Legend of the blackjack table mirage

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May I never wake up from the American dream.
- Carrie Latet

Las Vegas is a funny place. Just think of what heaven would look like at night. Really... I am serious. Think of a bunch of clouds changing colours every second or so. Las Vegas is probably the world capital of neon lights. If you want to make money, starting a light company is Nevada is an option you should consider.

I struggle to understand this place and spent most of the ride out of Nevada thinking of how it all begun. By the way, there is not much to look at in the middle of the desert. Anyway, this is my theory, one day a native American chief kicked out one member of his tribe and told him he could come back only if he makes it alive out the desert. After walking a couple hour, the guy start seeing mirage₁. Someone normal would have seen a lake, an oasis, a river... but this guy was not normal. He really wasn't. He saw a blackjack table. He did not know what it was and what to think of it, but he kept walking. The legend does not tell us if he made it alive across the desert. Some say, he died almost there, but just before he collapsed, he told one kid of what he saw. Some years later, the kid built the first casino. Online you can read about other theories and historical facts, but I am telling you. My version is better.

So, after a big day flying from one side of the U.S.A. to the other and back again, we land in Sin City. We had one guy waiting for us at the airport. He picked up our luggage and minutes later we were on the strip drinking champagne in a limo and watching people lose it by the window. We were on a budget and didn't had the chance to hit the clubs or go to the Cirque du Soleil. We spent most of our days at the hotel pool and most of our night going from one casino to the other. Most of the time we had a cocktail or a beer in our hand. We walked the strip and got amazed like everyone else by the reconstruction of some of the best known wonders of the world. We even took picture in front of some of them. It made sense back then, but now that I am looking at my picture in front of the Fountain de Trevi in Vegas and the real one in Rome, I feel a bit bad.

Las Vegas is all about having fun and I had fun. I will go back again, but will do with more money on a small trip and will go to shows. I will probably end up saving money spending three hours in a concert hall instead of one in a casino anyway.

Nick

¹A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to admire".

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