After picking up our rental trailer we headed for our first night of family RVing in the most picturesque Atlatl Campground at the Valley of Fire State Park.

World-renowned for its 40,000 acres of bright red Aztec sandstone outcrops nestled in gray and tan limestone, Valley of Fire State Park contains ancient, petrified trees and petroglyphs dating back more than 2,000 years. While our stay was brief, we were able experience so much. Wow.

The sandstone is from the Jurassic period and is the remnant of the sand left behind by the wind after inland seas subsided and the land rose.







After a peaceful sleep, we awoke early to explore before moving on.


By 8 AM the temperatures were heading towards 90°. We began our day early at Atlatl Rock, an easy hike with amazing examples of prehistoric petroglyphs. An atlatl is a tool used to launch a spear, and ancient Native Americans of the Pueblo culture carved symbols of the atlatl, and so much more, here in the sandstone.




This was the closest we've come to these ancient artifacts.
Our other departing explore was a stroll on the Petrified Log Loop. The petrified logs in Valley of Fire State Park are ancient pine tree fossils estimated to be approximately 150 million years old, dating back to the Age of Reptiles. These logs, which are often reddish-brown in color, were transported to their current locations by floods and later buried under mineral-rich sediment, replacing the wood material with silica, manganese, and iron oxides.





Located only an hour away from Las Vegas but truly a world apart, Valley of Fire was the perfect place in which to begin our amazing adventure.