Being a Slave Means Never Getting To See the Grand Canyon

This is going back a ways, but we end up in the present eventually. 

Back 15 years ago, Master had a job offer from a clinic in Las Vegas.  He was just graduating and I was 8 months pregnant.  

It took a lot of convincing to get me to agree to move to Las Vegas.  I didn't want to be away from all my friends and family to move 1400 miles to where I knew no one and had a new baby to take care of.  Plus, it just seemed really foreign and hostile to me.  I'm not into glitz. I do not like the desert.  I do not gamble.  I like friendly Midwestern people and green pastures. 

Remember, in those days I wasn't a slave and didn't have to agree to everything just because he said so.  But he can be very convincing.  One of the things I really wanted to do out there was see the Grand Canyon, so that was one of the selling points of moving.  Also, he promised he would find me a house where I could have sheep.  We lived in town at that point, but I really wanted some sheep.

He did find a house with a bit of land where we could have 3 sheep and 3 goats, as well as a flock of ducks. Of course the hay had to be imported from Utah because grass doesn't grow in the desert, but a surprising number of people even in the city of Las Vegas keep horses and other livestock.  They are not into making a lot of laws out there.  

We had a one acre plot, and lived between similarly sized lots.  On one side was a very nice Mexican family who spent most of their time training dancing horses and sometimes invited us to parties and on the other some people (Anglos) who kept to themselves and had really a lot of roosters.  I didn't ask.

I learned some Spanish and I learned I didn't much like the desert, although it has beautiful landscapes.  Everything about it is hostile to life: the heat, the dryness, the scorpions and black widows, even the plants are all spiny or poisonous.   There were, however, beautiful places like Mount Charleston and Red Rock Canyon, where we made frequent day trips to hike.

Mount Charleston skiing

 When we moved out to Las Vegas, we drove in a packed minivan with Master, me, our 1 month old baby, my mom who was coming for a two week stay to help us with the baby and getting settled in, 5 dogs and a very whiny cat, plus all our gear.  The furniture was sent with a moving company. 

The road there goes close to the Grand Canyon, and as we were passing signs for it I pretty much begged to go see it but Master said "I've seen it. It's just a big hole in the ground" and my mom also voted "No" to any side trips.  They just wanted to be out of the car, and I do see their point. It was a very long drive. 

 But still, the Grand Canyon!

Master said it is only a four hour drive back from Vegas, we can go there anytime.

Well, over the years that we lived in Las Vegas a couple of trips were planned, but they always had to be scrapped due to one reason or another, which, to be fair, were not Master's fault.

Some time after that, after I became his slave, Master began telling me that the Grand Canyon doesn't really exist and that is why I will never see it.  As his loyal slave, of course, I have to believe what he says.  Right?  Sometimes I am sure that there really is a Grand Canyon, otherwise how did they get all those pictures?  Other times, I don't know, maybe they filled it in?  Maybe there was an earthquake?  No, that's silly, it would have been in the news.





The only thing I know for sure is that if he says I'm never going to see it then I never am.