Valley of Fire

When I first moved here and was looking for stuff to do, I looked into going to the Valley of Fire, even though I'm not a real outdoorsy type.  I looked up something that said that it was 4 hours North of Vegas.  I knew nothing was worth driving 4 hours in the desert to see some old rocks. 

Last week I decided to look again and found the correct information, that Valley of Fire was only an hour or so away from Vegas, and it is Nevada's first state park.  Seriously;

I can't stress enough how not an outdoorsy type of person I am.  I find beauty in a building or a fantastically decorated event.  I grew up in the high desert, where the most landscape beauty was in a tumbleweed blowing across the dirt road.

You guys, Valley of Fire is bigger than you think, and more beautiful in person than you can imagine.  The visitors center is a mini-museum with fantastic air-conditioning (it was over 100, not the best time to be going, but we made due), and the people working there were very nice and helpful.

It was $8.00 to get into the park for Nevada locals, and the drive is actually very nice and easy.  I had one guy flash his lights at me to turn mine on at noon with no cloud coverage that day, but other than that it was awesome.

We did do the 1/8th of a mile hike to Elephant Rock, but with the heat that was the only hike we did that day.  I found out quickly that I need an actual pair of hiking shoes before we head up there again.  My running shoes were clearly meant for running on a treadmill once I hit the rocks.

The petroglyph canyon is another trail I'd love to take on another trip, but we saw a little from the road when we stopped.  They are in the upper middle corner, bottom right corner, and upper left hand corner of this picture;

The rest of the park is so much more beauty than I saw at the Grand Canyon, and anyone who is living in Las Vegas needs to go before they leave.  You will not regret it.