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Vegas,
for people
who live here.

One email, every Tuesday. What's worth leaving the house for, what's free with your NV ID, and which weekends to stay off the 15.

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Valley Conditions Week of Aug 17 · updated Tue 6:00a · tap any box for the full story
Live eyes on the valley — tap to watch here
This week

Worth leaving the house

Eight hundred things are happening in the valley this week. These are the six we'd actually go to.

Home stands

Who's playing at home

The Season

What the desert is doing

Sky Watch● Live

Next meteor shower: the Orionids

OCT 21–22 · 9 weeks out · new-moon week, dark skies

Halley's Comet debris, ~20/hr. Leave the valley glow behind — these three are our tested picks, darkest first:

South Cove, Lake Mead Valley of Fire Lower Lee Meadows, Mt. Charleston
Next on the calendarDrops Oct 1

The Trick-or-Treat Map

OCT 1 · 6 weeks out

Top-ranked streets by side of town + every trunk-or-treat in the valley, mapped. It shows up here the day it's ready — and hands the spot to the next thing Nov 1.

Best streets, ranked Every trunk-or-treat
The Bulletin

The stuff nobody can find

The recurring community things that live in Facebook groups and flyers. Tap any row for the details a first-timer actually needs.

Run a rec group, run club, or standing meetup? Submit it — if it's real and recurring, it gets listed. That's the whole point of this section.

The Sandbox

For the kids

Every public playground and splash pad in the valley, tagged by what actually matters: shade, water, and whether you can survive it in August. Plus the quiet superpower: the library district runs ~200 free kids events every single week — storytimes to STEAM labs — and the weekly email picks the best ones near you.

Park of the week

Children's Park at Town Square

The treehouse with slides, the hedge maze, the mini village, and the pop-jet fountain + splash pad — free, and surrounded by coffee for the adults. Splash pad runs park hours. 6605 Las Vegas Blvd S.

Splash pad status + the full valley list

Splash pads: ON. Clark County opened pads early this year for record heat and they run into October. County pads include Bob Price Park and Leavitt Park; each city runs its own set.

The full build pulls every park from the Clark County Parks Locator GIS (open data — filterable by amenity: splash pad, dog park, BMX, ball fields) plus the city parks systems, so you can filter by your side of town and by "has water."

Too hot outside? The indoor backup list

DISCOVERY Children's Museum — free for a family of four with a library-district pass. Plus the indoor playground circuit, sorted by age band and chaos tolerance, in the full guide.

The Table

Eating off-Strip

No resort restaurants, no $28 cocktails. The corridors locals actually eat in — Chinatown's 200+ spots on Spring Mountain, Commercial Center, Water Street, the Arts District.

Ratings, review counts, and photo carousels sync nightly from Google Places (server-side — the key never ships to the browser). Tap any spot for photos + directions.

Today in Vegas

This day in Las Vegas history

One real thing that happened here, every day of the year — atomic tests, grand openings, implosions, and the night Elvis got his crown back.

One date, one story, checked against two sources. The archive fills toward all 366 days — openings, implosions, residency debuts, disasters, championships.

The Ledger

The town's vital signs

Tourism pays the valley's bills. When it moves, your job, your rent, and your commute move with it. Tap any number for the full history.

Why a locals newsletter tracks tourist numbers

One in four valley jobs is hospitality. Visitor volume down → shifts cut at the resorts → less money moving through every off-Strip business. Convention attendance up → weekday traffic and airport load up. We read the LVCVA and DETR releases each month so you get the two lines that matter, not the 40-page PDF.

Home & Yard

Owning a house out here

What your place is worth, what rent is doing, when to water, and the desert-specific chores nobody tells transplants about. Tap the indexes for their history.

Property Index · July
Zillow home value index$429,591▾2.8% yr
LVR median sale (SFR)$480,000▾1.0% yr
Henderson$485,484▾2.5% yr
North Las Vegas$407,369▾1.7% yr
City of Las Vegas$424,778▾3.1% yr
Boulder City$473,568▾1.8% yr
Every row is tappable — 24 months of real Zillow city-level data. All four cities are down year-over-year; the valley's cooling is broad, not spotty. LVR median tracks only what sold, which is why it reads higher.
Rent Index · July
Zillow rent index$1,747▴0.4% yr
Valley avg apartment$1,464▾0.6% yr
Henderson avg$1,744
Summerlin 1BR / 2BR$1,373 / $1,831
Rents flat while values fall — the squeeze is easing. Tap the index for the 24-month line.
Watering · right now
6 days/wk · never Sundays · not 11a–7p

Summer schedule through Aug 31. Fall starts Sep 1: three assigned days by watering group (A–F, by address). We email your group's new days every season flip.

Find your group →

This month's chores · Aug
Hose out the A/C condenser coils (power off first)now
Deep-water trees ahead of the heat watchTue
Check roof scuppers before Sunday's storm chanceSat
Re-stake young trees — monsoon gustsSat
The Desert Home Almanac — the whole year
Sep–Oct · the planting window
  • Fall is the Mojave's real planting season — trees, shrubs, natives go in now, not spring
  • Switch irrigation to the 3-day fall schedule Sep 1 (your assigned group days)
  • Overseed with winter rye mid-Oct if you keep lawn (or don't — SNWA pays $3/sq ft to remove it)
  • Wildflower seed down by Halloween for a spring show
Nov–Feb · freeze prep
  • Sock or wrap the water main, backflow preventer, and hose bibs before the first freeze warning
  • Frost cloth over citrus and soft succulents on warning nights
  • Winter watering: one assigned day per week, Nov 1–Feb 28
  • Prune deciduous trees while dormant — before mulberry pollen season makes you regret going outside
Mar–May · beat summer to it
  • A/C service before the first 100° day (book in March; in June it's a three-week wait)
  • Spring watering: 3 days/wk March 1 · bump drip minutes as temps climb
  • Shade sails up by April; paint/seal outdoor wood before the UV season
  • Mulberry + olive pollen peak — change HVAC filters monthly Feb–Apr
Jun–Aug · survival mode
  • Summer watering 6 days/wk, never 11a–7p (it evaporates before it lands)
  • Hose the condenser coils monthly; shade the unit if you can (not enclosing it)
  • Monsoon checklist: scuppers clear, patio furniture staked, don't drive into washes — ever
  • Garage fridge check: most die in July. So do car batteries — test in June
The Radar

Get pinged when it hits town

Pick your alerts. When tickets drop for the stuff you care about — kids shows, the fair, the feast — we email you that day. Nothing else.

  • SEP 30–OCT 4 · San Gennaro Feast — rides, zeppole, the whole thing
  • OCT 9–11 · Age of Chivalry — Sunset Park goes medieval
  • OCT 1 · Red Rock timed entry returns — reservations open on Recreation.gov
  • NOV 15–24 · F1 closures begin — Koval goes first; full closure map the week before
  • NOV (TBA) · Disney on Ice — usually Thomas & Mack. We'll ping you the on-sale.
The Free File

Free with your NV ID

The permanent list — every locals discount, library pass, and free-parking garage in the valley, checked monthly.

Know a locals deal we missed? Every list has a "suggest an addition" link — submissions get verified before they're added, and the whole file is re-checked monthly. This is a group project.
Openings & closings

New in the valley

What opened, what's coming, what we lost. The stuff Yelp finds out about three weeks late.

The Map

This week, on the valley

Every listing, pinned. Filter by your side of town — because nobody's driving from Centennial Hills to Henderson on a school night.

Drag to pan · pinch/wheel or buttons to zoom · tap a pin. The deployed build swaps in Google Maps with the same pins.