VIVA LAS VEGAS???

This past May, over the Victoria Day Long Weekend, I went to Las Vegas for the first time with three women I work with.

(For those of you who aren't Canadian, the Victoria Day Long Weekend is the first long weekend of the summer. It is always the weekend closest to the 24th of May. It's supposed to celebrate the Queen's birthday...even though her birthday is in November. At least I think it's November. I know it is not in May...This long weekend is often seen as the unofficial start of summer. Because of that, many people will go camping. I think that is crazy talk. Let's remember that I live in Canada. It has been known to snow in May. Who wants to camp in that? The warm beautiful days of Vegas were a much better way to spend that weekend).

Vegas was quite the adventure. It really was crazy. Almost as crazy as camping in Canada in May. Although I had a great time, I'm in no hurry to get back. I just couldn't believe the extravagance of it. Lynne and I took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, which was absolutely the highlight of the trip for me. We flew from Boulder City,a town in Nevada where they have never allowed gambling, over the Hoover Dam and Lake Meade right down in to the floor of the Grand Canyon. We had lunch INSIDE the Grand Canyon, complete with champagne, and then flew back to Boulder City.

The point of talking about the Grand Canyon is that as you are flying over Lake Meade you can see these white lines all along the shore. Las Vegas, along with other cities in Nevada and the surrounding states, pulls it's water from the lake and those white lines are where the water levels used to be. The waters were as high as these lines not all that long ago. The water levels are falling at an alarming rate.


And yet they continue to build massive hotels and condos in the middle of the desert. Where are they going to get the necessary water to hydrate the people who are staying in the hotels and living in the condos? Where are they going to get the water to run all those showers? Has anyone thought of that? Lake Meade and the Colorado River are not going to last all that much longer. Despite that, next to the Monte Carlo they are building another 8000 rooms, in the form of hotels and condos and who knows what else, in a complex called CityCentre. And that is only one building project that is happening in Las Vegas. They are building everywhere. Combine that with all of the natural resources it takes to run the lights of the strip 24 hours a day and the fact that there didn't seem to be any kind of recycling...It was all a bit much to think about.

That said, we did have a wonderful time. You can travel the world in Vegas. Paris, Venice, Egypt, New York...they are all right there at your finger tips. We saw "O", the most beautifully amazing piece of theatre ever. But, one has to ask, how are they going to keep the pool in that show full of water if Lake Meade dries up?

Want to go to Vegas? Go soon. It really is a fun time and you should see it once in your life. But, I'm not sure how much longer it is sustainable.

Or, you could watch this slide show I made of our trip. I'm sure that it will be just as much fun as actually going yourself :)