I grew up in Henderson - seven miles from Lake Mead and we had a boat. We lived out there from April to October.

It’s been 26 years since I moved and I still get a bit weirded out by lakes surrounded with grass and trees and stuff.

I could look from our front yard right down into the valley and see the Strip. I grew up going to Mt. Charleston for our annual encounter with snow. I watched mustangs running across the desert and saw inside packrat nests. I scrambled across Red Rocks and Valley of Fire. I looked at miles and miles of empty desert. I saw Hoover Dam from the lake side, right up by the buoys. I learned the different kind of cacti at the Ethel M chocolate factory’s cactus garden with the taste of my free piece of chocolate still in my mouth. I developed my love of history by going to the Clark County History Museum - they had houses of different eras, fitted out with period items, and I loved going there (and now I’m always looking at the idea of switching from amateur to professional historian).

There was a lot about it that wasn’t a great place to raise kids, and I was so surprised to move east and realize that slot machines in grocery stores and gas stations actually wasn’t a normal thing, and billboards with scantily-clad women weren’t as much of a thing elsewhere. But I still miss watching the sunset paint the desert. I miss feeling the sun on me as I float in the lake. I miss all you can eat buffets that weren’t Chinese food or Golden Corral.