Day 13: Las Vegas or Valley of Fire

Small warning: Today there will be a lot of photos!

Today we left Las Vegas during the day - a very excellent decision, we went to the Valley of Fire, approximately 1 hour by car from Las Vegas. We had already planned this excursion from Germany, but nevertheless we were glad to get out of LV. The temperatures in the Valley of Fire reached up to 44 degrees, so we were able to practice for tomorrow, Death Valley.

The entrance to the Valley of Fire was already impressive and at that point we didn't know what to expect in real life.

I don't remember the different views and stops, so I'm uploading most of the photos without a title. This excursion was another successful day as we had never seen such red rocks in a similar form before. We were impressed but also extremely exhausted from the sun after a while.

In the beginning, the water we had to drink during the tour was still somewhat 'cold,' but due to the heat it became increasingly undrinkable - holy cow, it was so disgustingly undrinkable! After what felt like an eternity and 20 deaths in the heat (maybe 2 hours in real time), we passed by the Visitor Center and would have paid any price for a chilled drink. In the end, it only cost $1 per drink, and everyone at the Visitor Center had one in their hand or bag!

Afterwards, we visited a few more points and suddenly we were outside. We decided to drive to the Hoover Dam, even though it was a detour. We had also never seen these roads or the view in front of us, to the left and right of us. These pictures were taken with the iPhone.

At 4:30 p.m. I checked the website of the Hoover Dam, which said that the parking lot closes at 5:15 p.m. Our planned arrival time would have been 5 p.m., so we took the next exit towards Las Vegas.

A quick route check for tomorrow revealed that we would have to plan an additional 2 hours if we want to go to Death Valley, and we're not ready for that - pah, then we'll just take our time when checking out because, after all, we're on vacation!

Because Uli and I were tired of the strip, the countless intersections, people, casinos, and overpriced food, we used the navigation system to find dining options in the suburbs of Las Vegas. We quickly found one, went to Walmart beforehand to get enough water for our Death Valley excursion, and then had a meal at Denny's. We had to drink so much to replenish our water supply - my goodness! Uli already thought she was having a heat stroke. I then read her the symptoms from Netdoktor, and since none of the symptoms applied to her, she decided she didn't have one. Good thing, because we don't need anything like that here! However, our muscles were happily twitching in the car and the restaurant, and we dropped our forks while eating. Fortunately, the word 'table manners' is a foreign word in the USA.

We arrived at our hotel after missing an exit around 7 p.m. and haven't moved an inch since then.

Tomorrow we will leave Las Vegas, glad to have seen the city and even happier to leave it behind.