Las Vegas Adventure—Week Seven or “Coronavirus Interruptus”

As the week began, I was becoming more concerned about the coronavirus or Covid-19, but I’ll talk about that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about Las Vegas as a booming market for major league sports.

Right now, the local sports coverage is dominated by stories about the Las Vegas Knights hockey team and its quest for the playoffs in the National Hockey League. This is only the third season for the franchise and the team has garnered rabid support here. There are people wearing team jerseys and other clothes with logos all over the place. And it seems like about a quarter of the cars I see have either a Golden Knights decal or license plate frame.

A lot of that support is the result of the Cinderella first season for the team. The Golden Knights won their division and made in all the way to the Stanley Cup finals before losing 4 games to one. Not bad for an expansion team!

The other major sports story is the arrival of the former Oakland Raiders to play in a brand new 65,000-seat stadium in downtown Las Vegas this fall. The outside of the stadium is clad in dark glass with a giant video board on the side that faces the Las Vegas strip. The official opening of the stadium in August will feature a concert by country music superstar Garth Brooks.

Henderson, the Vegas suburb where I am staying, is building a 6,500-seat arena in the center of town and it will host a minor-league hockey team that will be affiliated with the Golden Knights.

The other big story for me here is the threat of the coronavirus. Because I am over 70 and was a smoker for about 30 years (more if you count secondhand smoke while growing up because both my parents were heavy smokers) I am very concerned about this disease.

At the end of the week, I drove across the desert to Palm Springs, CA to meet with one my cousins. Kevin Patrick is a physician who taught at the medical school at the University of California in San Diego. His specialty was and is public health and we talked over lunch at a Mexican restaurant about coronavirus.

He advised me find a different way to get back to Ohio than flying. He said my age and asthma condition made it dangerous for me to be exposed to this disease. And spending several hours in a sealed environment with people very close make the situation favorable for spreading illnesses. We talked about how both of us had become sick after flying in the past and now it could be dangerous.

After I returned to Henderson, I contacted Budget and changed my rental car to a one-way rental and I will return it in Ohio when I get home.

Kevin and I had a very nice lunch and discussed our families and the pleasant things about being retired.

Later that afternoon, he returned home to the San Diego area and I checked into my motel. With temperatures in the mid-80s, I headed to the swimming pool and had a nice dip and rest after what had been a tiring 4 and-a-half-hour drive earlier. Later that evening, I cruised down the city’s main street on my way to dinner.

Palm Canyon Drive was lined with stately, lighted palm trees and sidewalks were packed as people made their way to the many restaurants, bars and shops. This Friday night it was pretty warm and that added to the festive mood.

The next morning, I drove around Palm Springs and nearby Indio to check out the area. The desert climate makes this area a candidate for a future winter sabbatical. Palm Springs has nicely laid out neighborhoods and lots of amenities for a resort community of 45,000. Nearby Indio is different, with lower-priced housing and more Mexican shops and businesses. North and west of the city, I saw several large farm areas.

While driving around Indio, I also saw a large fenced-in, flat area west of the center of the city that is the site of the Coachella Music Festival that attracts a couple of hundred thousand people to this relatively small city. When I returned to Henderson on Saturday night, I heard on a newscast that this year’s festival was being cancelled because of the threat of the coronavirus.

So, I have decided to head home early after taking a couple of more classes at OLLI at UNLV. On the way home, I plan to stop and see the Grand Canyon and then visit my brother in western Illinois. I’m not looking forward to four days on the road to cover the 2,100 miles between Las Vegas and Stow. But, I think the health risk to me of air travel makes the decision to drive home a wise one.

Tune in next time for my account of the journey home.