Why do they come to Las Vegas? To gamble away their retirement? To drink in the streets and engage in behavior that would get them thrown in the slammer back home? When within a few short miles from the strip, lies the mighty desert. Filled with mysteries that have baffled generations.
Mysteries like the Anasazi, an ancient prehistoric people who left behind these petroglyphs which can be viewed at the Valley of Fire. Wildlife like the ancient desert tortoise, known to live for hundreds of years, to the big horned sheep. And of course, the silent dunes.
Places you can’t get to by car, but you can with off road vehicles, like those offered by Sunbuggy, an off road adventure tour company located at the Las Vegas Speedway.
I took a Sunbuggy into the interior of the Nevada desert. It was a ride with guide meaning someone else was driving while I observed and looked at the scenery. It was a mini-Baja Chase which means the people behind us were trying to keep up. As we twisted and turned in the dunes to give our friends the chase of their lives, it was amazing how they were able to keep up.
We drove through small canyons, dried river beds, sand dunes, and eventually found ourselves far from the highway where there was nothing between us but the dunes, the mountains, and far off in the distance, the skyline of Las Vegas. It was a tough but exhilarating ride. A true adrenaline rush.
It can be fun on the strip, but there comes a time when you must heed the call to venture beyond the highway to see what else is out there. And there are many mysteries to explore. Explore them on a sunbuggy.
My cat was in the stalking position when I arrived at my condo. He calmed down after I had been there for an hour. Well, in spite of the tenseness, got some decent video out of it. Some of the fireworks remind me of paintings and attempts by movie makers to portray the rapture. Except, instead of the souls going to heaven, they explode mid-point and rain down over Vegas. The tense drive home and the nervousness of my cat made me appreciate the wisdom of the No Fireworks ordinance in Long Beach, CA (the city I just moved from).
Happy 4th of July!
Steve Allen consented to be interviewed by me, a public access producer newly arrived from Florida. I received a letter from his secretary. Even she seemed surprised. She wrote, ‘apparently Mr. Allen has agreed to be interviewed’. The day of the interview, the camera at the public access station took a fall. Fortunately, the director of the program had a Hi-8 camera. We took the studio lights, microphones, and her camera to Allen’s office in Burbank (called ‘Meadowlane’).
I’m not an advocate of censorship, but, one thing I’ll say for that afternoon interview, Steve Allen acknowledged my questions. He addressed the reasoning behind the questions. So few people in real life, celebrated or not, will even take the time to mention you made a good argument even if they disagreed with your conclusions. Hate crimes. Political leaders embracing anti-intellectual values. Abortion. None of these questions were off limits in our interview.
