Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Red Garter Casino, West Wendover, NV - May 8-9
Our only other experience with casino parking (Colusa Casino: 04/21-22) was so enjoyable that we looked forward to parking here, but it turned out to be a dusty dirt parking lot that allowed RVs, but was mainly for truckers. The entire lot sloped so badly corner-to-corner that we wouldn't have been able to get level except we spotted a pile of sand and drove the trailer tires up onto it. Since it was exactly the right height, we suspect it was left by another RVer.Wendover has a real schizophrenic personality as the Utah/Nevada state line cuts right through town.
Technically the Utah side is Wendover and the Nevada side West Wendover, but residents of either pay in-state tuition for Utah or Nevada colleges, and, like Utah, West Wendover is on Mountain Time as opposed to Pacific Time like the rest of Nevada. The entire economy of West Wendover is geared towards gambling. 
The Red Garter, where we parked, definitely was the poor cousin of the five casinos (more on the way), but offered food discounts & daily free gambling money, plus a free shuttle into town. Many of the employees were Thai college students here for a three-month stint. Most of their pay is held back and not given to them until the end of their employ as incentive to return to their native country. They usually tour the USA afterwards, so their only impression of us isn't restricted to casinos and desolation (Wendover overlooks the Bonneville Salt Flat).
Wendover's isolation became a plus during WWII, as the US Army Air Force was looking for a remote area unknown to the rest of the world to train the nation's best bombing group for the world's most important wartime mission, and Wendover fit the bill perfectly. Wendover was chosen as the training base of the 509th Composite Group, under the super-secret Manhattan Project, for the mission of delivering the first atomic bombs on Japanese targets in 1945. A monument in Wendover is dedicated to the 509th, to the scientific team, to those who sacrificed their lives in the Pacific Theatre, to Allied forces in other theatres of action during the war, and especially to all the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who lost their lives to mankind's struggle for a more peaceful world. We both hope that this monument will stand as a reminder for mankind to reason and work together for the ultimate goal of world peace.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 3:28 PM 
