Awesome Storm

We had an AWESOME storm Monday night!! I am continually amazed at how fast storms can appear here in Arizona. It was quite cloudy and overcast last night but nothing serious. Then out of nowhere comes this gushing wind and DUST! This was by far the most ominous dust storm we’ve seen this past year. The wind switched dramatically from east to west and blew thick yellow clouds of dust into giant dust devils. WOW! It was phenomenal to watch. Just can’t capture it on film though. Then came the rain. What a blessing to this area as we sure haven’t had much this year. Too bad it all has to fall at once though. This morning the streets are dry with just an occasional puddle here and there. The park is really constructed well for water runoff. The little rivers rush down the streets straight to the golf course where it can be pumped away. With the nice big pumps the park utilizes, we’ll be back golfing in no time. See the attached pictures of golf course hole #7 contributed by Verna Shepherd. Hey Verna…thanks for the photos!

Palm Trees

I just came back from a nice morning bike ride and watched the landscape crew in action trimming the palm trees again. I've told the story before, but it sure is fascinating to watch so I'm attaching a few more photos so we can all appreciate how much work is involved in the process. Pictures are as follows: 1) Approaching the nice full tree, 2&3) Trim away with the saw, 4) The fronds just fall to the ground in a heap....but look closely at the barbs along each leaf stem. These branches are vicious! 5) Another crew follows along behind neatly stacking the fronds so they can be easily and efficiently picked up by the truck later. 6) The freshly trimmed street looks a little bare but they always seem to fill out nicely.

Park & Community News

It looks like it’s the annual tree trimming time here at Palm Creek. Our landscaping crews are hard at work trimming all the lower limbs and dead fronds from the palm trees…and there are a LOT of palm trees. They do a couple blocks each day so the project will last a while.

In the meantime, construction continues on park model and village homes throughout the park. We see the Perry Concrete trucks come and go most every day as they pour more and more patios and driveways. You’ll all be amazed at how many new homes we have when you return this fall. It would surely be exciting to be one of the new home owners and come down to see your lovely new home all ready and waiting for you to move in. I haven’t seen any new “model” village homes come in yet, but rumor has it that there are a couple on order.

The weather has been surprisingly mild the last few weeks. Temps are down at a tolerable level…mid to upper 90s or at most below 105. That’s not so bad. The humidity is up to 40-50% though so that makes a big difference. We’ll still keep the air conditioning going, thank you. Reports I hear from family and friends back east or even up Oregon way have been worse than here. When other parts of the country reach the triple digits they really suffer because of the humidity. It seems to be an even trade off, but I’ll still take this dry heat as the best choice.

Despite the national weather reports broadcasting news about the flooding in Tucson and surrounding area, we remain quite dry. We’ve only had 2-3 days of rain with no flooding to report. It was quite a shock, however, to drive up to Phoenix last week and actually see water in the Gila River. Sure don’t see that very often.

The new Lowe’s store is progressing rapidly. Looks like they’re putting up a nice decorative brick wall around the perimeter. The Golden Corral is still doing well. We ate there a couple times and the food has always been very good. The Extended Stay America hotel across from the park is now getting its outside coat. I read in the paper this morning that Casa Grande will have 2400 new residential homes this year. The community is definitely growing.


Here's a picture of the new hotel. Looks huge!

I also saw this blurb in the Phoenix paper this week regarding the Wild Horse Pass Casino. “The Gila River Indian Community is relocating its largest casino closer to Interstate 10 and plans to turn it into a "casino resort" with a 250-room hotel, 2,300-seat entertainment hall and a parking garage. Construction is scheduled to begin next spring. The new resort casino is scheduled to open in summer 2008 and will include a 100,000-square-foot gaming floor, 10-story hotel, entertainment venue, conference facilities, stores, nightclub, multiple restaurants, lounge, and pool, spa and health club.”