Golf Vacation, In Between Rounds

The night before we played Wolf Creek, we checked into our "hotel." Some of our plans were of the last minute variety, which meant we didn't have a lot of options for lodging in Mesquite, as some of the hotels were sold out. We figured most of the hotels in that area would be pretty similar anyway, so we just picked one - The Oasis.

Now, I've done a lot of travel on the corporate dime and I am accustomed to the cleanliness and amenities of the nicer chains. However, I don't think I'm spoiled. I can happily stay at a Motel 6 or Super 8 if those are my options and for the most part, find them perfectly acceptable for what they are. If I can sleep in a seat on an airplane, I can sleep in one of those beds. I bring my own girly shower accoutrements and don't spend a lot of time in the room anyway. As long as it is clean, I can deal. What really got me about the Oasis, however, was the smell. No, stench is more like it. Kind of a cross between a tenant-maintained old-folks home full of incontinent smokers and a Barstow gas station restroom. It filled the rooms, the hallways and even leaked into the casino.

I checked for bedbugs before getting into bed. All clear. Fortunately, we had an early tee-time so we got out of there post haste in the morning. Oddly, there were no visible signs of filth or disrepair or fleas, but I still put it in the fleabag category. We had two more nights to spend in Mesquite and I knew I didn't want to spend them there. The fact that the casino wasn't friendly to my wallet had nothing to do with it. Really.

Things start looking up

After our incredible experience at Wolf Creek, we shifted addictions and headed to a casino. This time, we tried out the one at the Eureka, which is the hotel that partners with Wolf Creek. If only we'd known that earlier! After warming up on the Blackjack tables, we headed over to play some Craps. That's when things really started heating up. We started out betting pretty small, sticking to the pass line and the numbers. As we started winning and rolling well, we started to get spread out with hard ways and the like. Naturally, the more we won, the bigger the bets became. We were tipping like crazy and the croupiers were making bank on our hard ways. I had a twenty minute roll and a thirty minute roll, and the whole table was whooping and hollering, just like you see in the movies. It was fantastic! The pit boss lingered at our table but couldn't cool us down. We actually both walked away from that table with about a thousand extra dollars each. Sure, we put a lot of it back before leaving town, but it was free gambling the rest of the time.

Checking out, checking in

There was still plenty of daylight and desert heat outside and we had some time to kill before dinner. We walked over to the hotel side of Eureka and secured a room there for the next two nights. Then we went and gathered our things from the Oasis and checked out, not even caring that we would be paying for two rooms for the same night. We just wanted out. The rooms at Eureka were similar to the Oasis, but they didn't smell! The staff was much more friendly and accessible. We had a room with a patio right by the pool and we even found entertainment in our exchanges with "Crackhead Betty," the housekeeper assigned to our area. It was a wise switch, indeed.

Also, if you're traveling to Mesquite to play Wolf Creek, you might want to coordinate it through the Eureka. Since they have a partnership, you can get a good deal on a room and I'm told they can also hook you up with a lower greens fee than if you book straight through the golf course.

Next post.