In between bouts of craziness though, I did enjoy a nice little vacation to Las Vegas, and while there I got to see the Grand Canyon. And ride a helicopter into it. The Grand Canyon ranks up there as one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. The "Grand"ness of it just doesn't really show up in pictures, but I will post some anyway, only because they are still very pretty!
Nevada and Arizona are such pretty states, the landscape is gorgeous. Sparse, but gorgeous. I think the very fact that everything is so sparse, makes the scenes that do eventually appear, even more spectacular. It would be like, desert, desert, desert, cactus, holy shit a giant canyon. It was great. The Grand Canyon was for sure my favourite part of the vacation.
Vegas is...interesting. It felt like adult Disneyland. Yet, I think I would still prefer Disneyland. It was almost surreal. Some of the hotels are so impressive...The Venetian...it's ridiculous! Except it wasn't really like Venice at all, minus the fact that the buildings were similar. There seemed to be a general mentality that consisted of "well, we've been to the Venetian, now we never need to go to Venice!". Ummm no, people, there is no substitute. Yes, Venice is expensive, and far away, and sometimes smelly, and the chances of you getting crapped on by a bird are great, but it's real, and it's authentic, and those two things are qualities that Vegas almost never possesses. On the surface, it looks like all fun, games and drunken times, but when you look a little harder, all that falls away.
There were always these Mexicans on the street. They would be wearing shirts that said "Girls, available to you 24/7". They would have a pile of cards in their hands, and they would snaPPP them to try and get your attention as you walked by. They would line up on both sides of the sidewalk, and there would be seemingly endless rows of them, just snap snap snapping away. Men, women, both young and old, not speaking english, but doing their job. Every time I walked by them...which was often, because they are everywhere, I would just end up thinking, first of all, these people are obviously here illegally, and they can't possibly be making any money, because NO ONE EVER TAKES THE CARDS. They are littered all over the sidewalk.I just didn't get it. It was kind of sad. Here you have hoards of drunken tourists walking by you in a continuous stream, ignoring you, sometimes verbally abusing you, and you're just trying to feed your family. I dunno,the whole thing felt wrong.
Vegas was cool and all, and I had fun while I was there, but there was an undercurrent of sketchiness. Like it could so easily disappear. Vegas was amazing to me because here you have, in the middle of the friggin desert, this mecca, with glittering lights, constant noise and throngs of people...it is just such a contrast with the landscape. It seems almost impossible to find silence in Vegas yet you drive out for 20 minutes, and you are surrounded by emptiness.
It's not that I wouldn't go back, I would, but it's not high on my list of places to travel too now. So much glitz, so much glamour...it's easy to get caught up in the craziness. The whole time I was there though, I would randomly look at the desert and mountains in the distance, and just think "hmmmm".
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