The weather seemed much nicer today. We checked out and were on our way.
Beaver ... and its Creamery cows!
A long row of them!
(left) A landlocked lighthouse at Cedar City
The 88-foot-tall lighthouse was built in 2000 and sits hundreds of miles away from the Pacific Ocean. It has never guided any ships and doesn't have a lighthouse keeper. Why is it there then? It was essentially a promotional gimmick for the Providence Center stores and restaurants. According to one of the developers, it will also be handy when the "Big One" hits (the massive earthquake that is supposed to drop California into the sea) so that it will be the only lighthouse standing on the new coastline!
Instead of using a traditional map, we decided to let the phone's GPS direct us to Valley of Fire State Park. Mistake. It ended up taking us to something called Logandale Trails, where only off-road and 4-wheel drive vehicles could play. We ended up heading down towards Overton, then making our way through side streets until we were back on track.
Hmmm, something doesn't look right.
Looking worse by the minute!
"You have arrived at your destination!" .... Heading back towards town.
Apparently we just got off the freeway several exits too early.
This is looking better!
The entrance to the state park
Click for a larger view of the park map
The Mojave Desert is the smallest of the North American deserts, spanning roughly 47,000 square miles. It is part of a basin surrounded by mountains and plateaus which creates a rain shadow effect leading to desert conditions.
It was already getting quite hot out, so we agreed to keep our hikes short. Elephant Rock was only 0.2 miles total, so that made the list.
The trail ... A sense of scale
A marker with strange carvings on it
Elephant Rock!
Some kind of conglomerate sedimentary rock with sand nodules
