Vegas: Water and light

For a desert, Las Vegas has a surprisingly large amount of water flowing through its arid streets. This, of course, will invariably become an issue of greater importance and growing scarcity over the upcoming years as the city grows beyond its current size with an influx of newcomers, but for the time being it's a splashin' good time. Fountains abound, whether it's the ones featured prominently here (located at the Linq promenade, a super convenient location for any visitor to the city) or the Bellagio's, or any of the countless other water attractions that decorate the interiors and exteriors of our casinos. If you're more into outdoorsy activities, you have your pick from Lake Mead (now with wi-fi at the campgrounds), Lake Las Vegas or the Colorado river... if you're willing to travel farther, you've also got Laughlin with activities and attractions galore. 

Of course, one can't discuss water without discussing the very important fact this city is located in a desert, the Mojave Desert, to be exact, which has over 30 million acres worth of land to its claim... and it's actually the continent's smallest desert! Death Valley, the lowest, hottest and driest area in all of North America, is less than an hour's drive from the bedazzling Las Vegas Strip itself. While the elevation is a bit different, with Vegas being indubitably a valley, the extreme climate remains, with less than four inches of annual rainfall to rehydrate our city. As a result, much of this lush oasis is simply a facade, a show put on to entice tourists into visiting and leaving behind fistfuls of cash on the game floor or in any of the multitude of shops. 

The side most tourists don't see is the extreme push towards desertification, for conservation, that locals undertake in order to keep the fountains flowing for our visitors. Yards that, once, were lush green squares resplendent with flowers have been churned over and landscaped to be more water-friendly and the water-cops make their rounds to ticket offenders who waste this precious resource. It makes sense to cater your landscaping to your environment, so while the ticky-tacky suburbs with pretty green lawns were the standard for most Americans through the 80's, Vegas has veered decidedly more desert. The drought we've been facing for the better part of my life has not helped this issue much, either, I'm afraid. So enjoy these photos of the splashier side of Vegas, there's no guarantee it'll be quite this damp in the decades to come. 

Photos in this post were provided by Antho Jay~

Until next time~

💘

XOXO,

NAU