Trish finished a toddler-sized crocheted hat this morning:

After weeks of agonizing over which model to buy, M’s Syma 8XC Venture quadcopter arrived today, delivered to Ron and Carol who we met last year and live near the campground.  M is pretty excited:

While waiting for the battery to charge, M went for a ride in the mud:

I went for an afternoon flight, #65:

Views from the air:

Coming in for a landing:

Here’s a video of today’s flight, as well as yesterday’s flights and a flight from the day before yesterday:

With the battery charged, we took the Syma 8XC out for a test flight.  Being that I’ve had R/C helicopter piloting experience, M asked me to go first:

The quadcopter is remarkably stable and easy to fly compared to flying an R/C helicopter:

Tomorrow M will make videos of his flights using the on-board camera.  Stay tuned!

We awoke to a beautiful morning in Salton City on the Salton Sea.  Salton City is a town with 25,000 home lots on paved roads with power lines and a sewer system.  With the transformation of the Salton Sea into one of the worst environmental disasters in the American West, homes were abandoned partially built, and today only about 5% of lots contain homes.  See the links above for the history of Salton City and the Salton Sea.

This campground used to be operated by the Imperial Irrigation District, but was abandoned years ago.  Today, it’s a free dispersed camping location with no utilities or services:

Last night, we heard the mouse chewing through the spray foam that sealed a gap through which plumbing pipes run from the basement to the main level.  We put a trap there, figuring he would eventually chew through.  This morning, we found him thus.  I’ll be replacing the spray foam with steel wool:

After homeschool, I went for an afternoon flight, my 62nd since leaving training.  The Salton Sea is a well known PPG location because its thick, lift-rich air here at 125 feet below sea level, as well as safe flying all day long thanks to the Sea acting as a thermal sink which prevents the formation of thermals.  Without the protection of the Sea, flying here would be limited to the first three and last three hours of the day as it is everywhere else except the ocean shores:

The air was super smooth, which made for excellent flying!

This video contains today’s flight, as well as flights from this coming Tuesday and Wednesday:

Trish continues to crochet baby shoes.  I think she might be trying to tell me something:

Today I went for flight #61:

The wind was from the east, so I took off just west of the RV.  Our RV is on the right:

Miles to the east, I found this grouping of RVs:

Circling around to land, I skirted this RV park on the edge of town:

This video shows last Friday’s flight as well as today’s flight:

The kids played frisbee:

I spotted a mouse running around in the bathroom.  I had already sealed access from the basement to the main level with spray foam, so we did a bit of investigating and discovered some mouse droppings in the heating ducts.  We cleaned the ducts out and I installed steel mesh in the ducts to stop mice from coming in that way again:

After finishing the mouse proofing, we drove west and south to overnight at an abandoned campground in Salton City on the Salton Sea.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

This morning I wanted to get in a PPG flight.  The wind was coming from the south, so I drove over to the southern side of the power lines so I would have an unobstructed launch:

Solo flight #60 over Quartzsite.  There aren’t many RVs here yet, either due to warm weather in the East or the weak Canadian dollar:

Although I’m nowhere near the power lines, this made Trish nervous as seen from the RV:

This video shows today’s flight as well as the flight from the following Sunday (day 886):

We next went to one of the other rock and mineral shows in town.  Thankfully this bulk water loader no longer works:

There were lots of great cabochons to choose from:

Trish bought a few cabochons and we returned to the RV.  In the afternoon, the Goodyear Blimp motored by:

Trish completed a beaded necklace built around a vintage button:

Good Shabbos from Quartzsite, Arizona: