Appreciating Scenery

Monday, President's Day, Erik, the boys and I decided to get out of the house and do a little local touring of our lovely desert valley. So we packed a lunch, brought the excitable dog and headed out the door. Naturally, the day we decide to go and "be one with nature", it not only threatens to rain, but does so in heavy downpours. Our travels took us toward Lake Mead recreational area. Yes, we've actually been there before, but not going northeast towards Overton and the Valley of Fire State Park. We discovered more vast desert valley floor, except there were actually more hills, geological contours in the land and the color of the dirt was vibrant red. What a beautiful site! In fact, we decided to hike up one of the trails available (about 1/4 of mile straight up!) and were greeted with a fantastic view of the valley and surrounding mountains and hills. The boys were busy pretending to fall off the cliff we climbed while Erik and I pretended to not notice their stupidity. Miraculously, we all made it down the hill and had a tailgate lunch (why does food always seem to taste better at higher altitudes?).

Further down the road was the Overton boat launch, which we naturally had to check out for future boating trips. It wasn't as big as the one at Callville, but the fishermen sure seemed to like it. As soon as we left there, it started to rain rather heavily on us, so we pressed on towards the Valley of Fire State Park (a family favorite). This park has numerous unique and rich-colored rock forms that you not only can look at, but also climb on to your hearts desire! So what did we do? We climbed! Being one with nature...in the pouring rain! We'll be back to camp there some day. Shortly after we decided that we were getting wet enough, we left for home and put on our pajamas,drank hot chocolate and enjoyed the sound of rain outside our doors...something we don't get to appreciate very often!