Nevada – Our RV Trip

Valley of Fire State Park

By Jennie Simpson | November 3, 2015

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!

Las Vegas, NV

By Jennie Simpson | October 29, 2015

Fabulous Las Vegas. We spent a week in the area and did our best to experience everything we could.

On our very first afternoon in the area we drove down The Strip and on the first big billboard I see…Elvis. Oh Lordy. Littlest and I are huge Elvis fans thanks to my mom. I grew up with Elvis music in the house and have passed that on to Littlest. I’m listening to his smooth, crooning voice as I write this post.

Elvis seems to be everywhere in Vegas. If he slept there, ate there, or graced an establishment with his presence at all, it’s advertised for all to see.

We spent one afternoon walking around The Strip and that was enough. We didn’t get to see everything, but I’m not sure I could talk anyone into going back with me. It’s not really our scene…too many people, too much noise, too…adult for kids. The boys learned not to reach out and take anything someone is trying to hand you. That’s a big nope in some places.

We parked at The Cosmopolitan. Yea for free parking! Even the parking garages in Vegas are decorated. You can see just one of the many murals that can be found in the parking garage in the photo above. We had to walk all the way through the casino to get to The Strip. Once we found our way through, we went to the Bellagio to catch the first fountain show of the day.

The Bellagio Fountains were really neat. We took in the show then headed to The Buffet at Aria.

We got lost a few times trying to find it…the casinos are more like miniature cities, but we finally found it.

We did a ridiculous amount of research before picking a buffet. We finally settled on the one at Aria. It had good reviews and wasn’t the most expensive thing on The Strip. Everything I had was really good, there was a nice selection, but not as much as what I thought there would be. We all ate way too much, then headed back out to explore.

We eventually found our way out of Aria. We ended up seeing the inside of a few different casinos, and I do believe I like Aria the best. And not just because it had huge cakes on display…although, that was a definite plus.

The Aria felt more family friendly. Not to the point you thought you were at a kids place, but it had a nice balance of elegance mixed with some whimsical touches like the butterfly hot-air balloon in the picture.

We walked quite a bit of The Strip and I was the quintessential tourist the whole time with my camera in front of my face more often than not. I won’t put all of the photos up, but I’ll share with you our favorites. We loved the fun outside of the M&M World store.

Inside there was a really great mural that showed the progression of the M&M characters through the years.

They sure have changed.

The store has four floors. We never made it past the second floor where the wall of M&Ms is found. What you see in the picture above isn’t even half of the wall. I got a sugar rush from just standing there looking at them. Littlest wanted to buy an M&M dispenser, but we couldn’t figure out where we would put it in the RV. We have one more day in this area…if we can figure something out, we might try to talk Jerl into going back.

We got to see the big bronze MGM Lion. Did you know he weighs 100,000 pounds? That is one big kitty!

The boys liked Excalibur with its castle spires and turrets.

New York, New York was really neat with its skyline and roller-coaster.

As the afternoon turned into evening the street acts came out. Littlest and I could have spent hours listening to all the musicians.

We ran into Darth Vader. He was nice enough to pose for a picture or two. There were a ton of characters out and about.

We stayed to see the lights. They were magical.

We stopped back by the Bellagio Fountains for one more show on our way back to our car.

The Cosmopolitan was glitzier and more glamorous. It was all lit up as we walked back through to our parking garage.

Las Vegas was definitely a different kind of experience for us. The boys had never really been in a city like it. Vegas was one of those destinations I was looking forward to, but at the same time not looking forward to. It might have been less stressful without the boys in tow. We couldn’t really even go into souvenir shops without some highly inappropriate sights.

I think Vegas was probably a one and done type of thing for us.

See y’all down the road!

Death Valley National Park

By Jennie Simpson | October 20, 2015

Hottest, Driest, Lowest…Welcome to Death Valley National Park! Situated on the California/Nevada border, Death Valley is known for it’s extremes and oddities. We spent one whole day and four partial days exploring DVNP. Near mile marker 10 as you drive into DVNP from Beatty, NV you get to experience what they call Hell’s Gate. You can roll down your windows and stick your hand out the window and feel the temp outside raise by 10 to 20 degrees within a 3 mile stretch of road.

We like to stop at the Visitor Center first to get up-to-date info on the park. While we were there the little boys took the opportunity to grab another Junior Ranger Badge. We were lucky they were still doing the summer program and they were able to fulfill all the requirements in the air conditioned center.

Outside the Furnace Creek Visitor Center was a tad bit hot. Just a bit.

We visited Badwater Basin and stood 282 feet below sea level.

Badwater expands clear across the valley floor to the base of the Panamint Range. It’s quite something to stand out there and see the seemingly endless salt flats stretch out all around you.

We got to Badwater just before sunset and we watched as the sun dipped below the mountains. The heat in the valley instantly felt cooler. It’s quite something to look up into the Amargosa Mountains and see a “Sea Level” sign a few hundred feet above the ground.

Can you believe I even found flowers in the desert? They were gorgeous and something I’d never seen before. I probably took a dozen pictures of the same cluster of flowers.

Day two started with a castle. Scotty’s Castle. Walter Scott was a popular entertainer in Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West” show before he became known as Death Valley Scotty. He told tall tales of gold, took peoples money, then he spent it all on everything but mining for the promised gold. One of Scotty’s investors, Albert Johnson, found out about the dupe. Instead of being mad Johnson became friends with Scotty and even built the castle you see in the pic above in DVNP where Scotty was a regular visitor.

There are tours you can take of the inside, but we didn’t. We spent about an hour just roaming around the grounds.

Scotty’s Castle is unlike anything we’d seen. It seemed to fit perfectly with the desert it was built in.

In the visitor center at Scotty’s Castle, you can see a 1914 Packard seven passenger touring car. This is the way people used to get around DVNP.

Down the road, you can even see faint tracks left from the tour cars. If you look just under the sign in the photo above, you’ll see two tracks left over from a tour car.

The Harmony Borax Interpretive Trail was short and hot. It told of life in DV for the borax miners and the twenty mule teams they used to pull carts around.

After a quick picnic, we made it to The Devil’s Golf Course. Littlest thought he was being funny, taking a picture of me as I took a picture of him. At The Devil’s Golf Course, crystallized minerals reacting with groundwater have lifted themselves into tightly packed ridges reaching up to two feet high.

We walked the quarter mile trail to Natural Bridge. It was late afternoon and temps were soaring. We tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. As hot as it was in the sun (we could feel the sting of the sun on our skin), it wasn’t too bad in the shade.

Artist’s Drive is one of my favorites in DVNP. We actually drove it twice because the first time was just after the sun set and we wanted to see the color in full sun. You can see Artist’s Pallet in the photo above.

The colors of the desert were amazingly vivid. I took more pictures than I will ever need.

We had the chance to explore not one but two ghost towns! The easiest to get to was Rhyolite. You can see one of the abandoned houses in the photo above.

We walked past several crumbling buildings.

It’s kind of sad, really. To think of the families that used to live there and the hardships they must have gone through. Several buildings from Rhyolite were moved to the nearby town of Beatty.

We spent almost four hours navigating the Titus Canyon drive. It’s a one way 26.8 mile dirt road that winds it’s way through the Grapevine Mountains, past a ghost town, and through Titus Canyon.

The vistas were simply amazing. You can see our winding road in the pic above.

The second ghost town was called Leadville. 300 people lived here between August 1926 and February 1927. There’s a spot you can pull of the road and walk around the ruins. We wandered around for a bit and headed on down the road. We were racing the sun. I didn’t want to be on the narrow dirt road in the dark.

Here’s another shot of the wonderful colors of the desert. We’d just left Leadville when we came upon this sight.

We spotted our first snake. It was small and fast as it slithered it’s way across the road and up the side.

Titus Canyon with it’s limestone cliffs.

We could try to tell you how tall the canyon walls are…but you know what they say…”a picture’s worth a thousand words”. The last 1.5 miles of the canyon are pretty narrow, in some places the walls are less than 20 feet apart.

On our last afternoon we headed to Zabriskie Point. There’s a short walk up a paved path to get to the view.

The point was nice…but this two tone formation was more interesting to me.

We drove through Twenty Mule Team Canyon on another dirt road. It was short and we took the time to climb up on a small rock to play with shadows. The boys thought it was too hot to get out so they waited in the car…I think they’d had all of DVNP that they could handle.

Our last stop in DVNP was atop Dante’s View. You can see Badwater Basin in all its glory.

On our ride back to the RV one evening, we stopped at Ash Meadows for a super quick drive through. Ash Meadows is a National Wildlife Refuge that covers over 23,000 acres of spring-fed wetlands in the middle of a desert.

We were losing light fast so we didn’t get to see much, but what we saw was really pretty.

See y’all down the road!

Carson City, NV

By Jennie Simpson | October 14, 2015

We made it to Nevada! You can’t get much different from Alaska than Nevada. Where Alaska is cool, lush, and green, Nevada is a hot, desolate desert. We’re loving it! We stayed in Carson City for a week. There’s not much to do in this area but we wanted to hit the Capitol City and a couple of other close-ish places.

The Nevada Capitol City Building is the smallest we’ve been in so far. In fact, I didn’t really take pictures of the inside. I snapped a couple pics of the marble floor that ran partially up the wall, but that’s really it. The outside of the building was more intriguing. We haven’t seen a Capitol Building made from sandstone. I did some digging and found out all of the sandstone for the building was obtained from the Nevada State Prison quarry.

The silver colored dome on top was also a unique touch. I liked walking around the grounds with its many trees and monuments, but I feel like it was lacking a little in the way it didn’t really feel like a Capitol Building. It felt more like a park with a pretty building that happened to be in it.

There were several casinos in the area, but for us…we were more interested in finding some good Mexican food! Something we’d been missing since we left the Missouri area.

Thanks to the internet, Jerl found two places he wanted to try. We stopped at El Paisano first.

The restaurant was small, everything was served on disposable plates, and the food was amazingly good!

And just like a true Mexican place, you had several choices for meat. Being the Foodies we are…it’s no great surprise our oldest got some of the…not so common meats. I believe he ended up with the pork stomach, beef head, and the beef tongue. He ate it all and went back for another taco.

The second place we tried was The Lady Tamales. Supposedly this place had the best tamales in town…how could we possibly pass that up?

This place did not disappoint. We all wolfed down our food and then got two dozen tamales to go. Yep, they really were that good!

This place not only had some of the best tamales we’ve ever had, it also had probably the best rice and beans. I would’ve gone back just for some more of the beans. Interestingly, neither of the places we ate at served chips and salsa the way we’re used to, but hey, when the food is that good…you don’t want to fill up on fluff before the main event.

We spent an afternoon in Reno to get some shopping done. New shoes and some groceries from the first Whole Foods we’d seen in months. We drove by the Reno Arch and The Strip on our way out of town.

We managed to fit in an afternoon at Lake Tahoe State Park! The little boys did the Junior Ranger program, but weren’t able to get a badge because all of the Rangers were at a wildfire that had popped up just that afternoon.

We walked around Sand Harbor.

Even in the late afternoon with a storm coming in, the water was beautiful.

We marveled at the big boulders sitting haphazardly all over the place.

We didn’t really get to spend as much time as we would have liked at Lake Tahoe, and someday, we plan on going back.

Carson City was a nice change for us. No overwhelming green…it never actually rained…and it was hot!

The boys even got to swim at the RV park pool!

See y’all down the road!