Valley of Fire and Vegas

After a beautiful 2 1/2 hour drive from Bullhead City Arizona, we stopped at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.  We've been to this park twice before on visits to Vegas, but staying here for 5 nights was awesome!  What a beautiful place!!  The night sky here was something to see.  One night I saw 4 shooting stars, one of which entered the atmosphere!!  I watched it wobble and burn out, it was amazing!!
To learn more about the history of this park visit their website:  http://parks.nv.gov/parks/valley-of-fire-state-park/

We hung a hummingbird feeder on the ladder on the back of the camper.  Here's a pic of one of the cute little things that visited us everyday.                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                               

Below are some of the pictures we took of the beautiful red sandstone formations throughout the park.

 

 

 

There are also several petrified logs, ancient pines that grew in this area approximately 150 million years ago.

They call this formation elephant rock.

Below are some of the pictures of the many petroglyphs that can be found in the park.  They are estimated to be 3000 years old.  These pictures were taken on the trail to Mouse's Tank, which is a natural basin in the rock where water collects after each rainfall.  It is named "Mouse's Tank" because an alleged Southern Paiute Indian renegade named "Little Mouse" hid out here in the 1890's.

                                                                                                                                                

 

Las Vegas, finally!!!  Time to park the fifth wheel and head to a luxury hotel!  Aria sends Cindy offers on a regular basis.  We took advantage of her offer for March which was for 3 nights free, $100 in resort credit and $250 in free play.  She has also been playing slots on Facebook on a site called MyVegas.  You play slots and earn "loyalty points" that you can redeem for real rewards in Vegas.
She has been playing her account and mine, and between the two we got an additional 2 nights stay in a deluxe city view room, two tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show "O" at Bellagio, 2 lunch buffets at Bellagio and 2 dinner buffets at Mirage.  We estimate it all totalled about $1,600!!!  We had a great time and it was, at least for Cindy, a nice break from camping.

Bruce hasn't played poker since the last time we were in Vegas, which was two years ago.  I finally talked him into playing in a small tournament.  Even being out of practice, he still managed to come in fourth place!!  I know if he played regularly, we could afford to come to Vegas more often!

Aria is a beautiful hotel and casino and, for the environmentally minded, it also received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.  They even have beautiful light fixtures in the casino that are made out of the chain link fence that enclosed the construction site.  A beautiful, luxury hotel in Las Vegas and it's environmentally friendly too!!

The chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate dipped coconut bars left as a welcome in our room.  I haven't found these, or chocolates on my pillow in our fifth wheel yet!!