This report covers Wednesday, June 14, 2000, Day 10 of our Las Vegas/Henderson trip.
Flag Day! Time grows short, but we have accomplished most of what we set out to do during the limited time available to us.
In mid-morning we drove over to Dan's Plant World on Eastern Ave. to meet with
Dennis Irwin of Rainbow Landscaping, who will be handling the landscaping of
our lot. We have driven by Dan's Plant World many times, but the modest exterior
of this business gives little hint of the vast collection of plants and trees
extending deep behind the façade. Each item is clearly labeled with its
name and price, and the number of different plants suitable for the area's high-desert
climate is
amazingly large and diverse.
Walking through the nursery with Dennis, we made a number of choices, including stone mulch and boulder selections from a "rock garden" that resembles a Flintstones movie set. Our project starts with 65 tons of rock!
I don't think our landscaping project will turn out any better or worse than most of the other jobs we've seen in Sun City Anthem. But we are really looking forward to seeing our lot evolve from bare desert rock into a finished product characterized (we think) by a generous number of semi-mature trees.
Finishing at the nursery, we followed Dennis back up to the village of model homes at Sun City Anthem, where he pointed out many examples of the plant and tree choices we had agreed on. We made a few changes to the plan, and now we are ready to go on the project, which will be done before we return.
You may be interested to know that while the homes in the community show a great deal of landscaping creativity, the Sun City Anthem regulations are quite specific about minimum requirements. Depending on lot size, the homeowner must include so many bushes, plants and trees, regardless of the exact species used. And there are also limitations on the type of ground cover permitted. A typical installation runs 10K to 15K, but we've seen minimal landscape jobs costing about 4K and one spectacular layout that cost about 30K.
After concluding our business with Dennis, it was time once again to touch bases with the wonderful folks at Shade Tree Shelter. For those of you who are new to the forums where this report is posted, Shade Tree is the area's only shelter exclusively serving homeless and battered women and children. For several years, hundreds of you have helped raise thousands of dollars for Shade Tree by purchasing "Las Vegas Online" lapel pins and Las Vegas calendars.
As we pulled up at Shade Tree, located on Main Street just north of downtown Las Vegas and within sight of Jerry's Nugget, we were thrilled to see that construction of their new $6 million facility is almost complete, with the grand opening scheduled for August or September. Our pal Debbie DeSouza, Shade Tree's donations coordinator and jack-of-all-trades, greeted us warmly and we headed off for lunch together.
Lunch was at a real favorite of ours, Sonia's Rotisserie Chicken, located at Charleston and Valley View. This restaurant is a perennial winner for best rotisserie chicken in the Review-Journal's annual Best of Las Vegas poll, and I invite you to compare their chicken to any other you've had.
Here came a surprise. Sonia's has been sold and is under new ownership, but the change in signage and menu is so subtle that you'd almost not notice it. This is because the new owner is named Sonio instead of Sonia. I don't know if that's his first name or last name, but it's clear that money was saved by not having to redo all the advertising materials. On the big exterior signs, for example, the little hook on the lower-case "a" in the name "Sonia" has been covered over in black paint to make the "a" look like an "o."
The food, though, is as good as ever. Roz and Debbie had pita-wrapped sandwiches, and I had a half-chicken with sides of sinfully delicious warm potatoes and seasoned rice.
After returning Debbie to her office, we stopped at the Smith's Supermarket in the Horizon Marketplace on Eastern to purchase an artificial tree with silk blossoms to match the colors in the new La-Z-Boy sofa bed. Once again, we received a demonstration of the can-do attitude so often exhibited by the service personnel we've encountered here. When we expressed doubt that the tree would fit into our rental car, the market's non-foods manager immediately volunteered to deliver it for us in her SUV. This resourceful woman, whose name is Jean, put the tree in her vehicle and followed us to the house, where we unloaded the tree and put it into the guest bedroom.
I next drove Roz up to the Anthem Center for her workout. I started on some accumulated newspaper reading while waiting for her, but soon put that down to watch the start of the Lakers-Pacers game.
A little later, we drove down Eastern for dinner at the Black Mountain Grill. I've reported on previous visits there in April, but those were for lunch. This new 24-hour restaurant-pub, owned by local celebrity Tommy Rocker and his wife Donna, has a wonderful dinner menu, and we had a really great meal. I started with a crock of beef, barley and portobello mushroom soup, while Roz began with a salad of California greens tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette. Then we each had Idaho rainbow trout, which came as fresh trout filets roasted and stuffed with rock-shrimp spinach risotto, served with a lemon-sage jus and Blue Lake green beans. This was quite original and delicious, and the total meal was fairly priced at $38 for two.
That's it for Day 10. One more day to go, with that report to be posted when we return home.
Click below for a few photos related to this day's report.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=657150&a=6635718
--Best wishes from David and Roz ...in Las Vegas/Henderson
