Behind the Scenes: Tie-dye photo shoot at Mount Charleston (part one)

If you've been following this blog for any extended length of time, you may have noticed that Antho and I will take just about any excuse we can to get out of dodge. While we both grew up in the fabulous city of sin, aka little old Las Vegas, and have a lot of nostalgic memories in the city, we're always happy to stretch our legs or put some miles on our vehicles if it means taking in some new sights in a new location. We've gone to San Francisco and walked from one end of the city to the other (or damn near it), driven out to Mesquite together, explored Santa Monica and Venice beach together, not to mention all the time I spent exploring in Japan and South Korea all by my lonesome. There's a deep-seated wanderlust in us, needing to be satiated, so outward we go seeking adventure. There are certainly worse addictions to have, like crack or heroine, and our adventures in the great outdoors often lead us to discover fun new things we can capture on film. Like, check out this spiky little dude below- I think he's a tachinid fly, which is a fancy way of saying he looks like some kind of punk-rock alternative bee, but is actually a fly, because nature is a weird one with an endlessly inventive imagination. 

One of our favorite places to go near Las Vegas is Mount Charleston. We've been going there together for years, and find something new everytime we find ourselves there. Not only are the beautiful trees and flowers always changing with the seasons, but wildlife like deer, wild horses and burros all make their homes out in these parts, so sightings are not entirely unexpected. We even saw a batch of burros on the trip out, as you might remember from a previous post! While we typically make our way out to Charleston for recreation, of which there's a bounty of options (hiking, camping, skiing, etc) but this trip we were specifically aiming to try and get some tie-dye photos so we could update our shop inventory on Etsy. Of course, we couldn't help but to have some fun in the process! 

Road Tripping: Scenic drive through Valley of Fire State Park

If you've been to my blog before, you might have noticed that we've got a bit of a love affair with Valley of Fire State Park. We've gone camping there a few times during the cooler winter months and have returned for day trips several times, too. It's not far from Vegas, only about an hour down the freeway, and has such stunning stone formations and scenic views that it's hard not to be blown away by the beauty anew with each visit. There's always something new to discover or see, and the serene seeming desert hides a complex ecosystem full of life, from adorable ground squirrels skittering about the campsites to coyotes and mountain lions lurking in the distance during the deep, dark nights. You can catch the glow of Vegas peeking out behind the mountain ridges at night, as the stars come out to glisten, but despite the distant glow it's easy to feel almost entirely cut off from the rest of humanity on some far and distant alien planet (with conveniently paved roads). 

We were quickly running out of sunlight and wanted to stop and get a photo shoot in, since we've accumulated a huge backlog of ready-made shirts needing to get added to our inventory. I'm sure if I weren't such a perfectionist we'd have an easier time getting them online- because we can't sell what people don't know we have, right? But first I need to process the photos we've already taken, add those to our inventory, sort and organize our standing inventory to make room for the new additions, measure, post... it's an entire process, my friends, and it's a time consuming one. It's worth it in the end, though, because each time we sell one of our tie-dye shirts there's so much joy and pride!  Some day it will be my day job, but you've gotta build it from the ground up first and that's going to take a lot of work and effort. It's not always easy trying to start your own business, and I'm grateful that I'm in a situation that allows me the flexibility to work on it and grow it in my free time while still bringing in an income to support our basic needs.  

Even though I definitely had work on the mind, it's hard not to marvel at the scenery when in Valley of Fire. The massive stone formations jutting out of the ground in bright, stark colors contrasting the sands and shrubs surrounding them with the endless blue sky above can take your breath away. Even just driving down the roads and enjoying the view from the comfort of your air-conditioned car is well worth the trip from Vegas! During our trip this time we passed a wedding party posing for photos, so that was an unexpectedly romantic thing to spot. There was also an art installation involving mirrors that we saw in passing, but that was only there for a very short window of time. It was gone by the time we could've gone back out to inspect if closer... shame, but that's the ephemeral nature of things sometimes. 

Luckily for us, photos can help us capture the fleeting moments in life and preserve them.

Good thing, too.

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!