Utah Vacation, St. George

My friend said, "I think I've died and gone to Hollywood!" We were visiting some of her old friends from a former life. They were both in their 80's and I was a young person looking on. We were in Palm Spring, Ca. The condominium complex was built during the late 1980's and the view was of a fairway lined with palm tree with water laying in the middle and green in every direction. You could almost feel the ghosts of Bing Crosby and Bob
Hope playing through. I love that memory...even though it, like the condo, have gotten dusty over the years.
The Oasis, The Palmer Course

Well we played golf in Mesquite, NV yesterday. Mesquite is west of
LasVegas but would love to be closer. Casinos, both new and dusty, lie along the freeway and the condos are beautiful until you look beyond at the reality that lies there. Like Palm Spring, the fantasy sometimes fades and the reality settles in.

The Palmer course there in Mesquite at the Palms Resort is a difficult challenging course. The cost can be astronomical if you are not using a "left over golf times" booking. We used the Golf Now for this particular booking and the cost, tee times and amenities were just as stated by the website. We paid around $110 on this day including cart, any taxes and range balls. We loved the course with the exception that the tee boxes were not marked clearly leaving us searching for our tees a number of time. I even had to skip one tee box because we had driven off a hill and there was no going back...people were behind and in front.

As we sat on the first tee, I could not help but think of my friend. I took a picture of the beautiful setting there. But, as we played the rest of the course, reality settled in. The unfinished developments loomed everywhere and one could not help be reminded that Palm Springs looked like this at one time. It will be a long time before Mesquite catches up. LasVegas and it rapid growth still over shadows this part of the world. It is a wonderful place to be...warm, green but sometimes very dusty! But it is not the cultural center of the western world!

We gambled at the Casablanca Casino in the evening and had a dinner in the grill for a very reasonable price. The porter house steak sold for $10.99. It was reminiscent of the prices we paid in LasVegas 10 or more years ago.

We have been using our Work Mark time share in St. George, Ut. The condo we use was very hard to find in the dark. I thought I had it nailed down on my iphone but it turned out that, when we arrive in town, the directions changed and we ended up in a subdivision on the north side of town. I called the office here at World Mark St. George and got the correct directions...it still took some doing to find our room for the night. My suggestions would be...do not come to town in the dark. St. George evidently enforces strict sign laws that do not allow resort accommodation to post signs leading to the resorts. With the correct address, my iphone and about 5 turn arounds, going back from whence we came, we finally arrived at the resort around 10 p.m.. We had left Mesquite around 7 p.m. for the 30-40 mile drive. WOW!

Sunbrook Golf Club

St. George, UT

We played the Sunbrook Golf Club here in St. George, UT today using the GolfGopher.com. Our experience with this discount website was not as good as Golf Now but we think there may have been some misunderstandings. We had to pay more that the understood booking price. Sunbrook says they will not be using the service anymore. I found the golf course to be very unfriendly to women in that the fairways were set a long distance from the women's tees. I am not a particularly long hitter. I would discourage anyone with a handicap above a 28-30 to avoid the course.

Zion National Park
near St. George, UT

We have gone into the Zion National Park near St. George. It was a beautiful day trip. The entrance to the park features a lovely resort area, motels/bed and breakfast and restaurants. A tram will take you into parts of the park that cars cannot enter and I think it would be worth the time and cost. We just drove through the park and took pictures. What a beautiful part of the world.

We are staying here until next week and will head north toward Oregon and home. Until then we are on the road.

b