Las Vegas trip Wrap-up

Couple days late on this, but seems like I haven't stopped moving since we touched down at the airport. Needless to say our flight back landed safely, and I managed to finish reading my book on the plane. Our final day in Vegas was a travel day, almost entirely. Lisa managed a short run before her parents drove us to the airport. However, with a 3 hour flight, and losing two hours to time zone changes, it ended up being a long day. To top it off we went right form the airport to dinner with a good friend who is in town for the week, so we didn't settle in at home till after dark.

So now that I've had a couple days to decompress, I can start to think about some of the various things that I saw in Vegas. One of the first things that struck me was how much the gambling culture is so pervasive. There are gambling machines everywhere, and I mean everywhere. From the moment we landed I saw slot machines in the airport terminal and signs for gambling in just about every establishment around the city. Gaming was pretty much the main form of entertainment around the city, which didn't do much for someone who's not a big gambler. Having grown-up in a State that only legalized some forms of gambling in my lifetime it was wild to see it being so engrained. One can't help but wonder what the addiction rate is like around Vegas, and how large the treatment industry is in comparison.

Many people who talk about Vegas also comment heavily on it's 'Sin City' reputation, and specifically the availability of legal sex workers along with scantily clad women dancing on bars. To be honest I didn't really find myself very shocked by any of this while I was there. On The Strip there are constantly people handing out pamphlets for what I assume are brothels, and there are billboards around town advertising escort services, but I really never saw much in the way of scandalous behavior out in the open. I occasionally saw a woman dancing on a bar in a skimpy outfit, but frankly they were wearing far more clothing than the teenagers at the local gym swimming pool. I think the most provocative thing I saw was a brief glimpse of a woman walking around with her top body painted (therefore wearing no top).

As for other forms of entertainment, I managed to get to both The Strip and to Freemont Street. By far I found Freemont Street to be the more fun and engaging place. The Strip felt very manufactured, and everything of interest was tucked away inside the massive buildings that lined the street. It felt like a busy Manhattan street at rush hour with everyone trying to simply get around the city. The Strip didn't feel like an 'experience', just a main street where you could find everything. However, on Freemont Street everything was out in the open, and the entire street felt like a festival or a fair. It didn't feel fake or contrived either, it was genuine, authentic partying and decadence. There were people selling food, casinos that opened right on to the street, neon signs everywhere and music stages all along the street, playing different types of music. Within a few short blocks we got to experience beer, food, gaming, music, dancing and a light show on the roof that covers most of the avenue. If I only had a single day in Vegas, and really wanted to feel like I had visited 'authentic Vegas' I would hit Freemont Street again.

There was certainly more to Vegas though than the bright lights of the city. Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was getting to experience the desert environment, which is different from anything else I've been to in my life. I managed a decently long run, surrounded by nothing but rocks and sand and little scrubby plants. On one day of the trip we headed through Lake Mead Recreational Area and got to see amazing landscapes of mountains and hills, as well as the large Lake Mead itself. We also got to visit Hoover Dam, which as amazing and huge as it is, pales in comparison to the landscape in which it is embedded. The colors of the terrain were very distinct from what I see around home, and it gave me a sense of being in a movie where everything is generated by computers and camera trickery.

Perhaps one of the largest differences that I noticed is in how the city looks from a distance. The place in which we were staying was outside of town a bit, and so we had a breath-taking view of the city in the distance. Amazingly you could see everything. The Strip was clearly visible from 20 miles away, as was everything in-between.

Once I returned home to Minnesota, it struck me what the difference was. There were no trees. The reason that I could see the entire layout of the city so clearly, and from such distance, was that there were no trees to block my view. In Minnesota if you climb a tall hill and try to look out over the expanse of the two downtowns, you will see the skyscrapers reaching upwards, but they're rising out of a canopy. Even if you could find a hill as high as the ones that we were driving up in Vegas, you'd never be able to see any real detail of the Twin Cities, because of our dense urban forest.

Realizing this as we returned home made me understand just how different these ecosystems really are. Then, recalling all of the water reclamation issues that Vegas has to deal with, in order to keep functioning, while I'm driving next to multitudes of lakes and rivers in Minnesota, shows an incredible aspect to the human spirit. In the span of a few hours I traveled between two completely distinct ecosystems. Both of these ecosystems support human life, and in fact human beings thrive in either environment. In Minnesota we've had to build our cities to withstand the power of water when it overwhelms and floods. In Vegas they've had to build their cities to conserve and protect the preciousness of every drop. In Minnesota we must survive harsh winters that force us to construct shelters from cold that would kill us. In Vegas a cool morning is a welcome relief from the heat of the day.

Two very distinct places, only a few thousand miles apart. But humanity adapts. Even over the course of a few days I learned to adapt to the surroundings, not even noticing that groups of trees were no where to be found. Then returning home I adapted again to the reality of a cooler, more northerly sun. Somehow, we find a way to survive, and even strive to travel, so that we can see other places, and other environments. We seek to see how humanity has learned to adapt and persevere all around the world.

I guess that's one of the lessons I learned by taking a gamble and visiting Las Vegas.