After a long-delayed flight last night, which included a fire alarm at Austin-Bergstrom, a near-total absence of ground crew, and a large woman dressed as Piglet who single-handedly cleaned an entire plane — Evan (G) arrived! Tasked with both taking me on an explore and helping socialize with the mysterious AirBnB hosts, should they opt to show themselves. They did not, but the next morning, we did meet the fish during our stealthy exit.
We opted for a chill hike between the Dadadventure and Climbsgiving. I’ve wanted to go back to Valley of Fire since we hit it up in 2017 but never made time for the detour. And Evan needed to see “Veridian III,” as I continue to make him watch more Star Trek. We started on the same White Domes Trail, but headed south down part of the Prospect trail as well and scrambled off deep into rocky terrain.
And in fairness to the less sci-fi inclined, I learned that this trail was also the set of another movie, The Professionals (1965), which I suppose I should add to my watch list.
Evan also noted the promise of petroglyphs on the park map for Mouse’s Tank trail, so we stopped there on the way out. It ended up being a fantastic second little hike. Some of these date back more than 2,500 years to the Ancestral Puebloans — or the Pueblo or Paiute that followed.
And then we fought some Vegas rush hour out to Summerlin to join with our giant crew in the climber mansion B&B. Onward to Red Rock Canyon!