Casa Grande, AZ - Friends

While in the Phoenix area, we stayed in Casa Grande to be close to Jim and Chris. They are living and working at Palm Creek Golf & RV for the winter months. It's a beautiful place with every amenity and activity you can imagine. Normally RV parks might offer a swimming pool, jacuzzi, a small library, perhaps a pool table and so forth. Palm Creek, however, has all that plus a silver smithing shop, a lapidary shop, a computer room with high-speed computers available, a sewing room, a model plane airstrip, and so much more. Of course, all of this comes at a price and that price was a little too steep for our budget.

While filling up gas at a Flying J back in St George, UT, someone (who realized he had a captive audience at the gas pump) handed us a promotional flyer to visit a membership club called Western Horizons. We'd get 20 free nights if we listen to a 1 1/2 hour presentation. There just so happened to be a Western Horizons park 5 miles away from Palm Creek, so we thought we'd take advantage of the promotion. To make a long story short, we don't see ourselves buying into WH at this time because we don't see the financial advantage if we're not full-timing and because we tend to be destination-travelers. By that I mean, we travel to certain areas to visit a National Park or State Park not to spend our time in the RV resort. But as with everything in life, things may change. So, we'll keep membership parks like Thousand Trails, which Jim and Chris belong to, and Western Horizons in mind for the future.

Eventhough we got to spend time with Jim and Chris over the week, it just wasn't the same as when we are in the same park together. In the past we always parked next to them and could yell out the window to one another, or I'd join Chris on a walk with Odie, etc. It was nice having the spontaneity of being next door neighbors. But our conversations are always special - the joys and challenges of RVing, running a business, earning an income on the road, etc. We always go in depth with them, which is so refreshing when you sometimes feel isolated on the road.
Our last hurrah was breakfast at Cracker Barrel before Andy and I continued down the road - another day with a destination 'unknown'.