More Nevada

So there I was... still in Nevada. The next weekend, me and a new buddy from AFROTC headed out to Red Rock Canyon. This guy was more adventurous, so we wound up doing a lot more hiking, climbing, and even sort of some bouldering.

Once we got close to the top, we found a little pond of stored water. I'm not sure whether it was rainwater, ground water, or both, but there was definitely water, and it was cold.

Then, we climbed even higher. Once we reached the top, we could see almost the entire basin. It was a pretty awesome view.

We then decided to find the La Madre Springs, which were higher up in the mountains. We hiked for a while on the gravel road, and then some more on a hiking trail.

(The Springs were up on the distant mountain, and to the right.)

We finally reached the springs, which turned out to be a little dam which created a pond for bighorn sheep to drink from.

We took a breather, then decided to find the source up in the mountains. We followed a path, which seemed to turn into a bighorn sheep path, and found some more water.

We kept climbing until we reached a little rock cabin. Once we reached the cabin, we realized that enough was enough, and we needed to head back to our truck before we wore out feet off.

(It's kind of hard to see, but the cabin is in the left foreground. It had a little wreath on a stick too.)

Once we made it back to the truck, we finished the scenic drive from the road, and then headed back to Nellis, having enjoyed another beautiful day in God's amazing creation.

Nevada

So there I was... at Nellis AFB, Nevada. I'm not a big fan of Vegas, or of the Strip - one visit was more than enough for me. Nonetheless, there was some pretty interesting stuff there. For example, this McDonald's was accessed via an escalator. It was the first I'd ever seen. And of course, the water shows in front of the Bellagio are pretty sweet too.

The next weekend was more along my line. I drove out the Valley of Fire National Park with a good friend of mine from the Academy, and we spent the day exploring the wonders of God's creation. It was amazing! Plus, part of Transformers was filmed on the very stretches of road which we drove on.

Chuckwallas

A little cavern carved into the sandstone

An arch - it fell down a week after I took this picture

There were some pretty abrupt changes in color

The moon and red sanstone

Elephant Rock

A panorama of the park entrance.

Needless to say, I had a great time. It's a very easy park to get around - I think that the longest trail was about two miles long, and pretty much everything can be reached by cars on roads.