This month we are introducing a series of travel logs written by the BeemerChef who, with his dog Spirit, is taking a trip through the American Southwest on his side-car equipped Beemer. His full rig is a camper with a trailer to move the motorcycle from one camping site to the next. Once they arrive at a new campsite, Ara and Spirit explore the area on their Beemer. Part of Ara's equipment is a satellite dish that allows him to update his travel logs on the Internet from all over the southwest.

We start this travel log series with Ara’s visit to the Valley of Fire, about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas, NV.

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Here in Valley of Fire. I kept thinking better and better camera… but none are going to translate the beauty of these rocks, the shapes, the images. My eyes are literally tired looking for Mother Nature’s offerings!… and I hope to be here a while… At the same I am thinking… well, no where else is going to have these colors!… these shapes… what will I look at!!!… and then I wizen up… this country… in red or green or even brown has so much to look at… as long as we look… seeing is never enough!

We were planning to go to town today, food, yes, more tie downs for the Dish… internet stuff… but it is windy and very cold out there still, maybe by mid day it will warm up, not a cloud in the sky however and for the first time I am really, truly, looking forward to warmer weathers… I know it will be here soon…

We hiked a lot yesterday, Spirit loves it… he is starting to snort (???) when walking now, the scents must be so strong that his nose is on the ground following an imaginary line right and left…

And suddenly he will stop like a pointer, his nose trembling, nostrils in motion and ears up… a bird… a little Desert mice… most of the time I don’t see a thing but I started stopping and… pointing like him and there we stand still for minutes at the time listening to the, for me, silence.

I am starting to find it therapeutic… a form of total meditation. Am I learning from him?

Our first stop, close by the campground is the Natural Arch… I thought instead of explaining… which might be a poor translation of the reality, I would just post the writings from the Park!

There are many Arches around here… there are many of everything around here! It just does not stop… The truth? I would love to live here!!! Oh!… I can just imagine spending life here in isolation only interrupted by friends visiting and all the wildlife around!

Next we went on the Atlatl rock… again I am posting the board, very interesting… I am not posting some of the pictures as I know it will upset you as much as it got me very troubled. Much GRAFFITI on top of it all… and you don’t want to even know what has been written as I do not use that kind of language… Oh!… We have seen it on trains, walls, elevators… you name it… but here??? Where is the respect and to begin with, what are these people even doing HERE? Why would they climb a huge rock to mark their presence with ignorant and disrespectful language spoiling the heritage that was left behind!!! I guess I better let it go… it will be pages and pages about the outcome of our society otherwise… and we all know where that will lead. Very disturbing!

Many figures here… The dog has made the front page of Times magazine…

This silhouette… night time and day time reminds me of a bird…

And I love the shelters we went to sit in for a while, not without feeling past presence… was there any cooking under the cliffs?… most likely… It must have been so awesome.

Even Spirit likes the shelters… do you know that this dog poses now!!! First of all when we walk and I need to take a picture… well, he knows it and stands still! Next I ask him to go in the hole and he just goes in and stands… waiting for the picture till I tell him when we are done! I said it before and I will say it again… Spirit ROCKS!!! I could not see my life without him…

What else can I tell you?… We are reserving the campsite two nights at the time… I guess I will have to renew it again tomorrow as I want to ride the road though the National Park… 50 miles each way with a picture every hundred feet or less! Everyone is very nice here, the Rangers are awesome and Ranger Mark rides a BMW too… looking right now for an older Airhead!

This is a Treasure of America… could it be a forgotten natural wonder? The first Park in the State of Nevada… and me, feeling so ignorant that I had, like many others truly, never heard of it!

I still remember just a few days ago going… “Valley of Fire… what?”. I hope that this Blog awakens your own curiosity… sometimes I wish someone else had written it in the past and I had read it myself!!! And then again… where would be the fun for me to discover these treasures!

This is MY find.. I think it is.. I will check with the Rangers today. What are the chances to have two skulls reversed… one being its mold… here, and the other in Joshua Tree, 300 miles away!!! What do you think?… That was my first thought… The pictures says it all!

On with the day and the ride… and my tired eyes!!!

Be well..

Ara and Spirit
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