As we drove down from Snow Canyon State Park, we went through a round-about with a fantastic sculpture. Not a great place to stop but I manage to get a few quick shots.
We continued on through Mesquite to Valley of Fire State Park, 55 miles from Las Vegas. On the way into the park, we spotted a desert big horn sheep ambling along until he crossed in front of us. He certainly wasn't intimidated by us!
As you can guess Valley of Fire gets its name from the red sandstone formations. The Basket Maker people were some of the first prehistoric users of the Valley followed by the Anasazi Pueblo farmers. Beautiful examples of their rock art are visible throughout the park.
The Atlatl Campground offered 43 large campsites surrounded by interesting rock formations and canyons.
We were treated to a breathtaking sunset. The Valley did indeed look like it was on fire.
The sunset was followed by a brilliant night sky which surprised us since we were not far from the neon lights of Las Vegas. We were awed by the beauty and the solitude.
The next morning, we hiked from our campsite to Atlatl Rock to see the petroglyphs including the atlatl.
We continued on to Arch Rock and checked out the primitive and secluded campground.
We had been told at the Visitor Center that there was a 2 mile loop back to our campground. We hiked around to the main road and stopped at what is called the Beehives.
The 2 mile loop turned out to be 3.75 miles according to our GPS, a pattern that seems consistent most places that we visit. We spent another glorious evening under the stars.
The next day, we stopped at the Visitor Center and saw snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas, all behind glass fortunately. We drove up to Rainbow Vista just as a limo dropped off a wedding party and onto White Domes. After we got back to the campground, we explored some of the surrounding canyons.
We woke early on Wednesday and drove up to Mouses' Tank, named for a renegade Southern Paiute Indian who hid out in this wild canyon in the 1890s. As we hiked in, we passed several prehistoric petroglyphs.
The trail ended at the "tank", a natural basin in the rock where water collects after rainfalls...a perfect hiding place in this arid valley.
From there we went to the 7 Sisters rock formation and to the historic stone cabins built with native sandstone by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s.
They were used as shelters for passing travelers. We decided to check out Overton Beach but the road was closed because Lake Mead had receded so far from road. We continued on down North Shore Drive which is misleading to say the least to Echo Bay, Lake Mead Marina and a National Park Service Campground. On the way back we drove into Stevens Point to Lake Mead where several campers were boondocking close to the Lake. There was road construction on the way back and we had to stop for 20 minutes- a good time to make some calls and check email. Even though, we do not always have a great connection in the desert and canyons, it is great to have Verizon Mi-fi . When we got back to our site, it was time to sit in the sun and relax after a busy day. We made a fire, cooked fajitas, and went for a moonlight walk. We both agreed that this is a place that we could stay longer than 3 or 4 days.
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I really enjoyed all of your photos. The western states are awesome
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