Las Vegas, Nev., is more than just a place of sin and vice. It’s also more than one hell of an ugly pimple on the face of North America. It’s a thirsty place where water is part and parcel of the architectural farce. Read about the blob that ate the desert and its water grabbing ways in this Ted Williams article for Audubon magazine.
Want to visit the other Las Vegas, a town that pretends to be nothing more than what it is? Drive out to Las Vegas, N.M., sometime and go birding at Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge or scan with binos for pronghorn on the expansive rangelands bordering I-25. Then repeat after me: Thank you lord for not letting this place fall prey to greed.
If I’m not mistaken, “las vegas” means “the fertile plains” in Spanish. “Fertile for what?” I suppose is the question.
Exactly. We visited Las Vegas, N.M., in November. A town that has no pretensions of ever being anything more than what you see. In other words, it’s a pretty nice place with “fertile plains” running off into the horizon just outside town.
Love the bush.