Vally Of Fire & Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

Greetings, Earthlings! Looks like we are all on an adventure of an unwanted sort. Larry and I hope that you are safe and sound. We are holed up at a friend’s place in the deserts of southern Arizona for the duration. But, more on that in a future post. Let’s catch up on where we have been. We have no excuse not to be up to date!

At the end of February, we were still in southern Nevada. This time we stayed at Sand Mine Road BLM. These Bureau of Land Management properties are so amazing. There are no services available, but you get to stay for free for around 14 day depending on the location. And, even though the sign says “4X4 Recommended”, in our opinion, you didn’t need a four wheel drive tow vehicle to get around.

We love the rough and ready nature of these places and Sand Mine is right at the top of the list of our favorites. We were situated atop a mesa that was surrounded by canyons and other mesas. We had a long view into the sunsets and enjoyed them immensely. There was a red band of landscape that we looked for every evening as it ‘lit up’ and then ‘went out’.

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We stayed at Sand Mine to be close to Valley of Fire State Park. The park’s campground is first come first serve and we really didn’t want to go trolling around every morning hoping that a site would open up so we stayed nearby instead. Additionally, for a $10 entry fee to Valley of Fire, we were able to access the showers, water and RV dump station. That was a good deal. If we had it to do over, we wouldn’t have gone on a weekend. There were LOTS of people there. I can’t really blame them though. The park was astoundingly beautiful. The landscape was formed from red stone formations that were created from large sand dunes during the age of the dinosaurs, around 150 million years ago. This area has been inhabited by native peoples from around 300 BCE to 1150 CE. I am grateful for the beautiful art work that they left behind.

We were lucky enough to spy some desert big horn sheep

I will let the petroglyphs speak for themselves. Aren’t they magnificent?

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From Valley of Fire, we headed to Red Rock Canyon which is west of Las Vegas. It was a lovely, secluded park and except for the lights from the strip at night, you would never know you were that close to the city. We were the old geezers at the park. Most of the campers were 20 something rock climbers and hikers who headed out each morning at sun rise to climb the cliffs in the area. The park was full every night as you would expect during Spring Break time. It was funny to think that we were that age when we went cross country in 1978 in Larry’s Chevy van!

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We spotted a few petroglyphs and it is always a joy to do so.

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We really enjoyed this part of our wanderings. The landscape is wild and open. The desert is harsh and windy at times and then you notice tender spring flowers growing out of cracks in the rocks. Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me.

Wherever you are right now, I hope you are keeping the faith and are staying in touch with Mother Nature everyday! If you are out there working so the rest of us can survive. Thank you! If you are staying in place, thank you!