"Dirty" Vegas

Day 13: Kingman, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas (Springs Preserve) & Valley of Fire.

Back on Route 66, grabbed a "real" breakfast in Kingman then Hwy 93 up to the Hoover Dam. Weather today is windy & cool.
Hoover Dam.
Stopped at the Lake Mead visitor center & got a map of the area but nothing jumped off the page at me. No telling what today's wierd weather will do, looks like rain in every direction.

Got into Las Vegas & figured I'd see what all the fuss was about. I'm sure the strip is better at night, didn't feel like hanging around that long. Gambling is not my thing so I swung into a garden center & asked about botanical gardens. They directed me to Springs Preserve.
From their website: "Explore the Springs Preserve, once home to ancient tribes and the resting place for weary Spanish explorers. Learn about the history of the Las Vegas Valley as well as methods to maintain a sustainable lifestyle in the desert." So basically it a combo of natural areas, museum type buildings, & man-made gardens. Yeah, I'm a 'scaper & this happens on my trips... so the gardens were my focus, & that part is free (bonus!)

I thought the bottle tree (above) was kinda neat. One of the major focuses of the garden was conservation (water conservation, recycling etc) so they have lots of displays about that kind of thing.

This is an example of an enabling garden where people with limited mobility (for example in a wheelchair) can enjoy gardening.

They also had an example of a 'typical' backyard with all kinds of ideas for homeowners like water conserving plants, irrigation systems, hardscaping ideas. A great resource for local people to access.
Quite a few of the beds had native plants with labels so I was able to ID some of the plants I'd been seeing on the various hikes.
As a feature for Halloween they had contributors build statuary out of discarded stuff & then I think they were judging them as some kind of contest. Some were done by kids, others by local businesses. This was my favorite... The Headless Horseman. Each contribution had a brief description of what was used, like a shirt from a thrift store, leftover building material scraps etc were some of the items for this one.

Would have been cool to come back at night when it was all lit up with part of it devoted to a "Haunted Garden" theme.
In one area adjacent to the natural area they had little statues of the local wildlife... my friend the scorpion.
This was from an area devoted to the concepts in Landscape Design like Line, Color, Rythm etc. Well done visuals. The bookstore was well stocked too with lots of resources to help home gardeners. So many books & display gardens are devoted to a water hogging garden it was nice to see them trying to put the focus on a garden appropriate to the climate. Hope it catches on.

So there's the "Dirty" part of Vegas, get it?? But that is also what Jerry (we'll get to him, hiking partner for Zion) called it when I described how I felt about Las Vegas. "Dirty Vegas" ... In my mind it fits.

Back on the I15, put the "dirt" in my rear view mirror. Next stop, Valley of Fire.


Got there just as evening was coming on, no map at the kiosk at the entrance but I had some idea of the area from a photography book I had been referencing. This is Arch Rock right near my campsite. Made some dinner in the dark & fooled around with some long exposures & the full moon. Mostly a fail, but an "E" for effort.