A dear friend sent me an email while I was in Las Vegas - “Enjoy the sparkly lights.” I love sparkly lights; I wonder how many there are in Vegas. Probably more than Oprah has pennies. I certainly was in a whole land of sparkly lights. Green lights, pink lights, yellow lights, orange lights, even turquoise lights and purple lights! Moving lights, blinking lights, lights formed to look like people, lights that even look like waterfalls.

This is a place of good times - a place to meet friends, listen to music, watch shows and be entertained. Not only is it clearly a place centered around having fun, but it's a place filled with opportunities to get a higher return on a few dollars than any bank in the world will give you.

It’s a land of abundance – limousines, designer stores, expensive cars and people laying down more money at craps tables, roulette wheels, and blackjack and poker tables than some people make in a year!

Opting for the simple pleasures, I was drawn to the sparkly lights and interesting architectures and went  for a walk. There was busy traffic, thousands of people, many of whom were taking pictures and I was one of them. Having spent some time in New York City, I was drawn to the New York, New York Hotel with its many buildings that replicate the NY skyline. The Statue of Liberty was there too, looking majestic and grand. She’s so big that she’s actually half the size of the real one! There’s even a moat around her and an iron railing on the edge of the sidewalk. Lining the railing is a series of objects framed in glass in a concrete boundary. In the land of lights that offers fun, fun, fun, I now found myself with tears in my eyes. These objects were shirts from fire companies in New York with autographs of firefighters, some including a written sentiment to remember one of their own who died on 9/11. It was a solemn and touching moment. Spaced above these shirts, were several bronze plaques about freedom, liberty and defense against those who attack it. A few were these:

“All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”     

         Edmund Burke

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy."   Martin Luther King Jr.

Even though Las Vegas is thousands of miles from New York City, this hotel and property is its reflection on the other side of the country. Again I was deeply moved as I read that on 9/11 and the days thereafter, thousands of people gathered here in Vegas to lay flowers, pray and hold vigils. That was a powerful moment for me – a vivid picture that was so easy to imagine and so easy to feel, even as I stood there. What a contrast this must have been in September 2001 to have people gathered in this hedonistic city to be standing in this very spot crying, grieving and praying. Even as I stood there almost ten years later with tears in my eyes, the contrast of this solemn moment with the glitz of the rest of this city, was palpable.

This was not my first time to Sin City but how could I have missed it when I was here four years ago? Hmm, I guess the advertisements for this fun-filled city, don’t mention, “Be sure to visit the 9/11 tribute at the New York, New York Hotel!” I sure hope they do something to commemorate the tenth anniversary this year of those who died for the sole reason that they were part of this great country.

I continued on down the "strip" with a typical tourist walk and was pleasantly overwhelmed with this city of world-class entertainment, award-winning restaurants, and ubiquitous opulent furnishings. And although I found myself smiling at all these sparkly lights, those tear-filled emotional patriotic moments are what I will remember most.