Valley of Fire!

I'm not always sure where we get our ideas for places to visit, but I'm sure glad we had a star on our Google Map for the Valley of Fire State Park!  Going to Las Vegas for New Year's (details in my next post) gave us a great opportunity to go camping in the desert first.

If nothing else, a couple days of beautiful (quiet) scenery was a good lead-in to Vegas craziness.  And, my goodness, it was way more than that.  What a stunning place!  Everyone should put this on their "to go" list.

The best kind of selfie - mostly pretty rocks plus shadows of us:

First wildlife sighting on our first morning - hello Mr. Bighorn!

This post is basically "look at the amazing rocks" and a plug for state parks everywhere.  The world is a big beautiful place - keep exploring, you never know what you'll find.

Some scenes from the Fire Wave/Seven Wonders loop:

Tug-E doesn't mind waiting for us in spots like this:

Loving the shapes and colors:

Found a little canyon:

Live long and rainbow:

An old movie set, built in 1965 for the movie "The Professionals".  The movie "Star Trek Generations" was filmed in the park too - now we need to watch it again.

A taller/darker slot canyon:

It was a good idea to come here in the winter - I can imagine summertime being much more challenging for wandering around.

Duck!!

I found some out-of-the-way petroglyphs - thank you Gaia!

A stunning sunrise the next morning:

Admiring the Fire Canyon overlook:

One of many arch-like features carved into the sandstone:

More petroglyphs along the Mouse's Tank trail:

There was something to take a picture of every time we turned a corner:

One of several cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (thank you, CCC!)

A scenic view from inside the cabin:

A bridge from the Star Trek movie - apparently Kirk fell and died at this spot, although there must have been some editing to make it look a whole lot higher off the ground!

Super cool Elephant Rock!

The petrified logs were underwhelming, as they were mostly covered with dirt/rocks and behind fences.  Not every park can have everything - go to Petrified Forest National Park for the epitome of petrification.

Back to what Valley of Fire excels at - incredible stone shapes.  This one is called Piano Rock:

I'm not sure if this is officially called Dog Rock, but it should be:

We stayed in one of the prettiest campgrounds we've come across.  Our site was quite nice, and others like this one were spectacular:

Just another random arch - keep your eyes open, most aren't labeled on the map:

More bighorn sheep, wandering through showing off their horns:

Steep stairs up to get a good look at Atlatl Rock (also a good place to find a tiny bit of cell service, funnily enough):

Atlatl Rock petroglyphs:

After every hike we spent a few minutes dumping sand from our shoes.  The parking lot shows evidence of this frequent practice:

One last morning, one more trek, doing a key swap with John so we could both go one-way (in opposite directions) on the Prospect Trail.  Glad we did, as there was more to see:

And one last little bighorn for good measure!

Thank you, Valley of Fire, for all the amazing scenery, perfect weather, and motivation to roam around outside for several days!