Why I love Las Vegas

Our trip started with a decision to drive to Lansing in my car and park in long-term rather than invest other kind people in my scheme to save on air fare. We launched at 10:15 am for what Abby described as the "chillest" airport she'd encountered. Easy to park. No long lines. No feeling of rush. I knew I was traveling with the right person when she alerted me to visible boogers hanging out at the fringes of my nostrils. We can't have that on a trip. You need someone in your corner and not of the dried mucous variety.

I was not used to some of the newer routines to make air travel even more miserable. I was the grown up, experienced traveler on our team with a desire to show Abby the ropes but I was as green as a newbie and constantly being told by people in quasi-uniforms that yes, they really wanted me to do things in a way that was different from how I had done them before. It is not enough to empty the metal from your pockets. You have to empty everything from your pockets. I had to be instructed to empty the receipts from my shirt pocket and pose for a scan.

There is something soul-crushing about a journey that begins with a total lack of trust, humor or kindness. And yet the miracle of a metal tube full of people, hurtling through the upper sky at great speed and transporting us to a time that is three hours earlier than what our watches say to a place that looks like another world and is thirty degrees hotter still blows me away.

We had an outstanding view of the Grand Canyon to our left as we approached our destination (as alerted by our captain) but the coughing lady with a window seat next to me must have been reading a pretty engrossing book. Too busy to glance at one of the natural wonders of the world or notice that two, less jaded travelers were trying to see through the silhouette of her head.

Las Vegas is outstanding in its beautiful ugliness and vulgar establishment in a dessert surrounded by rocky vistas and powered by the force of the Colorado River as it pushes against the turbines in Hoover Dam. Everyone nice there is trying to sell you something. Powered sidewalks and natural pathways lead into the Casinos but not out. Smug boy-men in elevators recite Vegas one-liners learned from TV and movies like it was poetry; here to do the unspoken Vegas thing, whatever that is.

I love Las Vegas because I love leaving Las Vegas. Natural ancient beauty is even more heavenly contrasted against artificial hubris.