For the month of November I’m participating in a daily gratitude challenge posted by the journaling app that I use, Day One, and here’s today’s prompt:

What do I love about where I live?

Last night I went to an anniversary showing of the original anime Ghost in the Shell (1995) at my favorite movie theater, today I went to an independent authors’ convention and this evening I’m enjoying a Double-Double at one of the many In-n-Out Burger joints in the area. I remember realizing back in the mid-1990s, when I was living in downtown Long Beach (CA), that my city was a vacation destination, a place that people pay good money to visit. Since then I’ve lived in Orlando, Florida, a huge vacation destination and since the summer of 2016 I’ve unintentionally upped the tourist destination game and made Las Vegas my home. It’s unlikely that I would be able to afford to live in any other city that’s more of a tourist destination… so, that works.

I love going to the movies and a couple independent/art movie houses have opened up, so there’s a lot of potential there. Also, my usual theater has a great Tuesday under $10 ticket prices!. There’s no shortage of micro-breweries in the area, I just wish more of them served food… The smaller live music scene and open mic scene has suffered a bit since the pandemic, but there’s certainly a lot of live music potential in the area. And it would probably help if I got off my butt a bit more to seek out more open mics and live music, like I did when I first moved here.

I like that the city is just big enough that I can go about my day without any notion that I’m on anyone’s radar, but at the same time, when I want to, I can check in with groups of friends that I’ve come to know and care about. My personal social networking hasn’t gotten to the level that it was when I left Florida (the pandemic was no help), but that’s on me and my willingness to socialize and step away from my computers. Finally, when/if I get periodically tired of the place, the airport is crazy-convenient and I’m way overdue of another cross-country roadtrip. So, Las Vegas has been a crazy mix of all the places I’ve lived at before with a little of it’s own special flavor.

Images showing why I love LV: