Bighorn Sheep - young and old

Good things happen when you least expect them to. Ever since I arrived here a couple of months ago, I have been asked if I had seen any bighorn sheep yet. No, despite having hiked in areas the sheep hang out; we had come across their droppings and bedding but never seen any sheep. I had not seen ANY wildlife, OK some lizards. It is winter and the turtles, snakes and other critters are hibernating. So you can imagine how happy I was when we finally

Bighorn Sheep

saw them. Right there next to the main road through the Valley of Fire. We were driving to our hiking spot when Ron spotted them on the mountain side, a herd of at least twenty bighorn sheep, including some newborns, yeah!!!
What a way to start the day. We ended up hiking for four hours through one of the most amazing and beautiful areas of the park. Every time you turned

Sandstone - NOT photoshoped!

around there was another surprise waiting. The sandstone formations kept changing colors and shapes; white, red, yellow, purple, pink, stripes, circles,

Pre-historic creature?

alcoves, windows, arches. These wonders of nature were formed 150 million!! years ago through uplifts, faults and erosion. The explanation seems too simplistic to explain the diverse landscape. I feel that any explanation takes away from the magic of this area. It would be like knowing how a magic trick works. It felt a little overwhelming walking amongst so much beauty.

Window in sandstone

White, red, purple...

It never ends

Rainbow colored sandstone formation

Desert marigold

Eroded sandstone

A valley of colors

Life is like grains of sand that come together to form a rock; one of those things that came to me while wandering around all these sandstones. Don’t ask me what I mean by that. I would like to leave that up to your interpretation.