Saturday December 9th 2017

It was a few degrees warmer today. The temperature peaked out at seventy degrees this afternoon. The daily high temperature doesn’t last long since it occurs shortly before the sun starts to set. The short amount of daylight is a real limiter to the warm weather.

I took a drive to the other side of the valley today. My destination was the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It is about thirty miles and several hundred feet of elevation away. Traffic wasn’t too bad most of the way, but as I got onto the single lane road approaching the heart of the Red Rock Canyon area the traffic got heavy. Almost all of the traffic was heading for the Red Rock Canyon Scenic Drive. I’ve been on the drive when it was a solid line of traffic around the whole loop and this looked even more congested. Serves me right to visit on a Saturday. I decided to put off the scenic loop drive until a week day.

Some of the rock that gives the canyon its name.

I stopped at the scenic viewing area along the main highway. It provides a good view of the whole canyon area from a distance. Sometimes you get lucky and see a wild burro or two from there. Today wasn’t a lucky day, but I got a few good pictures of the colorful rock formations. While I was there a Pink Jeep tour arrived to board their pink jeep. The tourists were brought from Las Vegas in a mini bus so they weren’t exposed to the elements in the open jeep until the last minute. It was kind of funny really.

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The traffic on the trip back across the valley was much heavier than the trip out. I got stuck in stop and go traffic on the highway in downtown Las Vegas. The intersection of Interstate 15, Intestate 515 and US95 has been under construction for a few years and will be for a few more. It is right in the middle of the downtown area making the task of getting through the area difficult.