In April, I was in Miami. This month, it’s Vegas. We must be working with the CSI-themed meeting planners.

I am actually only nominally in Vegas. The resort where the meeting is held is outside of the city, in a place called Henderson, on a largish body of water called “Lake Las Vegas.” Celine Dionne, I’m told, has a home here.

The resort is nice enough, but it is its own raison d’etre, rather like Disney World. One comes to this resort to visit the resort; there’s no other there there. It’s eerily empty, a victim of the economy and its distance from the Strip. The weather is gorgeous, though, and I’m currently enjoying my 17th uninterrupted hour of sunlight, so I’m not complaining.

Business trips can be disorienting, even a little depressing, so I always try to get out and explore a little bit, just so that every destination doesn’t feel like room-service-and-network-TV. I noticed that the hotel rents out kayaks and paddle boats so guests can “explore Lake Las Vegas,” so I thought it would be fun to do a little kayaking.

Do you know how weird it is to kayak in a man-made lake? In the desert? Past Celine Dionne’s house? The water was so clear and clean; the bare hills in the distance, so incongruous; the sudden appearance of golfers, so intrusive; the wildlife, so scarce. It was like kayaking in the world’s biggest water hazard.