Nevada: Moonrise, plus Sunrise at Lake Mead Marina

When I was a youngin growing up not terribly far from Lake Mead, you could camp out right at the water's edge overnight, but the water levels weren't so dangerously low and the city's lifeline so perilously threatened back then. These days, you can find camping near the water in one of the designating camping areas, or stay overnight nearby in the city of Boulder City, where there's several different hotels, motels, and inns to choose from. We found a spot to camp out not far at all from the lake and nestled into our van for the night. There's only so much you can see in the dark of night, anyhow, so we went to bed fairly early after having enjoyed the moonrise and set our sights on exploring the lake come the next day's light. I've already covered some of our later escapades on the road trip here, but for the evening and sunrise adventures, you're in the right place. It was a stunning full moon rise as we prepared for bed, and when the gentle rays of morning jostled us from slumber we made our way to the marina and watched the sun come up over the water. Not a bad way to start the day. 

There are, of course, plenty of options for entertainment if you're looking to spend more money and time out here than we were. You can rent a kayak, jet skis, or go out for a cruise on one of the local charters, depending on how much time and money you have to spend. There are even a restaurant and small convenience store right at the marina, so if you run out of ice, snacks, bait or booze you do have a lifeline within the Lake Mead recreational area, at least during their hours of operation. We'd come prepared and simply had to find a pleasant place to park the van before strolling out for our adventures. It was summertime when we visited, so the heat rapidly increased as the sun rose, which was a major factor in why I spent so much time splashing around in the lake later on. There's a lot of wildlife to be found out here by the water, surprisingly, from coyotes to rabbits, vultures to lizards, and so many different kinds of birds. It's always nice to get out of the city and experience some degree of nature, even at a man-made reservoir like Lake Mead!

Plenty of photos ahead!

Art: Tie-dye photoshoot in Valley of Fire

Happy day-after-Valentine's day, guys!

Sorry, single friends, if our cheese is a little disgusting to you right now. I understand, I really do, but it's also a cheesy romantic time of year and we're a couple of sappy bastards so I couldn't help myself but to at least have some nod to romance here. And, not to sound too vain, but I think we look kind of cute in these photos. 

Here's something else to look at so as to ease your urge to vomit.  Our campsite out here at Arch Rock campground in Valley of Fire state park was quite photogenic and we found what was the perfect spot for us. The lighting was good for much of the morning and we were visited by an array of cute creatures over the hours. 

While we had spent the night previous relaxing and enjoying each other's company and a fire-cooked meal away from the city, once the sun rose and I had an adequate amount of caffeine and spontaneous cuteness in my system it was time for us to get to work. Luckily for us, the work involved here is modelling some of our finished tie-dye creations among the beautiful landscape. While in the past we've opted to keep our photoshoots on the simpler side so as not to draw too much focus away from the shirts, we realised that this approach is also a bit boring and doesn't convey much about our personalities or the kind of vibe we want our clothes to have. Since we're going to go camping anyway, why not bring along some of our stuff and snag some shots when the lighting is good? We were still able to enjoy most of our morning and the photoshoot didn't take so long as to keep us occupied longer than we would have been comfortable with. We were back in the city and the comfort of our own home by mid-afternoon, and that's even with the stop we made along the way... there will be a separate post on that, though, as it was too hair-raising for me to want to include among the outtakes from the photoshoot. The ones that we used for the listings are all up and visible on our Etsy shop, along with the items being modelled themselves!  

Lips by Lime Crime.

More photos below!

Vegas: Van-Camping at Valley of Fire Arch Rock part two

Hello again! Welcome back to my little corner of the internet. Your visit today finds you rewarded with pictures of pretty rocks and fluffy things! It's only appropriate for Valentine's day, isn't it? I'm at a point in my life where, while I appreciate the sentiment behind it, I don't want or need any more stuffed animals. They're cute and I have two from my childhood that I've kept along with a couple others for sentimental value, but I'm satisfied with the collection I've got and feel no need to continue adding to it. What I could always add to? My collection of cute animal photos! Heck to the yeah! 

During this camping trip we were really quite popular among the local rodent population, as well as several birds, and an unexpected little dog that came scampering around the corner followed by his human after I whistled at a bird. The fellow above was the first of the ground squirrels to stop over for a visit, and while we were watching he jumped off the rocks sheltering our campsite and ran to our fire pit to steal a bean. That's right, folks, what you see here is an example of the wild Mojave bean thief! Despite his adorably unassuming face, these little critters will gladly clean up your campsite of any foods you happen to leave out and about so please be aware of your supplies. We were enjoying some coffee and snacks at the picnic table when he approached, and we realised we'd forgotten about the can of baked beans we'd attempted to heat but ultimately gave up on the night prior. Between the generously sized steaks, vegetable skewers and s'mores we were too full to really want the beans after dinner and left them to cool in the fire pit when we went to sleep... for all we know the ground squirrels had been pinching beans the whole time, so I'm glad we didn't try to re-heat the already open beans for breakfast. We were grateful for his visit and the photos I was able to take due to his hanging around, but in the future we'll make sure not to leave anything out like that. Some of his buddies popped round later that afternoon, probably lured by the beans their friend had admitted to eating after farting up the burrow. They dropped in after we finished our tie-dye photoshoot, photos of that will be up tomorrow so check back for that if you're interested. For now, the rest of the photos will be from our campsite and morning at Arch Rock campground in Valley of Fire state park! 

More photos below!

Vegas: Van-Camping at Valley of Fire Arch Rock part one

The rock above is not Arch Rock, in case you're curious. This pointy photogenic fellow just happened to be close to our campsite at the Arch Rock Campground in Valley of Fire state park. The park is about an hour's drive from Vegas on the interstate and we've gone several times now and love it out there, including our overnight campout recently in Vanticore (our van). We had so much fun during our camp out that we wanted to get back out there as soon as possible, in fact! My schedule has been all over the place lately due to restructuring going on at my job, while Antho's remains reliably consistent- he works bright and early at 6 in the morning to 3pm with the same days off almost every week outside of holidays... but due to my schedule being a bit wonky, my days off have been less predictable. When it lined up that I had two days in a row- meaning we had an early evening off leading into a full day off together the next, we decided to make a go of it and go camping after Antho got off of work, spending the night relaxing then handle the business aspect in the morning. 

Last time we went I got pretty stressed out trying to squeeze in all the tie-dye photography I felt we needed to get done in the dwindling light that remained by the time we got there... the next morning we were able to squeeze in the rest, but it was cold and the harsh afternoon light swept into the area quite quickly, plus I had to work that evening in the city and felt a bit rushed to get everything done in time. The campsite we found here at Arch Rock camps was far more secluded among the stones and getting there was a little nerve-wracking (or butt-clenching) with the narrow, one-lane road winding along at perilously sharp angles and occasional inclines in the dim-light of evening. We found an ideal site, however, and quickly went about setting up for dinner. Antho was kind enough to pick up firewood, steaks, skewers and veggies so we could grill on the designated fire-pit the park provides. Our food was delicious and we spent much of the evening listening to the fire crackle as we made s'mores and snuggled under blankies under the stars. 

We have collapsable tie-dye chairs for just such an occasion. It was wonderful.

Because we arrived at night, we didn't actually have any real idea what our site would look like come morning. I mean, we saw silhouettes and shadows, but most of it was mystery. Sunrise brought with it surprise and beauty.

More photos below!

Vegas: Atlatl Rock at Valley of Fire

Atlatl rock is an ancient structure standing in the Valley of Fire national park. The stone itself is riddled with petroglyphs, which unfortunately some of our modern human brethren have tried to improve upon with their own additions...but the original art adorning the rock is still clearly visible and now fairly well protected to prevent any additional future defacing to these valuable historic treasures. The stairs leading up to the petroglyphs can be a little intimidating, perhaps, and once we got to the top I found a previously unrealised fear of heights made me want to get lower (closer to solid ground) as I approached the edges of the platform. Antho was there to encourage and support me the whole time, holding my hand and offering gentle words as he encouraged me to step closer to the precipice. This, it turns out, provided a bit of foreshadowing to our future camping trip to the park, as he somehow managed to talk me into walking close to the edge of a cliff for a photo... not something I would normally have felt comfortable doing these days. It's a bit funny, I used to work on the 108th floor of the Stratosphere tower at the now defunct caricature stand and the heights never really bothered me that much, even winds or a bit of mild earth-quaking would cause to sway just enough to cause my pens to roll off an otherwise horizontal table. It's been quite a few years since then, though, and I suppose my inevitable mortality has started to sink it a bit, jangling my nerves.  

We didn't stay terrible long here, as there were a lot of other visitors passing through and we didn't want to hinder their visit or photo opportunities any.  I also had the unfortunate designation of having to go in to my day (or, in this case, night?) job later on. This meant our adventure had a bit of a limited time constraint from the get go. It was still a lot of fun and we got quite a bit accomplished, so I'm quite proud of us for making it work while still managing to adult. 

More photos below!

Vegas: Van-Camping at Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire is a beautiful national park area that is a relatively short drive outside of Vegas. We've gone and done the drive before but couldn't stay overnight on that particular outing, so we made a point of it to venture out when we had the time and check out their camping.

After making our usual stop at the little convenience store at the turn off, we made our way towards the campsite. We knew we were off to a good start when we saw this purple haired young lady biking about near the turn for the campsite road. There are two distinct pay stations in the park when you're planning to stay overnight- there's the initial entrance where you should pay your $10 entry fee, then once you enter the camping area there's a separate pay station where you should pay your $10 overnight camping fee, or more if you're staying in an RV as there are separate stations for RV campers with electrical and other hook-ups needed for the long-haul traveler. There is the option to get an annual park pass for about $200 if you intend to camp more than 10 times throughout the year and it's really worth it for the savings. We've gone twice now, which is $40 or one-fifth of the annual pass...we could easily make the trip another 8 times, so we'll probably be getting that pass here soon. It applies to multiple parks, not just Valley of Fire, so there's more practicality to it than you might initially think.. 

This trip went really well and we had a great time, though we didn't get to fully utilise our campsite because we were a little under-prepared. There are fire pits at every campsite so you can easily set up your own little toasty s'more station and tell spooky stories under the stars, though we didn't have any firewood this time... We made sure to bring some next time through, though! We spent most of the evening star-gazing and talking, which was really nice. There's no cell phone reception in the park so even if my work had tried to get ahold of me they wouldn't have been able to. We listened to a lot of the Lord of the Rings trilogy audio-books on CD while driving which was fun. Antho hadn't really ever delved into the series much prior to our dating, but I made sure to watch the Trilogy together when we had the chance. The books have a lot more detail and some additional characters, and the CDs Antho found were a bit older so they had a fun charm to them. Overall we had an excellent trip and a great time! We went back at the first available opportunity and will be back again soon enough.

More photos below!

Vegas: Valley of Fire part 2

Valley of Fire is massive; the kind of expansive that would make an agoraphobic clutch up their hands and shriek in abject recoiling panic. 40,000 acres is a lot of land, and there's a lot of sand, stone and sky occupying that grand space. We spent the majority of our day here and still didn't see a fraction of everything there is to find or photograph. Every step we took was temporarily recorded in the sand, only to be blown away with the next strong gusts as we dipped our toes in the ocean of desert. The same was true for all sorts of life- we found a complicated tapestry of prints scattered among the bushes, a rich story of the creatures making this harsh environment their home. Even with all the tourist traffic and human footfall entering the area the local inhabitants seem to be doing quite well if the scattered piles of scat and abundant variety of tracks were any indication. Given the ephemeral nature of prints in sand and the frequent gusts we can get out here, we can only presuppose that the prints we witnessed during our trek were fairly fresh, maybe not within the hour but likely sometime in the same day or the night prior.  This is in contrast to the petroglyphs and ancient artefacts of prehistoric civilisations and species that also abound throughout the valley. History lingers while life invariably goes on, legends of the past looming on stone faces above a web of interspecies interaction. I doubt the rabbits care much for our stories, but who knows? Maybe they see human prints in their sandy home and contemplate their origins, coming up with their own tales of mysterious bipedal giants who occasionally stumble through.

More photos after the cut...