October 5, 2016
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| Las Vegas, NV |
Even though we were staying in a motel for couple of nights, we were still up and on our feet at daybreak in Las Vegas. We hit the road without so much as a coffee fill up. We'd get that along the way. I didn't want to be pressed for time at Valley of Fire State Park, which is an easy one hour drive from the Vegas Strip. That included an early morning drive down the length of the strip, by the way. That drive alone would take an hour at night. It's pretty empty at the crack of dawn, though.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| The Beehives, Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Natural Arch, Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Pongo |
Like Goblin Valley, Valley of Fire was a great park for Pongo. He could go anywhere as long as he was on a leash. Frankly, he's not an off-leash dog so that was perfect. Honestly, he handles 95% of the 'tough' situations well. By that, I mean greeting strangers and other dogs and seeing wildlife. It's the other 5% that's the problem. Sometimes he forgets himself, especially when he sees little critters. He loves chasing after squirrels and lizards. He bolts before he even realizes he's doing it. What that means is that on a trip like this he's on a leash the entire day, either tethered to my arm to to something stationary like a picnic table or the car. I imagine that wore on him over the course of the trip. That's one of the reasons I was looking to stay in a motel at this point. He could be off leash in the room, which wasn't particularly large but at least he had something close to the normal amount of freedom he has in the evening at home.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
There are a lot of little pullouts on the roads through the park. That was nice. It meant we didn't have to stick to the busy trails but could just kind of wander around and explore wherever we saw something that looked interesting. That was really nice. We didn't see a lot of the named attractions, but we found our own little places that defined our visit to the park. These are the types of parks I like the best. It's probably why I didn't find Arches all that interesting and prefer places like Capitol Reef (although we didn't do much of that on this trip) and Death Valley.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Pongo -- Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
We didn't see a lot of wildlife on this day. We saw a chuckwalla (briefly), a number of lizards and a few small rodents dashing about. What we did see were a lot of interesting animal tracks in the sand.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Pongo -- Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
We spent the bulk of our morning inspecting bushes like the one above for lizards. Pongo would see them dash into the bushes but he never seemed to see them dash out the other side. I never had the heart to tell him the lizards weren't there anymore.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
The one regular trail we hiked was out to the Fire Wave. It was a short trail, marked as 3/5 of a mile one way. We spent a couple of hours on the trail and at the wave. It was hot for us and there is no shade on that hike. We're used to San Francisco weather and tend to melt like popsicles when the mercury cracks eighty degrees. The official high temperature for the day in the park was eighty-one degrees, but it sure felt hotter.
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
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| Valley of Fire State Park, NV |
After being out in the sun for so much of the day I was beginning to worry about taxing Pongo too much. Neither of us are used to the heat even on what would I'm sure be considered a mild day by Nevada's standards. So, we headed to Lake Mead to cool off in the lake. We both enjoyed the water as we waded along the shore near one of the boat ramps.
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| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV |
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| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV |
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| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV |
After dipping our toes in the lake, we drove back to Las Vegas for the evening. We ate dinner and watched our team (the San Francisco Giants) win the National League Wildcard Game. That was pretty sweet. Then we took a walk on Dean Martin Avenue before calling it a night.
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| Las Vegas, NV |
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| Las Vegas, NV |
Soundtrack:
- Bob Dylan -- Biograph [5]
- The Decemberists -- The Hazards of Love
- Ryan Adams -- Ryan Adams
So glad you got to Valley of Fire. I like that you just wandered the landscape. Next time I want to do that instead of the "features." Plus a real bonus that Pongo got to go. Bill's dog Sasha loved it there, especially the dog socializing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gaelyn. It was your blog posts about this park that made it a must-do with Pongo along for the trip. We had a lot of fun there.
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