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I read an article recently about the Las Vegas Soaring Club, the largest radio-controlled model sailplane club in Southern Nevada. The article brought back some memories of our adventures in model airplanes, and two very important lessons we learned from our model, Little Cecil (all notable flying machines have names, like The Spirit of St. Louis and the Starship Enterprise, and our model was no exception).

Lesson Number One: Some assembly is required. I bought Little Cecil for Kerry as a Christmas present. I brought the box home from the store and wrapped it, with visions of us flying it on Christmas day. It wasn’t until Kerry unwrapped it that we realized the box contained an airframe, not an entire model airplane. It was only after another trip to the store, and many hours of installing the electronics and remote control system, that our plane was ready for the wild blue yonder.

After that rocky Christmas start, we enjoyed many hours controlling Little Cecil, until the day we learned Lesson Number Two.

Lesson Number Two: Keep batteries charged. A model airplane’s battery should be charged before every flight, because when it runs out, you lose control. We learned this the hard way, when Little Cecil lost battery power one day and, literally, flew off into the sunset. We searched for several days, but never found him. Like Amelia Earhart, Little Cecil’s current whereabouts are an aviation mystery that may never be solved.

All this reminiscing has me thinking there might be another model airplane in our future. Flying the plane, and hanging out with other enthusiasts, was really a lot of fun. The Las Vegas Soaring Club meets every Thursday and Saturday across the street from the Desert Sportsman's Rifle & Pistol Club just west of the 215 Beltway off Charleston. If you’re interested in getting more information on the Las Vegas Soaring Club, you can visit their website at

When people think of our favorite city, they instantly think of the big casinos that make Las Vegas famous. But our recent horseback riding adventure through Red Rock Canyon was about as far away from the Strip experience as you can get (even though we were only thirty minutes from the Strip at the time).

After arriving at Cowboy Trail Rides, our group was given a quick how-to and introduced to our horses. The wranglers knew each horse by name (we got Cody and Dunny), and it was easy to see that this family-run business really cares for its livestock. The trail ride itself took us though some amazing scenery, with several stops for picture-taking. We arrived back at base, just as the sun set, to a BBQ dinner and campfire. There were several international visitors in our group, and we introduced them to the fine art of marshmallow roasting (I showed them my preferred technique – letting the thing catch fire then blowing it out – but they all seemed to go with the turn-slowly-until-brown method).

This will definitely not be our last trail ride. Cowboy Trail Rides offers several different trail ride options (we are considering the more challenging five hour ride for our next one, though certain body parts are making some pretty convincing arguments for a shorter ride), and has horses for riders of all ages and experience levels. For more information, visit their website www.cowboytrailrides.com.