It’s almost a year and a half now since we moved back to Rochester, NY from Las Vegas, NV. And as the post title and embedded song imply, I’m not quite over the place. I routinely check LV TV websites and the online site for The Las Vegas Review Journal (one of the best papers in the country, in my opinion) to see what’s going on there. As with most major U. S. cities, the economy in Vegas is pretty bad. Visitor levels are way down, gaming revenues are anemic, and unemployment is very high. I often wonder if I’d still have my job if we hadn’t moved back east.
Who knows. But aside from all that, I still love the place. I can’t say that about many cities. Charleston, SC is another one we enjoy very much. I also like San Antonio, TX (and Austin), and Flagstaff, AZ. But most cities – especially in the northeast – leave me cold (no pun intended). I don’t much care for urban environments, generally speaking.
But why Las Vegas? We don’t gamble (well, not very much), we don’t “party” (we’re rarely up past 10:00), and I almost never drink. But we loved to visit the strip. We’d drive in, park somewhere (usually at New York New York), and then just walk. Usually, we’d walk north as far as Bellagio and then back, wandering through a number of casinos along the way. If it wasn’t windy, we would always watch one or two of the fountain shows in front of the Bellagio. I never tired of those excursions. There was always something to see, always something to photograph. Night or day.
In short, the place was alive. People were everywhere, doing all kinds of things. And they were there from all over the country. It got so you could look at people and usually tell where they were from. People from the northeast and midwest were the easiest to identify, mainly by the way they dressed and the way they gawked at what was in front of them. If it was their first visit, they looked at the strip as if they were on another planet. Californians were also easy to spot, especially if they were driving. Just ask a native Las Vegan which state license plate they least like to see when they’re out on the roads.
Las Vegas, of course, isn’t for everyone. I would never attempt to raise kids there. The public school system there ranks 50th or 51st in the nation. Medical care isn’t the best, either. And yes, there’s crime. But I really don’t think it’s any worse than other large metropolitan areas. Probably better than some. All I can say is that I was never, ever afraid to walk on the strip. I felt much safer there than I would if I were to walk in downtown Rochester. Not to mention the fact that there’s little to do in downtown Rochester – the place is dead.
So even though we lived there for less than a year, Las Vegas felt like home. I made some good friends there and worked with a lot of very good people. And, of course, our son is still there. If all goes well, we’ll pay the place a return visit sometime this coming spring – probably March. Then from there we’ll hit Yosemite in California, and then a return visit to Zion and Bryce in southern Utah. Then maybe Canyonlands and Arches. So many places, so little time…..
Hope you enjoy the images. I apologize for their small size and low resolution, but I needed to keep the video file size reasonable. Believe me, they look much better at “normal” resolutions!









