Skip to main content

Leaving Las Vegas

Thursday, May 26th – Las Vegas, Nevada to Death Valley National Park, California – Day 105 

At 7am, two men were talking for 10 minutes directly outside our campsite (in fairness, directly in front of the washroom) while their trucks ran. At 8am, the camp workers started power washing the concrete pads. Who washes concrete in the desert? Other than that, I slept well. The kids had a late night the night before, we decided to let them sleep in. Ramen noodles for breakfast; the packs wrapped in plastic (minus most of the flavouring) with additional vegetables thrown in. We slowly got everything cleaned up and put away. They had a drinking water spigot, we filled up all our water bottles. 

 Camping allowed free access to the Red Rocks National Conservation Area. We headed to the visitor center to get the usual things. The center had a volunteer explaining the difference between turtles and tortoises; one lives in water while the other one sinks and drowns. We received the very fancy junior ranger booklets printed on glossy paper so you couldn’t use a pencil. They also had an outdoor tortoise habitat but it was 40 degrees Celsius outside so the tortoises were wisely in their burrows. 


 We took the scenic drive around the conservation area. It was beautiful but sights with multiple stops isn’t our thing. The kids didn’t get out; we could have made them, but they were working on their ranger booklets, so we let them be. Every once and a while I’d tell the kids “Everyone, look out to your right, what a beautiful mountain”. We stopped at four places to take pictures and take in the scenery. The rock structures are cool; some mountains have horizontal layers, but other mountains have been pushed around so their layers are on an angle or are wavy. The cracks above the fault line push various pieces of land around changing the patterns. I found it interesting and very beautiful. 


 We decided to go back into Vegas because I had a 10th wedding anniversary gift to pick up. On the way we stopped at Krazy Buffet ($12.99 adults and $6.99 kids 4 and up). It was delicious. We parked in the Bellagio Casino driveway while I ran in to get a surprise for Gen (it wasn’t that much of a surprise, but Gen says she will be surprised). We had to run to another location because the one in Bellagio was out. One final trip to Dollar Tree and we were on our way out of Las Vegas. Gen is in love with Las Vegas and we will probably be back. 

 Next stop, California, and Death Valley. Gen found an abandoned campsite near Death Valley junction (which has an Opera House and a bunch of run-down buildings, it does not look like anyone lives there). A two-hour drive led us to a beautiful campsite with concrete pads nestled in the mountains and near, if not in, Death Valley. The plan is to wake up and get out early to try to avoid some of the heat. The girls wanted to set-up their tent and sleep outside since it was so warm. After setting up the tent and getting all their stuff in, we found a scorpion crawling around the outside of the tent. We were looking at it when it started running towards us and Charlotte freaked out a little bit. Everyone ended up sleeping in the trailer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile.   The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha.   The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meow Wolf and O

Wednesday, May 25th –Lake Mead National Recreation Area to Las Vegas, Nevada – Day 104  We woke up in our roadside turn out and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go for a swim at Lake Mead, see the Hoover Dam and head back into Vegas. The morning was stifling hot, we were looking forward to the swim.   We drove to the visitor centre at Lake Mead Recreation Centre. We could see Lake Mead on the way. The water was well below the high-water line on the rocks. At the visitor centre we got our passport stamped, filled our water bottles, and received junior ranger booklets. The air conditioning was so nice we set up the kids to work on their booklets and hung around. The kids finished up enough activities that they were sworn in by a very nice ranger before we left.   We decided to go see the Hoover Dam first. We dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We heard it might need to be opened at the security checkpoint and we couldn’t be bothered. The H...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 1

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91  Utah is another planet. I cannot do justice to the sights that I have seen in Canyonlands National Park. They are beyond compare. I would encourage everyone to visit. The pictures we have taken do not convey the beauty of the scenery we witnessed.   We woke up in the morning after a late night. The kids did some schoolwork. We ate our oatmeal. We tried to clean up the dust that was all over the trailer. The wind had subsided in the night and the morning was pleasant and warm. Aisling had made us promise that we would climb the rock that they had all been climbing on. We strapped on our hiking boots and started towards the rock. A quick climb later we were at the top; on the way down, we were looking for pretty rocks.  The road to Canyonlands sits between two buttes with their cliffs rising on either side. The drive was thirty minutes to the entrance. The visitor centre had displays that detailed what each layer of the canyo...
Post a Comment
Read more