It’s Vegas baby!
How do I even begin to describe the mind-trip that is Vegas? The constant jangle and din of a million slot machines in strange harmony? The vertiginous 40-degree heat of the sidewalks being relieved by blasts of smoky ice-cold air from shiny casino floors? The promise of fortune, glamour and beautiful women bathing in champagne? Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Read MoreThe ridiculous and the sublime
America is all about perspective. Things that seem appalling or ridiculous from far away seem less so when you get up close. And the opposite is also true – a place that sounds quite ordinary becomes extraordinary when you actually get there. Compare Lake Powell to Zion National Park for instance. Forty years ago Lake Powell didn’t exist. It was created by damming the Colorado river and flooding the beautiful Glen Canyon to create an enormous reservoir to feed the water needs of fast growing cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix. Environmentalists, led by the Sierra Club, fought tooth...
Read MoreSpirits in the desert
Few places live up to their promotional photographs, and even fewer exceed them. I arrived in Monument Valley expecting to be impressed by the famous landscape, not to be deeply affected by it. But there’s something else going on here – something spiritual. The buttes and mesas of Monument Valley have a kind of resonance – a bit like the distant hum of calm that I feel when I’m near Table Mountain. That much ancient rock in such an uncanny configuration, affects me in a way I can’t describe. This was the view from our hotel room: I’m an atheist and...
Read MoreThe great, great, Grand Canyon
Naysayers will tell you the Grand Canyon is overblown – a big hole in the ground surrounded by tacky gift shops and overpriced hotels, and besieged on all sides by annoying tourists. In some ways the naysayers (aka “self satisfied jerks”) are right, but, as is so often the case, they completely miss the point. First, the “hole in the ground” bit. The moment you see the canyon you are mesmerized by it. Your brain literally cannot take in the sheer size and grandeur of the place. You look and look and it never gets old. And every time you look, it seems to change....
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