A day away from the Strip
| • | Whatever it is, Vegas' raison d'etre isn't Hawai'i's |
By John Griffin
Former Advertiser Editorial Editor
Among the best things we did in Las Vegas was getting out of it for much of our last day. We took a short tour across part of the Mojave Desert to Red Rock Canyon.
It happened that our guide was Wayne Sam Fong, a Chinese-Hawaiian who left Kekaha, Kaua'i, some 40 years ago for a career as a Navy diver and builder.
He started off informing the dozen people in our van that we were special because some 70 percent of the folks who visit Vegas never leave their hotels and casinos.
As someone from Hawai'i and a native of the eastern Mainland who grew up on green fields and mountains, I've always had trouble relating enough to the browns of the American West, and especially deserts.
But as the day went on, we got to appreciate the colors (rich reds to cream) of the canyons and the abundant desert life that included wild horses and burros, dozens of kinds of birds, reptiles and plants.
Moreover, the desert offers something seldom found in Las Vegas — silence as you walk about in the baking heat.
Wayne provided lots of lore about nature and about the city, including that the slot machines pay better in the old downtown where many Hawai'i folks stay because hotels there are long paid for, in contrast to the newer mega-resorts on the Strip.
As we drove back into the city in midafternoon, he also voiced what seemed to me balanced perspective between the area's works of man and nature:
"The lights of the Strip at night are like the desert in springtime when wild flowers bloom."
The thought went through my mind that some day Las Vegas, just a crossroads 50 years ago, could lose out to Internet gambling and changing social fashions. It could revert to the desert, like some American Babylon.
On our trip, it was too late for the flowers. But it's still time for the lights.
