The Meadows

When I was about 16 years old I stole my brother's tattered old paperback copy of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. From that book I learned that if I planned to become a maverick journalist with a penchant for mescaline, I'd better take my lawyer with me everywhere I go. (I can't afford to bill those kind of jurisprudence hours, so that was a dream I quickly abandoned.) For years this and the Elvis song were all I knew of that western town. Then, while on a post-college cross country adventure with my best friend from childhood, I had the chance to visit the mythic place. We camped. In Vegas. We camped most places we went on that trip and having just left Arizona where, when my friend asked if the campground in Phoenix had any "grassy spots", we were told "honey this is the desert" our expectations were low. I returned years later on a work-related adventure and confirmed what I'd long suspected; staying in a hotel is infinitely better than camping in the city limits.

Everyone knows all about The Strip in Vegas. It's huge. It's bright. It's using a shocking amount of water on an hourly basis for a place in the desert that receives an approximate rainfall of fewer than 5 inches annually. Speaking of that, Las Vegas means "the meadows" in Spanish. Was it named with a sense of irony? As usual, disappointingly, it was not. In prehistoric times, the land that currently makes up Las Vegas was a marsh. A teeming wetland, no less. However, that was a very, very long time ago. By the time the Mexican scout, Rafael Rivera, stumbled upon the Las Vegas springs in early 1830 the area was already a desert. Once the springs were discovered by outsiders (the Mohave Indians had been living there for quite some time), travelers on The Spanish Trail en route to Los Angeles made it a habit to stop there and wet their whistles.

As the non-gambling outdoorsy type, when I grow tired of people-watching on The Strip I head out to Red Rock Canyon for a hike. This is some beautiful landscape and in my opinion, not to be missed. In addition to it's splendor, Red Rock provides a chance to learn about some species of both plants and animals that live in no other part of the world.

While the Mojave desert provides a habitat for some unique species, the city of Las Vegas has a Habitat for Humanity. Engle Martin's own Mike Barrett and Neal Maddox will be helping out their local HFH this Thursday.