Movin' on

Feb 6 to 13, 2006
It’s Monday and it’s time for our generator repair. Sean and Missy seem to run “The Service Depot” and a strange couple they are. Missy’s smile is painted on and she simpers “Like, I got you mixed up with another dude” when we complained that she phoned us to bring the broken part in when they already had it – Duhhhhh!

When it was finally time to pull Maggie up to the door, just after Sean finished his lunch, out slides his big red tool chest and on goes his boom box – the music very loud but rhythmic and appealing. It reminded me of the scene in the film, Apocalypse Now, when the music was cranked up in the helicopter in preparation to soar over the beaches and villages. We really were unsure what was coming next. The music was something by the B52’s. Sean looked tough but simple; a single hoop earring in his left ear, beard, overalls and cap but strangely, beautiful straight glistening white teeth. I really hoped he knew his stuff.

It was surreal as I watched out the motorhome window – ear-splitting B52’s and Fernie engaged in conversation with Sean who, once he started, talked on and on interminably, his arms waving, the music drowning him out. It seems he collects and sells pieces of meteorites. He showed us a small (2 inches) piece and said he’ll get $40 for it on Ebay. Guess he’s not so dumb.

Well, I guess I was right the first time, Sean was not really ‘switched on’. He had ordered the part without the necessary glue and so he found some ‘shoe glue’ that another customer had left behind and used that. While waiting for it to dry, he suddenly realized he’d glued it together backwards. So, he took it apart and glued it again, this time the right way – we were not feeling good about his ability at this point. Another long wait ensued for the glue to dry; a visit to the shop from the vague Missy “How you guys doin’?”; finally, the part was installed and we were on our way, hoping that the glue would hold when we started the generator. (It did!)

It was late in the afternoon by then, so we pulled into the Paradise Casino in Yuma. It was easy to find the RV area, as there were plenty of units clustered together to the side. We found a place right at the end with nobody near us with a clear view over the fields adjoining and settled in for the night. Well, we did venture out for a while…….

The following day, we travelled north on Highway 95 through Quartzsite, Parker and Lake Havasu City ending up at the AVI native Indian casino, 12 miles south of Laughlin, Nevada. Several people had warned us that a ‘City Ordinance’ had stopped the casinos right in Laughlin from allowing free dry camping in their parking lots. Funny thing though – while the Ramada Express told us emphatically “definitely no overnight parking – you’ll be moved along in the middle of the night”, the Riverside had dozens of rigs in their parking lot right beside the river. We spoke to a couple of women who told us they’d been there for three days and no one seemed to mind.

The Avi is a great casino with three dry camping areas at no charge and a full service RV park. There’s a hotel, a sandy beach on the Colorado River, a spa and plenty of low-stakes tables and it’s only a 15-minute drive to ‘Casino Row’ in Laughlin. We stayed two nights and discovered what ‘folk’ love about this gambling Mecca. It’s a flash back to Nevada’s early days – cheap meals and shows and low stakes tables – i.e. at the Flamingo, we had a wonderful buffet lunch for a total of $5 using a 2 for 1 coupon and our player’s cards and it included unlimited wine (which was pretty good) and beer.

Thursday – Onwards to Las Vegas – 90 miles north of Laughlin. There is no dry camping to be found in LV, so we booked in at Sam’s Town RV Park for five days. They advertise prices from $12 to $15 but when we phoned, we were told they weren’t available and it would be $27, with no explanation. I’ll have to read the small print next time I see an ad. However, it comes with all the perks – all hook-ups, with cable and phone outlets at every site, cheap laundry, pool and hot tub and a fun book with 2 for 1’s.

We have friends (L&J) living in LV, who we always look forward to seeing when we’re visiting. They invited us to park Maggie outside their house, but we felt it would be an imposition to pull the big hunk of metal in, put out the slides and plug in to their electricity and we don’t want to be remembered as nuisances. However, we spent many nights with them – they’re teaching us how to be ‘locals’. We all had dinner together at the Palace Station, in their Mexican restaurant. ‘L’ said to ‘J’ and me to go ahead to our table while he and Fernie got the drinks. The casino prices for cocktails are $2 while they’re $5 or more in the restaurant. Then we emulated L&J and ordered one entrée – Gigantic Chimichangas – between the two of us. Even then, we were hard-pressed to finish. The next night, we all had dinner at the Gold Coast Cortez Room. Same routine with the cocktails; wonderful meal and very reasonable for a high-end restaurant with an aura of ‘old Las Vegas’.

We didn’t feel like we were on vacation in LV this visit – we felt as if we temporarily lived there and so had none of the usual panic to go everywhere and do everything. We decided to visit one of the lesser sites in LV – the Liberace Museum, something I’d always thought would be fun to see. Many years ago with my mother (and for my mother) I saw Liberace in concert at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver. He was an amazing showman and made a convert out of me that night. Well….his museum is a bit pathetic and run down. It’s a strip mall a couple of miles off the strip. It used to be filled with restaurants and shops - ‘everything Liberace and his love of pianos’. Now vacant storefronts with dirty windows prevail.

At one end a big neon (not working) sign commands “Enter Here”. Elderly gentlemen, snoozing in his chair behind the counter, startled awake as we slid through the door. I gave him my 2 for 1 coupon (I know by now you’re all thinking – ‘Is there no end to her thrifty [cheap] ways?’ but we’re new to this fixed income pension thing and we don’t want to run out of money). “Well then” he said with a wink “that’ll be $12.50 for you sir and nothing for the lady” He gestured to a large stamp and stamp pad “Make sure you stamp your hands now” and take a brochure. The brochure was requesting donations to the Liberace Foundation. I guess they’re not making enough with the museum. Only a handful of people were inside.

Liberace’s life story with pictures and awards lined the walls. Six or seven of his cars were on display; one rhinestone encrusted, another like the US flag – red, white and blue - all of them extremely gaudy and kitschy. And that’s all there was……until we noticed a sign “More displays at the other end of the mall” so we had to go out across the parking lot, past the empty storefronts, past the tacky wedding chapel and into the ‘costume and piano’ display. That’s why the hand stamp!

An elderly lady with a raucous New York accent (maybe the wife of the doorman?) craned her head to see my hand but finally had to ask “May I see your stamp?” She then welcomed me in and gave me a non-stop commentary on the life and loves of Liberace. “Of course, he didn’t want anyone to find out he was ‘homosexual’ right ‘til the end” she said, emphasizing the ‘homosexual’ as if I didn’t know he was gay. “He wouldn’t even go into hospital when he was dying because he saw what happened to Rock Hudson’s privacy – only a year before”

“He didn’t have Aids” she continued “he had HIV, but that doesn’t kill you – it was the emphysema that got him from smoking three packs a day”. “But he didn’t do drugs, he didn’t drink, he had no vices – he was a real straight-shooter” – that brought a real smile to my face and I had to fight the urge to remark on the pun. She trotted around behind me telling anecdotes about the miniature pianos in his collection, many made by fans.
One was made out of 20,000 toothpicks; another from nickels “and he prized them” she carried on. She was a delightful little lady and loved that I was interested in her stories. I wonder what will happen to the museum when all those who remember him are dead.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was our visit to the Hard Rock Hotel. I don’t usually feel my age, but I felt absolutely ancient there, mingling with the ultra-cool-looking swaggering twenty year olds. But I really enjoyed the huge array of rock memorabilia and photos.

Of course, we made the obligatory visit to the Wynn as we hadn’t seen it yet. It’s a beautifully designed, opulently draped venue with a sumptuous poker room and lots of appealing bars especially the one overlooking the waterfall but it seemed to be missing something – it had no real signature beyond luxury. The $15 martinis put me off.

Between our home at Sam’s and L&J’s home near Summerlin, travelling along Hwy 95, is the ‘Spaghetti Bowl’ a twisted chaos of freeway interchanges where traffic comes to a total stop. We encountered it on our way to L&J’s for dinner but lucked out and whizzed through it at 70mph. L&J cooked us a mouth-watering fried shrimp dinner finishing with key lime pie and we spent the day sipping wine and swapping travel tales. We were fortunate on the way home to sail through the Spaghetti bowl again getting back home to Sam’s in twenty minutes.

There aren’t too many celebrities left that I’d want to see live, but Elton John was at the top my list, so I picked up a single ticket for his Sunday night performance at Caesars Colosseum. Fernie said that $115 was too much for his blood and it wasn’t worth it for him (who’s the cheapie now?) but he’d go for me. I said not to bother – I was quite happy to go alone. You can’t talk during the performance anyway.

More on Elton later……………..