Valley of Fire State Park

We spent a day visiting the Valley of Fire State Park while we were in the Las Vegas area. It was well over 100° the day we went. We’d planned on doing some hikes, but once we got there…it was just too hot so we stuck to the scenic road and saw as much as we could.

We spent the week before this exploring Death Valley National Park and to be honest, I really thought Valley of Fire would be pretty much the same kind of stuff we’d been looking at. It wasn’t. You drive into the park and boom! There’s this bright red rock everywhere! It was pretty neat. The formation above is called The Beehive. You can see why with all of the holes in it.

These little ground squirrels were everywhere and they weren’t too shy.

In the photo above, you can see some of the petroglyphs at Atatl Rock. We saw quite a few petroglyphs in this park. It was really something to walk along and look at all of the ancient graffiti and wonder why the Indians chose that spot and what they were really trying to convey?

This is Arch Rock. We drove by it and missed it. It took us a bit to actually see it because it was up higher than what we thought it would be.  There were several arches throughout the park, but this is probably the biggest one we saw.

We almost missed this kit fox relaxing in the shade. He looked up as we passed and I caught sight of his ears and Jerl backed up. We had two cameras going and probably took twenty pictures of him and he just sat there watching us like we were paparazzi or something.

I love a good scenic vista.

We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rock formation called The Seven Sisters where the park had some covered tables set up. We had this whole side to ourselves.

We may or may not have dropped a few peanuts…and the ground squirrels may or may not have gotten them.

So, the rocks were neat…the vistas were grand…but my favorite thing at Valley of Fire SP is the area with the cabins. These cabins were built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps for travelers to use as shelter along the Arrowhead Trail.

There’s a small fireplace in each cabin.

We were the only ones in the cabin area for quite some time and we thoroughly enjoyed exploring it.

While we were hiking up to Elephant Rock I turned around and caught sight of this vista. I love those “oh, wow” moments.

And…this is Elephant Rock. Can you see it?

On the way home we stopped by Lake Mead and the boys got a Junior Ranger Badge. The Visitor Center was trying to close when we got there, but the Ranger was nice enough to let the boys mostly finish their workbooks and get their badge before kicking us all out.

Our last stop of the day was Hoover Dam. We didn’t take a tour of it…we just walked across the bridge and enjoyed the view. It was probably the windiest bridge I’ve ever been on! Oh, my goodness!! It about blew my hair right off of my head and pushed me along the walkway. The boys thought it was funny and we all laughed about it as we ran back to the car.

See y’all down the road!