Valley of Fire State Park

Our Vegas days always start at the Bellagio Buffet, where we fuel up. There is often a line of people waiting for a table at breakfast time but the staff are adept at moving it along so soon you are wandering around the multiple food stations , surveying the many choices. Fresh food keeps being added as they are ready-nothing gets to sit too long. Then when you have mentally selected your favorites you zoom in and start loading your plate. A waitress will come to your table with iced water, coffee and orange juice.

Then it's into the car (we get our own from the parking garage as it saves us time) as we are off on an adventure. We're going to explore what's beyond those mountains we can see from our hotel window. A map tells us we'll find the Valley of Fire State Park and we believe it. We'll leave the city via a highway on the outskirts of the city and drive until we reach Lake Mead, before the Hoover Dam, and then turn left to follow the lake over some winding hilly roads that are fun to drive, even in a car with automatic transmission and no convertible top.

Lake Mead ahoy!

Once we turn left before the lake there will be much less traffic. To get to the Hoover Dam we would have stayed on the road around the lake to the right. It has taken us about 35 minutes to come this far.

As you can see there are no crowds and no casinos here, by the Lake. You can enjoy the peace and quiet.

There are many places where you can pull off the road to take photos or just soak it all in with your eyes.

There are some marinas where people keep their pleasure boats

Ugly, isn't it?

We are not in a rush. We have brought sandwiches with us for lunch-and some cold drinks. There are some barbecue grills here for people who want to cook their own lunch outdoors. Bring your own charcoal.

Eventually we drive on towards the park. Our rental car on this visit was the comfortable Jaguar S Type.

I'm shooting video (on tape) prior to the digital age of videography. We recorded the tape onto a DVD later at home and still have the memories of how quiet and still it was out there.

We resisted the temptation to climb up on the rocks for a better view

I'm sure at some point- probably at this structure, there was a metal box and a sign asking us to make a donation to the upkeep of the park so we dropped $5 or so in to help.

All of the photos back then were taken using a Canon point and shoot digital camera. I haven't been back to this beautiful part of Nevada since I bought a Canon DSLR camera and some editing software. Hopefully at some point in the future we will return. This was also before the days when I photographed every plate of food that was set in front of me even though many of the meals deserved to have their picture taken.

Desert wildflowers

Shrubs and bushes manage to survive out here in the desert

So many colors

Occasionally you will meet other people as you pull into one of the many parking lay-bys to take photos or a break from driving.

We are within 50 miles of Las Vegas-but a world away

Picnic tables and charcoal grilling stations can be found in most of the roadside parking lots

The road runs right through the sandstone rock formations and is as smooth as glass (no potholes!)

We drive slowly through as does everyone else as there is so much beauty to see while driving.

The sandstone here is dated from 150 million years ago

The park is vast-42,000 acres but we see as much as we can without rushing

At some point we have to leave so that we can be out of the park so that we can be out of it and back onto a highway that runs back to the city (not the same way we came). We are at an elevation of 2500 feet so much of the desert road is going downhill, then across a dusty plain which is Native American land. We can see the highway from miles away and once we reach it we can drive at 75 mph towards the city which is just beginning to light up for the night-and there is no place that lights up the dusk more than Las Vegas.

An hour later we are back in the Bellagio for the dinner Buffet before going out to a show-maybe we'll go to the Flamingo across the street to see the great comedian George Wallace? We have many choices...