What is there to do in Pahrump??

Where Is It and What Is There? It’s close to Las Vegas. I’m talking “close” in Nevada-speak. It’s about 70 miles to the west of LV. It would be a small town if it was in California, but it’s pretty heady stuff compared to other cities in Nevada. It's also where we became residents of Nevada.

There are two big casinos with the cheap machines, and tables and buffets that remind me of the Las Vegas of yore. Pahrump has a very nice winery that people will HELICOPTER IN FROM LAS VEGAS to go to for dinner. Wow! By the way, lunch is less pricey; good food for less than 10 dollars.

There are two golf courses in town that we tried: Willow Creek and Lakeview Executive Golf Course. The latter I’ve given more details on. We also found a quick place to grab dinner after playing golf.

Other memorable moments were our morning walks with RV Park members and the night we descended (80 of us) on the Seafood Buffet at Terrible Tom’s. Pahrump is a nice stop for the RVer. The public library has Internet available. There is an hour limit to use their machines, but if you bring your own laptop the WiFi is free. There are four tables for laptops and most are close to an electric outlet.

There are two nice-sized grocery stores that will make provisioning a breeze; make that three counting the new Wal-Mart. New houses are popping up like crazy. I mention this because it means the local ACE hardware store is HUGE and well stocked. (We needed some bracket thing-a-majigs to hold our dining room chairs together. We found several sizes.)

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

We were looking for some thing different for dinner. We usually play golf after 12pm to take advantage of the lower cost. That means that by the end of the 18 holes we are headed home and hungry. What would be quick and not fast food or “the deli chicken?”

Papa Murphy’s will make your pizza and place it on a “paper” tray that can go into your oven. It is a very special paper tray. That means no dishes!! Take home your fresh pizza and bake when you like. It only takes 12 minutes to bake, and you can even slice the pizza on the tray. It was as yummy as the pizzas we used to make at home when I was growing up! Price example: $12.49 for a large pizza (two to three people) with salami, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, onions, and black olives. One pound of cookie dough was $3.49. Many kinds of salads were available to take home in the $3 to $4 dollar range for individual and $5 to $6 dollar range for family. These are NICE salads, not just lettuce-and-tomato ones. Also available to cart home are salads and chocolate-chip cookie dough. Like most raw dough, this should not be eaten uncooked. But it is good baked or unbaked.

What a great find for a quick game of golf!

A Little History This course was closed for awhile (Willow Creek maintained their nearby larger course and let this one “go”), and then in October 2004 new management and a lot of volunteer hours, particularly from the homeowners around the course, brought this small par-60 course back on line. The day we visited there was a volunteer running the golf shop.

The Course It’s actually par 59 for the guys and the course length is 3,586 yards. It's par 60 for the gals and the length is 3222. The course is flat and very, very walkable. You will need a driver on five of the holes, all over 250 yards in length. On four of those holes the men get the opportunity to feel like Tiger Woods with a chance to drive the green and putt for an eagle. We walked the course and were finished in 3 hours.

How Much? Call to make sure the rates are the same and see what kind of special rates are available. When we played (November 2005), it was $18 per person to play 18 holes, Monday to Friday. It was even less expensive to play after noon and then less than that to play on Monday. We played for $10 each! Heck, if we had played after 3:30pm, we could have dinner upstairs in the club house and watch the Monday Night Football Game!! Did I say the personnel were friendly?

That's a detailed description of this RV Park in the Coast Community. These are some unusual things we did while we were there.

Morning Walks It’s November and my favorite part of the park is the morning walk led by Esther. We actually walk around the neighborhood. Roads are mostly gravel, traffic is very light, and there isn’t a hill in sight. By Esther’s design, the walks (Monday to Friday) are shortest on Monday, and by Friday they can be 75 to 90 minutes. Esther leaves promptly at 7:30am, and the pace is brisk enough to be good exercise but not so fast that we can’t carry on a conversation. Mostly we chat about ourselves; I used the first few days to ask about where to eat, golf, and shop. This isn’t a nature hike, as greenery is not a strong point in Pahrump. But if we run out of interesting things to say about ourselves, then we can critique the new houses and their front yards full of rock. The statuary in the yards is usually something to admire or giggle about. Some figurines are classy and others are the Nevada version of pink flamingos. Some are insanely beautiful. Photos included are of one yard that has a water-scape I can’t describe in a few words. Statuary is made of jade and nice metals and even roots of trees fashioned to look like peacocks. Unbelievable.

Volunteer Ideas Consider leading morning walks if you are interested in doing some volunteer work where you are. The early-morning start will keep the activity from interfering with your plans for the day. That fact alone makes it easier for your walkers to faithfully show up. As a guest in this park, I also like the fact that someone else has mapped out the path we will take. If I am on my own and new in the area, I walk straight down some boring major road for 20 to 30 minutes and turn around. YAWN!!

Seafood Buffet By the design of Nancy, a large group of us went to the Terrible Tom’s Casino in “downtown” Pahrump for the Friday night Seafood Buffet. On Nancy’s advice, we picked up a magazine from the casino’s Player’s Desk. Inside this magazine were several two-for-one coupons that we shared amongst ourselves. By the end of the evening, my husband and I had eaten our fill of seafood (the coconut-breaded shrimp were to die for, but the crab claws should be passed up) and the meal was eight-something dollars. We didn’t quite qualify for the additional senior discount, but some of our companions paid less than we did! It would have cost about $18 if we paid full price (no coupon, no senior discount). All these prices include the tax but not the tip.

For the record, the casino is very smoky when you walk in. The nonsmoking section of the dining area is not bad at all. Because we had a large group coming, Nancy secured the Bingo Hall for our party. The air was very good in the Bingo Hall. I have absolutely no idea why smoking is okay in the rest of the casino, but the Bingo Hall was smoke-free.