Living Las Vegas

At Home in the City of Lights

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Top Vegas Hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Rio

Roads from the Ashes: An Odyssey in Real Life on the Virtual Frontier, by Megan Edwards

1-2 Day Trips from LV

Death Valley Lives!

Although Death Valley has a reputation for being one of the most arid spots on the planet, this year it doesn’t even come close. So far this season, the valley has had over six inches of rain. That may not sound like a huge amount to someone from Seattle, but that much water in the desert goes a very long way. Serious flooding washed out Highway 190 between Pahrump and the valley last year, and it’s still closed. Many of the scenic drives inside the park remain impassable.

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Over the Hump to the Brothels in Pahrump

Prostitution is illegal in Clark County, even though billboards offering “Full Service Ladies Direct to Your Room” suggest otherwise. Those are personal dancers, understand? They come to your hotel room and dance for you. That’s it. Well, okay. You can take them to the movies or out to dinner, but if you thought those billboards were advertising more than a little innocent social interaction, well, you’re just wrong! There’s no prostitution in Las Vegas. Everybody knows that for that sort of thing, you have to go to Pahrump!

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Chardonnay in the Chaparral

“Let’s take a drive out to wine country.” It sounds a lot more like a San Francisco suggestion than something you might hear on the Las Vegas Strip. But the fact is, you can take a drive to a winery from Las Vegas. This excursion is known locally as “going over the hump to Pahrump.”

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Escape to Death Valley

Death Valley wins my vote for the best weekend getaway from Las Vegas, especially in the winter. Even though Highway 190, which provides the most direct route into the valley from Pahrump, was washed out last August and is still closed, Death Valley is easily accessible from Las Vegas. From Pahrump, a road leads into the south end of the valley through the town of Shoshone, or you can take Highway 95 north from Las Vegas to Beatty and enter the park from the north.

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To the Megaliths and Beyond

Here’s a great irony. Las Vegas, the city best known for being fake, is surrounded by some of the best natural scenery in the Western Hemisphere. Oh, I know you’ve been told Sin City is an unnatural blight in the middle of the most unattractive and inhospitable landscape to be found on the planet, but trust me, you’ve been misinformed.

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