The mechanics of Eurocycles garage did again a great job. We picked up the bikes around 1.30pm and left Las Vegas as fast as we could. We took the highway 95 to drive towards the Valley of Fire. The temperature slowly increased. Once arrived at the campground we understood the that the name of the Valley of Fire is not only linked to the red sandstone, but also to the extremely high temperature. The scenery of the campground felt like Mars: very hot and surrounded with red rocks in very strange shapes. We managed to find a spot in the shade and the rest of the afternoon was spent waiting on enough shade to set up the tent, enjoying the spring beauty of the desert (plants with flowers everywhere) and chasing the wildlife in the park: the antilope squirrel, raven, desert big horn sheep. Because of the heat we decided to take a night walk and discover the petroglyphs on the atlatl rock.
During the night, temperature dropped to 25°C. After a good sleep the sun woke us up at 6.30am and we left at 8.15am at 30°C. A promising hot day ahead 😊! We discovered the rest of this magnificent State Park, strangely not so well known by the public. We crossed the border with Utah (14th State) with a timezone change, we discovered by coincidence. We drove through the beautiful Paiute Shivuvits Indian Reservate, the gunlock state park, the Pine Wood/Dixie National Forest and ended on the very nice campsite Red Ledge in Kanarraville. We received the last free spot between RVs, a very nice spot on fresh green grass!!!! After a talk with the owner and the fact that there was a BBQ and patio we could use, we decided to stay 2 nights in Kanarraville. Today we did a fantastic hike to the Kanarraville falls, which was a nice experience - walking into the river in the slot canyon. Later in the afternoon we drove to the Zion Kolob Canyon. We learned from the ranger that it will be hard to get into the Zion National Park: all campgrounds are full and you need to be at least at 6.30am at the visitor center to be on time to take the bus shuttle for a hike into the park. Tomorrow we will see if we can find a campspot nearby Zion and this will decided whether or not we stay. Of course, we ended our day with a real American BBQ on the patio!
