There's something about airports that puts me at peace. It's not the bratty kids, the Burger King cuisine or overpriced bottles of water at the gift shop. It's not the debilitating security procedures that make you wish you'd just gassed up the car, turned on the radio and just started driving. Nor is it the cramped conditions on the plane that put taking a decent nap on a long flight just barely out of your grasp.
What I love about airports is the shared experience. You look at people's faces. You don't know who they are or where they come from. You don't know their politics (but their headgear might give away their sports allegiances). Yet at that time, at that gate, everyone is the same, waiting for the same flight, all with the same objective. If you want to see the face of America, and the world, study the interactions at an airport.
In Southern Nevada there are many ways to get your mind off things. There are bars, burgers and brothels. But when I really want to find some peace, I go to the small lot on Sunset near Eastern that lets me watch the intersection of society. They come in, one after the other, a faint almost star-like gleam in the horizon as you look East. One after the other they get closer, larger and louder until touching down a few hundred yards and a chain link fence in front of my Suzuki Aerio. How can something so heavy and loud be so precise and graceful?
The perfect soundtrack for this experience is the radio frequency you can dial up to listen to air traffic control. Silence, intermittently interrupted by clear, calm commands. Southwest, US Airways, Delta, JetBlue, and the list goes on. I often sit there and wonder who is on the plane, why they are coming to Las Vegas, and what they hope to gain from their time here. What are they leaving? What are they returning to? While I'm here I forget about everything else. It's an unlikely escape zone and one I'm glad the city (county?) created. I sometimes fantasize about being an airport bartender and hearing people's stories. But this spot helps maintain the mystery.