There wasn’t much that we wanted to see on our way out of Los Angeles. We did, however, make a stop at In’n’Out for more greasy goodness; when headed back east, you never know when you’ll pass your last chance at a Double Double. The next sites that we really wanted to see were those that we initially headed towards after leaving Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons – those being the parks in southern Utah and Arizona. We knew that we wouldn’t make it to Zion, Bryce, or the Grand Canyon by nightfall, but the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada was doable. First though, we had to drive through Vegas.
Somewhere in the middle of the Mojave desert south of Sin City we came across the most obnoxiously bright lights we’d ever seen. It didn’t take long to figure out that it was a solar farm. Turns out that it is THE solar farm – the $2.2 billion dollar, 4,000 acre, Ivanpah solar facility. 347,000 computer-controlled mirrors focus sunlight on water-filled tubes at the top of three separate towers. The water is turned to steam, which spins electricity-generating turbines. The hyper-focused sunlight reflecting on the water-filled tubes will melt your retinas…but I couldn’t stop looking at them. The mirrors reflect so much light that the air temps can reach over 1,000 degrees. Birds that fly into this zone are known as “streamers” because their feathers cook in mid-flight and they fall out of the sky. Anyhow, it was neat, albeit painful, to see.
Like most of the places we saw on our trip, we pulled into the Valley of Fire State Park in the late afternoon. We parked the campervan in a really cool site (they were all cool in their own way, but we had caves!) and let the kids play in the rocks before taking them on a short hike to see some 3,000 year old petroglyphs. As we walked back to our campsite, the most amazing full moon began to rise over the horizon – it looked huge! We tried to get pictures of it, but the optical illusion of a large moon near the horizon doesn’t work with a camera. The camera is smarter than we are, after all.
The kids were again playing in our campsite caves as twilight was setting in when an owl flew over us and perched on a nearby rock. Since I already had the big camera out, I tried to sneak up on him to get what could have been the photo of a lifetime. I stopped to take a picture at a distance in case he flew off as I got closer, which is exactly what happened. The pic still turned out ok, but getting close or having a larger zoom lens could have made it much better. Still not every day you get to silhouette an owl in a full moon.
After that, we put the kids to bed and enjoyed the perfect weather in our perfect campsite. I couldn’t help but play with our new little camera (the one we picked up in Portland) and its ability to take fantastic low-light photos. After 20 or so long exposure shots that involved me setting the camera timer and then hurriedly clambering back up to our natural rock recliners before the shutter opened, I gave it up and we sat there in awe for a long while. Everything was so unbelievably perfect: the air temp, the slight breeze, the brilliance of the moon, the clear sky, the wine, the company. The kind of moment that one would perfectly content getting stuck in forever. Serenity was found.
The next morning we drove around the park to see some of the other sites before heading for Utah. The sandstone in the park takes on many different shapes, textures, and colors. The Valley of Fire SP was a great stop and aptly-named.
