As soon as we had crossed the border into Nevada the temperatures soared from the low to mid 30's to the mid 40's. It was so hot at times that we had to hit the button in the car labelled "MAX A/C", and even then we were hot. The closest I can come to describing it is to say it's as if you were melting away into nothing. Needless to say we were thankful that we started in Vegas where most the casinos are inter-linked and heavily AC'd.
Upon arriving in Las Vegas we were surprised to find it smaller than we had imagined; and especially smaller than LA where we had come from. We spent three days
in total in Las Vegas. We had planned to head over to the Death Valley National park, but because it was so hot and we had so much already planned for after Vegas
we decided to just chill and enjoy Vegas for what it is. We were so glad we decided to do this as it took us 2 full days to explore the many different casinos and
the final day spent shopping and gambling.
As said before we found it hot in Vegas. So hot in fact it actually wore you out if you spent to long outside of the AC'd casinos, hotels and bars / restaurants.
We do get the sense here that it is a hostile place and that you wouldn't survive long out in the open. Thankfully on one day it did rain a little in the late
afternoon which bought the temperature down slightly too around 37 Celsius.
During our time in Vegas we enjoyed gambling at most of the main casinos, rode both the monorail's, and enjoyed several of the alcoholic beverages on offer including
some from the Sin City brewing cooperation.
After having spent three days relaxing in Las Vegas we headed on out towards the small town of Panguitch in Utah. On route we passed through the beautiful state park
of the Valley of Fire.
The Valley of Fire state park really lives up to its name. It is as if the earth has been scorched by the insane heat here. If we had thought Vegas was hot then this is where Lucifer would live. It was so hot that after a 1.5 mile walk Kat could no longer to live the AC'd car and I struggled to get out to take the fantastic pictures that I managed to get of some areas of the park. It is so hot here that the only things which can live here are scorpions, rattlesnakes and lizards. Even bushes and trees cannot grow in these conditions. You also notice when being here that some of the rocks even look as if they are having a tough time here. At one point on a high ridge the thermometer in the car read 117 Fahrenheit which converted to Celsius is a whopping 47.2 degress. All in all though we did enjoy the experience of being cooked in the Valley of Fire.
Next we were glad to depart the extreme heat of the Valley of Fire and return to the near normal low 40 degrees as we exited Nevada and headed towards our base for the night in Panguitch, Utah.
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