Home

We joined the throngs of people wandering, like dehydrated refugees, through the Las Vegas desert in and out of the most over-the-top dwellings in the world. It’s July and the temperature is 116 degrees in the shade but that hasn’t slowed the flow of people up and down the Las Vegas Strip. So far we have visited Egypt and Paris, New York and The Caribbean. We’ve seen hotel lobbies filled with flowers and waterfalls that make you want to cry. We’ve traveled on Gondolas through the (sort-of) streets of Venice and we’ve sat in reverence as a water danced and glowed. We ate at extreme restaurants on luxurious white couches that make every mother blanch at the thought of allowing ketchup so close.


Every surface is designed to be comfortable and pleasing to the eye. Even the escalators appear to be made of Roman marble. Luxury of this level draws in people of every ethnicity, status, and age. We love the fantasy of a world where everything envelops and stimulates. There’s only one problem—it’s fantasy and a not very good one in my opinion.

There’s something lost when you have to get to the pool before daylight if you hope to snag a decent lounge chair—and those yellow and white striped tents with padded chaises? Forget it. Those are reserved for the rich who probably have matching cabanas in their backyards at home. We booked a mini-suite at a mid-range hotel, our homage to affordable luxury, and crawled into the comfy bed at the end of a very long, hot day of following the masses from one line to another. I was looking forward to sleeping in for the first time since I had children. The dream was not to be—the maids decided to linger outside my paper-thin door at seven in the morning discussing their workload in loud Spanish.

What is it about our drive to find comfort and luxury? We seek it in the most unlikely of places. After two days I drove home and walked into my home. I smiled and fell into my favorite chair in my favorite room and massaged the blisters on my feet. After a few minutes my kids came in to welcome me home and I realized that I already have luxury. I wonder how many of those people that I bumped elbows (and probably a few more embarrassing body parts) with went home and felt the same sort of relief I felt? Relief at the vacation finally being over, relief at being home.

I don’t have very nice furniture—most of it bears battles scars from three children--it’s worn and mismatched, but I love it all. Every piece holds a memory, every room reminds me why I love my family and why I work so hard for us to be together and that we have routines that I miss when we are away. I don’t need to live in a luxury suite and be carried around in a limousine to feel like a rock star. Home is underrated, and that’s a shame because even after Dorothy visited the Emerald City she knew--there’s no place like home.