Valley of Fire State Park - Moapa Valley, NV

We're heading to Valley of Fire State Park, which is a little over an hour northeast of Las Vegas. We leave the freeway and drive about 15 miles along a flat, narrow road in the Nevada desert late in the afternoon, the thought crosses my mind that Valley of Fire is named after the blazing desert heat, and the thought of spending time in the bleak Nevada desert is not appealing.

We drive through some hills, and Valley of Fire opens before us, a blaze of red sandstone that is glorious.

Unfortunately for us, we arrive late in the afternoon. All the campsites here are first come, first serve, so we're in jeopardy of not finding a spot for the evening. There are a couple of dry camp sites at the Atlatl Campground that are large enough and unoccupied, but they are ADA sites. We check with the campground host and park ranger, and they agree that because they are the only sites left, we can stay there for one night.

So next morning, I'm up bright and early scouting out open sites. I discover a level RV site with water and electric hook-ups that has views of the park rather than the campground! So I park the car in the site and rouse Tom out of bed to move the RV. 

Our first evening, we drive out to Rainbow Vista and White Domes and see mountain goats grazing along the side of the road. Let me correct that, Tom sees mountain goats. I see nothing until some rocks start moving and turning into goat shapes...

While we are there, we hike out to the the Fire Wave. It's a warm day out there, and Tank and my tongues are hanging out by the time we get there. (Yes, Nevada let's Tank go on the trails with us! Yay Nevada!) But Tom's a great planner and has carried water in for us, so it's a great hike with beautiful rewards. 

On our last night there, we walked over to the Atlatl view point to look at the petroglyphs. 

This time, I was the one to spot the bats that were taking flight for their evening meal. I felt like they were dive bombing me! No wonder people used to be afraid bats would get tangled in their hair!