Road Tripping: Eureka Casino in Mesquite, Nevada

I'll be honest- we probably spent even less time inside the Eureka than we did in the other casinos. It was a pretty small place and by the time we got there it was well into the early enough hours that most people were asleep and the restaurants and bars were closed or operating with a skeleton crew. We were able to make a quick lap of the casino and see most of what there was to it, though these Simpson's machines near the bathrooms definitely got my attention! I haven't watched that show in years, for a wide variety of factors (not having cable television, moving overseas, etc) but it used to be one of my favorites. I've long since stopped watching weekly television outside of the Flash and a handful of other shows (that we now stream, anyway). So it goes. 

As we were wandering the casino, we passed a Japanese couple sitting at a machine together shouting and animatedly playing their chosen game. Antho noticed them when the man shouted "Bo-na-SUUU!!!" excitedly. While we don't personally gamble, we watched them play for a minute as the wife cheered him on and they navigated the screen together trying to figure out the system. I was tempted to say something, but I didn't want to make them uncomfortable, so we moved along before (I hope) we hovered for too long. 

We ended up crashing in the van not far from here. No one bothered us, and we only stayed for the evening, and by 8 or 9 am we were back on the road. 

Road Tripping: Casablanca Hotel & Casino in Mesquite, Nevada

Have you ever seen the movie Casablanca? 

I have to admit my lack of culture in this aspect because I for one have never watched it. 

I know, it's a classic! There are, like, so many references! 

And- and- and-

Stahp. Sorry, but I'm woefully behind on a lot of well-known "classic" films, and that's something I've known about myself and been comfortable with for quite some time. This inexposure to many movies makes it a joy when my friends bring over or find films I've never seen and introduce them to me for the first time. It's like an invitation for people to bust out their favorite movie, however obscure, and I can dig that. I have only just watched the Karate Kid movies recently, like within the last week or two, and it was a lot of fun. I get so many more references now! (Sweep the leg)

So what does this big, brilliantly bold blue building have to do with Casablanca? F**k all if I know, mate! Unfortunately, that's as much of a mystery to me as it likely is to you... unless it suddenly all makes sense with a familiarity with the film? If so, feel free to enlighten me! 

On top of looking like a set from the new Beetlejuice movie that's supposedly in the works (*sigh* I know) the Casablanca is one of the newer resorts in town. Shiny. Glossy. Sparkly. OoooOOOooh. 

It seemed pretty quiet when we approached, but it was around 1am by this point in the evening so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Even the Vegas strip can look like a ghost town at the right time of day/year. Aesthetically it's my favorite of the casinos out in little Mesquite, and kind of reminds me of the Artisan in ye old Vegas. The Casablanca is definitely newer and larger, with a lot of parking and a central bar area with a faux jungle and live music tinkering away. The music wrapped pretty shortly after our arrival, so we didn't get to fully appreciate them but Antho was enthusiastic about the prospect. 

We didn't linger terribly longer as we were growing a bit tired and wanted to try to get an early start the next morning, but we snapped plenty of photos, naturally. 

Road Tripping: Virgin River Casino

In an earlier post I mentioned that there's a bounty of casinos in Mesquite within which you can find an assortment of food and entertainment options, and I wasn't kidding. Once the sunlight had dwindled enough to make outdoor exploring less optically exciting, we made our way to the air-conditioned and neon-lit casinos. Virgin River Casino is right off the highway exit, located on 100 East Pioneer Boulevard and quite close to the town's singular Wal-mart shopping center, so it's a convenient locale to grab a bite or stop for a night if you're passing through the area. We debated getting food in any of the many restaurants available, especially the buffet, but opted out of it and instead wandered the casino to see what options were available. We talked about going back for the seafood buffet but it never panned out in the end. No worries, though, as there are too many seafood buffets in this world for us to ever successfully eat at them all, and how much do you really trust the seafood in a small landlocked town? They DO have an airport, so at least you know they can get stuff flown in fresh, so realistically it might not be all that bad. The arcade definitely stood out to us, though we quickly felt out of place given our age and lack of children. There were so many kids, guys. So many. Maybe I'm spoiled due to catching most movies late these days, when they premiere, so the casinos housing the theaters are rarely packed with adolescents during my brief visits. This wasn't such a time, though- it was early evening on a weekend night and most kids had finished school for the year and were excitedly beginning their summer vacation. These things, they happen. We didn't need to blow our budget on quarters, anyhow.

It was entertaining to explore the casino for a bit, but for a couple of kids from Vegas a casino more or less ends up feeling kind of like just another casino... unless there are some serious theme and architectural majesty going on, like the Venetian with its canals navigating below the walkways with their singing gondoliers or the elaborate paintings and statues throughout Caesar's- and even then, once you're in the actual gaming areas, they tend to blur into the next. Is that just me? Whatever the case, we tried to capture some of the more unique aspects of this visit. Enjoy!

More photos below!

Road Tripping: Sunset drive in Mesquite, NV

After cooling off in the sprinklers at Hafen Fishing pond and mowing down some snacks, it was back into the van and on to the road again. We enjoyed surveying the different homes and little ranches that dotted the neighborhoods we weaved through, but we quickly found ourselves running low on neighborhoods to explore. We even popped in to a little vape shop to get some ejuice, but they closed quite early in the evening- around 6pm, maybe earlier, I believe. In such a little burb it makes sense, though, as the only people working late shifts would likely be a handful of casino employees and vitally important service positions, like hospital staff at Mesa View regional hospital... Mesquite is a small town, after all, as I've said at least once or twice on the blog now. Small towns in Nevada often have a similar sort of feel, at least in so far as the ones I've encountered yet. Improbably little oasis of homes and businesses standing solemnly in the expansive, seemingly endless stretches of desert, connected to the rest of civilization by the rolling roads linking these little ports. While much of my life has been spent in Las Vegas (as well as Tokyo and Seoul), some of my educational years were spent in Boulder City, one of those little towns down the highway a ways. It wasn't so far from the city center, so I still felt connected to the urban hub, but there are towns quite far and remote that make you wonder what in heaven's name inspired humans to sit down and set up roots. Mesquite is relatively close to several other towns, like St. George to the North or Vegas to the South, so it certainly doesn't feel as desolate or disconnected as some of those small towns do, but I can see how it would lead the youngsters to feel claustrophobic with a yearning for adventure and escape. That might just be a natural part of youth, though, that need to stretch your wings and flee the nest. 

Road Tripping: Hafen Fishing Pond in Mesquite, NV

Upon actually making our arrival into the town of Mesquite, we had a fair bit of time free before we were obligated to be anywhere or do anything so we opted to use the time to explore. There are several casinos in Mesquite, like the Casablanca, the Eureka, or the Virgin River Hotel and Casino, if you're into gambling, buffets, bowling or arcades- or drinks, movies, live music... Casinos are pretty much a one-stop-shop for entertainment when you're traveling. A safe bet, as it were. At least, they are if you have money to spend and ample time to waste! We did explore some of the casinos later on, but while it was still nice and sunny out we figured it would be preferable to drive around the city and try to get a feel for the lay of it. Once you get away from the casinos, which tend to be clustered around the freeway exits like grapes on a vine,  it veers decidedly suburban. This makes sense, of course, as this isn't really a city built upon thriving masses of tourists, but rather a small town that takes advantage of it's proximity to transit hubs to feed their families and keep the town thrumming along. The residential areas stretch out into the edges of the desert, a diffusion of buildings unevenly distributed in pockets of new growth huddled together, blocks adjacent to vacant buildings dotting one of the larger streets.  There's not a lot of stop lights to be bothered about, and those there are proliferate in the business neighborhoods. Some of the neighborhoods were very new, but there's still many older buildings lingering around that have their own unique charms. It would seem that some of the money being brought in by the casinos has gone into the Parks and Rec department, because we found ourselves at the Hafen Fishing Pond which was a beautiful little park with a 2-acre pond sporadically populated with rainbow trout and catfish, alongside jogging/walking trails, playground, tennis courts... not to mention the miles and miles of open desert beyond, where BMX and ATV routes ran alongside the park's exterior. We saw several people dart past on the sandy paths, clouds of dust following their tires. 

We were happy just to have found such a lovely little park, but when the sprinklers came on it was a bonus awesome surprise. Riding in the van all day, despite the opening of many windows and utilization of fans, didn't leave feeling super great. A quick sprint through the sprinklers woke me right up and cooled me off considerably. We also chatted with a friendly gentleman with an adorable little dog, who told us a bit about the park and nearby area. There were families playing on the little playground near the parking area, enjoying the weather, too. Can you blame them? It was warm, but not the full brunt of summer heat yet, and with the waning sunlight it was growing even more pleasant. 

More photos below~

Road Tripping: Welcome to Mesquite, Nevada

Mesquite, Nevada, is a small town. Like, very small, with a population of roughly 18,000 people. It's a quiet little place with a single school for each grade level, and most of the kids I interacted with at the Virgin Valley High School Grad night I was drawing at boasted of how they were going to nearby Dixie university if not jetting off on a mission trip somewhere. There was a Wal-mart, where we stopped to refuel and use the bathrooms and several casinos as are mandatory of most towns in Nevada (except Boulder City, because they're special- literally no Casinos allowed within their city limits). We stopped at their local vape shop for some juice, and the guys working there were extremely friendly and pleasant to interact with. There's a LOT of truckers coming through and a lot of stop-over traffic from people traveling the highway, so we weren't surprised to find that most of the casinos (and gas stations) had designated truck lots for their overnight stays. Antho and I enjoyed our little visit, and had fun exploring the town though even in our short stay we found we quickly ran out of things to do. There was a lovely park we found, which I'll be posting about soon, and their recreation center was quite nice with pool slides and things, but that comprised the bulk of our options. There's a movie theater, and arcades inside the casinos, but they were crowded with kids or cost too much (time and money). I can see why many of the high school graduates had plans to leave and strike out for bigger cities, even if they're only a short drive down the road- making it a safe option. A lot of kids from Vegas tended to go North when I graduated, up to Reno (still in state, but far enough to feel like freedom) or the Pacific Northwest (because f*ck Vegas summers, guys). I get it. I don't blame them. I can also understand why new families would choose to move here, to get away from the bustle and crime in the cities. Did you know Vegas ranked high in the top 10 worst places to live in the US recently? We weren't number 1- but we weren't far from it. Pretty sure we were beat by Detroit and Flint in Michigan, and one other city I'm not remembering right now. It was due to our levels of crime...

Speaking of crimes, most people who hear about Vegas are probably familiar with the recent incident at Mandalay Bay. While I don't want to dwell on such traumatic, terrible things here on my blog, I will say that the man who perpetrated the shooting was from Mesquite. Make of that what you will. 

Road Tripping: Heading to Mesquite, Nevada

On the road again! Cue a catchy little jingle or your favorite classic rock tune, because we packed up Vanti and headed out for an adventure for a couple days. You may have noticed that we made a stop in Glendale, Nevada, from the posts about the moos and bonus goats, but that was certainly not our final destination on this journey. For this particular fated evening, I was scheduled to make an appearance out in Mesquite, Nevada, a bit further down the road yet from Glendale. I hadn't realized at the time of accepting the gig that the destination was quite so far from our little metropolitan center in Vegas, and it took a wee little planning on our parts to make it work, but it was well worth it! Mesquite itself is a pretty small town, another 30 minutes or so past Valley of Fire heading North on the I-15. I was pleasantly surprised by how close it actually was, once we got moving on the freeway. While Vanti is a big girl, she's got a strong engine and can really get hauling when she's on the open roads! The drive out to Mesquite is full of familiar desert scenery, at least for me as a native Vegas kid, but there are some odd bits along the way. Keep an eye out for a giant bowling pin, would'ya dude?

The van has a bed in it for camping, so we didn't bother booking a room anywhere for the night. We planned to pack it in and head out towards Utah early the next morning, as the event I was going to took place late in the evening into the early morning. We left Vegas in the afternoon and the drive was pretty smooth- minimal traffic, no major construction... like I said above, most of the drive was familiar, especially the first majority of it since we've gone to Valley of Fire several times together now. Once we passed that fateful turn off, however, it got more interesting so that's where these photos pick up from. There's plenty more to see below, so keep scrolling!