(This is a piece from my unpublished travel book, written back in 2002.)
Just to the southwest of Las Vegas runs the Colorado River. Or rather, it used to run. Now it just sort of lies there, comatose, behind the Hoover Dam.
The Hoover Dam is a marvel of engineering (if I were that kind of journalist, I’d bombard you here with a bunch of statistics involving tons of concrete and the number of men accidentally entombed in the dam’s south wall during construction — luckily for both of us, I’m far too lazy for that). It is also the only reason why the Southwest as we know it exists. Without the Hoover (and its scores of smaller cousins) the Southwest would look like what it actually is: an arid desert.
But none of this is on my mind as I approach it. Sleep; sleep is what’s on my mind. My map lists shows a campground just on the other side of the Colorado, and I figure I can cruise over there, pitch my tent and get a few hours of REM in before the sun rises and things start to cook. In fact, I’m so tired that I barely notice I’m nearing the dam until I come to a Security Check Point.
Three also tired-looking men start moving around my car, looking at things, checking the wheel wells, while another, a young black guy with a clipboard starts asking me questions about where I’m from and what I’m doing.
