The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 57

Show: Photography museum is movingE9 Dining Out: Riviera offers shoppers refreshing respiteE4 Travel: Galveston is calm resort at eye of the stormE16 TT The Sun SUNDAY October 8, 1989 flu stakes alt ttflne tardle: Hig $16-a-night rates are drawing travelers to new gambling mecca A ByCARLYETZER Sun Stall Writer in fit lemur ietvBt ct Wr swrn 4 1 riJJxVj3. iK4: Whiskey Pete's is the granddaddy of border The Primadonna, under construction at the California-Nevada border, will have 300 rooms, a It has 258 rooms. foot casino, a 90-foot Ferris wheel and an indoor merry-go-round, with an emphasis on attracting families. ITT nn LiU 1. AT THE CALIFORNIA-NEVADA STATE LINE There really was a Whiskey Pete.

He was a cantankerous old character, whose real name was Peter Mclntyre. He ran a gas station and small cafe at the California-Nevada border, beside the old two-lane highway leading from Southern California to Las Vegas. He got his nickname from the moonshine whiskey he made in a still hidden in a small cave in the hills behind the station. He didn't take kindly to motorists who would gas up in Baker, then stop for water at his station after ascending the steep Baker grade. He told them that if they got their gas in Baker, they could darned well go back and get their water there, too.

When Pete died, he asked to be buried standing straight up, facing the highway, so he could watch what was going on. Today, buried in the hills here he once kept his still, he's got plenty of activity to keep his eye on. The small gas station and cafe he once ran has been transformed into a full-fledged casino-hotel resort ith 258 rooms, three restaurants, a truck stop, two swimming pools and a spa, a showroom and a 60.000-square-foot casino. Just down the road about 10 miles, in Jean, population 75. there's another newly opened casino-hotel complex called the Gold Strike with 300 rooms, three restaurants (including a Burger King in the lobby) and all the same amenities.

Right across the freeway from the Gold Strike, there's the Nevada Landing, which opened just last month ith 303 rooms, four restaurants, a nickel arcade for the kids and a 90.000-square-foot casino. And. back at the border, a fourth hotel-casino, to be called the Primadonna. is under construction. When completed, it will have 300 rooms and 60,000 square feet of casino space.

With all the construction going on in this desert oasis, there's activity everywhere. "It's a phenomenon." said Steven Allen, a spokesman for the Las Vegas News Bureau, a division of the Greater Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. "Here you have an area that essentially was just a small oasis a couple of years ago," he said. "Then along came Whiskey Pete's expansion, and suddenly you've got activity happening everywhere. To me.

it defies analysis." What's fueling this sudden construction boom just across the San Bernardino County line? According to a sampling of opinions from the casino operators and Nevada tourism experts, the border hotel-casinos basically draw on four different clienteles: First, there are the people who come to Nevada just to gamble, aren't interested in all the showrooms, glitter and glitz of Las Vegas and don't ant to drive another 45 minutes to get there. "For the people ho just want a nice room, good food and gambling, you don't necessarily have to put up with the traffic all along the Strip," said Jackie Brett, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Tourism. "It's basically the same type of crowd that goes to Laughlin." think hat they're seeking is the informality, the friendliness of an older Las Vegas or a small-town atmosphere." Allen said. "You can get in and out very quickly and don't have to fight the Las Vegas traffic." Second, there are those attracted by the incredibly cheap rates. All of the hotels offer room rates of $16 a night, single or double.

Sunday through Thursday. And the rooms are nicely furnished, equal in size and amenities to anything offered on the Strip or downtown Las Vegas. "They are nice properties, and the room rates are incredible," Brett said. "I don't think you could beat those room rates Pftotot by CARL YET7ER The Sun Nevada Landing, which just opened in Jean. has 303 rooms, four restaurants and a 90.000-square-foot-casino.

merry-go-round on the second floor of the main structure and a large children's arcade. We're really aiming to be a place where families on vacation can get off the interstate and stop at a place they can all enjoy." The development at Whiskey Pete's began around 1950 when Reno casino owner Ernest Primm purchased 800 acres that included Pete's gas station and cafe. He added a 12-room motel and some slot machines. In 1981. Primm'sson Gary' took over and began the conversion to a full-scale resort, said Michael Villamor, executive vice president.

While Whiskey Pete's has traditionally been a stop-off point for travelers going to and from Las Vegas, he said, an increasing number are now making it their primary destination. The same is true at Jean, said Dave Belding. SeeBOOME2 it's very good business for them," said Bill Reid, a sales executive with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "They can put together an attractive package where they'll essentially pay to bus (customers) up in the morning and back at night. And, when they get in there, the food is reasonable, there are things to do, plus where else are they going to go? They're a captive audience." When the Primadonna opens, sometime around the first of the year, you can add families with children to the clientele list.

"The theme of the Primadonna will be turn-of-the-century carnival," said Patrick Minchey, vice president and general property manager for Whiskey Pete's, which is building the Primadonna. "Other than the Circus Circus, you don't find many hotels that really cater to families ith children. But we're putting in a 90-foot Ferris wheel, a large anyw here in America," said Allen. "You can get cheap room rates in Las Vegas, too, but these rates are below anything offered in Las Vegas or Laughlin. "And the cheap food is a big factor, especially if you're coming with a couple of kids," he said.

The buffets cost about $2 for breakfast, $2.50 for lunch and $3.50 for dinner. Third, there are the truck drivers. "For the truckers, it's ideal because they've got plenty of room to park," Brett said. "It's pretty hard to find a place to park an 18-w heeler on the Strip." And, fourth, there are the "gambler's special" turnaround buses, which bring in folks who spend just a few hours in the casinos. "The bus business is strictly up and back, and Good grief, Charlie Brown you're 40! Baby boomers focus on need for bifocals By JAMES O.

CLIFFORD Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Good grief Brown is 40 years old? Yep. Charlie and the rest of the gang hit "When I retire, that's the end of the strip." Schulz said. "It's in my contract." Also in his contract is the clause, "was mainly my children's idea." said Schulz, father of five. "They didn't want anyone but dad drawing it." It is a strip that's become a household name, and one that's brought Schulz international fame. He won the Reuben Award, comic arts' highest honor, in 1955 and 1964.

In 1978, he was named International Cartoonist of the Year, an award voted by 700 comic artists around the world. The CBS Special "A Charlie Brow Christmas" won a Peabody Award in 1966. Charlie Brown, the round-headed kid who seems to court bad luck, was named after a friend at art school and is Schulz's alter ego. Snoopy was inspired by a dog he had as a child. The other characters all have distinct personalities and eccentricities.

Schulz studied art hen he was in high school, after he saw a Do you like to draw?" ad. "This is my whole life," he said. "I pour my heart into this, every day, and some people don't even read the comics." But that hardly means the milestone will pass unnoticed. An exhibition is slated for the Louvre in Paris, and half time at the Super Bowl next January will feature a birthday extravaganza. Most important, the story of Charlie, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and friends can finally be told.

The whole truth comes out in the shy cartoonist's biography, "Good Grief: The Story ofCharles M. Schulz." It's due out Thursday from Pharos Books The book, by Rheta Grimsley Johnson, is a first, says Phyllis Henrici of Pharos, a sister company of the Scripps Howard newspaper chain. Schulz draws for the United Features Syndicate, a Scripps Howard subsidiary. "Publishers have wanted to do a biography of him for years, but he hasn't wanted to authorize one," she said. What made the difference this time? "I liked her right away," Schulz said or Johnson, a columnist for the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Good thing, too. There's no apprentice or designated cartoonist working for Schulz who can tell the tale someday. By LINDA STAHL Gannett News Service Bonne Abell picked up the novel "The Thornbirds" a year and a half ago, but she had "a terrible time" plowing through the epic. "The light seemed so dim that I changed the bulb. I moved around.

I thought it was a good book, but I was getting so frustrated. And I was getting headaches," said Abell, 44. Then someone gave her a cross-stitch quilt kit and, "I absolutely could not thread the needle," she said. "Exhausted from working on it. I went to the doctor.

He put me straight into bifocals." Abell had never worn the Big Four-O, a midlife plateau that sets off a good deal of soul-searching in most folks. Just don't expect to see it mentioned in the award-winning strip. "A comic strip should not make self-conscious glasses, but said she quickly adjusted to her bifocals. Still, the glasses meant "I was getting there getting old." What Abell has hat millions of aging baby boomers are developing is plain old farsightedness, the token of age that spawned the joke about how people need longer arms for reading as they reach the middle years. Bifocals address that prob-See GLASSESE2 statements," says Charles Schulz, 67, creator of the "Peanuts" characters who appear in more than 2,000 newspapers in 68 nations.

"There will be nothing in the strip.".