spent some time trying our luck with Blackjack, Poker and the slots.  (We won't be buying a new RV with our winnings!)  We always enjoy our stay in Las Vegas, and staying in the RV rather than at a hotel makes it even better.  We are "at home" a lot, but can take part in the Las Vegas atmosphere when we feel like it.  One thing we especially like about the city is the fact that we can look in any direction to the horizon and see tree-tops and mountains...always magnificent.
 
 

Bonnie and Don Wolfe joined us for dinner at the Hilton and also had us to dinner at their home during our stay in Las Vegas.  We always enjoy getting together with them in Las Vegas and when we're all in the Toledo area in the summer.  They have a Southwind motor home.	We met Judy Metzler and Jeff Rubic when we first bought our Bounder in 1998.  They live in Pittsburg and were just "weekenders" until this past spring when Jeff retired.  Now they are on an extended trip in their Bounder and we plan to see them in the Phoenix area this winter.  They were in Las Vegas for the Bounders United National Rally.	Las Vegas is in the desert...but it does rain there once in a while.....and did so the entire day that Mary visited with her friend Karen Aborn.  Maybe it was to get Karen "in the mood" as she and Ron will be moving to humid Tampa, Florida soon.	When we say how much we like the southwest, people from Ohio always ask us if we miss the "green" landscape.  But, the desert isn't all brown.  There really is "purple mountain majesty."  This was the view from our window at the Thousand Trails Las Vegas Preserve.

We pulled out of the Thousand Trails Preserve in Las Vegas on Sunday, October 8 around 10am and there was a rig waiting for our spot!  We spent the day driving south through the California desert just west of the Colorado River and then drove across the river into Arizona for a one night stay at the Western Horizons Colorado River Oasis park.  On Monday we headed east on I-10, down route 85 to Gila Bend, and east on I-8 to Casa Grande.  After a side trip to Eloy and the Flying J to fill up on fuel, we settled in at Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort for our winter stay.

October 9 is the earliest we have arrived at Palm Creek.  It felt good to be here and it was nice to be able to take our time to settle in and get organized without wanting to be involved in a lot of activities....as the park was fairly empty and life in the park was still on "summer schedule."  Our street has space for 18 rigs.  We are one space from the corner at one end and the only other people on our street are in the corner space at the opposite end.  We can see through about 1/4 mile to the end of the park...all open space except for less than half a dozen rigs.  The weather has been glorious...80s during the day and 50 at night with humidity hovering at 15%.   We can live with this!!!!    The golf course inside Palm Creek (a par three course)  had reseeded the front nine but for our first week here, we could play the back nine for free...so we took full advantage of that...twice a day on a couple of days!  We got our golf clubs regripped and took a golf lesson from a local pro..so look out now!!!  In the second week, the Palm Creek course closed the back nine as well, but the regulation course across the interstate from us reopened - with special (low) rates, so we moved our activities there.  Time on the tennis courts with a few other early arrivals also worked its way into the schedule.

We had some visitors right off the bat.  Two couples of our Bounder friends (that we had seen in Las Vegas) came to Palm Creek for a few days.  They got their rigs all organized and then put them in the Palm Creek storage lot and drove their tow cars back to Ohio and Pennsylvania.  They will return after the holidays and stay for a while.  In the meantime we'll be looking in on the rigs.  We enjoyed some visiting time before they headed east.  Our next visitors were Bo and Linda Bodine from Lambertville, Michigan (Toledo, OH area).  Linda is the sister of our good friend, Dennie Dew, and we have shared RV travel adventure stories with them several times.  They stayed at the Sundance RV Resort here in Casa Grande and we got together several times.  One afternoon, for a litle adventure, we took them out to "Skydive Arizona" where we watched a constant rainbow of parachutes land right in front of us.  Of course, they were attached to many interesting jumpers participating in the Unites States Parachute Association National Championships.

One of our Palm Creek neighbor couples, Art and June Nelson, purchased a "town home" in Green Valley, Arizona as an investment property.  They had been spending some time there doing some maintenance and getting to know the area prior to turning it over to winter renters while they return to Palm Creek.  They invited a group of us "early arrivals" down to check it out and they also served us a great lunch.  It was an opportunity for us to tell each other about our "summer vacations" as well.  We really liked their home!
 
 

Bob and Marilyn Reynolds and Judy and Ed Lichtenberg are members of the Tri-State Bounders who have gone back east till after the holidays.	Linda and Bo Bodine are friends from "home," and Newmar owners, who visited Casa Grande in October.	While visiting Art and June Nelson in Green Valley, Art, a former teacher, conducted a "seminar" for our Palm Creek neighbors.  We learned all about his Green Valley neighborhood.	Lunch buddies...Arnie Hawkins and Judy Grove; Don and Bev McGovern; Walt and Maxine Schnoor; our hosts, Art and June Nelson; Tom and Mary

 

These are just a few of the many jumpers we watched at Skydive AZ.  This particular group had matching parachutes.	This jumper's outfit was quite colorful.  How would you like to go around with all that camera equipment on your head?  He was crouched down, filming the landing of the group to the right of my photo.	The end of another perfect day at Palm Creek.

As the month came to a close, the population in the park had begun to increase.  November First promises to witness a "big explosion" of new residents, activites and business openings.  A sign of increased population in the city of Casa Grande is that a big brand new Lowe's opened on October 30 (Right next door to Home Depot!).   Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, so we didn't have to change our clocks...but our TV schedules and dealings with friends and family in other time zones had to be adjusted.  Tom and I observed our 39th wedding anniversary on October 28th...still going strong after all these years!  Listening to the weather reports in other parts of the country we're happy to be where we are for the time being.  Check in again next month to see what we're up to.