Damn

Going to Vegas was never really a choice. We had to get to Ojai, California from Flagstaff, which is over an eight hour drive going past the Mohave Desert. If we went under the desert we could have stayed in a town at the foot of the Dead Mountains called Needles. There were other municipalities to choose from, but they had names like Siberia and Bagdad so it didn’t seem like they wanted visitors. Going over the Mohave Desert was a slightly longer journey and Vegas was the most obvious midway point. Weeks before embarking on our trip we were still debating which way to go when a grandparent let it slip to Julian that one of the aforementioned towns had a Titanic exhibit, and it was not Needles, Siberia or Bagdad.

I had never been to Vegas. It has never been on my bucket list, though I have been told that I wouldn’t really understand America in its entirety if I didn’t go to Vegas. I guess this is true if you accept that gambling is at the core of our national identity. How many people ended up here because someone said that the fountain of youth is in the New World, the streets in America are paved with gold, that you can make it big in America? It’s all yours if you take a chance, they’d say. It’s a dream that still sells.   

It seemed appropriate that an exhibit on the Titanic, a ship that sold itself as being unsinkable, would be in the city in the desert that sells itself as the place where anyone can win big.

Besides, Jeremy had also been to Vegas—for work, he explained. He had also gone with his family a long time ago. He explained that the hotels are like malls and have lots to do. You don’t have to gamble or see strippers. At the Mandalay, for instance, you could also go to a shark exhibit, or even a beach! We could also try to go roller skating, or do karaoke. When he went with his family they stayed at the Luxor, Jeremy found us a room there too. It turned out the Titanic exhibit was staying there as well.

And so it was that we left Flagstaff heading to go north on US-93, with the San Francisco Peaks getting smaller and smaller until they all fit in the rearview window. Flagstaff had been an oasis tucked in the sheltering folds of these mountains. They cooled and watered it as the desert burned below. It was as if all of Arizona were playing the floor is lava and Flagstaff was the one armchair you could land on and be safe. We left this Eden to go to Vegas and traverse miles of desert to get to the coast.

We had to stop and get gas soon after we descended the mountains. We did not plan on getting out of the car again until we reached Vegas no matter what kind of tempest the kids manufactured, so we all got out to use the bathroom and forage for snacks. The air poured hot tar on us as soon as we stopped out of the car. Benji, who, at nine months was not too far removed from living ensconced in a 98 degree cocoon, seemed unbothered. But the assault had an effect on Julian, who stopped asking if we were there yet for the rest of the day. He alternated between scrawling in his workbooks, flipping through two short non-fiction picture books about Mexico and Japan that we found at a stoop sale in Brooklyn, and quietly staring out the window as I drove. There was a lot of processing to do. He was not accustomed to seeing no trees or grass. Sand cyclones swirled in the distance and in some places the dessert floor shone as the sun bounced off thousands of solar panels.

“Oh wow.” The interjection was not from him, but from Jeremy.

I thought he had read that there was a wildfire off the coast or an impending sandstorm, or that he received an update from his cousin, whose baby was due any day. My sister’s baby was also due. Coincidentally they both in Portland, and eventually we’d make our way there too.

“This route takes us right past the Hoover Dam! We should be able to see it from the highway.”

So we went to Hoover Dam.

It is not a good idea to visit Hoover Dam in July. I thought I had felt heat before in my life but I had never been to a place that was so hot it made my breath feel cold.

We treated our opportunity to go to the Hoover Dam with the enthusiasm of one getting ready for their morning commute. It was right there. We had to do it. Family and friends were living vicariously through our trip and we couldn’t tell them that we just drove past one of America’s biggest infrastructure projects.

The Hoover Dam has an impressive resume. It has provided renewable energy for decades. But the people behind what is one of the greatest engineering feats of its time didn’t have a contingency plan for drought, population booms in the desert and increased agricultural production in an arid region. The dam harnesses the power of the Colorado River, supplying drinking water to 40 million people in seven states and part of Mexico. It irrigates 5.5 million acres of farmland and provides hydroelectric power to millions of homes and businesses. Without the Colorado the Hoover Dam would be out of a job. As of March 2023 the water level of Lake Mead, the dam’s reservoir, was at 1,046 feet. In order for it to continue generating power it needs a minimum of 950 feet of water. In order for it to continue releasing water downstream it needs to remain above 850 feet.

Essentially the Hoover Dam could soon become functionally extinct. Would there be a next opportunity to see it?

We were not going to get tickets for a tour inside the facility, but you can pull off US-93 to access a walkway that takes you near the dam’s gaping maw. A narrow road cutting through a manmade canyon of rocks and cement led us to the parking lot, which at four in the afternoon was like walking on a cookie sheet fresh out of the oven. Jeremy and Julian climbed up several flights of stairs to reach the walkway that abuts the highway. I was pushing the stroller up the ADA compliant path that zigzags all the way up and doubles the amount of time you spend in the heat. By the time we all reached the walkway even Julian was wilting. Benji stared blinkingly at us, but was otherwise inanimate as a dead slug on a sidewalk.

With nothing but a five-foot concrete wall to separate us from the highway the only relief from the heat was the breeze from eighteen wheelers that roared past us. The sound of the traffic combined with the heat made us feel like we were in a whirlpool in the Earth’s molten core. On the other side of the wall we faced sheer cliffs. We kept going until we got a clear view of the concrete face of the dam. No water poured, and I couldn’t make out Lake Mead on the other side

“I can’t see,” said Julian.

“There’s not much to see,” I said, not wanting to linger any longer, but Jeremy lifted him up. Even in his wilted state Julian would have lobbied until he caught a satisfactory glimpse of what we saw. I held my breath as his torso was level with the wall that kept us from certain death on either side. Julian was too overwhelmed to offer any thoughts and Jeremy quickly put him back down. Jeremy and I felt obligated to utter a few words of approbation to this world-famous structure and we quickly retreated back to the car.

Thoughts bounced around my head as I zig zagged with the stroller down the ADA path. Is this what life on a colony of Mars would be like? Why would that be something to aspire to? How much longer would Hoover Dam produce electricity? And without the Hoover Dam what was to be of Vegas? To the west as a whole? To agriculture?

A brief investigation on Wikipedia will tell you that even before the dam grew the west, Las Vegas and it grew together. The workers who created the dam needed to live somewhere, so they stayed in Las Vegas, then a small railroad town in the Mojave Desert. Work on the dam started in 1931 and continued through the Great Depression, insulating Vegas from economic calumny that befell the rest of the country. Perhaps this bout of good fortune germinated the same optimism needed to go there are think you can win a million dollars, but there is nothing insulating Las Vegas from draught and no amount luck or money flowing through the strip’s casinos can change that.

I parked my thoughts when we reached the parking lot. Though we had only been away for ten minutes and had parked under the shade of a tour bus everything in the car was hot to touch. If we were in Kansas we would have waited until the air conditioner cooled things down a bit, but not here. We jumped in immediately.

“I’m so glad we’re in the car,” said Julian as we headed towards Vegas.