Rolling Thunder Passes the Archives

It was scorching hot and noisy in front of the Archives building on the day before Memorial Day as hundreds of glossy motorcycles gladiated by us as we tried to cross Independence Avenue. It was "Rolling Thunder" riders blaring music and yelling some things at the crowd and stressed out policemen shouting at us not to cross the road. We gawped at these mostly large machines ridden by the mostly overweight out-of-towners who come to DC each year for their own special parade. We kind of wondered what exactly was going on and what it was all about. So I looked them up -- again thank God for the internet -- and discovered it is an event that started in 1988 as a call for the government to recognize prisoners of war (POWs) and people missing in action (MIAs), sort of a tribute thing but seems to have morphed into something else. It seems now to more honor veterans and fallen soldiers, a more generic tribute to military men. The first one had but 2,500 participants but now it has hundreds of thousands of participants. Well, I saw a few thousand of them that weekend and a whole bunch of them in front of the Archives building. I'm trying to connect Rolling Thunder's causes and issues with the Archives building which holds the Declaration of Independence so I read it to see how it might pertain. Hmm. Seems that the governed are exercising some life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in their own way.

 " ... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Hard to believe Las Vegas is in a desert

View from desert approaching Las Vegas

Half-naked men billboard

It's hard to believe that Las Vegas is in the middle of the desert as it's a place where you see giant Coca Cola bottles and motorcycle wheels, half-naked men on billboards, and a disneying array of "landmarks" like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and an Egyptian pyramid, among other pseudo-sites.  A recent visit reminded me of how fantastical this city is; we'd spent two weeks visiting canyons and national parks in the surrounding area and realizing what richness there is a desert land.  Then to drive in from this desert into Las Vegas jarred our sense of place and time. One minute we're looking at petrified dunes and trees, hoodoos, chasms and mountains of rocks and sand and then, hey presto change-o, there's a Subway and 711 store and a bus blinking its route number at us and grocery stores and banners advertising "move in now, one month free rent." It all seemed such a contrivance, so flimsy and false and yet it's clear thousands of people live and work here.  As we drove through various residential neighborhoods on our way to the center "strip" we saw schools and offices and all the buildings of any modern city.  This experience  made  me think how cities and towns can be such contrivances on the landscape and then, what a big energy suck this metropolis is. Just imagining the amount of electricity the casinos use and the gallons of water the hotels flush each day was mind-boggling. This is no green city!

Magic Kingdon, Statue of Liberty, Caesars Palace all jumble together in Las Vegas