Retirement Road Trip #7: Southern Nevada State Parks, February 2021

 

I don't have a lot of notes for this trip, but I'll try to add some flesh to the pictures I've got on my iMac.

Once again, Janet is a master at managing her Marriott points, and she can raise a red flag when some are about to expire, which led to this trip.  Janet and I absolute despise Vegas as she spent way too much time there as part of her work.  But, we had been reading about the interesting state parks in Nevada, so we planned a trip that started in Henderson, NV at the Westin Resort.  We left February 3 and drove down I-5, stopping for our usual lunch at Harris Ranch, then popping over the Tehachapi Pass over to Vegas.  The resort was right on a fake lake, and eerily empty as the pandemic restrictions were still sort of in place.  We parked in a massive, and massively empty, parking lot.

Thursday, February 4: We drove up through the McMansions of the Vegas 'burb of Summerlin to the Red Rock National Preserve (It's been graduated to a Conservation Area recently).  It's rather jarring to go from the wide boulevards and walled enclaves to a beautiful clustering of red rock landscapes just west of Vegas.  We hiked around among some stunning landscapes, then popped back in to Summerlin to get a selfie at the A's AAA affiliate brand-new ballpark...doesn't the mascot, ostensibly an Aviator, look like a human fly?  I liked them in the old stadium known as the "Area 51's" with the logo being an alien with a baseball for an enlarged cranium.  I have their old ball cap, when they were a Dodgers affiliate, but the cap is Dodger Blue.  And the ballpark was a dump...I think it was Cashman Stadium.

Pictures, again taken with my iPhone SE with no Photoshopping, of the Red Rock NP

Friday, February 5: Heading to the Valley of Fire State Park, you take a long drive along the north shore of Lake Mead, then head into another beautiful red rock canyon.  We took several hikes that day, and I was blown away by the fact that "The Professionals" (one of my top ten movies) was filmed here, and they'd left the set for the "ruins" of the church where Burt carved the upside-down cross.  Watch the movie; it's fantastic.

One of the many slot canyons at the Valley of the Fire SP

Just one of the "striped slick rock" formations

As I remember, that night we sought the "Chinatown" of Vegas and ate at an old school Chinese restaurant well off the Strip.

Saturday, February 6: After two nights at the Westin resort, we headed up I-15 a bit to pick up northbound US93 (isn't Area 51 out there somewhere to the west of this?) to Caliente, NV for lunch, then on to Panaca, stopping at Cathedral Gorge State Park.  So, think mini-Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks landscapes in "soft bentonite clay" rather than sandstone.  

The new 4Runner and the fascinating formations in Cathedral Gorge

As this was an "all hotel" trip, and there ain't no hotels anywhere in this part of Nevada, we did score two nights in a B&B in Panaca, which turned out to be in the furnished basement in the house that was used for local celebrations--as I remember they were setting up for a wedding reception the next day.

Janet in Cathedral Gorge's mini-slot canyons

Sunday, February 6: As I remember (I am writing this 3 years after the fact) they served a pretty good breakfast but we were encouraged to step it up outta there as the wedding reception was that day, so we drove out to a trailhead on the northern rim of Cathedral Gorge, and spent a good chunk of the day hiking along the rim then descending to the valley floor and back again.  The area got a dusting of snow that night, so the landscapes were even more beautiful, if that was even possible.  We noted that Cathedral Gorge had a nice FCFS campground, so we filed that away for the next trip (actually, Utah 2.0).  Returning to our B&B, we avoided the reception held earlier--I forget where we ate, there wasn't much in Panaca.

Monday, February 7: Janet's magic with Marriott scored us a brand-new hotel in Ely, NV, so we continued up US93 from Panaca to US50, then west to Ely.  We kicked around the Nevada Northern Railway Museum which served all the active mines back when.  We dined at a good Mexican place across the parking lot from the hotel.

Tuesday, February 8: We had a fascinating drive back to Incline on US50, as the drive is much more interesting than the endless bore of I-80.  We heard of a classic western bar/restaurant at Middlegate, so we had great burgers there before heading back to Incline.