Today we drove from Las Vegas to Wendover, 367 miles. Every bus trip we've been on has a night in Wendover. It's a very small town on the border of Nevada and Utah. There are four casinos and one show theatre. The Golden Nugget, our hotel tonight gives us a coupon book with a free seafood buffet, a free Starbucks coffee, $8 in gambling credit and a discount in the gift shop. They bus goes out of it's way to go to Wendover and I've often wondered why? Cheap rooms or a kickback? Not sure but we always enjoy this hotel because the rooms are nice, wi-fi is good and we love the seafood buffet.
 |
| You can see the salt flats at the top of the picture |
From Wiki Voyage:
Wendover is a small resort town straddling the border that divides the American states of
Utah and
Nevada, 120 miles due west of
Salt Lake City. The location on the state border makes Wendover the nearest legalized gambling for millions of people, which has led to the construction of large, extravagant casino resorts despite the town being otherwise very small and remote. This, in turn, has made Wendover sort of a quieter, more laid-back alternative to
Las Vegas even for those who don't live in the region. Wendover is also the destination of choice for those attending land speed racing events at Bonneville Speedway, just east of town on the Bonneville Salt Flats.
World War II brought a major population boom to Wendover, albeit a temporary one. The Air Force Base alone peaked at around 20,000 residents, more than triple the population Wendover has had at any other time in its history. The influx of young men with government salaries bolstered the gambling business on the Nevada side of the border and paved the way for newer, nicer, and bigger casinos. The soldiers left when the war was over, but the improved recreational facilities and the historic buildings at the airbase remained. During the second half of the 20th century Wendover was on cruise control, doing more of everything that had made it popular in the first place: the 1960s saw an unprecedented series of broken land speed records at the speedway, and the economic growth of the 1980s sparked another round of casino expansion. The 2000s saw the addition of a dedicated concert hall when the town's music scene outgrew the little cabaret stages in the casinos, and the old airbase began a major restoration project for the first time since the war. Today, Wendover has a combined population of about 6,000 people and a unique identity as a resort town in an unlikely location, on both sides of a state border in the middle of the desert.
