Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
How to get there:
Head west on Charleston Boulevard, which becomes S.R.
159. The entrance to Spring Mountain Ranch is about 3 miles past Red Rock.
BONNIE SPRINGS OLD NEVADA
The Nevada of days' past is alive and a'hollerin in
Bonnie Springs Old Nevada
(
%
702/875-4191; www.bonniesprings.com;
$
10 per carload; summer daily
10:30am-6pm, winter daily 10:30am-5pm).
This replica of a mining town is as
delightfully campy as they come, with gunfights breaking out in the streets, vil-
lains being hanged, and outhouses exploding (musta been some chili!). Walk
along the dusty makeshift avenue, past old, wooden buildings such as the U.S.
Post Office, the blacksmith, shooting gallery, wax museum, wedding chapel, and
cemetery. It's like an unintended satire of a John Wayne movie.
This Old West imitation is dirty (it's amazing ducks can swim around the
thick, scummy pond here) and the animals roaming around the “petting zoo”
(pigs, goats, chickens) are about a step away from the big glue factory in the sky.
Despite the grit and grime, it's a fun place for families or even childless adults who
enjoy off-the-beaten-path kitsch to take the mini train around the property; have
a beer in the old-fashioned saloon, where dollar bills coat the ceilings; or eat steak
in the dining hall. An inviting fire pit is a romantic destination for dreary days
and chilly nights, and the “themed” hotel rooms, with fake plastic fireplaces and
carpeting styled to look like hardwood floors (complete with slats and fake nails)
are a fun way to spend the night at this slow-paced escape from big-city life.
How to get there:
Head west on Charleston Boulevard, which becomes S.R.
159. The entrance to Bonnie Springs is after Spring Mountain Ranch.
VALLEY OF FIRE
Valley of Fire State Park
(
%
702/397-2088; http://parks.nv.gov/vf.htm;
$
6 per
car; visitor center daily 8:30am-4:30pm; park daily 24 hr.)
is Nevada's oldest and
largest state park, and one of the strangest looking. Mounds of iron-tinged dunes
seem to bubble up out of nowhere, like sandstone rocks . . . on LSD. The mounds
were formed 135 to 150 million years ago, and have been eroded by the wind ever
since. Though the Valley of Fire is similar in appearance to Red Rock, the main
difference is that here, the sandstone hasn't changed as it has at Red Rock, where
limestone was uplifted and thrust through the layers on top of it. The only force
that's shaped the Valley of Fire's formations is erosion.
Hikes out here are generally pretty short and won't pose much of a challenge,
making this an ideal day trip for those traveling with children. Trails lead past pet-
rified logs and petroglyphs, which were etched in the stone some 3,000 years ago
by the Basketmaker people and the Anasazi Pueblo farmers.
One of the easiest trails,
Mouse's Tanks,
was the hideout for a rowdy Paiute
Indian named Mouse in the 1890s who, legend has it, shot up an Indian camp,
killed a couple of prospectors, and fled to the Valley of Fire. He supposedly chose
this area because it's a well-hidden maze within Petroglyph Canyon, where the
“Tanks,” or depressions in the sandstone, catch and acts as a storage spot for rain-
water. But eventually his hiding place became his trap; he was tracked down and,
after refusing to surrender, was killed in the subsequent gunfight. On this and
other trails, the petroglyphs mark the rocks everywhere you look, guiding you
through what feels like an ancient storybook.
