Vacation in Vegas
I hear plenty of LDS people talking about Las Vegas as a fun place to be and a great vacation spot. This confuses me. What is there in this place that is so appealing to LDS folk? After all, we can't enjoy the abundance of gambling, adult entertainment, and booze—and as for the shows and shopping—c'mon! LDS folk are just too cheap to spend their money. $200 for a show? I don't think so.
But here comes the part that mystifies me the most about why people choose to vacation here.
Here are some pictures I've taken from different places (not Las Vegas):
The above was taken out the car window while driving through California. The next few were taken in Washington while I was waiting for Jeff to finish the Bar:
There. Some beautiful places in this country of ours, aren't there?
But I have saved the most picturesque for last: Las Vegas, the Mecca of LDS vacation spots. The shot you are about to see was taken by myself just across the street from our home (Jake and I sometimes go wandering there, and I took this next picture in one of those delightful rambles). Are you ready?
(drumroll....)
(etc)
(still drumming...)
Behold, the glory of a Las Vegan* landscape!
Utterly breathtaking, isn't it? And best of all, (if there are any LDS readers out there) it's FREE! There is absolutely no cost to enjoy this lovely wilderness!
*Technically, we live in Henderson, but heavens, we live a mere twenty-minute drive from The Strip. I can see it from my house. And it's not like the Henderson landscape is any different from a Las Vegas landscape.
3 comments:
Ugh. I never quite understood the draw to Vegas either. And those who go "just to play the nickel slots"? Baloney. Call me crazy, but I just never found anything all that enticing about walking through hotel after hotel just to look at how wonderfully man has recreated a faux-Europe, put Circus freaks on display, or built large representations of cities that actually ARE great (NY), etc. Nor do I particularly enjoy swimming through the sea of chain-smoking grandmas intent on winning that million on the next slot machine and inebriated idiots only there to, well...whatever. After all, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, right? Yech. While I have actually seen some pretty cool shows in Vegas, mostly it just left me feeling like I needed a shower.
Sorry. I've never been to any of the surrounding areas, though. I suspect they're far less ickifying. Heh.
Overall I have a similar reaction to the Strip (though if I had $100 I'd love to go to a Cirque show or a Prince concert and I did see a great art exhibition in the Bellagio a few years ago).
I share your puzzlement that Mormons seem to almost uniformly think it's so great -- as if they believe they're just there for the cheap steak dinners and the fountain show and are impervious to the materialism and waste and moral depravity and soulless stares of slot machine addicts. Even if you don't participate in those things, I don't know how you can leave without a feeling of despair for your fellow human beings.
I remember going to the wedding of a friend in the Las Vegas Temple. Looking down on the Strip from the side of the mountain was almost more chilling than being handed porn on the street. You were up there in this beautiful, holy place, looking down on Sodom which, on that particular day, was appropriately ringed by a halo of smog. It was a tiny melanoma in that large expanse of suburban desert, but it was so obviously malignant. Fascinating and sickening.
Vegas is so alluring until you actually get there.
Sharon--the LDS community down here is thriving ridiculously. I think we have 22 stakes now? And I have loved the two wards I've been in here--the people are great. I have no idea why they are all here--self-infliction of pain is as good a theory as any--I'm just glad they are here. But blossoming like a rose? I think it will have to BURN first. Ha! (And a little rain couldn't hurt, either.)
Marie--do you know what I truly believe to be the absolutely worst thing about the strip? It's not the excess of human flesh on billboards, the extravagantly-priced shows, or even how the casinos don't have windows or clocks so you can't see daylight and have an idea of how time is passing--it's the fact that the place is just downright tacky. Tacky, tacky, tacky. Pink shiny buildings? A pyramid-shaped building that might have been cool if it didn't have a laser shining out of the top of it? A Hooters casino? Give me a break. Tacky, tacky, tacky. And the next LDS person who refers to it as a "Disneyland for adults" I'm going to slap in the face witha dead halibut. Disneyland is not tacky. Just tiring.
And Cirque--well, since they started Zumanity, they're just as silly as anyone else in this town.
Christina--HI!!! Actually, the chain-smoking grandmas are kinda cute. I like how they will put their dentures in their coin cups, and swear like a sailor if your child happens to tip over the aforementioned coin cups.
Well, no, I can't actually say I've seen that. But I can imagine it...and it is kinda cute, in a nicotine-flavored, wrinkled way.
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