Valley of Fire and Lake Mead

There were two places we traveled to yesterday that were only about 40 miles from Mesquite. The first one was to the first State Park in Nevada - The Valley of Fire. As it was a state park and not a national park, we had to pay a $10 entry fee for the day. It was well worth the fee.

We arrived there at around 10 AM:

and went to the Welcome Center to get all the info to get started:

Just a short distance down the road, the stops began with a short hike to see the Elephant Rock:

the funny part is that the short trail just made a U-turn and the Elephant Rock is actually seen on the roadside:

With a little imagination, you can see the elephant. Anyway, we started to take the longer trail (Arrowhead Loop) but decided against that.

The road wound through these beautiful red rock formations:

and we passed the next group called the 7 sisters:

the next stop was probably the most interesting of the day - The petroglyphs and Mouse's Tank:

The petroglyphs were fascinating:

 and we finally arrived at Mouse's Tank (read the short story on the sign above), which was at the very end of the trail:

The other significant stops were at the Arch Rock:

and the Atlatl Rock:

These rocks were balanced on the edge of the larger rock and you can see that they are not attached. Someday, and maybe soon, they will tumble off their footing.

The drive through the park was probably 20 miles in total and included some very nice scenes of rock formations, mostly of the red rock type:

We really enjoyed the time spent at the Valley of Fire and, even though it isn't like a Zion National Park, it was beautiful and included a very nice campground that would be a potential stay in the future.

Our next stop for the day was at Lake Mead:

We drove about 20 miles into the park before arriving at the Echo Bay Marina. It was a shock to see how low the lake was as can be seen in this photo of the launch area:

We stopped in a little store near the marina and the woman behind the counter told us that the restaurant and hotel had closed 3 years ago and the small town is now pretty much abandoned except for a few Snow-birds that stay in the small campground at the entrance to Echo Bay. What a shame.

It's off to Laughlin today and we are looking forward to revisiting one of our favorite towns for the next week...