Spring Break 2022 - Day 3 - Hiking Day

Wednesday morning was our last morning in our apartment at the resort in Las Vegas. It was a bittersweet morning.  We loved this resort and I think we probably could have been happy staying there all week just hanging out by the pool.  But I'd only booked us two nights there and we had other things to see in Nevada.  So it was time to get going. 

We had fruit and yogurt and bagels for breakfast. 

 I also went around the resort and took some final pictures. Here's a cute little walkway between buildings. 

Look at the pretty trees. 

There were roses blooming all over the place. 

I cannot remember the name of these flowers.  We missing their blooms by just a few days. 

Here's the sidewalk between the buildings and the parking lot. 

We finished packing our stuff and took it down to the car. I still wasn't used to how light we were travelling on this trip.  Without the camping gear the car felt very empty.  I was like, "Wow, it feels like we are missing so much stuff."

I took the keys back to the front office and just like that we were slightly homeless again. We had reservations at a hotel suite in Ely for that night, but I knew the suite wouldn't be as nice as the resort.  We we weren't planning to arrive there until late.  Our day would be spent driving and hiking in the desert. 

We drove to Smiths for Gas, Sunscreen, and Donuts. (We paid over $5 a gallon for the gas which officially made it the most expensive gasoline we've ever bought.) And then we were on our way. We drove toward the interstate which is on the west side of the strip. We could see the "back" of all the casinos we'd walked by the night before. 

Here's the back of the Bellagio.

Our first stop of the day was an hour northeast of Las Vegas in Valley of Fire State Park.  This was actually our plan for Tuesday, but we'd decided to lounge at the pool rather than head out to the desert. It made more sense to stop there on our way out of Vegas anyway.

We drove on the interstate for a while and then got off on a little highway. 

This took us to Valley of Fire State Park

We saw a Big Horned Sheep right by our car.

Then we started to see some red rock.

We had to pay $15 to enter the park. Then we stopped at the first bathrooms inside the entrance. Here's everyone looking at some sort of info board.

Then we drove closer to the red rocks and things started to get really interesting. This reminded me so much of Arches National Park. 

Our first official stop was Atlatl Rock. 

There were stairs that we could take up to a viewing platform to look at Petroglyphs. 

Here's a lizard we saw on the way.

Here's the petroglyphs.

When we were done with the rock we drove down the road a bit to see an arch. It was easy to see from the road so we didn't get out of the car. 

Our next little hike was to some petrified logs. 

They were surrounded by fences to keep people from getting too close. 

You can see one in this picture.  It looks like a log that is partially covered by dirt. 

Here's one that's a little easier to see.

We kept driving and finally came to the Visitor Center.  But we wanted to save that for later in the afternoon when the weather would be a tad to warm for hiking. 

The road went up a hill into even more red rocks. 

The landscape was really interesting.  Sometimes it was very red, and sometimes it was tan.

Normally I do most of the research for what we'll do on our vacations.  But aside from knowing that I wanted to "hike in Valley of Fire" I hadn't done much specific research. I'd been so busy with school I'd delegated the research to Brandon. He'd looked up all the trails in Valley of Fire and had a few that he wanted us to do.  He recommended the White Domes Trail because it included a small slot canyon.  So we went to the parking area for that hike.  This would be a 1.5 mile loop trail so we loaded up on water and snacks.  (Snacks are very important when hiking with kids.)

As we started down the trailhead we heard someone behind us tell a group, "This is some of the prettiest hiking in the whole state!"  That made me feel happy that we'd picked this trail.

Here I am.

We were hiking through some sand which was a new experience for the kids. 

Pretty quickly the trail started to slant down. 

And soon we were going down stone steps. 

Here's a view looking back up the trail after we came down it. 

The kids found a bit of shade and demaded a rest and a snack. 

Here's Brandon and I together.

We kept going and made our way to the remnants of a movie set. 

Some western was filmed here a long time ago.

Then we followed another sandy trail.

Soon we were outside the slot canyon.

This was fun to walk through.  The canyon was so much cooler than the rest of the hike had been.

After we passed through the slot canyon we found another shady spot and had a large snack/lunch.

The trail continued to loop back toward the parking area.  But we wanted to go through the slot canyon again, so we went that way again.

We really liked the canyon.

We called this an apartment complex for rocks. 

We went back through the slot canyon again and then kept going on the loop trail.  Charlotte and Lydia found this little resting area. 

Here we are on the not shady trail.  I haven't really talked about the weather temperatures.  The high for Las Vegas while we were there was about 75 degrees each day.  I think it was about 80 degrees in Valley of Fire. So it was warm, but not really dangerously hot. 

We tried to get someone to take a family picture for us.  But it didn't quite work out. 

Here's one with just the kids. 

We found this little arch/window and the kids climbed inside. 

All through the hike Charlotte and Lydia had been talking with Brandon about spots they would choose to live if they were stranded in the desert.  They decided this was their favorite option. 

This was the last bend of the hike before we made it back to the parking lot.  We were all pretty happy to see the car again. 

We got back in the car and started driving in the direction of the visitor center. 

This is the fire canyon/silica dome overlook.  It didn't look like a fun hike to do at 1:00 in the afternoon.

Our plan was to go back to the Visitor Center so we were heading that way. Everything felt very hot and uncomfortable. The car's air-conditioner can be kind of hit and miss and at this point it wasn't working great. I was hoping the Visitor Center would be cooler. 

We came up to the parking area for a trail called the Mouse Tank.  Brandon remarked that this trail was also on his list and the park trail guide said it was good for kids. There was an open parking spot so we decided to grab it.  The kids were NOT happy about this, but we got them out of the car and onto the trail.

There were some more petroglyphs to see, but they weren't THAT neat.

Mostly everyone was hot and grumpy.

Until we came to this shady area.  There was a huge cliff that covered the trail and had been for most of the afternoon. So the sand in this area was nice and cool.

We stopped for a snack.  Here's Charlotte with a Fruit Roll Up face. 

We realized this sandy and shady area was better than the trail and better than the hot car and probably better than the Visitor Center so we decided to just stay there for a long time. Everyone took off their shoes and we played in the sand. 

I'm not sure how the idea came up, but we started talking about a shared universe for breakfast cereal mascots.  We joked about how funny it would be if the Trix Bunny and Lucky from Lucky Charms knew each other.  Then that idea evolved into what if all the breakfast cereal mascots had to team up to defeat the evil Dr Oatmeal and his side kick Raison.  It was so funny to think about what mascots like the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee would do in a situation like that.  We had a lot of fun laughing about that. Veronica brought it up for DAYS afterward. 

We spent a lot of time in the cool sand.  This area is one of my favorite memories of the vacation.

Brandon went down the trail to find the "Mouse Tank" and tell us if it was worth it. He came back and said it was pretty cool.  So we all went down there.  It was called the Mouse Tank becaues it looked like a mouse cage where the mouse had chewed through lots of cardboard. 

The trail ended at a drop off. 

Here's Charlotte showing off one of the mouse holes.

We went back to our shady spot and stayed there another 10 or so minutes.  Then we decided was time to get going. 

We didn't stop at the Visitor Center and headed out of the park.  Here's a formation called the 7 Wonders. 

Our next destination was called Cathedral Gorge and it was almost 3 hours away.  So we settled in for a long drive.  The air-conditioner was still on the fritz so we drove with the windows down. 

We went through the Moapa Valley and then cut across on state road 163 to meet up with Highway 93 again.

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The good news is that our AC decided to kick back on. So we were able to roll up the windows and turn on Sabrina for the kids. I'm glad they had something to watch because most of the landscape was pretty boring. 

Like really boring.  The roads were pretty deserted too.  At one point the kids all needed to pee and we just pulled over and let them do their business on the side of the road. 

We stopped for more gas at the Green Valley Grocery #62 Store in Hiko. I only mention it because it had the BEST RESTROOMS I have EVER seen on a road trip.  The bathroom had a vase of flowers in it, and I'm 75% sure the flowers were artificial, but they could have been fresh. There was cute artwork up on the walls and the room was super clean.  The whole road trip was worth it just to discover that restroom. 

We stayed on Highway 93 and went through a mountain pass.

We came into another basin valley.

We were trying to get to Cathedral Gorge, but I knew everyone was hungry.  All we had were snack foods and I wasn't sure that was going to be enough for everyone. I knew we'd pass a town called Caliente that had had some cute pictures in the Nevada guidebook.  So I googled, "Pizza in Caliente Nevada" and the search came back with "SideTrack Restaurant." So I added that as a stop.

Here's the outside of the restaurant.  

Here are the girls when we were seated in our booth.  (Lydia is at the bottom of the pile.)  They were pooped. 

We'd crossed train tracks to get to the restaurant and Derrick had seen a train slowly coming up the track.  Two seconds after we sat down Derrick ran over to the window to watch the train.  He was so happy. 

Here I am.

And me with Brandon.  Dang, I love these adventures with him.

We ordered pizza and the kids devoured it when it arrived. 

Here's the other side of the table. 

And here's the restaurant as we left. 

The pizza and the ice water had been exactly what we needed to perk us all back up.  But it had come at the cost of daylight. Since the day had been so warm my brain had assumed it was summer and the sun would set after 9:00. But this was still early spring.  The sun would set around 8:00.

We pulled into the state park right around 8:00

We wouldn't have much time to explore, but it was still light enough we at least wanted to see the state park.  (Plus the kids all needed to pee again so we were in need of another restroom.)  So we drove own the state park road.  

And found a wonderland. 

I'm still not sure how to describe this place. It was so alien looking. 

Like this obviously man-made structure was still pretty odd looking. 

There were little trails leading into the strange rock features. 

There wasn't much light in the canyons. 

I tried taking a picture with the flash. 

We didn't stay in the canyons long. But I would love to explore them during the daylight. 

Here's a little area that the kids climbed into.

This place was so cool looking.  I'm sorry we didn't have more time to explore it. But I'm already kicking around ideas for a trip exclusively to this canyon.  It's *only* 5 and a half hours away from Twin Falls.  Maybe next Spring Break. 

We left as dusk gave way to darkness.  We still had an almost 2 hour drive to our hotel in Ely Nevada. 

If I was planning this trip over again, I think I would have planned for us to stay in Caliente or somewhere else near Cathedral Gorge because that drive in the dark felt really long. We were all pretty happy when we pulled up to the La Quinta in Ely. 

I checked us in and then we went to our room. We had a suite with two bedrooms and a main area. On any other vacation we would have felt like this suite was luxury, but after the resort in Vegas it was definitely a step down.  

Still we were pretty happy to stay there.  We were all sorts of sandy so I had everybody take a quick bath before getting into bed.  

This time Derrick and Veronica stayed in the bedroom while Charlotte and Lydia got the pull out bed in the living room. The pull out bed reached nearly too the doorway to my room and made getting out of my door tricky.  But that was a problem for the morning.  For now it was good to have a nice place to sleep. 

And that was the end of Day 3 of our Spring Break trip.