Vacation Problems

Our vacation was supposed to start on Saturday morning!!!! All bags packed, links to the plan have been shared with Raju and offline maps have been downloaded, we were all set ready to go!!!! but fate has another idea and we had no idea that our problem started 2 days before the vacation, It was naive of us to think that all will go smoothly. Enterprise called us and asked us to cancel one of our 2 bookings as their inventory is low. We told them to cancel with a condition that we will get a full-size SUV with a pilot seat in the middle row as we have 2 kids who are on the car seat and 2 elderly who will be sitting in the third row. They agreed and ended up giving Nissan Armada with the middle console completely blocking the third row and we had to uninstall the car seat every single time we needed to access the third row.

We were shuffled around the whole day on Friday and it was 11.30 pm by the time we reached home with the same car and they have asked us to travel to Las Vegas in order to get a swap.

Vegas Baby!!

Vegas baby!!! as soon as I opened my mouth to say swap, the manager told us that they had no inventory and wouldn’t be able to swap. Thankfully we had a new booking for a full-size SUV for a higher price, So we told them if we cancel the booking that will free up their inventory and they could give us that car as a swap but instead, she said we can get the car for a higher cost and return in vegas and get another car to san Diego. It was ridiculous, but by the time we reached the airport car rental, it was 12.00 pm and my second one Saathu was hungry and started to get cranky so by 1.30 we agreed that we will get the expensive car but with a request of drop off location to be San Diego and that’s when the manager told she has no say in that and went to fetch the booking manager for the swap. We were pissed, we had been talking to this female for over 1.30 hours and she tells us that she has no say and we had no idea of why she haggled us for so long. But once the booking manager came, she listened to our problem very quietly and swapped us with Minivan (as she had No Full-size Suv available) with no extra cost. We were happy we didn’t have to uninstall the car seat every single time we needed to stop and happy with our swap thanked her and left.

The day was completely ruined as we left the airport only by 3.30 pm in the evening. But we continued with our plan to visit the Valley of Fire State Park.

Seven Magic Mountain

But before we went to Vegas International Airport, we went to visit the “Seven Magic Mountain” art installation by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone. It is a large-scale site-specific public art installation located near Jean Dry Lake and Interstate 15, approximately ten miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada and it is Comprised of seven towers of colorful, stacked boulders standing more than thirty feet high in the desert. <check out pictures below>

Valley of Fire

It’s an hour drive from Las Vegas via I 15 N and then once you take Exit 75 and travel for 20 mins in the valley of Fire Highway to reach the west entrance. The valley of Fire Highway is like a roller-coaster ride with lots of wavy ups and downs<check out the video below> and once we enter the park the view was amazing with the red rock formation but as the name suggested it was on fire with 105 F at 4.30 in the evening.

Fee Information:

The price of admission to the park is $10 per car. Remember it’s a State Park, so you won’t be able to use the National park pass. If you are planning on camping, then the price of $20 per night for Nevada residents and $25 for Non-Nevada residents. But lucky for us, we went on June 12th which is “Discover Nevada State Parks Day” so its completely free for all visitors.

The Valley of Fire is a desert, so it is definitely not advisable to venture during the hottest hours of the day (My kid’s pediatrician specifically mentioned avoiding venturing out from 12 to 3 pm), especially during the summer months. It is highly recommended to bring a lot of water and suitable clothing for hiking. It is also strictly forbidden to stray from the marked paths and to climb up the rocks. Visitor Center is available for any inquiries.

The Beehives

It was right off the road, we can park and take a walk to view the beehive-looking rock formation and you can also walk up top to get a panoramic view.

So when we reached there I saw an array of exotic cars parked and the guys were taking pictures. By the time we got down, they started wrapping up and leave. But I was lucky to capture a photo of the entire array here.

Also, I and my mum-in-law was playing the “what do you see” game on rock formation across the park. It was too much fun. The below rock looked like a Tortoise to us. Can you see it?

The Elephant Rock

This was our second spot and it is located right at the east entrance to the park. It’s a short hike of 0.3 miles to the elephant look-alike rock formation. By the time we got there, we couldn’t locate it and we thought it collapsed but after a 5 member search party for 5 mins, Raju found the elephant rock!!!

Final Stop for the day – Fire wave trail

It’s a short hike of 0.75 miles to reach the fire wave. It’s a marked hike with the poles and once you get there, it obvious with all the wave rock formation. How water plays a big role in sculpting the landscape is just mesmerizing. Once we reached and took our picture, Saathu started to get cranky due to severe heat and exhaustion and he wanted dad to carry him. So we had to swap the kids in the middle of hiking and then we hiked back to the car. By the time we reached the car, everyone was exhausted due to severe heat. It was 6.30 in the evening and this trail is supposedly beautiful in the evening light, yet the temperature didn’t drop below 105 F. So we ended our day here so that we will have energy for the rest of the week’s trip.

We weren’t supposed to end the day here, we had a couple more viewpoints and hikes planned but with the hot weather of 105F and after a hike of 1.5 miles to reach the fire wave. We were all exhausted and the kids were too dehydrated and weak to look so we decided to cancel the rest of the plan and took off early to our Airbnb.

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Our Plan Link below:

https://goo.gl/maps/ZYknWCFvrnenvAVW6