Workman Chronicles 

By Morris Workman

"Being A Touron"

November 30, 2005

No matter where you live, there is something nearby that warrants your visit.

It could be the world’s biggest snot collection, or something similarly disturbing, but every area has something that they hold out as a “tourist attraction.”

I live near an entire city that is one big tourist attraction, and could qualify as the world’s biggest snot collection.

It’s called Las Vegas .

If you visit or live in such a locale, you have obviously encountered one of the “lost souls” who obtain four-wheel bumper cars (also known as Hertz-mobiles) then proceed to run into other bumper cars, public fixtures, and pedestrians while gazing at the fake ship in front of the Treasure Island casino and uttering the words, “ooh, a boat!”

These visitors are known as “tourons.”

It’s a contraction of two different words that I am sure you can figure out.

I’m not insulting these visitors, because their visits and their money are critical to the survival of Vegas and my own beloved town, and because every human being in the U.S. of A. has been one at some point.

Recently I put on my “touron” hat and visited Nevada ’s “ Valley of Fire ,” a beautiful desert landscape of red-tinted hills and canyons outside Logandale/Overton.

(The residents of this burg insist that Logandale and Overton are two different towns, but I would challenge anyone outside of their zip code to identify which is which.)

The first thing I would like to point out is that there is something inherently wrong with a government collecting money for God’s handiwork.

The state of Nevada hammers visitors $6 a carload to view this particular collection of rocks.

I’m sure their argument would be that they have money invested in the road and the 4,281 signs pointing the way to pristine “natural” locations.

(Like most states, Nevada doesn’t catch the irony in putting up manmade signs to identify natural phenomena).

As a taxpayer and nature liker (I’m not a nature “lover” because I still prefer humans to trees and believe that the Sierra club has elevated whining to an art form), I would be just as happy to see the roads allowed to return to dirt trails and the signs turned into campfire kindling.

Of course, if the state did that, how would our friends from the “Land of the Rising Sun” get their tour buses out to the “beehive” in time to snap three or four hundred pictures before returning to the black jack tables?

For the record, the red vistas are gorgeous and fascinating, well worth the cost of a couple of rolls of film.

But not worth the $6 shakedown by the state.

To add insult to injury, you are expected to “self-pay,” which means you fill out an envelope, put in your money, keep the stub, and insert the envelope into the slot of a locked metal pipe.

No humans are involved in collecting your money.

Instead, they post people on each end of the park to check for your stub (“Your paperz, pleeze!”) in hopes of catching violators and collecting the big jackpot, which is a hefty fine for stealing glimpses of stuff you already own as a taxpayer.

(Only a government could come up with a system like this.)

If you are planning a visit to the greater Las Vegas area (or even the not-so-great Las Vegas area, also known as Pahrump), I highly recommend a visit to this natural wonder.

And feel free to fill out the envelope, keep the stub, and “forget” to include your cash.

I won’t tell.

Published online at the Workman Chronicles WebLog November 30, 2005.

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