red rocks, petroglyphs, Las Vegas and an homage to "Elf"
We left Death Valley and headed south east to the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, about an hour east of Las Vegas, but before we left California we stopped at this amazing place, the China Ranch Date Farm in Tecopa. It was an amazing little oasis on the Old Spanish Trail beside the Amargosa River. Trails, cactus gardens, birds, dates and a fab bakery!
On to the main event, Valley of Fire ... this is the kind of desert where you don’t have to search for the beauty, it is there everywhere you look. The rock formations, colors, patterns, swirls and angles, arches, boulders precariously balanced and the interplay of light and shadows made this area such an incredible place to spend time. A photographer's dream!
It has those gorgeous giant red rock hills that make the southern Utah NPs so spectacular. It reminded me of Arches NP, especially the campground. Each campsite was large and nestled in and amongst the rocks.
There we are.
(Of course, as I'm considering this phenomena, of how much the two places reminded me of each other … it occurs to me that it wouldn't be surprising that southern Utah and southern Nevada would share similar geologic and geographic settings! 🤔🙄😂 )
Our campground was called Atlatl. Don’t worry, Martin and I had no idea how to pronounce it or what it meant, either. We learned that this area had been inhabited by people for ages, likely around 2,500 years, ie bc, ie for ages. The ancient people developed many tools, one of which was the atlatl (at-lat-tle) a tool they would place on their shoulders to help throw their spears farther. How clever and who knew? 🤷
These Ancient people used the desert varnish darkened rocks to carve petroglyphs. Many were high up on the rock faces and as I stood staring at them in awe, I began musing, how? How did they climb up there to create them? How long did it take to make the images? Were they telling a story or their history like the native Americans do with the "winter tally" or just drawing things that interested or were important to them? But mostly I kept coming back to, What. What did they mean? I really wanted a Rosetta Stone to interpret those images.
As we explored we encountered a bit more wildlife at Valley of Fire than we did at Death Valley. While hiking one trail, we came upon a herd of desert bighorn sheep crossing the trail in front of us, moving onto the rocks and ledges on the other side. They moved in small groups of four to six. We'd watch one group, then after watching for a long time, we start to move down the trail a few steps and another small group would come out, cross and join the earlier ones. Eventually there must have been sixteen to twenty bighorn sheep. It was amazing! We probably watched for nearly half an hour. As I learned later, the herds are typically the females and young up to two or three years old, while the ‘boys’ hang out in smaller groups. We had a band of two males that were in the area near our campground and saw them several times as well as this larger herd. The desert bighorn sheep are smaller and have a sandier, lighter color than their cousins the rocky mountain bighorn. One could presume they have a more challenging habitat with less food (desert)… Or maybe they are smaller to be more nimble??? haha We also saw more birds, and some white tailed antelope ground squirrels.
We left this haven of nature and beauty for a day to travel into Las Vegas to see the wonders that modern man has created.
First we left the land of the big giant red rocks and drove down the dippy, bumpy road meant to make people with sensitive tummies feel icky. Then we drove through the sea of solar panels to the big straight road filled with giant trucks that went zoom zoom. And finally we arrived at the city of many, many lights and modern man made wonders.
Thanks to Ethan and Stephanie and Josh and Camryn’s generous Christmas gifts, we had a great time and saw some fabulous spectacles in this modern manmade “wonderland”. We went to the Van Gogh Experience at the Aria. I found it extremely moving, the combination of visual art and impactful music work synergistically in me to create an entirely new level of appreciation and insite, a new plane of experience. Fortunately, we had to travel a few blocks down the strip for our next stop, which gave me time to come back to earth or should I say "back to Vegas". Our next adventure was Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. We had to walk what seemed like miles from the “front entry” to where the exhibit was. And the closer we went … the more noticably the humidity started rising. It had been cool, upper 40s and of course no humidity outside, so I started wilting as we approached the exhibit (especially after walking what seemed like miles of corridors). But have no fear, once we entered the exhibit and I started seeing the exotic creatures, I was revived.
We followed this up with an absolutely amazing dinner at Craft Steak, Tom Colicchio’s restaurant AND a Cirque du Soleil show. If you ever have the opportunity to see a Cirque du Soleil show, GO! The artistry, costumes, showmanship and style on top of the incredible feats (that should not be possible according to my understanding of Einstein’s physics) are beyond words to describe. As for our dinner experience … for those of you who don’t know, I am a cooking show competition junkie, ahem, I mean, fan. And, Top Chef is one of my favorites, so to eat at Tom Colicchio’s restaurant??? Pinch me! I think I’m dreaming! (Of course, I just have to say that one of the cocktails was $45.00. Did I mention that was for one drink? I "settled" for a $25.00 Mule.) Everything was fabulous though. The steak melted in your mouth, the sides were “lick the plate '' delicious, the dessert, (cinnamon monkey bread with a caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream) to die for and the drinks, artfully delicious. So we had a nice time in Las Vegas. We saw things that we would never be able to see in our nature ramblings. Of course, to get to any of the venues or exhibits one had to walk through the casinos; smoke filled, lights flashing, music and bells and whistles blaring. And to leave we would have to walk back through these same casinos. I eventually put in my earplugs and wrapped my scarf around my nose and mouth (it’s more acceptable to do that sort of thing since Covid, ) and that made the gauntlet more bearable. Haha.
I’m glad we did it. I was very moved and impressed by the exhibits and shows and the restaurant and food were amazing, but I don’t think I need to go again.
So, back we went on the big straight road with the giant trucks that went zoom, zoom, through the Sea of Solar Panels back down the dippy, bumpy road meant to make people with sensitive tummies feel icky, back to the land of the giant red rocks where there weren’t nearly as many people, where the sounds you heard at night were coyotes. Back to the land with bighorn sheep and cacti and birds and antelope ground squirrels. Back to my kind of world.
Before I sign off for our next adventure … I just want to give props to Nevada for the number of solar panel ‘farms’ that we encountered. Giant farms in the desert. When I think of environmentally conscious states, Nevada doesn’t pop into my head, but they clearly are at least taking advantage of one of the renewable resources they have in abundance, the sun. Here’s to Nevada.
Now on to pics:Some striped mountains looking across into Nevada from California
welcome to Nevada
China Ranch Date Farm pics
The date trees, birds and cactus gardens were beautiful. The date shakes, cookies and bag of dates we bought to take with us were super delicious. While they kept most of the dates covered, they left a few trees uncovered with the dates open to the air. From what we saw, the area birds were big fans!
Gambrel Quail
The mountains along the road. Note the layering of the rocks in the mountains. It doesn’t even look real!
Petroglyphs!
The long things with the sort of circular handles (?) towards the top and below the single bighorn sheep are atlatls.
Valley of Fire
The next several pics are of the rocks, formations, colors, swirls and more. I was completely fascinated by them.
A touch of sunlight (the angle of the light was amazing at this time of year)
Look at the swirls of color in that hill. How is that even possible?
This area is called the fire wave. That's Martin hiking along in his boot.
Look at these colors!!!
We've moved on to the pink canyon. We actually had to scramble a bit because part of the trail was flooded, but we backtracked so we could see the canyon and water from the other end.
Reflections
The striped rock is older and was covered by the red rock. When the red rock is worn away … the striped rock magically appears. (Well ok, maybe not magically, but you honestly feel like you're in a magical kingdom. I mean it's gorgeous!)
The sisters.
Early cubism. Picasso eat your heart out! Haha
And birds
Creosote bushes with seed pods
Brittlebush, a member of the sunflower family. The different color greens were really striking in this area. I'm not sure if it is because of the time of year or the abundance of rainfall the west is receiving, but it is lovely and I'm grateful to experience it.
White tailed antelope ground squirrel. These little guys have a big white tail that they use as shade during the hot months. Now isn't that clever. And they're cute too!
The desert bighorn sheep
"I feel like someone is missing"
"Here I come!"
Oh, hello. Check out this group climbing up a nearly 45° slope without even looking.
Now I'm not sure if you can tell, but this little group is traversing a very steep rock face. If you expand the pic, you'll see that an older female is leading and they are all following one of the tiny little seams in the rock face.
Most of them ended up in this section and I couldn't resist a good butt shot, even if the lighting wasn't so great.
The next few pics are from Las Vegas.
The Van Gogh immersive at the Aria.
The rollercoaster over "New York"
Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.
I'm just sayin' I would not want to meet this guy in a dark ocean. He's Mister Grumpy Pants.
Then there was this guy, tell me that is not a human nose and lips, well, I mean other than the fact that they're blue, of course.
A lionfish. He is a scary looking dude. Amazingly beautiful, unbelievable markings and fins and eyebrows and blobby things hanging off his chin but …
Dinner at Tom Colicchios, Craft Steak
All this and the promise of another day. ♥️
Up next in our adventures: Crossing Arizona; Route 66, Phoenix and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (And yes I can see “the wall” from my camper step. Does that make me an expert on Mexico??? I haven’t ever been there and I can’t speak the language, but I can see it, so ??? 🙄 )
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