The Valley of Fire State Park

OK, this was my first trip driving around in the desert. I'd been to Palm Springs before, but we didn't venture out into the desert where there's NOTHING. I didn't think we would ever get to The Valley of Fire State Park, which is only about 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas. At one point we stopped the car in the middle of the road and there was nothing or no one for as far as we could see in any direction. So we got out of the car (which was just sitting in the middle of the road) and took pictures--until Greg said the words "snakes" and "scorpions" and I quickly jumped back into the car. When we arrived at the park it was beautiful, in a desert sort of way. (No park can compare to the beauty of GSMNP!) Everything was an orange-red and there were so may different looking rock formations. This is were lots of movies are filmed if the setting is Mars! It's probably as close to Mars as I'll ever get. We had a great time. We drove through, stopping at different sites on our visitor's map and taking photos. We headed back to Las Vegas via a different route, by Lake Mead (the result of damming the Colorado River with the Hoover Dam). It was really neat. There were lots of people camping. It was so different than mountain camping. It looked as if people had just stopped their cars and pitched a tent or set up their camper on the side of the road--no trees, no grass, just desert. I don't think I'd like desert camping. PHOTOS