Yes, I have been to Las Vegas, once, never again. That trip was with my husband and daughter in 2005 or 2006. She was living in Seattle by that time and planned on attending a Pearl Jam concert in Vegas. Harold was scrolling through airfares and found an incredibly cheap ticket from Manchester, New Hampshire to Vegas. We drove down to Manchester and hopped on the plane to join Megan for a few days in Sin City. I got food poisoning at a fancy restaurant in the MGM Grand Hotel. I have no desire to return or talk about my time in Las Vegas. But I have great memories of the trips I have made to Reno, work related trips to the University of Nevada. I attended courses at the university on three separate occasions. I first went with a judge I had previously worked with in the District Attorney’s Office and we took a week-long course for prosecutors and judges in 1981. We rented a car and drove up into the mountains and to Lake Tahoe. The scenery is beautiful up there and so different from the rest of Nevada, although in fairness the red rocks outside Las Vegas are beautiful and worth a visit if you go through southern Nevada. https://capturetheatlas.com/things-to-do-in-red-rock-canyon/ Back then you could only buy Coors beer west of the Mississippi and I brought Harold a six-pack I carefully packed in my suitcase. Thank heaven the cans did not rupture on route.
But this page is mostly about Reno. My second trip to Reno was in 1985 after I became a judge. The University of Nevada houses the National Judicial College. https://www.judges.org/ Back in 1985 they offered a three-week course for new state court judges from all over the country. It was the gold standard then for judicial education and resulted in me spending three weeks living and working in Reno. My living accommodations were in an apartment motel off campus and the university sent a small van every morning to pick us up and take us to campus. It was a dreary life and I remember the South Carolina judge who remarked that when he died and went to Hell he was going to demand three weeks credit for time served. There were some bright spots to this adventure. I met interesting people and I learned a great deal about the art of judging. And my weekends were easily filled with fun things to do. The first weekend I flew to Bakersfield and visited my cousin. The second weekend I flew to San Francisco and met Harold and Megan who had come to visit me. We had a great weekend outside San Francisco visiting Bodega Bay and the wine country. Megan even sent a postcard to her kindergarten class depicting a lovely picture of a vineyard we had visited. I was slightly embarrassed upon my return to Bangor to find Megan’s postcard hanging on the bulletin board with other cards from more “appropriate” venues like Disney and Busch Gardens. Megan, Harold, and I then rented a car and drove back to Tahoe and across the mountains to Reno. They spent the next week living with me in the efficiency motel. One of the other judges from Vermont had brought her five-year-old daughter with her for the entire three weeks and she enrolled her in a nursery school which also agreed to enroll Megan for a week. While I went to judges’ school and Megan attended nursery school, Harold enrolled himself in blackjack school at the MGM Grand. An educational experience for all of us awaited in Reno, Nevada.
My third and final trip to Reno came many years later and involved another course at the National Judicial College. I attended with another Maine judge, and we studied the law relating to international parental kidnapping, an all-too-common problem for domestic law judges and federal judges. Many nations, including the United States, are signatories to an international treaty involving how to handle these cases. The basic rule is that the child should be returned to its “home” jurisdiction” and the courts of that place decide issues like primary residence, visitation rights, and support. You can imagine the tragic circumstances these cases present. An American man marries an Irish woman, and she moves to New York City. A few years after the birth of their daughter she catches him with another woman and takes the child and moves back to her parents’ home in Dublin. The husband goes to Ireland and invokes the international treaty. The Irish courts will probably order the wife and child to return to New York and allow the New York courts to settle the question of custody and visitation. It is a messy business, but the course was interesting and when the other judge and I returned to Maine we taught a seminar for Maine judges on the topic. This third trip to Reno was an eye-opener in another respect. Reno had surely changed in the 25+ years since I first visited the “Biggest Little City in the World.” Indian gaming in California and the development of Las Vegas had siphoned all the gamblers away from Reno. Many of the casinos had been converted into low-income apartment buildings. Reno’s major raison d’etre appeared to be as a transportation hub at the confluence of Interstate 80 and other highways along with the east west train routes that passed through the area. If you want to experience the gambling and nightlife of Nevada, Las Vegas it will have to be. The sun has set on Reno, leaving me with many good memories of the time I spent there.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 