Red Rock Canyon, Springs Preserve, and other Las Vegas Sights

One of the things that made for a good stay at the Nellis AFB RV Park, Desert Eagle, was that there is actually an event coordinator here by the name of Lori. She and her husband, Troy, who also works at the park, were an awesome team who headed up the events Lori planned. We went to a chili cookoff, and then the next event was a hike at Red Rock Canyon National Preserve.

This park requires entrance tickets, which Lori took care of. It receives local visitors and tourists from the Strip alike, since it isn’t all that far from the city, so it can get busy. It was nice not having to drive, as Lori has a large van at her disposal.

The Willow Spring Trail at Red Rocks is rated moderate and is 1.5 miles one way. There were some tight spots–

— and a bit of rock scrambling —

— but we enjoyed the trail and meeting our fellow RV’ing hikers in the group. Coincidentally, several were from Alaska. Military folks get sent, and put down roots, in a lot of varied places.

The trail took us to a pretty waterfall.

An unexpected treat near the end of our hike was a native American agave roasting pit. It is to the right of this picture, and you can see the soot marks on the hollowed limestone rock. Underneath, rocks were placed and heated, and the heated rocks formed an oven. These seasonal roasts were a time of feasting and gathering for dances and religious ceremonies.

If you can zoom in, and you would like a little “seek and find”, you can look for the ancient hand prints to the left of the top of the crack that rises up from the ground, near left center of the picture.

After our hike, we had the picnic lunch that we’d brought along at a shelter. There was a spontaneous second walk on a boardwalk loop trail nearby before returning to Nellis.

We returned to Red Rocks another day with our ebikes. The park road goes one way in a loop for 13 miles, and is recommended for biking. We arrived at 8:15 AM, with park entrances in hand. We saw no other bikes and only a handful of cars, so it was perfect timing. In a natural park like Red Rocks, the uphills are steeper but easily tackled by ebikes. And the downhills – wheee! I had my bike up to 25 mph, which would normally be too scary for me. The road was empty of traffic, though, and the surface smooth.

Seeing the park at our normal biking speed of 10 mph gave us a slower view of the scenery, including those red rocks for which the park is famous.

Sitting to take a break, the silence was profound.

We took another of Lori’s excursions to Springs Preserve. This park is much closer in to the city. It is on the site where a spring with water was originally found and the city of Las Vegas was born. There is a whole exhibit here about water, and the Charleston Heights pump station is here. Most of Las Vegas’s water comes from Lake Mead.

That’s not all there is to Springs Preserve, though. There is a botanical garden, a butterfly house, a train that goes to a recreated Western boomtown, the Nevada Museum, the Origens Museum, and a tasty cafe overlooking the park where we had lunch. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. It is not hard to fill up a day here.

This is the Western Town, from the train station. It was still early in the day and not many people were about.

At the train station, I found the old photos of Las Vegas to be fascinating.

In the Western Town, there were period homes to visit:

And things I never heard of were here, too:

This is a solar chimney, which is used to cool a room. The sun heats the air in the chimney, causing a draft, which draws warm air up and out of a room. Native plants (that you don’t see in the picture) cool and dampen the air, which is also pulled into the chimney.

The Origen Museum here was great for several short movies in various rooms as you walked through. The flash flood exhibit is everyone’s favorite. There is a video on the screen with two rangers walking around in the desert, talking about the dangers of the heat and other desert-related information. Then, all of a sudden, 5,000 gallons of water are coming at you! The water goes right under a bridge under your feet and does a great job of informing the visitor about just how fast a flash flood can come up.

The last thing we saw here was the Liberace Room in the Nevada Museum, with Liberace’s piano, chandelier, and other assorted items on display. Liberace was a flamboyant pianist and singer who had concert residency in Las Vegas. Besides Liberace, you can see a dinosaur fossil, listen to stories of Nevada miners, and hear about Nevada’s part in atomic history in this museum.

We did a fair amount of bike riding while in Vegas, besides Red Rock Canyon. Nellis Air Base was interesting in and of itself. The Thunderbird flying team is here, and we saw them lined up on the airfield.

They did zoom over us at the RV park a couple of times, but mostly they were out of town doing shows. We were delighted to discover a small museum dedicated to the Thunderbirds near their parking spot.

The Las Vegas Upper and Lower Wash Trails provided a chance for a longer ride. What the trails lacked in beauty, they made up for in urban interest. Going from east to west, it was all suburbia, starting at the prettily landscaped Centennial Park. As we got more into the city, it became more industrialized and gritty.

We rode on what seemed like the longest pedestrian bridge ever, over the rail yard and the highway with a view of the Strip. The end of the bridge can be seen on the left center above.

The only thing about this trail is that their trail maps are miniscule and not well placed. Peering down to see where we were was always a challenge!

Another day, we drove out to artwork in the desert south of the Strip called Seven Magic Mountains. The artwork is by Ugo Rondinone, and has something to do about the continuity and solidarity between man and nature. I captured six of the seven “mountains” in this photo.

This little boy laboriously building his own Seven Mountains was more inspiring to me.

Last, but certainly not least: we have family everywhere, it seems. Cal found a distant cousin a few years ago who lives in Las Vegas. He had met Andy on an earlier trip to Vegas, but it was my first time meeting him, his wife Iris, and their son Daniel. We went out for dinner one night and got to know one another better. Daniel took this picture of us. I could for sure see the family resemblance between Cal, Andy, and others in his family.

I’ve covered a lot of ground here, and haven’t even noted everything we did while staying in Las Vegas. The city surprised us with all that it had to offer, and the RV park at Nellis, Desert Eagle, certainly lived up to its reputation as a great place to sojourn for a little while.

Next time – back to Arizona and the Grand Canyon