Adventures with Luna: Day 47 - Valley of Fire State Park

I had a peaceful, albeit slightly restless sleep. I woke up throughout the early morning, then went back to sleep, sure the park wouldn’t be open for a little bit and not keen on the light rain, strong wind and cloudy skies. I got up around 8 am and quickly got ready for the day before driving off, I had just watched my pals in the RVs drive off in opposite directions. I drove the short ways to the park, paying the $10 entrance fee and continuing on. Entering the park was absolutely incredible; the dull green landscape suddenly gave way to an expanse of red rock, lit by the somewhat stormy lighting. My first stop was Atlatl Rock, where I made and ate my breakfast of porridge before climbing up the steep stairs to the petroglyphs. Luna was such a trooper with those stairs, I could see that she did not like them at all, I hadn’t paid attention at first, but could see they would be very uncomfortable for the paws and somewhat frightening for her to look down below through the slots, but she followed along with no complaint. We went all around the scenic loop, seeing that the campground did indeed have have a “Campground Full” sign at the entrance. I was surprised, when I went to get out at the next stop, to find that my legs were shaking quite badly and they continued to until I’d gone on a proper walk and gotten some juice in to me, I think the main cause of this was almost doing no walking at all after a day of driving before doing the long, steep staircase, it was odd though. I stopped at the Petrified Logs area which was not too impressive after being at Petrified Forest National Park, the few logs here were fenced off and mostly not as colourful as the other ones, still cool though. The highlight of this part was when two people appeared nearby, one riding a beautiful bay horse that looked at us as with huge interest and the other riding a mule, a sudden immense desire to be with horses made tears prick my eyes, I couldn't believe it, I am going soft, this is good. At one stop, an African-American guy, around 15 years old perhaps crossed paths with Luna and I, he had a dog, so the dogs greeted each other; he introduced himself as Max and after I introduced myself and Luna, he told me the dog’s name was Marley and it was a Golden Retriever (although it was clearly a mix, but I wasn’t going to say anything) and asked to pet Luna. As he left, I said “have a good day”, he replied “Your welcome…..uh, thank you.”, it made me smile to meet someone socially awkward like me and I hoped that he wouldn’t beat himself up over it as I would have, it was good for me to realize I really didn’t care or think any of the worse for him with him saying that. When I reached to White Dome trail, I waited for a few minutes, hoping the light rain that had started up again would subside, it didn’t seem to be in any hurry to go, so we started the hike. The wind picked up and made the hike quite unpleasant as it blew rain and sand in to our eyes. We went through our first slot canyon on this walk, but it was quite unenjoyable as that was where the sand whipped in to our eyes the worst, thankfully it was a short canyon and the entire trail was a brief 1.25 miles long.

We next headed to the Fire Wave trail, waiting for a little bit for the blue sky to come back through and the wind to settle. This was a much more pleasant little hike with only a little bit of wind reaching us. Two couples who had just met had been taking photos for each other when I arrived, so one offered to take one for me, I almost declined, feeling absolutely grimy and disgusting, but ended up taking her up on the offer and am glad I did. I visited and hiked where possible in all but Parking Lot 1 or 2 in the area between that entrance and the visitors centre (and side-roads in between), I believe there are 3 more points of interest past there that I hope to see tomorrow. I decided to check out the camping around 3:30 pm, thinking it would fill up fairly fast again and having decided I wanted a spot there rather than to risk another night at the side of the road as I really wanted a shower after getting my sweaty skin coated in sand, sand was everywhere! I signed up for my campsite, but was disappointed to find that I could not mark it as my own by pinning up a piece of paper as I usually can, so stayed there the rest of the day. I did go to shower a little while later, enjoying that the showers are included in the fee, I feel much better now! The day was an irritating mixture between cold and boiling; with no jacket on the wind was quite cold, with a jacket on it was way too hot, I found myself constantly taking off and on layers. I ate the salad and chocolate bar I had purchased at the visitors centre as my late lunch, then cooked a light supper a couple hours later. I did some housekeeping ;) getting my air mattress cleaned off of sand and filling it with air, it’s lasted very well, but my bum was on the floor of the car, so it was past time! When I cooked dinner, one of the nearby rocks was lit up beautifully and a faint double rainbow appeared, it was stunning. A woman walked around with her cat on a harness, the cat looked confident and interested, I like cats, but I have come to realize that I am a dog person through and through, this cat, however, almost converted me for half a second. I settled back in my car and read for awhile before getting to writing this down and uploading photos, I took many today but none do this place justice at all!