Pahrump Hotels
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Not the type of day we expected....
Entry 30 of 43 | show all | print this entry |
A long day means a late start, although since nothing here starts before 10.00am, that is not so bad.
We have breakfast (late) in a diner called "America" with a huge map of the USA on the roof. Gives us a good chance to reflect and see where we have been - a long, long way. The New York scramble we have for breakfast is pretty good and we get some New York attitude from the waiting staff, although that might be because we just don't look like good tippers (she was on the money with that one).
The traffic and sheer numbers of people here mean that we just have to be careful with what we want to do. Everything is taking a long, long time.
We start off in search of the Gamblers General Store for a poker bio that I was in search of. Found it in a dingy part of down town. What an incredible store. It is a lot more than books. Its got roulette tables, poker tables, craps tables, poker chips, cards, the whole box and a huge array of dice.
We have fielded a lot of questions from Zac and have talked to him a lot about what Vegas is really about and what all the people are doing when we are walking through casinos, but we don't stop at any stage to look. Still he knows that people in casinos are trying to win money but that no one looks happy in the casino and no one is winning. This shop, however, gives him a chance to stop and look at this stuff and understand it a little more.
There are lot of people in the shop. Not too many women, but lots of young men. Probably says a lot about society (as have many things we have seen this trip). Found the book I was after and we head off to our next stop.
Caesars. The casino might be the oldest on the strip, but it is still grand - even beside the new shiny mega-casinos being built all around. The Forum Shops are a must see, particlarly with FAO Swartz (toy store) over three levels. And, you get to play with a heap of stuff as well. A good chance for Zac to be a kid. Oh, and it helps when they are playing gridiron in the shop - he can't wait to join in and holds his own with the bigger kids. Not easy to drag him away from it, but he does well.
Its late and we still have stops to make. Cass is after a few things from the Outlets on the skirts of Vegas. But she is not having much luck this trip - the store is no longer here and it might be a struggle to find what she is after. We will have to see what we can do later.
We decide to ditch the rest of what we had planned for the day and just head out to Pahrump for our overnight accommodation. Its about an hour drive, not too demanding. But the traffic turns out to be a factor again. Why would we expect anything different in this weird city. Add another 30 minutes to the trip.
An interesting intro to Pahrump - a big billboard on the outskirts of town promoting a museum and brothel. Reckon our travelling companions are wondering what kind of place we have taken them to. It looks a bit rough. And the only chain hotels in town have no rooms at the inn.
That leaves us with three options (1) Terribles (and no one is willing to take the blame for staying there); (2) SaddleWest (and we all remember the Horse Rule of Accommodation); and (3) the Pahrump Nugget. Since the other two rule themselves out, the Nugget gets our business.
Although the signs heading into town suggested a rough town, there are nothing but RVs and grey nomads wandering the streets - the kind of people who probably feel that Vegas is just too much, which gives the town a much nicer feel than we had thought. And contrary to the absence of smiling people in the casinos in Vegas, some of the older folks here are actually smiling and having a good time. A bit infectious.
Dinner at the buffet for the three of us. Always a good sign when Zac eats for free. Soft serve ice cream machine has a problem and ends up shooting over cooked vanilla ice cream all over me. Well, not all over, but it made a pretty big mess. Room was big, clean and we were off to bed.
Drive - 70 miles
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