More Travels 4--In and Out

The In and Out of Las Vegas

The road into the state park winds between rugged red hills.

They must all use the same architect to design the parking garages out here,” said Andy as he maneuvered the little black Ford Focus down the ramps of the Palace Station parking garage at 9:30 a.m.
We headed northeast toward Valley of Fire, a state park, since all the national parks and Bureau of Land Management federal areas were still closed. Fake ocotillo with orange metal blooms decorated the highway. “You mean to tell me even ocotillo can’t survive here!” Andy commented as he drove. “Even the creosote bushes look skimpy.” Twenty miles out of town a few dagger yuccas popped up.

Suddenly brilliant red rocks rise around us.

Inside the Valley of Fire State Park, 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas, red rocks just popped up out of nowhere.
The Beehives, a geological cross-bedding formation, drew the interest of a photography club, all shooting with tripods.

Spectacular sandstone formations etch the skyline.

We walked a couple short paths out to enclosed tree fossils. The huge trunks were from trees in an Araucarian forest more than 150 million years ago in the Age of Reptiles. The interpretive sign explained that the best known tree in this evergreen species is the Monkey Puzzle tree. Similar evergreens still grow today in South America and Australia. Here they probably succumbed to storm, fell and were washed to a low spot or bog where they lay buried for millions of years to turn to stone.
The weather was spectacular--hot sun and cool 73-degree breeze. Lots of other people had the same idea to come here on such a gorgeous Saturday. With photo pullouts everywhere, we tried to be selective, especially as the sun climbed overhead. Here, shadows play an important role in photography. They set off the formations and accent the color. At noon, it’s glaringly harsh.


Every turn brings new formations.

A blistering sun baked the dead red sand of the trail. It contrasted with the mounds of light brown Navajo sandstone, the interspersed red rock pillars and the hilltops of yellow and white conglomerate. We read that we should look out for desert tortoises. “Stay ten feet back,” said the sign. This endangered species holds water in a bladder, especially from eating grasses.  When frightened by people or dogs, the tortoises empty their bladders. It’s not a danger to tourists, but it threatens the life of the animal with a long, dry winter ahead.

A bright sun highlights the color.

The trail takes us deep into the interior of the formations.

Swirls in the red sandstone give Fire Wave Trail its name.

Andy’s map showed Duck Rock, but the dirt road from the parking area was closed. We walked in a generous half mile, but the old road and the trail that led off of it were both washed out  We might have scaled the gully, but the eight-foot drop in loose dirt looked precarious to me in shorts and tee-shirt. Andy agreed.   We headed back to the car.

Spectacular swirls make
solid rock look like pudding.

But just around the bend in the road was the .6-mile one-way trail to Fire Wave.
As we plodded back uphill through the ankle-deep sand, Andy told newcomers, “You’re almost there. It gets easier.”
I told them, “Keep going. It’s worth it!” And it was.
After the initial .2-mile stretch of dead, red sand, the trail crossed huge expanses of colored rock--                                                                                                                      red and yellow and tan and white sandstone. One stretch was scattered with hundreds of rocks and pebbles, pieces of black pumice and lava and shards of yellow chert. I wondered whether they washed down from higher elevations onto the flat expanse or were left from some long-gone remnant layer that had covered the sandstone.  The Fire Wave itself was a gigantic, twisted boulder of multi-colored layers of sandstone. It looked like a huge soft serve ice cream sundae.

At the halfway point in
the hike, Sue takes a break
at the top of the sundae.

On the way back, a desert iguana zipped across the trail ahead of me. He ran to hide under a yellow matchweed bush. We never saw any tortoises. We stopped at the Visitor Center. The high today went to 77 degrees, but in the summer temperatures often reach 120 degrees. Andy read that Valley of Fire averages four inches of rain a year.

Andy starts back along the trail.

The next stop was The Cabins, three circular stone houses built for shelter by the CCC in 1935.
We turned around at the Lake Mead Entrance. It was closed off anyway by the government shutdown.
The campground was full, but we drove part way in. Years ago—probably 30 or so—we had camped here a night before visiting Las Vegas. It was in July, and we were the only people in the campground. That night the wind whipped up, the tent shook, we had front and back flaps open to cool off, but the temperature never dropped below 97 degrees.

The sun going down sets off the
red sandstone formations.

Today was gorgeous and lots of people knew it. “I’ve never seen Valley of Fire so crammed with people,” said Andy. As we left about 4:00 p.m., three busloads of tourists pulled in. The Visitor Center closed at 6:00 p.m., and the park closed at dusk. They didn’t have much time.

At the Visitor Center, Sue
finds a nook in the
sandstone cliff.

In the meantime, a few states have caved in to pressure and opened national parks to visitors: Arizona, the Grand Canyon; New York, the Statue of Liberty; and Utah, just about all the parks. Ironically or not, Utah, conservative Tea Party Utah, wants reimbursement from the federal government.

Frank Marino in drag as
Joan Rivers hosts the show.

The Frank Marino Divas show at the Quad drew a huge and raucous audience. It was great!  Marino as Joan Rivers hosted an hour-and-a-half of songs by famous female vocalists, all performed by male impersonators. Most of them looked JUST like the real thing from our vantage point in table section B. Marino, in drag as Rivers, roasted Paris Hilton to a blackened crisp. Then he/she told the audience of the two Marino stars on the Las Vegas Boulevard Walk of Fame for the longest running show on the Strip and a Guinness World Record for the most costume changes—more than 350,000. The one-liners came so fast, we didn’t stop laughing and strained forward to catch every joke—like the suggestion that next flight he should report to the airport as she to go through security. Then the drag queen mused about what security might say as the body scanner moved upwards from the feet.
With each succeeding performer that Marino came on stage to introduce, Rivers appeared in a different gown.

The drag impersonator
who plays Cher bumps
and grinds on stage.

The supporting cast was incredible too:  Diana Ross, Cher, Madonna, Celine Dion, Reba McIntyre, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, Tina Turner, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and Whitney Houston. It was an incredible show.
Andy has voiced two pet peeves about Las Vegas: disappearing lanes and show seating. He’s justified. First, traffic lanes along the highway suddenly merge and disappear on the right without warning. It makes driving for an out-of-towner erratic and dangerous. Second, seating at shows is totally inconsistent. We bought tickets for Divas and chose our table and seats carefully from a chart in the Casino.  That’s a significant improvement over the old wait-in-line-an-hour-with-a-general-admissions-ticket and then tip-the-usher-to-move-up-closer method.  But this time all the chairs had been rearranged. We were at the back of a long table on one side instead of across from each other on the stage end. And I had confirmed the location of our seats when we purchased the tickets. “Those are your seats on the outside,” insisted the waitress. Ten minutes into the performance, she came back with a group of seven twenty-somethings. They had seats on both sides of the table, stood in the dark and argued about who would sit where, crowded over us and then changed their minds and switched. The waitress came back ten minutes later to confer with each about drink orders and again to deliver drinks. No consideration for the five of us who were on time in the first place and trying to watch the show! Much less the fact that they got the seats we chose in the first place!

Fountains sway in rhythm to the music.

Oh well, I stood quickly to snap pictures from the greater distance. And it was a great show.
We had a few minutes after Divas to hurry across the street for the 11:00 p.m. firing of the Mirage volcano. This time I was ready with camera settings.
Two young blondes stood on the street near the volcano. “They look high school age,” I told Andy. “They couldn’t be much more than 16.” Dressed in red knee hose, spike heels, blue bathing suit bottoms and white corset bodices, they waited for people to offer money for photographs. Show girls did the same thing on the other side of the street, along with all the Elvises, Depends diaper Man, Mickey and Minnie Mouse and a bunch of other movie and cartoon characters. But here the girls looked out of place, naively playing big girls in a dangerous world. “Enterprising or stupid,” I asked Andy. He knew what I meant.

Bellagio waters emphasize that Americans can be proud.

“Now we’re going to the Bellagio for the water fountain show,” said Andy. “It goes off every 15 minutes.”Weaving our way past a lone bride sans groom, drinking a beer at an outdoor hotel bar; around groups of partying tourists and families with small babies; past girls in super short skirts and guys with birthday ties, around ladies in glittery cocktail dresses and men in business attire, and past scruffy beggars and grungy sex solicitors, we crossed two overhead passageways to the Bellagio.

The second show played on
soft, swaying sprays.

At 11:30 p.m. the Bellagio waters danced to “I’m Proud to Be an American.” The young dude next to me sang softly along with the music. I wanted to shout it out. Chills played on my spine, until I saw a vet write out his homeless sign nearby.

The Grand Finale awes onlookers.

“Let’s stay for one more show,” suggested Andy. I certainly didn’t need any coaxing. With this song, much mellower in movement, the waters swayed to a Viennese Waltz and then built to one huge 40-foot crescendo. What an awesome finale! It was a lovely way to end an evening.