We picked up our hire car from McCarran Airport just around the corner from our hotel, got to choose any SUV from about 20 and the barcode on our windscreen was scanned as we went through the “check out” on the way out.
“Stay right, stay right, stay right!” we chanted as we drove the block and a half back to the hotel to pick up the kids and luggage.
A nerve wracking drive down Las Vegas Blvd got us onto Interstate 15, the only way north for four states. Two lanes north and two south, 75mph, motor homes towing cars overtaking cars towing caravans, all driving on the wrong side of the road.
The Valley of Fire is on the list of must see tours out of Las Vegas, so we took the turn off knowing we had plenty of time to get to our overnight Best Western. Dry, pebbly, knife edged mountains as hot as any Aussie summer with no water for miles is still the dull presiding landscape and passing onto the Paiute Indian reservation we took a slow winding bitumen road into the Valley. Around the last bend the landscape suddenly burst into huge splashes of red.
A giant has played mud cakes with rusty red sandstone leaving dollop shaped mounds in a 34,000 acre sandbox during the age of the dinosaurs. Red striated boulders shaped like beehives and other sandbox constructions that drip with gooey red mud. Smooth round cheese holes, giant sized blocks piled on top of each other, cliffs that look like they’re lined with tiny little mud huts out of an Indiana Jones movie. Imagine this landscape at sunset – hence the name “Valley of Fire”.
Incredibly all manner of wildlife survive on only 4 inches of rain each year – the poisonous gila monster, roadrunners, rattlesnakes, skunks and tortoises – but most of them are nocturnal and who can blame them? The only thing we saw was a small lizard that hid from us under the rubbish bin at the visitors centre.
A half hour stopover does not do the Valley of Fire justice. A photographer could spend a week in the Valley waiting for the golden light of dawn and dusk and a hiker could spend days exploring if it wasn’t the middle of summer and after checking in with the local ranger. But I think a family touring the States would be content with a drive by and stop in at the Visitors Centre, just make it late in the afternoon to see the Valley at its best.
