There's more to Southern Nevada than just Las Vegas so I left the town eastbound to explore Valley of Fire State Park. The park features amazing rock formations all bright red colored. The park is not too big, and when I drove down a small valley that starts at the visitor center, I learned that one section of the park was closed to the public, which reduced the areas to visit even further. So, after about 90 minutes, I had seen it all and left the park to head back to Las Vegas.

After returning to the city, I spent the rest of the day exploring Las Vegas Boulevard, also known as The Strip. Even though I had been here before, there were a lot of new things to see since many of the casinos had not existed in 1995, the time of my last visit.

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Las Vegas NV - Rachel NV - Tonopah NV Travel distance 337 miles Map

First thing this morning, I replaced the car that took me all the way from Phoenix thru Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado to Las Vegas, Nevada with a vehicle that was more suitable for Nevada's backcountry roads - and, of course, Death Valley which was waiting for me.

Then, it was time to leave this glamorous town. Today's first stop was Rachel, the town that's nearest to the top secret Air Force base known as Area 51. First, I visited the Area 51 research center founded by Glenn Campbell. The center is a private clearinghouse for information about Area 51, government secrecy, the paranormal, certain UFO claims and tourist information on the southern Nevada area. I had a very interesting conversation with Don Emory who now runs the Rachel branch of the center (Glenn has moved to Las Vegas where he runs the online-bookstore full time). Since it was just about lunch time when I left the research center, I went to the Little A'Le'Inn restaurant down the road. Although this place also offers information about the sometimes strange things taking place in the area, it's much more tourist oriented. According to the owners, Joe and Pat Travis, extraterrestrial space ships can be seen quite often around here. But then again, a few UFO sightings on a more or less regular basis are always good for business, aren't they? From my point of view, the Area 51 research center provides much more reliable information when it comes to the secret base and what's going on there. Anyway, the steak sandwich I had was really tasty and certainly good value for money.

Now that I had visited the two places that everyone who's interested in Area 51 talks about, I had, of course, to see the famous Black Mailbox. (which is actually white) and, of course, drive down Groom Lake Road, the access road to Area 51.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful (yes, I carefully avoided to trespass to the air force base). I just drove to Tonopah to spend the night.

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Tonopah NV - Beatty NV Travel distance 298 miles Map

Highway 95 from Tonopah to Beatty is a rather boring stretch of road across the Nevada desert. Since there are no tourist attractions that might induce the traveler to interrupt the journey, I drove non-stop to Beatty where I arrived just before noon. The motel where we had stayed back in 1995 had numerous vacant rooms available, so finding accommodation was literally just a matter of minutes, which left plenty of time to do some housekeeping.

As Beatty offers not much attractions for the visitor, I left the town for a trip to Titus Canyon, a back country route to Death Valley National Park. It's an attractive alternative to Highway 374, provided that you're equipped with a high clearance vehicle. The road, which turns into a track at some places, was quite bumpy but not too difficult to drive, and so I made it safely to Stove Pipe Wells. After a short break I returned to Beatty, this time using the paved road (I had no choice since Titus Canyon Road is the probably most remote one-way street in the USA).

Since I had done Titus Canyon Road yesterday, I took the most common route from Beatty to Death Valley - Highway 374. After a short stop at the Visitor Center in Furnace Creek, I spent the day visiting the National Park's numerous attractions.

Due to the long distances in between Death Valley's numerous attractions, there is simply no way to cover them all in one day. So I spent today's morning to visit some of the places I had not been able to see yesterday, starting with Johnson Canyon, one of the park's remote areas accessible only to high-clearance 4WD vehicles (well, I had to take full advantage of that expensive Grand Cherokee I had rented). Today's tour also included, among other sites, the probably most popular attractions of Death Valley, Dante's View (5,475 ft / 1669 m), Badwater (- 280 ft / - 85 m) and the Devil's Golf Course near Badwater.

Since there was not enough time left to make it all the way to Las Vegas, I stopped at Pahrump, located approximately half way between Death Valley and When I finally left Death Valley, Las Vegas, where I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my tent and washing the car.

Today's return to Las Vegas concluded my round-trip thru southern Nevada and eastern California. Back on the Strip, I visited several Casinos I hadn't seen yet. Even if you're not into gambling, each of them offers a variety of attractions.