I’ve been on the road for only 3 days and I’ve already been in 5 states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho! The nature I have seen thus far is so beautiful that it defies description. You can check out my pictures  at this link.

I hit the desert soon after getting on the I-15 North in the direction of Las Vegas. From a travel diary I’d read years ago, I expected the desert to go on forever, but perhaps I took a different route from that writer. In any case, I was totally surprised to see a city rising up from the desert. Nothing but dusty mountains for miles and miles, and then boom! The fabulous Las Vegas.

They do not lie when they say it is fabulous. The hotels are lavishly decorated, both within and without. I only visited the Belagio and the Paris–both veritable works of art! Belagio is styled after Italy and they say it closely resembles Florence. The Paris is, naturally, styled after Paris. These hotels, complete with the fountains choreographed to dance to different songs at set intervals, reminded me of the kind of extravagance displayed by the Western European monarchies of the Middle Ages.

I discovered that Las Vegas was founded by Mormons, but actually developed by the Mob. You can tell at once that the Mob spared no expenses on the buildings. The city is a marvel of human creative ability. Apparently, the mob was better at keeping the city clean and free of homeless people than the corporations currently running it. It’s not hard to imagine how the Mob took care of business.

The second-hand smoke in the casinos was a drawback for me. It seems gambling and smoking go together, so I’d never make a good gambler. People talk about cities that never sleep, but I think that moniker most truly belongs to Vegas. At 9pm, the strip was just coming alive. I, however, was done for the day. I desperately needed my beauty sleep after the drive and the heat. If you’ve never been to Vegas, it’s worth at least one visit in your lifetime.