Apologies to those of you who love Vegas, the gambling, the shows, the Strip, and more. I hate it. It’s all so surreal, one big facade, a fabricated city that gives most false hope. I simply don’t get the allure. At one moment, I was impressed with those facades, the fake Paris, the fake Rome, the incredible opulence of The Bellagio, and the fountain at which the guys from Oceans 11, or 12 or one of those, stood at the end of the movie. It was cool to watch the fountain show, even if while hawked at by showgirls who wanted money to have my picture taken with them. But when I felt captive in the historic El Cortez Casino (made famous by Omahan Michael Gaughan – the name that graces the Creighton Business Center), my thoughts of despising the place deepened. How depressing to see the hopeful who looked like they had been hoping for years at the slots, playing alone. How sad to see an older woman with pre-teen child in tow, offering cards for the services of a beautiful escort. Ugh.

I understand, I think, the thrill of seeing the Beatles Cirque de Soleil, the Back Street Boys, Celine, Brittney, Donnie and Marie and even Barry Manilow who had a “resident” show in our hotel. But even this would not cause me to travel to Las Vegas. The three  times I have been were to attend trade shows.

This trip was to honor our sponsorship of the World Water Park Association Show. Our firm specializes in Family Entertainment and Water Park marketing and we went to drum up new business. It was a good show with good leads, and we were not in the fray of the strip or casinos during our days there.

While in Vegas, the best opportunity for me was to rent a car to drive 25 minutes to Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam and the O’Callaghan-Tillman Bridge are truly remarkable sites to see. Record-breaking sites. Engineers for the bridge include Omaha’s own HDR. When built, Hoover Dam was the highest dam in the world. Lake Mead, formed by the dam, is the largest reservoir lake in the North America. The bridge is the longest concrete arch in North America. It is the biggest steel and concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere and the highest concrete arch bridge in the world.

I was particularly struck by the foresight and creativity of the Winged Figures of the Republic and the platform on which they stand at the entrance to the Dam. To quote this site which tells more of the story, “On the ground in front of the sculptures, Hansen added a dramatic terrazzo floor of his own Art Deco design, a “star map” that was aligned exactly to the placement of the Nevada skies on the very day President Franklin Roosevelt was to dedicate the dam: September 30, 1935.” The recording that plays while you tour states that the sculptor wanted there to be record of that time and the times that came before it, should “beings” from the future come back and find the winged figures. There he placed the coordinates and dates of the birth of Christ and other historic marks of time. See atlasobscura.com/places/winged-figures-of-the-republic 

Versus the hope that others find in the vast hotels and casinos of Las Vegas, I find hope in the vast imagination, courage and vision of great creators, visionaries, builders.