The Valley of Fire State Park....Lake Mead National Park

We enjoyed a ride through both the Valley of Fire State Park and the Lake Mead National Park. By the time we got back to the RV, Pete said that we had driven about 170 miles. This included our Camping World shopping trip. This was another absolutely breathtaking scenic drive!!

The Valley of Fire derives its name from red sandstone formations, formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs, 150 millions years ago. Complex uplifting and faulting of the region, followed by extensive erosion, have created the present landscape. Other important rock formations include limestones, shales, and conglomerates. Prehistoric users of the Valley of Fire included the Basket Maker people and later the Anasazi Pueblo farmers from the nearby Moapa Valley. The span of approximate occupation has been dated from 300 B.C.E. to 1150 C.E. Their visits probably involved hunting, food gathering and religious ceremonies, although scarcity of water would have limited the length of their stay. Fine examples of art left by these ancient peoples can be found at several sites within the park. We did not see these but I did find a picture of what they left.

We came to the Arch Rock

We came to the place called the Beehives.. my Daddy and Uncle Dalton would have loved to have seen these.

We stopped at the visitor's center for souvenir shopping and when we left, my eagle eyes husband spotted some Bighorn sheep resting in the shaded hole in a rock formation.

? antelope ground squirrel

We began our journey on into the Valley of Fire.

Clark Memorial

a formation at the Elephant Rock pulloff

We were uncertain about this truly being their elephant Rock
If it isn't we found another!!

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL PARK

Before Lake mead's creation, the desert here was sparsely populated. people who did live here soon learned this brutally hot, dry, rugged land's hostile unforgiving character. Many native American groups, here for over 10,000 years, stayed to meet the challenge. Fur trappers, Mormon settlers, prospectors, and riverboat captains followed.
In the 1900s modern pioneers built a 726-foot-high dam on the Colorado River. Hoover Dam changed this country's character forever. It created an abundance of water and power for the Southwest. It claimed the Colorado's floodwaters. This once forbidding landscape now yearly attracts millions of people. people come for boating, fishing, swimming, and waterskiing.

Las Vegas Bay

Riding thru Las Vegas

More later