Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
Some more color from Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
Techatticup Mine
Inside one of the many buildings at the Techatticup Mine, South of Boulder, Nevada.
Yesterday we visited historic Techatticup Mine, near Boulder Nevada. I have visited this area in the past, but must say, Dean and has family have done a wonderful job restoring this historic place. There is so much old stuff to see, you could spend hours. This site has hosted countless music video shoots for the bands like The Killer’s, Beyonce and Luke Bryan, not to mention numerous movies. This time, for the first time, we did mine tour – definitely well worth the $12! Next time you are in Laughlin or Las Vegas looking for something to do, I would put a visit here high on the list!
Nevada Wildflower Report
Wildflowers, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
In general, I would say Southern Nevada is much greener and has more wildflowers then what we found in California. There aren’t the huge fields like us photographers like, but some very nice pockets here and there.
Valley of Fire State Park had the best, especially in some of the cooler, shady pockets – I found one particularly nice area in the back-country. In general, the brittlebush was the best, and blooming along the highway in spots. There was beaver-tail blooming a many places as well. In addition, I also found some desert gold, phacelia, rabbitbush and even two weakstem mariposa.
Lake Mead National Recreation Area also had a few blooms here and there. There were some nice bunches of desert sunflowers near the North end of the park. The best area was just passed Mile 38 where there was an abundance of blooming beavertail cactus on both sides of the road.
Valley of Fire
A place I call the Sherbert Hills, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
We spent the last few days camping and exploring around Valley of Fire. I remember first stumbling on this amazing geological feature many years ago while exploring Valley of Fire – I was so excited. I searched high and low on the internet, and at the time couldn’t find another image of this place, so I kinda feel like I discovered it even though I’m sure I didn’t.
So discoveries like this were part of my motivation for returning to VOF to look for more. We did a few long hikes into the back-country and found lots of cool things like animal bones, tracks and just cool remote land, but nothing that compares to this discovery at least photographically. Guess I’ll need to go back!
I say we camped in Valley of Fire, but it was actually full thanks to Spring Break, so we camped nearby in Echo Bay, part of Lake Mead Recreation Area – a place time has forgotten as it is almost a bit of a modern day ghost town. But, I have much faster internet on my phone out here 30 miles from the nearest business then I did right in Las Vegas! Go figure.
Here are lots more Valley of Fire Photos.
High Roller Wheel
The High Roller in Las Vegas. At 550 feet high (55 stories), is the largest observation wheel in the world.
Cue the Jimmy Fallon thank you note music: Thank you giant Ferris wheel in the sky for single-highhandedly now making most of my Las Vegas Strip skyline photos completely obsolete.
Actually I can’t complain – since the opening of City Center and the Cosmopolitan a number of years ago, the Strip skyline really hasn’t changed until now – that is a long time by Las Vegas standards!
This is part of a new development known as the LINQ District- pronounced link, that does a nice job of linking this wheel to the Strip with a number of restaurants and shops.
This wheel, at 550 feet high is the tallest in the world, taller then the one in London. It isn’t open yet, scheduled to begin operations at the end of March. To give you an idea as to the scale, each of the 28 cars will hold 40 people, and the ride will last about a half hour. I believe they said the ride will cost $25 per person during the day, and $35 at night.
When we were in Las Vegas for some assignment work at Red Rock last June, they were building a giant Ferris wheel down by the Luxor. Much too my surprise, that one was never finished, this is actually further North across from Caesars Palace.
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