Red Cliffs & Quail Creek State Parks

We have been busy, busy, busy!  The little town we are camped in is Leeds, Utah.  There are things to see everywhere, so now that the weather is nicer, we have been trying to get out and about.  There are two state parks less than 5 miles away!

First up was Red Cliffs - it is both a State Conservation area and BLM land.  It took us two days to see all of it.  Initially, we hiked through the conservation area. 

Quite easy to see how the park got its name!  It is a desert conservation area, so we were able to see the native plants of this desert.

There is also ruins of the stone houses of the early Mormons, who settled in the area.

Utah has been a popular sight for filming Westerns for many years.  This is what is left of the adobe fort built for the movie, "They Came to Cordura", made in 1959 and starring Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth and Van Heflin. 

A cave along the way - don't know what might have lived in it, but it was pretty big!

Amazing how the desert plants have adapted to grow on what looks like solid rock.

The colors of the rock were incredible - red, yellow, blue, green and white! 

It is a vast area - we walked 5 or 6 miles and there were still many more miles of trail.

This little creek flows through the hills.

Not sure what this stone wall was for?

More stone houses.

 

A little more than a week later, we went back to Red Cliffs to see the other part of the park.  It is located up in the cliffs.

The trees are sprouting beautiful lime green leaves against the red backdrop.

The trail led through the red rock to

an excavation of Anasazi Native American village. They think the area was inhabited by three different types of people - Basketweaver III, Pueblo I & Pueblo II.  Initially, they were primarily hunter/gatherers and progressively became more agricultural.  This area was ideal because of the climate, soil and primarily, the water source.

The rectangular & oval depressions lined with stone were their dwellings.  Large posts supported roofs over the depressions.  It was hard to believe one or two families lived in these tiny spaces.

We followed the trail further.  It led through this low area and then up into the red cliffs again.

 

 to an area where they found dinosaur footprints!  They are not exactly sure what kind of dino it was

 but they think it was one kind of like this one.  He was meat eating, about 30 feet long and about 6-7 feet high at the hip.  Pretty interesting!

 

We discovered Quail Creek State Park when we were following our campground hosts directions to Hurricane, UT.  The directions said "take a left on the road that goes through the mountain".  That took us through Quail Creek.

It is quite a study in geology, when you see the layers and colors of the rock and how they have been lifted up and eaten away by time & the elements.

The lake and mountain views are outstanding.  The lake is a very popular lake for fishing and boating.

All that water held back by this little dam!  Actually, it is much bigger from the other side.

Just trying to get a close up of the rock.  I love the layers and the colors.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utah Bound!

Our next destination was Leeds, Utah - which is just 15 miles north of St. George, Utah in the southwestern corner of the state.  Despite the cloudy day, it was hard not to be amazed by the terrain!

We found our campground and got settled in, as we are going to be here for the month.  The next few days were cool, but sunny.

Just outside of Leeds is the ghost town of Silver Reef.  It was a mining town between 1876 and 1890.  It is the only place in North America where silver was found in mineable quantities in sandstone.  Over 7 million ounces of silver were taken out of 33 mines. 

This is the old Wells Fargo Station, which is now the museum.  It was closed the day we were there, but is so close, we will go back to see it. The old school house was moved into Leeds and is now the Town Hall.  The other buildings are slowly falling apart.

I was surprised to see how much of the remains of the mines are still there.

Mine shaft

Looking down a mine shaft

There is a chimney on the hill left-center, where there was a warehouse.

It is strange, but the ghost town is surrounded by a very upscale housing development. I guess it must be the views.

We drove up the road into the park, and it seemed at every turn was another jaw dropping, beautiful view.

 

We had a few days of rainy, cool weather, so we headed in to the nearby town of Hurricane (pronounced hur-a-cun), looked around an RV sales lot, and went to see the movie, "Kingsman: The Secret Service".  Kind of fun, lots of action and a good story.

Up in the mountains, the rain was snow, which made our view even prettier.

Spring is back in the air, with temps expected to hit 70 this weekend.  The fruit trees are blooming, some of the trees are leafing out & today we saw our first daffodil!

 

Glad to see winter is supposed to give it a rest in the rest of the country, too! 

Be back with more pictures later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camping in Las Vegas

Our campground in Vegas was surprisingly easy to find & get into.  It is located at Sam's Town & Gambling Hall (of course!) on Boulder Highway. 

This is part of the indoor park at Sam's Town - it is a huge complex of shops, casino, bingo, theaters and restaurants.

with an indoor waterfall (notice the eagle perched on the left) &

a grizzly bear!  Both were animated as was...

the wolf who walked out to introduce the big watershow!

It was pretty!  It is Las Vegas!

Friday afternoon, we took the shuttle downtown to Fremont Street - old Las Vegas - to meet the kids.  It was a part of Vegas that I had never seen.

Always wondered what The Golden Nugget looked like!

The California Hotel looks like old Vegas.

And it was really fun to see all of the neon lights when night hit!

Robin (Johnny's mom) & I made some new friends!

 

Saturday evening, we celebrated Johnny's 30th birthday & Robin's 29th! (how did she do that?)

 

After several days of beautiful, warm weather, Sunday was cool and cloudy, so we met on the Strip and went to my favorite place in Vegas - Madame Toussand's Wax Museum.

Me & my bestie - Johnny Depp

Brooke & Alycia chatting up Hef

Giving Oprah some tips

 

Went back to the Strip to see the kids off.  Even in the cloudy weather, the hotels are amazing.

The Mirage

Inside, of course, the weather is beautiful.

One of the fountains at Caesar's Palace.

A dragon for the Chinese New Year.

Always great to see our kids!  It was also lots of fun to see Johnny's family - Robin & John, Bob & Jolena, and Brooke & Johnny's friends - Mel & Ray, Julia, Elena & Andrew! Love you all!

 

We heard that everyone made it back to frigid Minnesota & we took off for Leeds, Utah (just north of St. George) on Monday.  Will write more about that next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Road to Sin City

It was time to head towards Las Vegas to meet the kids for Johnny's 30th birthday.  I have to admit, it was nice to leave the traffic & crowdedness of the Phoenix area.  Our first stop was at North Ranch SKP (Escapees) park.  Since we were just staying one night, we chose to dry camp (no hookups).  Boy, did we miss our electric heater - it got really cold that night. 

We left bright & early, because we were both so cold, heading northwest to Kingman, AZ, which is located on the historic Route 66.  The drive that morning was beautiful! 

These are Joshua Trees - in the Joshua Tree State Park of Arizona.

They are amazing, prehistoric looking trees - I have never seen anything like them.

There were also some beautiful mountain passes we drove through.

 

We had two days in Kingman, so we thought we would go down to the old part of town that sits next to one of the remaining sections of Route 66.

They had a fun little museum that chronicled Route 66 - how it had been a route followed by Native American tribes many years ago, the pioneers in wagon trains, then the desperate people during the Great Depression.  Huge numbers of them came to the west & California looking for work.  Sadly, only 8% of them stayed - there was no work.

Kingman also has silver mines & turquoise mines -

This has to be the biggest chunk of turquoise I have ever seen!

 

A beautiful, Zuni made, squash blossom necklace.

I laughed when I saw this diorama of the pregnant pioneer woman.  When I was in labor with Brooke (it was a long labor!), I was so tired, I was hallucinating that I was in a covered wagon & heard someone say "Throw her out, she's done for."

One of Kingman's famous sons is Andy Devine - a character actor a lot of us Baby Boomers know him from the shows "Andy's Gang" & "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok".  He sounded like he was as nice a man as they come & very humble about his success.

The drive to Las Vegas was again, surprisingly beautiful - the red rock and breath taking canyons in Lake Mead Recreation Area, and Lake Mead itself.

We are looking forward to our time in Vegas - catching up with the kids & their friends!