Farewell to Becca...Palm Creek's Activities Director

Tomorrow we say Goodbye to a very familiar face at Palm Creek. Becca is leaving her post in the Activities Office so she can be a stay-at-home Mom for a while. Palm Creek is giving Becca a send off tomorrow by hosting lunch for everyone in the park. We’re all invited up to the club house for lunch and to wish Becca the best in her new role. Thank you, Becca, for all your hard work here. We certainly wish you the best for your future.

Other big news is that the Toltec Tavern in Eloy burned down last night. Many of us have gone there especially for their great Friday night fish fry. Guess we’ll be looking for a new stomping ground now.

Speaking of restaurants…Macayos (in the old Johnny Carinos building) is supposed to open this weekend. Think we’ll give it a few weeks before we try to get in as I’m sure it will be packed for quite a while.

We broke a long-standing heat wave record today marking this as the 29th day of summer where temperatures have gone over 110 degrees. Yup. It’s hot. Cooler autumn temps will be welcome.

Bunny in Residence

We sure have a lot of rabbits in this park! It’s amazing to see how many are stretched out on the golf course in the cool grass and in the skinny shade of the palm trees. We haven’t had them in our yard much because there’s not a lot of landscaping in our particular area. This summer, however, I let our lantana go a little wild because I enjoy their pretty flowers this time of year. Lo and behold, a furry bunny has taken up residence in our tiny flower bed and munches away on the pretty purple flowers I have planted in there. If he wasn’t so cute, I’d be angry at the little bugger for eating the blossoms….but I guess the flowers can grow back. I took some pictures from my kitchen window and enjoyed his company while I did the dishes.

It’s still hot and a tad on the humid side so monsoon season remains with us. We just had to get the car washed today because it was getting hard to see out of the windows through all the dirt from recent storms. Wonder how long the clean car will last.

Still Recovering from Storm Damage

Casa Grande is recovering well from our big storm. It is now three days later and I believe everyone has their electricity back and the streets have been cleared of debris.

My star reporter (Verna Sheppard) is back in town with her handy camera after a long summer vacation. She forwarded these photos of some of our park damage. Here’s the 5th wheel that was blown over in the storage area plus a park model minus its patio awning. Thank you, Verna. I’ll see you up at the pool one of these nights.

Couldn’t go swimming tonight as we had a big dust storm late this afternoon. The sky was filled with good old Arizona dirt and grit with its huge yellow cloud and strong winds. What an awesome site.

It was a DANDY storm!!!

Wow! We had a jim dandy storm Monday night. It was an awesome sight for us avid storm watchers. There were a number of park model patios damaged but I don’t have any names of the unlucky residents. There was a 5th wheel parked out in the storage area that blew over and really got wrecked. The saddest part was to see all the pretty pine trees that were downed. For some reason, they seem to topple easily.

On my way to work Tuesday morning, I saw plenty of downed trees and tree limbs as I drove down McMurray Drive. Folks at the store talked about all the downed power poles out in the country. Some back roads were totally blocked due to fallen poles and hot wires. One school was closed due to damage and a mobile home park south of town had heavy damage. Las Casitas mobile home park had quite a few homes damaged where people had to move out to shelters. Some of the mobile homes were actually moved off their foundations. Parts of town were without electricity for a number of hours Monday night till the crews could get out and help with some of the downed lines.

City crews (and Palm Creek crews) were out in force Tuesday morning to clean up the debris and return to normalcy. There wasn’t a lot of rain but what we did have came down all at once and completely sideways in the strong wind. The weather channel says Casa Grande had over 2000 lightning strikes within two hours. At times the street lights would go out because they were tricked into thinking dawn was approaching with all the steady lightning.

Summer is moving along rapidly. We’re now rather tired of the heat and are waiting for cooler temps.

From the AZ Governor's Office

The latest telephone poll taken by the Arizona Governor's office, asked whether people who live in Arizona think illegal immigration is a serious problem:

29% of respondents answered: "Yes, it is a serious problem."

71% of respondents answered: "No es una problema seriosa."

Notes from a morning bike ride

It was cool this morning around 6:00 (only 80 degrees) so I hopped on my bike to enjoy a ride around the park. I keep thinking about all the work and heavy maintenance that goes on around here that our short term snowbirds never think about or realize.

Crews have been tarring all the little cracks and seams in the miles of streets inside the resort and have had to make some major road repairs or water line repairs in some areas. There are a number of places where holes have been drilled through the streets and water lines or repairs take place. That type of work is seldom seen by most of our residents.

Landscaping chores are endless. All those bushes and trees along the roadways need trimming plus every palm tree in the park gets pruned annually. I took a picture this morning so you could see how fresh and perky the trees now look with their recent haircuts.

I also passed a couple striking and unusual plants that I think are noteworthy. This cactus dwells in front of a house along Coyote Trail. It is quite different in that its stems are a different shape and color than the norm. Notice their graceful pretty flowers! I had to smile because the color of the stems matches the shutters on the house. Was that planned??
This photo shows a really cool palm tree along Cole Circle down by the village homes. I think its really neat how it grows in a cluster. Very attractive! Hats off to the landscaper who came up with such a lovely variety of plants for us to enjoy.
There is good news waiting for those of you who use the park cable for television. The number of channels has been increased so you will now have 71 channels available....including the golf channel. Those of you who are buying new HiDef televisions....beware that they require two lead in lines so if you want to continue to receive the park cable (including the park channel 3), you will have to make special arrangements with your DirecTV or Dish installer.

Summer marches onward.

Summer marches on. We’re in the midst of the monsoon season so our crystal blue skis have turned cloudy with sometimes huge billowy white clouds and sometimes huge dark thunder clouds. At any rate, they make for some fantastic sunsets. We’ve had several short rain storms in the last week or two which were quite refreshing although they tend to leave quite a bit of humidity in the air. We’re not used to that weird horrid word called “humidity” so we complain about it quite a bit while it lasts. We have not been victims of the rapid flash floods you may have seen on TV but Tucson and areas of Phoenix have had their share. The idiots who insist on driving through a flooded wash road continue to appear on evening news films. At least now they are required to pay at least a portion of the fees for the rescue teams.

The new Promenade mall continues at a rapid pace. Check out the website at www.promenadecasagrande.com for all the latest news and some nice photos.

The landscape crews are hard at work trimming all the palm trees in our park. The bucket truck drives around while a worker saws off the dead branches with a chain saw. Then another crew comes with the dump truck to pick up all the debris. It’s quite an efficient operation and this year (after the hard winter freeze) there is a lot of trimming to be done.

I had a chance to chat with Diane Gaines the other day and she is really excited about all the fun ideas she has for the upcoming Palm Creek golfers this season. Diane is now in charge of the pro shop and has great events planned. I don’t dare spoil her fun by sharing her ideas but her enthusiasm is contagious.

My little part time job at the print shop has turned into 9-10 hour days this summer. That’s a good thing though as I really enjoy it there and it’s a great way to stay cool and busy for the hot summer days.

Char and Terry stopped over last week so little Mollie could show off her new cuddly toy. Mollie is a trooper and loves to go through her repertoire of tricks when treats are offered. Isn’t she a cutie??