A Very Happy New Year!

We celebrated the new year with a fabulous road trip to Red Rock Canyon.  On our way there, we stopped and hiked along Hot Creek, in Mono County, California.  Hot Creek's source is a geothermal spring, and it runs through the Long Valley caldera.  Somehow trout thrive there, despite scalding water temperatures.

My first jog of 2016 was sunny, with panoramic mountain views.

Next stop:  The Buttermilks

The Buttermilks are a climber's playground.  They are located within the Inyo National Forest, and are considered BLM land.  There are no gates, no restrooms, and very few signs.   Instead, there are boulders.  

We played in the Buttermilk boulders until sunset, then headed south across Death Valley.  I pictured Death Valley as being flat, but the highway through it was full of twists, turns, climbs, and falls.  Death Valley contains the lowest point in North America (282 feet below sea level) yet also contains Telescope Peak, with an elevation of 11,043 feet.  Death Valley is also one of the darkest places in the United States (it's certified as a Dark Sky Park), and Andrew stopped periodically and turned off the headlights so we could stare at the stars.

When we neared Red Rock Canyon, we pulled into the Inyo forest to sleep in Toyota Lodge.  It was very dark, so we didn't realize until the next morning that we'd parked next to a Joshua Tree!  Hello again, Joshua Tree!

That morning, as the sun rose over the red rocks outside Vegas, Andrew started wondering if we should have moved to Vegas instead of Reno.  When I lived in Vegas, I hiked in Red Rock canyon almost every weekend, and it felt wonderful to return after a decade away.  I remembered hiking there with my girlfriends in my early twenties while we lamented about the difficulty in finding a good mate, and now I was sharing my favorite hikes with my wonderful husband.

Andrew helps Halo hydrate in the desert. 

We rested in the lodge between hikes.

We hiked in Red Rock Canyon until sundown, and then drove into Vegas. It was Andrew's first time driving down The Strip, and he felt much better about Reno afterwards.

We headed north that evening, into rural Nevada.  It was easy to find a place that night to sleep, because central Nevada is so empty.  67% of Nevada is open BLM land, and another significant percentage is ranch land.  The towns between Las Vegas and Reno are tiny and sparse.  A few of them didn't even have a gas station or grocery store.

The next day we headed back to Reno.  We drove long stretches of highway without seeing another car, but we did pass a couple of herds of wild horses.  Nevada is a truly unique state, and I'm definitely growing to love it.