Labor Day 2014 Adventures

This year for Labor Day I had nothing planned. I actually let myself sleep in. Then I got a text from my parents saying they wanted to check out the "Valley of Fire" that we always saw signs for driving up to Utah. So I headed over to their house and we headed out on an adventure to find this fire valley.

We drove out of the city and up into the desert, turning off the freeway onto a two lane road and into the wilderness. We were happy to see a constant stream of cars coming towards us. Letting us know the road we were on did go somewhere. After driving over a mountain and into valleys we came across the first sights of the valley of fire:

After paying an entrance fee we journeyed into the red rocks:

Dad and I enjoying a photo op

This rock formation was called a beehive

Driving further on we found this giant rock with stairs going up the side of it. Our curiousity got the better of us so we stopped and climbed the stairs and were surprised to find some cool rock carvings:

Halfway up the stairs I realized that I'm not good with hights

Signs from the ancients

Then we saw a sign for a "Arch Rock" so we followed the road and almost drove passed it. It was a cute tiny little rock arch:

You almost can't see it in this photo

There it is :) Cute

We followed the valley, saw some nice camp grounds and some fun hikes that would be nice to go on in cooler weather. It was like Red Rock Canyon on steroids.

Mom and Dad

 

Rainbow valley

A rock that mom thought looked like a turtle

After we got tired of looking at cool rocks we came across the visitor center/museum. Outside the center were these really spiky cacti called Hedgehog Cactus:

We spent some time looking at the things in the visitor center. And cooling off inside the Air Conditioned building.

Afterwards we decided we had seen enough for one day and continued on through the valley and out the backside. And we came across the Lake Mead National Recreation Area:

No lake in sight though....

We had to drive another 10 miles or so before we even saw the lake and even then it looked miles away:

There is Lake Mead

Driving along in the desert we saw an interesting sign:

And sure enough we came across a natural spring, a real live desert oasis. It was pretty cool to find water bubbling up out of the desert rocks:

Looking back at the Valley of Fire

WATER!!

Then just a little bit further down the road we saw a bigger oasis. It had a pond and a waterfall. We were amazed.

The water seemed to be coming out of the rocks

The palm trees were very big and happy to be getting so much water.

Then after driving another hour or so in the desert we made it back to Vegas. Along the way we had passed a mountain that had a section on its side eroded away to reveal a pile of round red rocks. Mom said it looked like we were seeing the guts of the mountain. There were a lot of very interesting rock formations.

It was a fun way to spend the day. Seeing new sights and learning to see some beauty in the vast desert that surrounds our city. It was a good day.