A brutal flu followed by a wonderful break in the Las Vegas area. Coming back from being offline now.

Vegas is surrounded by some amazing landscapes. I took the shot pictured above at the Valley of Fire State Park, a short drive from where we were staying at the Aria Resort and Casino.

Here are a few images from the afternoon we spent at the Valley of Fire.

This one is just before the park entrance. If you look carefully, you can make out the road that curves in between the two mountains. The scale of the park is much different than you might expect in a desert. Over 40,000 acres of incredible terrain.

Immediately after you pay the entrance fee, you will come across this vista at the head of the old arrowhead trail. Depending on how the sun hits the rocks, they do project a pronounced reddish hue.

A bit further down the road is a short loop that highlights some of the rock formations in the park.

I would recommend parking your car on the side and talking a walk through this area. There you will find some very impressive landscapes.

We left that first loop and headed out to the White Domes area of the Valley of Fire State Park. We did not get quite that far. We stopped at a tourist overlook along the way and went in the opposite direction ignoring the warning sign.

This was our reward.

Valley of Fire State Park is a beautiful area to explore and highly recommended if you are in the Las Vegas area.