Red Rock in Flip Flops

We had every intention of roadtripping to Zion National Park during our President's Day weekend in Las Vegas, but the many warnings I read about overcrowding turned me on to a more local yet outdoor experience, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.  

I'm certain every tourist in Nevada had the same idea and they were playing loud music on their phones.  Or they were climbing rocks in flip flops.  They dismantled trailside cairns - those pyramid shaped rock piles made by hiking hippies.  Oddly, once we jumped back into the sanctity of the inner Prius, there came a sense of calm and wonder in the majesty around us.

Neon Boneyard

Hang on to your sweaty baseball cap:  There's a museum in Las Vegas.  Fear not, there are no geriatric docents with scripted speeches, no blue-blazered security guards judging you and your potential for wall-touching.  For a break from boozing, losing, and cruising, make your way to the fabulous Neon Museum just 15 minutes north of the strip.

The entrance is housed in what used to be the lobby for La Concha hotel.  It was saved from demolition in 2006, gutted, and moved to its current location.  One of the things that made me feel great and old at the same time is that I stayed at La Concha hotel twice way back in ye olde nineties.  It was across the street from ye olde Stardust - see my 20-something granny bathing suited self by the Concha pool below.

The rooms were around $40/night.  You could drink for free all night at a penny slot machine, and eat steak all day for $9.99.  Las Vegas was a stressed and starving student's salve.  Present day Vegas is a lot more expensive.  Or maybe it's my lady of a certain age tastes that have inflated the prices...  EITHER WAY, the Neon Museum captures vintage Las Vegas and its simpler times in a sophisticated way.  It is beautifully arranged, well-managed, and a welcome respite from all the sin down the street.

Vegas Noir

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. 
Charles Dickens

Ten thousand years ago, Las Vegas was a marsh with lush vegetation, mammoths, and a thriving Native American population that was crazy about making baskets and drawing on cave walls.  

After the valley shriveled up into a waterless wasteland, it became a destination for warring men, tycoons, mobsters, and Mormons.  Gambling in Clark County was legalized in 1931 and electricity from Hoover Dam began to flow to Las Vegas in 1937, coining it "Glitter Gulch".  Higher class hotels were erected to house the Dam and Lake Mead tourists, and all you can eat pancakes, slushy drinks in gigantic glasses, and an endless parade of people suffering economic ruin soon followed.  

leaving vermont finding home

i've posted many pictures of my visits home to vermont on this blog.  i've talked about the people, the food, the family, the culture.  i've shown images of boats, farms, civil war re-enactors, and very old gravestones.

my return to los angeles was especially difficult this time around.  maybe because it's summertime and LA is packed with sweaty drivers, filled to the brim with brown air, and slathered in a thick layer of filth that only a week-long rainstorm could wash away.

we had perfect weather in vermont.  my mother complained of the haze on a hike up to sunset ledge, but one might as well take issue with their creme brulee being too hard to break into.  we hiked, we sailed, we swam, we ate.  we buried my mother's mother on a sunny day atop a hill, overlooking wide skies, tall trees, and distant mountains.  appropriately, she was an artist and had a gift for making things beautiful.

and maybe it was hard to leave because i'm afraid i won't be able to continually uncover the beauty of my home in what zappa called "the cesspools of excitement".  that, and there are no maple creemees here.