Hoover Dam - Vegas, Baby Part 2

Our first day in Las Vegas we packed the kids into the car, braved the 38* Celcius heat and headed towards the Hoover Dam. Being from Lotus Land, I take the colours blue and green for granted. Rain is a major part of my life, as is green hills, lush grass, dense forests and salt water.

The Pacific Northwest is the antithesis to Nevada. It is all sand and dust and dirt and shale and lava rock, in muted reds, browns and greys. Plants are scrubby and prickly, and look as if they could survive on less water than a Chia Pet. The rocky hills are jagged and dusty. The rocks are searing hot to the touch, and I kept expecting to see lizards and armadillos soldiering through the heat.

As you get closer to Lake Mead, large, splashy boat rental shops start to line the highway. This feels odd in the middle of the desert until you crest the hill and see the expanse of blue. Then you get closer and realize there is a sprawling marina in the middle of the lake in the middle of the desert, and an awful lot of luxury boats out there, joyriding around. This is a typical juxtaposition of Vegas: ragingly-hot desert complete with a luxury boat market.

Hoover Dam and the Lake are starving for water, and there is a giant "bathtub ring" of mineral deposits around the lake. In fact, Nevada and Southern California are facing critical mass with a water shortage by 2011 that is going to force them to pipe in water by 2011. The Dam itself is operating at @43 per cent right now, and with this hot summer and a possible El Nino winter, I don't see them turning their drought around any time soon.

All this starvation in a land of excess is odd. The hotels and casinos are so very over the top, and so incredibly self-indulgent that Hoover Dam became more of a reminder and a critical environmental lesson rather than another pretty monument at which to get another family photo.

That being said, we did stop for the standard tourist shot.