Author: amazingmrd

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Tuesday is a travel day as I go from Sparks, Nevada where I have been the last three nights, west on the dreaded interstate to San Rafael, California – just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  I’ll be there a whole week and the weather looks ideal so I hope to share lots of great things from that area in the coming days.

This morning I see that a new wildfire has popped up near another of my scheduled Airbnb venues later in the trip.  I have a reservation for two nights in Gold Beach, Oregon at the end of July.  The Lobster Creek Fire started Sunday just 12 miles northeast of there and is spreading south.  It is apparently in especially difficult terrain.  There is lots of time between now and then so I wish the firefighters luck in getting it under control.

Since I am back in Nevada I thought this would be a good chance to post my remaining pictures from Valley of Fire State Park, northeast of Las Vegas, which I went to back on June 2.  To see my earlier post of pictures I took there search “Valley of Fire” on the Home page or use the calendar grid to go back to June 3, 2018.

Here are various things I saw throughout the Park:

Since I am back in Nevada I thought this would be a good chance to post my remaining pictures from Valley of Fire State Park, northeast of Las Vegas, which I went to on June 2.  To see my earlier post of other pictures from there search “Valley of Fire” on the Home page or use the calendar grid to go back to June 3, 2018.

This is called Atlatl Rock.

If you look closely at those two pictures you will see a set of metal stairs leading about halfway up this massive formation.  If you climb the stairs you get to see petroglyphs on the rock, created an estimated 4,000 years ago.  They are a little hard to see in the photos due to the sun angle:

And just up the road from Atlatl Rock is Arch Rock:

Since I am back in Nevada I thought this would be a good chance to post my remaining pictures from Valley of Fire State Park, northeast of Las Vegas.  To see my earlier post from there search “Valley of Fire” on the Home page or use the calendar grid there to go back to June 3, 2018.

Here are various things I saw throughout the Park:

 

Looks to me like he’s saying “See you later, alligator…”

Or no power at all!

 

I just started calling them that so that’s who they shall be.  This couple was standing on a rock which was sticking up out of the lake and took turns jumping in.

She jumped in almost immediately after I took the photo above.  Here he is helping her back up onto the rock.

Next, he put on goggles and flippers.  Note the huge underwater camera next to his feet:

Ready….

Bombs away!

And here is a guy who had been floating nearby on a kayak who wanted to get in on the fun:

The girl was real cagey – I could never catch her in the act of diving but she did several times.

Monday morning I drove down to Lake Tahoe from where I am staying in Sparks, Nevada.  It is an easy drive which takes less than an hour.  I took Route 395 South, then Route 431, the Mt. Rose Highway, and drove down to the lake after having crossed over Mount Rose (reaching a driving altitude of 8,900 feet).  This was the view from an overlook as I started down the southwest side of Mount Rose:

Lake Tahoe has a surface altitude of 6,225 feet above sea level and covers 191 square miles.  There are casinos and ski areas near the lake and many wealthy people live here (behind electronically controlled gates).

When I got down near the lake I was in Incline Village.  I started driving around the lake by heading south on Route 28.  They were doing road construction and had many potential overlooks and parking areas closed (and what wasn’t closed was private).  I saw some great views but had absolutely nowhere to stop.  Once I got past Sand Harbor things started to improve and I ended up fairly happy with the photos I took.  Here are shots from various locations on the east side of the lake:

One thing I’ve always heard about Lake Tahoe is the amazing water clarity and colors which can be seen – almost like in the Bahamas.

There are some people on and in the water around these rocks.  You’ll be seeing lots more of them when I post closeups taken with the digital camera.

When I got down around Cove Rock I found these newlyweds (or soon to be) posing for pictures with friends of theirs.  I asked if I could take one for the blog:

I took many closeups using the digital camera from the eastern shore as well as from South Tahoe and will be posting them shortly, just as soon as I group them by topic.