Our non-stop America West flight to Las Vegas departed Boston's Logan Airport at its scheduled 9:00 p.m. time on April 2, and after some moderate turbulence in the first hour we had a very smooth flight. With miles accrued on our America West VISA, one of our tickets was a freebie, a nice way to get trips as long as you don't carry an interest-bearing balance on your credit card.
Roz and I both passed on the inflight movie, the James Bond flick Once Is Not Enough, in favor of our reading matter. Roz continued a John Jakes novel but slept for about half the trip, which lasted a bit more than six hours due to strong headwinds. Savoring every page, I made it halfway through Hannibal, Thomas Harris'' wonderful sequel to The Silence Of The Lambs. It's a weighty tome to carry in one's luggage, but as Hannibal Lecter might express it, a very tasty read.
Upon arriving at McCarran International Airport, we quickly took care of obtaining our Avis rental car. We've got a fairly good deal on a Chevy Cavalier booked online through the American Association of Retired Persons Website, on which we piggybacked a coupon printed in the AARP newsletter. I'll report on the total cost at the end of the trip.
Out of the Avis lot, it was a quick jaunt over to The Rio via Tropicana and then north on Industrial Road. We had to negotiate a great deal of broken glass in the street as we crossed Flamingo from Rio Drive to The Rio itself, as a motor-vehicle collision of some magnitude had done in one of those long hotel limos shortly before. A utility pole must have been involved also, as we were told upon check-in that many areas of the resort had suffered a power failure for nearly 30 minutes due to the accident.
Many of you have enjoyed a late check-out from your hotel, but how about a late check-IN at about 1:30 a.m.? I recommend it, as you'll almost never have to fight a crowd at that hour. At least the process was efficient, and we were soon ensconced in our room in Rio's Masquerade Tower.
This room is a slight cut below the typical amenities we'd expect of a Masquerade Tower room in the middle of a floor. Rather than the full-sized bathroom, for instance, the area housing the toilet and shower has only a half-size vanity counter, and shadows are hard to avoid when shaving because there's only a single overhead recessed light instead of a row of over-the-mirror makeup bulbs. Other than that, it's the standard Rio room we've described so many times in the past, and its possible that the slightly cramped bathroom area is due to the fact that this room has two queen beds instead of a single king.
It was now well after 2 a.m., about 23 hours since we had last slept. By all
rights we needed to crawl into bed, but hunger exerted a call greater than sleep.
So we elevatored down to the casino floor and headed for the resort's 24-hour
São Paulo Café, an outstanding successor to the unlamented Beach
Café coffee shop.
São Paulo is extremely handsome for an around-the-clock facility, much
more like a restaurant than a coffee shop in atmosphere. The standard late-night
special these days is a t-bone steak (about 10 ounces) accompanied by two eggs
cooked as requested, hash browns and a plate of toast, for $4.99. I had this
delicious special, while Roz enjoyed a glass of skim milk and a fruit plate.
Her plate included a banana and ample servings of cantaloupe, honeydew melon,
watermelon, pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, grapes, and raspberry yogurt, all
for $9.99.
Let me digress to describe the Rio deal we have for the four days we are staying
here on this trip. We have a $35 food credit at Fortunes Chinese restaurant;
a $25 credit at the São Paulo Café; a $25 credit at the resort's
Italian restaurant, Mama Marie's Cucina; two meals at the Carnival World Buffet;
two visits to the Rio Spa for the price of one; two free rides on a float in
the Masquerade Show in the Sky; 10-percent
discount at Masquerade Village shops.
We are already using some of these benefits, though we will not use all. The total cost to us for three nights was $163 and, when I for a fourth night, they comped it.
Anyway, we were now dragging big-time, and at 3:30 a.m. we finally tucked ourselves in. Roz is a stickler for making sure all our bags are unpacked and everything put in its place in closet and drawers before turning in, but this is the first time I can ever recall our leaving the luggage just sitting there with its contents intact.
All too early, came the dawn. We finally got some of our stuff unpacked, and before long we were down in the Carnival World Buffet for an early lunch. Buffets aren't getting much cheaper these days, and the cost for the Carnival World lunch buffet is $11.00. Our opinion on this buffet is that it was once among the best in town, then went into a severe decline, but is now holding its own with great variety and good quality.
We especially enjoy the two cooked-to-order grilling stations, one of them Japanese and the other one Rico's Grill. For those who don't know how these types of things work, diners select an entrée item, such as chicken, beef, lamb, shrimp, etc., and then choose their own vegetables to be added to the mix. The whole thing is then cooked on an extremely hot griddle, seasonings are added, and the result is an aromatic, delicious and relatively healthy concoction.
We didn't go overboard at the buffet. Fried shrimp and scallops, excellent pizza slices, some steak fries, plates of fruit, etc., and we were out of there and embarked on the primary purpose of our visit. There is always something special and memorable about taking one's life in an entirely new direction. Graduating from college and getting that first serious job …..getting married …..welcoming a new baby or grandchild into the family. So it was with us, as we at last put a real face on our retirement by driving out to see our new home under construction for the very first time.
About 25 minutes and exactly 16 miles after leaving The Rio, we pulled into the visitors' lot at the Sun City Anthem sales pavilion. We were met there by Sheila Holdren, our Homeowner Coordinator, who drove us over to our building site to see our house.
At Del Webb communities, homeowner coordinators are the official liaison people with customers after the signing of the purchase contract. They provide periodic status reports on construction and key calendar dates, as well as answer questions from the customers. Due to safety and insurance concerns, unaccompanied buyers are not allowed at the building site. In fact, we were visiting a hard-hat area, so Sheila had us don our hats when we got to the site.
It is such a thrill to see the tangible evidence of a dream. There was our house, one of six being built on a cul-de-sac, and the only experience to match our visit was when we visited the site of our present home, which we designed ourselves, nearly every day while it was being built 20 years ago.
The house is framed, the covered patio has been poured, and the roofing tiles are stacked on the roof in typical fashion, waiting to be installed. It was an enjoyable experience to walk around in the shell, easily identifying every room and feature that we will soon be enjoying.
Sheila was very helpful in answering most of the many questions we had for her. We needed to know how to open accounts with our utility companies, and especially what type of arrangements we ought to make for the period when we will actually own the home but will not yet have made the permanent move from Massachusetts. I'm sure we'll be writing much more about this, as this was only our first day, and we're going to be staying on the Sun City Anthem property for the entire last week of our visit.
We will have to fly back to Henderson for the closing, which is tentatively scheduled for June 7. My planned retirement date is June 30, Rosalyn's is July 31. The day before we flew out on this trip, our real-estate broker toured our home and said he's going to list it for considerably more than we thought he would. If his prediction of a quick sale is realized, we hope to say goodbye to MA soon after the end of July, motoring cross-country to take up residence in Nevada.
After returning to the sales pavilion with Sheila, we stopped into the Sun City design center to confirm our color choice for most of the interior walls. It's an off-white that some new residents have expressed unhappiness with because they think it has too much of a yellow undertone. But we are satisfied with the color and told them we will stay with it.
We then spent a couple of hours in the model-home park, concentrating on our own model, where we took measurements and photos to supplement the information we already have. We're having Del Webb leave a lot of the inside unfinished, so we still have to work out certain designs in our minds, including my home office, the media cabinetry for our home theater, some kitchen cabinetry and maybe a work island, and a few other things. We were going to commission some of this work on this visit, for later installation, but have now decided it will be best to take those steps after we're in residence.
It was now late afternoon, leaving us time to get a few more things done. We drove over to Sunset, where we spent nearly an hour at Barbecues Galore, located across from Sunset Station. This company builds and installs an incredible variety of barbecues, and the business from the Anthem communities alone could keep them going for the foreseeable future. As soon as we close on the house, we'll give Barbecues Galore the specs for what we want and will ask them to build it for August installation.
Time for dinner, allowing us a return visit to the excellent Sweet Tomatoes
soup-and-salad restaurant at Stephanie and Warm Springs. Perfect for Rosalyn's
diet, with many selections of creative salads and soups, pastas, pizza and breads,
etc.
Then we stopped at a home-furnishings store to get some decorating ideas and returned to The Rio. I started work on this report, and we called it an early night so that we could regain our energy for the days ahead. I dropped off secure in the knowledge that life could indeed be worse. Bill Gates lost $12 billion today, though of course he still has a few dollars more than us to play with.
End of Day 1.
--Best from David ...in Las Vegas
