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Our next stop was the Valley of Fire State Park. We have been here before and done all the listed tourist attractions. But Kirsten bought an e-guide on the internet that the Synnatschke's have written in English (Download here). They are professional photographers who we met in California two years ago and keep in contact with, swapping tips.
They spent a lot of time putting this e-guide together which lists a number of things to see that people wouldn't normally know about - including us. So we followed their plan to see various arches, a Crazy Dome which is great for photos and then the Fire Wave which is quite spectacular and Pink Canyon. We couldn't believe that these things aren't even listed at the visitor centre and that we had missed them the first time around.
Of course Kirsten was in photo heaven!
A couple of days later we went back for another full day. It was extremely hot and we ended up doing a 6 mile walk in the mid-day and early afternoon heat looking for arches in the guide. We had to do a bit of searching because, although the Synnatschke's give GPS locations, we do not have a hand held GPS. So some of the arches took a bit of searching but we found them all despite the heat.
In another area in the park there was Windstone Arch and because it is not easy to find Kirsten carried the lap top with Helen following behind carrying the GPS mouse so we could find it using the coordinates given. It was probably quite a sight! Oh well, all roads lead to Rome!
Then it was off to another area to do some exploring and found lots of formations and even another wave. Great fun and a big thank you to the Synnatschkes.
We stayed at the State Park camp ground for the night and Kirsten even managed to get a shot of one of the bats even though they are unbelievably fast.
