Wendover "Fun"
30/03/10 11:59 Filed in: Personal
Angela & I spent the weekend celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary. We decided to go to Wendover, NV, which is about two hours east of Salt Lake City. It’s also roughly adjacent to the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Wendover is a split-personality city. Half is the Utah side, which contains a few budget motels & inns, gas stations, and a few restauraunts. The other side is in Nevada. You can tell you’ve hit nevada because two casinos are more or less exactly on the border. (In fact, it appears that part of some of the casino buildings are in the Utah side -- but it really only consists of a sun shade for a loading/unloading area).
Our hotel room was nice: a decent sized Jacuzzi tub, and a combination shower/steam room, and a 36 or so inch flatscreen TV.
That’s about where the nice part ended. It seems that there’s only a few things to do in Wendover, and the casinos are very interested in keeping it that way. The room TV’s only have broadcast + a couple basic cable stations - they don’t even have the Discovery Channel. Everything else is pay-per view (and expensive pay-per-view at that). No Wi-Fi, no internet at all. So you either gamble, eat, or relax in the hotel room. Angela & I did the third, mostly. (And don’t get me wrong, relaxing in the hotel room was great.) But when you visit the Bonneville Salt Flats (world-renowned for being a large area of absolutely nothing - not even plants), there isn’t much to do...
And the restaurants leaved a lot to be desired as well. My feelings: expensive, not particularly good food for the price, and very fatty food. Even the salad bar was anemic - they didn’t even have Caesar or Honey Mustard dressing. Just italian, ranch, blue cheese, and thousand island. Not much to speak of in terms of toppings either. The Salmon was okay, but that’s about it. They served steak, which was decent. They also had some lousy, cold prime rib. And the deserts consisted of a full and varied selection of artery plugs - mostly fatty desserts, instead of sugary. And all for only $20 a person. I’d rather go to a good Brazilian BBQ place for that kind of money; much better food, better selection... yeah... I guess when there’s a corner on the market in Wendover, there’s no reason to improve the food.
Two of the casinos we visited felt just plain surreal: Peppercorn and Montego Bay. Lots of black lights, blue light, and bright red accents. Montego Bay had quite a bit of neon. We walked through the Golden Nugget, which used regular white lighting, and was much easier for the eyes, in my opinion. Not that either really mattered - we only gambled about $4 in total. (And lost that $4, I might add).
Wendover is a split-personality city. Half is the Utah side, which contains a few budget motels & inns, gas stations, and a few restauraunts. The other side is in Nevada. You can tell you’ve hit nevada because two casinos are more or less exactly on the border. (In fact, it appears that part of some of the casino buildings are in the Utah side -- but it really only consists of a sun shade for a loading/unloading area).
Our hotel room was nice: a decent sized Jacuzzi tub, and a combination shower/steam room, and a 36 or so inch flatscreen TV.
That’s about where the nice part ended. It seems that there’s only a few things to do in Wendover, and the casinos are very interested in keeping it that way. The room TV’s only have broadcast + a couple basic cable stations - they don’t even have the Discovery Channel. Everything else is pay-per view (and expensive pay-per-view at that). No Wi-Fi, no internet at all. So you either gamble, eat, or relax in the hotel room. Angela & I did the third, mostly. (And don’t get me wrong, relaxing in the hotel room was great.) But when you visit the Bonneville Salt Flats (world-renowned for being a large area of absolutely nothing - not even plants), there isn’t much to do...
And the restaurants leaved a lot to be desired as well. My feelings: expensive, not particularly good food for the price, and very fatty food. Even the salad bar was anemic - they didn’t even have Caesar or Honey Mustard dressing. Just italian, ranch, blue cheese, and thousand island. Not much to speak of in terms of toppings either. The Salmon was okay, but that’s about it. They served steak, which was decent. They also had some lousy, cold prime rib. And the deserts consisted of a full and varied selection of artery plugs - mostly fatty desserts, instead of sugary. And all for only $20 a person. I’d rather go to a good Brazilian BBQ place for that kind of money; much better food, better selection... yeah... I guess when there’s a corner on the market in Wendover, there’s no reason to improve the food.
Two of the casinos we visited felt just plain surreal: Peppercorn and Montego Bay. Lots of black lights, blue light, and bright red accents. Montego Bay had quite a bit of neon. We walked through the Golden Nugget, which used regular white lighting, and was much easier for the eyes, in my opinion. Not that either really mattered - we only gambled about $4 in total. (And lost that $4, I might add).