Frommer's Las Vegas 2004

picture it as a wooded resort. The rooms are pleasant, with wood-paneled ceilings
and walls of white-painted brick or rough-hewn pine. All offer full private
bathrooms. There is a suite with three rooms and a small kitchen, which might
be good for families staying a few days. (There are plans to add a second suite.)
The pool is rudimentary, but you might want to relax with a good book in one
of the gazebos on the property. About 1 ⁄2-mile down the road is the marina,
where you can while away a few hours over cocktails on a lakeside patio. The
marina (the Lake Mead Resort and Marina) is the headquarters for boating, fishing,
and watersports; it also houses a large shop (see marina details above, under
“Boating & Fishing”).
There’s a nautically themed restaurant called Tale of the Whale (& 702/293-
3484) at the marina, its rough-hewn pine interior embellished with various
seafaring iconography. It’s open from 7am to 8pm Sunday to Thursday, and until
9pm Friday and Saturday (it closes an hour later during the summer). The restaurant
serves hearty breakfasts; sandwiches, salads, and burgers at lunch; and steakand-seafood
dinners. And Boulder Beach, also an easy walk from the lodge, has
waterfront picnic tables and barbecue grills.
322 Lakeshore Rd., Boulder City, NV 89005. & 800/752-9669 or 702/293-2074. www.lakemeadmarina.
com/lodge.html. 42 units. Apr–Oct $85 and up double; the rest of the year $70 and up double. Extra person $10.
Children under 5 stay free in parent’s room. Pets accepted, $10 per pet. DISC, MC, V. Amenities: Restaurant;
outdoor pool; watersports equipment; picnic area with barbecue pit. In room: A/C, TV w/basic cable.
2 Valley of Fire State Park
VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK 283
60 miles NE of Las Vegas
Most people visualize the desert as a vast expanse of undulating sands punctuated
by the occasional cactus or palm-fringed oasis. But the desert of America’s Southwest
bears little relation to this Lawrence of Arabia image. Stretching for hundreds
of miles around Las Vegas in every direction is a seemingly lifeless tundra of vivid
reddish earth, shaped by time, climate, and subterranean upheavals into majestic
canyons, cliffs, and ridges.
The 36,000-acre Valley of Fire State Park typifies the mountainous red
Mojave Desert. It derives its name from the brilliant sandstone formations that
were created 150 million years ago by a great shifting of sand and that continue
to be shaped by the geologic processes of wind and water erosion. These are rock
formations like you’ll never see anywhere else. There is nothing green, just fiery
flaming red rocks, swirling unrelieved as far as the eye can see. No wonder various
sci-fi movies have used this as a stand-in for another planet—it has a most
otherworldly look. The whole place is very mysterious, loaded with petroglyphs,
and totally inhospitable. It’s not hard to believe that for the Indians it was a
sacred place, where men came as a test of their manhood. It is a natural wonder
that must be seen to be appreciated.
Although it’s hard to imagine in the sweltering Nevada heat, for billions of
years these rocks were under hundreds of feet of ocean. This ocean floor began to
rise some 200 million years ago, and the waters became more and more shallow.
Eventually the sea made a complete retreat, leaving a muddy terrain traversed by
ever-diminishing streams. A great sandy desert covered much of the southwestern
part of the American continent until about 140 million years ago. Over eons,
winds, massive fault action, and water erosion sculpted fantastic formations of
sand and limestone. Oxidation of iron in the sands and mud—and the effect of
groundwater leaching the oxidized iron—turned the rocks the many hues of red,
pink, russet, lavender, and white that can be seen today. Logs of ancient forests