101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price [52]
Regardless of its causes, the fire had a lasting impact. Nero built the palace of his dreams, and the Circus Maximus, Rome’s legendary chariot stadium, was completely redone. It remained open for races until sometime around 550 A.D., and besides casualties among charioteers (a frequent occurrence), the Circus steered clear of major catastrophe. Except, that is, for one day that’s also worth avoiding: in 140 A.D., an upper tier of the balcony collapsed, killing more than one thousand people—sacrificial Christians not included.
Chapter 84
Nevada
Dear 2.6 million residents of Nevada:
It’s not my fault. When I asked friends and family to suggest places not to see before you die, six people independently insisted that I include the entire state of Nevada as an entry in the book. “But what about the salt flats?” I protested. “Or Red Rock Canyon? Or the Nevada State Mining Championships, held each year in Tonopah? There are good things in Nevada! And besides, people in Nevada buy travel books!”
But these friends didn’t want to hear it. They wanted to talk about the heat, the emptiness, the atrocity that is Lake Las Vegas, the nuclear waste, the alien sightings, the fact Criss Angel calls it home. So for them, the Nevada haters, I am including this entry. Please forgive me.
A. The Vegas Strip
There are many, many things to dislike about the Las Vegas Strip, the main drag of Sin City that’s known for its casinos, clubs, and, in the case of the Bellagio Hotel, a dancing fountain show set to “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.” Complete with a fake Statue of Liberty, the Strip is also an example of Americans’ willingness to accept reproductions of famous sights as adequate alternatives to the real thing. (“It’s just like the one in New York City!” I heard a woman say, pointing at a replica of the Eiffel Tower.)
Some of the Strip’s theme hotels are fun to walk around in, like the Venetian or Mandalay Bay. But most have no redeeming qualities. Consider the Luxor, a giant black pyramid guarded by an enormous sphinx. Despite having only opened in 1993, it has already managed to achieve an authentic feeling of decay, with dark hallways, faded faux-hieroglyphics, and unstable railings that provide only the slightest protection against falling hundreds of feet onto the casino floor below. The result is impressive, even for Vegas: a building that combines the despair of an existential crisis with the ambiance of a parking garage.
B. Nuclear Fallout
Nearly 80 percent of Nevada belongs to the federal government, which decided to take advantage of its vast deserts not for a drug-fueled art festival (see Burning Man, p. 217), but for nuclear explosions. Pockmarked with craters and larger than Rhode Island, the Nevada Test Site is the most notorious of the government’s testing grounds. Between 1951 and 1992, it was home to more than one thousand nuclear detonations. While the tests’ full fallout, if you will, remains unclear, in 1997 the National Cancer Institute concluded that atmospheric tests done in the area had contaminated large parts of the country with radioactive iodine–131 in quantities big enough to produce ten thousand to seventy-five thousand cases of thyroid cancer. I consider that reason enough not to visit. But others disagree—and for them, the U.S. Department of Energy has joined forces with NTS to offer free monthly tours.
C. Nuclear Garbage Dumps
When you do that much nuclear testing, you have to have someplace to put your garbage, and for a long time, the plan was to dump it at Yucca Mountain, conveniently located within the Nevada Test Site. Designed to hold more than seventy thousand tons of nuclear waste, the mountain seemed ideal: no one lives around it, its water table is deep, and besides, it’s in a location already contaminated by nuclear waste. The federal government spent more than two decades—and billions of