A trip to US West – Day 12

July 15, 2019

To start our journey to the Valley of Fire state park, we ate our breakfast in quite a hurry. This was because the temperature outside will be hot at noon so we decided to go early. It is the first and oldest of Nevada’s state park. The short trip took about 1 hour. The National Park pass we bought from the White sand national park did not work for the Valley of Fire Park because it is a state park.

The park got it’s name from red sandstone formation named the Aztec Sandstone, which formed from shifting sand dunes 150 million years ago/Jurassic era. It’s the main attraction of the park, because the sandstone looks like it is on fire when the sun’s light is reflected.

The park has a warm and dry climate, and while we were there, the temperature was around 110F, which made us tired, sticky, hot and hungry. I still remember the heat like it was yesterday.

We took a photo of me in front of the park entrance.

Our first destination was the Beehives. Like the names suggest, they actually look like beehives with one “big” difference, these beehives are really big.

Then we went to the Atlatl Rock. Before this point there was another one called Fire Cave and Wind-stone Arch but we missed both of them. My mom and sister stayed inside the car because it was too hot outside. There are stairs to help you climb up, but it seemed that we did not need them to get on top because there is another set of stairs already, that look old like the American Indians made them. On the top, there are paintings that strangely looked like “dinosaur” but faded. Maybe “dinosaur” still lived at that time but only God knows. Also there were some perfect circles that resembled “sci-fi portals”. To sum it up the Atlatl Rock point was AMAZING!!!!

Then we heard that there was an arch named arch rock. I found out that it is also hard to put in the sentence before ;). We just passed by and looked at it, and could not take a photo. We turned around and headed to the point called Seven Sisters and had our lunch.

Then we set out to the visitor center to get more info and to find a restroom. Inside there was petrified trees and some history of how the canyon was formed also with the history of the ancient Indian American. Outside, thankfully there was a restroom where we could finish our business. Near the visitor center we saw a herd of mountain rams grazing on top of a rock.

From visitor center, we drove through the Mouse’s Tank road and stopped at Rainbow Vista to take the picture of our car driving in Mouse’s Tank Road.

From Rainbow Vista, we took a turn to Fire Canyon Road to get a view of the Silica Dome, which looked like Vanilla Chocolate ice cream 🙂 . It is also said that a star trek scene was filmed there.

After taking some photos, we headed back to the Mouse’s Tank road to go to the last location in that road – The White Domes trail. We didn’t take any trail as it was too hot. We just drove through the road and enjoyed the beauty of the park.

After that we headed back to our hotel to spend the rest of the day resting, Haha! The next day we started our trip back to our home in San Antonio.

We got our breakfast from McDonald at Las Vegas and started our journey. It was a straight drive from Nevada to Arizona. We had our lunch at a Taco-Bell in Arizona. Next state in our trip is New Mexico.

On the way, when we reached New Mexico, it was drizzling and of course there was a rain bow.

The next day before noon, we got home and that concluded the exciting and marvelous trip, and of course, I am eagerly waiting for another one like this.