I am just back from my weekend in Vegas.  This has been quite the experience.  I feel as though I have looked at America through a different lens these past few days.

The Hoover Dam was the highlight of the trip. As an engineering feat, it was incredible. There is enough concrete there to pave a two lane highway from the coast of California to New York City. Even more impressive is that it was built during the Depression Era without today's technology.

It also wasn't built with today's labor safety standards. Workers on the dam were paid $4 -- 4x what a typical laborer made at the time. In the beginning, however, a worker died once every 3 days. In all, 400 men died building the dam. What they didn't know project manager had quite the incentive to build it as quickly and cheaply as possible: a $350,000 bonus for being under budget and early. He was known for not stopping his car if he witnessed an accident.

I was on a small tour (Pink Jeep Tours) to the dam with 5 other people. A Louisiana couple and their 14 year old son Ridge, and a husband and wife lawyer couple from Philadelphia. The Philadelphia couple were easy
to relate to -- very friendly, and generously offered to mail me a CD of their pictures. The husband has a 13.0 MegaPixel camera which is capable of taking 3ftx5ft photographs.

The Louisiana family were friendly, but culturally so different from me, that I found them to be fascinating. They had some kind of family oil-related business, and I got the sense that they were quite well-off. They were in Vegas for the Shot Show, where the son was competing in a marksmanship tournament. Their eldest son, now studying to be a lawyer and not on the trip, is ranked 7th in the world as a marksman.

In some ways, the 14yr old was just an average teenager, wanting a cellphone, the latest Nikes and a truck instead of a car. In other ways he was as different to the teenagers who I knew in Toronto as a person could get. He was a hunter, and was capable of cleaning a deer in 15 minutes he told me. He raised chickens,and bragged abiout how fat, tender and docile they were, and how much bigger their breasts were than store-bought chickens. His knowledge of guns -- and his passion for them -- was intense.

The City of Sin
I think most people have their own opinion of Vegas, so I don't know how much I am going to offer here that is much of a revelation.  It's fun, but excessive and over-priced.  Smoking and alcohol are absolutely everywhere: bathrooms, sidewalks, bars and restaurants.  Cirque du Soleil was a great night out.  I can see where it would be a great place to blow off steam for a lot of people.  Just not where I want to go for a regular trip.