We started our month with a Night Glow Balloon Festival and finished with a Night Glow Golf Tournament! Randy played the Palm Creek Golf Course earlier in the week so as to be familiar with it, but it didn’t matter. It was dark enough out there that you couldn’t see anything anyway!

Randy with the glow balls for his team. They stay lit for five minutes after striking.

Glow sticks were placed at the back of the green and others were mounted on the pin so you had an idea of where to hit to. There was a glow rope in the cup that was visible when you got close enough. It was a unique, fun, experience for him to play and me to walk along.

Randy’s team got an even-par for the five hole scramble tournament and tied for first place. Each player got six (regular) golf balls and a free round of golf.

So, even though it was overcast and windy, he played again yesterday.

We saw an egret hunting for lunch in the creek that runs through the back nine.

Randy loves, loves, loves his new watch. It does a jillion things including identifying yardages on golf courses. That feature was especially helpful in the Night Glow Tournament.

We’ve enjoyed our month at Palm Creek and were glad to make some new friends! Iris and Ron are from California and we’ll likely see them again as we traverse north and south.

Iris told people she met from Elko, Nevada about our Elko, so they came by to meet him.

Rick and Diana (and Buddy) are from Iowa and were gracious “across the street” neighbors. We enjoyed afternoon chats and dinner out with them. The Iowa sticker is missing on our map so, hopefully, we’ll see them again too!

Elko and Buddy snuggle up for an afternoon snooze.

Rick and Diana, like many others, have been coming to Palm Creek for years and years. It is their winter home away from home. We certainly understand the appeal of this beautiful park.

Palm Creek has tons of activities and brings in terrific entertainment. At a very modest cost, we have enjoyed one or two shows weekly.

Most permanent and seasonal people have golf carts and some are decorated in fun ways.

Of course, living in a traveling home means there is always some work to do or have done. Randy arranged for Jim’s Mobile RV to flush out our black and gray tanks.

Randy paid for the service, but then, of course, he helped!

As part of Randy’s cell booster project we acquired a new ladder mount flag pole. I was originally going to dispose of the ground level flag pole – but decided to keep it and get a Mariner’s flag instead! Flags tend to be conversation starters with people who walk by.

We are nearly done with our month in Casa Grande. Randy and I see a “winter home” like this in our future – just not anytime soon. (A Florida winter and a Texas winter need to happen first!) And as nice as it is, our eventual winter home isn’t likely to be Palm Creek because Casa Grande just didn’t do it for us. We did like, however, that Casa Grande was only 45 minutes from Randy’s brother Tim and Yvette’s house in Chandler! It is always fun to spend time with them.

A brief digression: We wondered about how to say the name of this town? We say Casa Grande the Spanish way (but omitting the rolled “r”) – “cossa gronday”. We’ve heard others say “cassa grand” and also several combinations of the two. A little research shows that there isn’t a “correct” way – even among locals.

So Casa Grande isn’t our answer but Arizona probably is. We like the southwest flavor, the mostly nice winter weather and the lack of bugs and humidity! Tucson still has Randy’s heart, and may be our answer, but we agree that the park we’ve stayed in the last two years is not. There are other parks in Tucson to try. Mesa, never on our radar before, is now there because I liked it so well when we were there in December. Time will tell.

Tomorrow, we move back into a more natural desert setting traveling to a Maricopa County Regional Park northwest of Phoenix. We have stayed in two Maricopa parks previously that were very nice and we are looking forward to visiting a new one.  More from there next time!