4/12/08 Bike Ride to Red Rock Canyon which is just 17 miles outside of Las Vegas in the foothills. The canyon is a BLM project and has a scenic drive around the park. Pictures are from various points along the scenic drive.

I named this one Bird In A Bush, this bird (type unknown) was the only sign of life we saw on our visit to the park. He was on top of the cactus calling for a companion, but his calls were going unanswered.

Some of the cactus was flowering, just to the left of the bird. We also have another shot of a flowering cactus below.

We took a couple photos of us with the moutains in the background. The rock formations were really interesting. This one is by the visitors center which is where the shot the bird was also taken.

This one was at one of the pull outs on the scenic drive. It's a windy road that rises up on one end of the park and then decends back into the canyon.

This is another shot near the visitors center. The little markers along the path describe various critters that inhabit the local desert.

The rock formations are sandstone and there's a real interesting description of how the sandstone is worked loose by the brush, rain and wind, carried to other locals where it builds into dunes and then eventually back into sandstone again.

We didn't see anything that explained the different colors of the sandstone but the contrast was striking and interesting. We'll have to do a little research and find out where the red came from.

We stopped along the way several times, but this was our favorite. It was just a small pull out on the side of the road, but we had it to ourselves and it was really peaceful. The other parking areas were all trailheads and were pretty crowded.

And here's the last shot. The flowering cactus I referred to earlier. We didn't see any humming birds around, but the are native to the area and I'm sure the flowering cactus is one of their favorites.

All in all it was a good ride and a really enjoyable time at Red Rock Canyon.