November 9, 2022
I drove down to Valley of Fire on Wednesday, November 9. Laura met me there, as she had arrived from Great Basin the night before. That afternoon, we took a bike ride from the campground to the east side park entrance. As with all of these southwest parks, the roads through it are dramatically scenic. The red-rock formations here are of a different hue from Colorado National Monument and Zion, which of themselves were very different as well. It is amazing how different the rock formations are from park to park. It was a 13-mile ride, round-trip. It took about 90 minutes riding time. We stopped at the visitor center and at places along the road to take photos. There was a wedding taking place at a group picnic area. I stopped to take pictures there. Someone in the wedding, maybe it was the photographer, yelled to me to move on, they were taking pictures, and they claimed I was kind of photo-bombing their event. But I yelled back, “I’m taking pictures, too!” But we were back riding in quick time. The ride east was mostly downhill, except for a short steep section near “Elephant Rock,” with a section of 14%. Coming back to the campground took longer, as it was mostly uphill. It was a nice, energy-boosting ride. And the campground had showers!
That night we took a long walk, probably 90 minutes or so, in the moonlight. The walk took us past rock formations that were fantastic, deep colored silhouettes in the bright moonlight. It had been a full moon the night before. We noted some planes or jets flying through the night (Laura has her pilot’s license, so this was a topic of interest), and we wondered about what stars we were looking at. We walked from our campground out to a road that led to a second campground. It was about a 2 ½ mile walk and talk, out and back. The light, the landscape, the quiet of the desert, we agreed it felt magical, a pattern continued from our activities at Colorado National Monument and Zion National Park.
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