Margo Bartlett Pesek writes about day trips from Las Vegas and information about the surrounding areas. Her column appears Sunday in Travel/Living.
Holiday train excursions create memories families hold dear for years to come. Southern Nevada families seeking special holiday experiences find possibilities of traveling with Santa aboard vintage Nevada trains in Boulder City, Ely and Carson City, as well as in Northern Arizona at Williams and Cottonwood. Tickets go fast for the holiday train rides, so act soon.
Occupying a little bluff outside Overton, the Lost City Museum, Pueblo Grande de Nevada, interprets thousands of years of cultural heritage along the Muddy River in northeastern Clark County. Inside, the facility protects a treasury of artifacts spanning 10,000 years of human activity in the river valley. Outside, it re-creates the kind of multi-unit village developed by farmers of prehistory populating areas with water resources in the desert Southwest.
Across the nation this month, Native American history and culture receive special recognition and remembrance. President Bush recently declared November as National American Indian Heritage Month. Additionally, federal officialdom designated the day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 28, as Native American Heritage Day. Thereafter, governors of many states, including Nevada, gave their stamp of approval to the 2008 observations.
The Death Valley 49ers Days annually ushers in the peak visitation season in Death Valley National Park. Winding up today, this early November celebration draws hundreds of visitors, filing campgrounds, restaurants, park hostelries and accommodations in surrounding communities. As scores of recreational vehicles and other transportation depart following the festivities, regular visitors find park facilities back to normal and far less crowded.
Special events jam November calendars, luring Southern Nevadans outdoors to enjoy the bright, balmy days of autumn on the desert. Next weekend, for instance, activities deserving notice include art festivals in Logandale and Boulder City, a Mountain Man Rendezvous in Red Rock and a Native American powwow in Las Vegas. So many events; so little time.
Typically balmy autumn days in the Southwest invite vacationing Southern Nevadans to explore scenic and historic regions such as the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Among the many treasures of the past preserved in state and national parks and monuments in that region, hautingly beautiful Hovenweep National Monument stands out.
Beatty annually celebrates its colorful history during Beatty Days, slated to coincide with the upcoming statewide three-day holiday for Nevada Day, Oct. 31-Nov. 2. The little town 115 miles from Las Vegas on U.S. 95 schedules family-style events and entertainment reminiscent of celebrations during Beatty’s early years more than a century ago.
Nevada celebrates 144 years of statehood on Oct. 31, turning Halloween into a three-day birthday party. Although Nevada Day events occur all over the state, no town commemorates the Silver State’s big day like Carson City. Nevada’s capital city schedules the largest parade and more auxiliary events than visitors can possibly cram into the busy weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 2.
The return of cooler months to the desert invites exploration of the sprawling Mojave National Preserve just over the Nevada border in Southern California.
Pipe Spring National Monument in Northwestern Arizona near the Utah border remains one of the Southwest’s least-known historical gems. Seldom crowded, the 40-acre tract at Pipe Spring surrounded by reservation lands belonging to the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians hosts about 55,000 visitors a year. Those who pause to visit enjoy a journey into the past in a picturesque setting.
Few areas within easy reach of Southern Nevadans offer better displays of autumn’s colored foliage than Southern Utah’s high plateaus forested with dark fir, spruce and pine. Accessible within a half-day’s drive, these tablelands in the fall feature wide amber meadows starred with late summer wildflowers that vie for admiration with stands of white-trunked aspens wearing foliage of gold and orange. Head for the high country soon to take in this natural extravaganza, for by mid-October the best of the high country color will be gone with the falling leaves and frost-blackened flower stalks.
Following Interstate 15 and U.S. 3 north from Las Vegas into Lincoln County, travelers take a trip back in time. The sparsely populated region still relies upon agriculture, ranching, a bit of mining, some railroading and federal and state agency employment. Increasingly, the county aims for tourist income, but just a few of the millions who annually visit Nevada ever get there. Their loss, for Lincoln County offers varied recreational opportunities, wonderful Great Basin scenery and historic towns like little Panaca.
Hidden away in remote locations across the Silver State stand beehive-shaped monuments to Nevada’s mining past. These conical stone or brick structures were ovens that reduced firewood to charcoal used in smelters to remove precious metals from ore. At the height of their use in the late 1800s, the charcoal ovens contributed to the denuding of forests on mountain ranges in Central and Eastern Nevada.
Spotting wildlife remains one of the joys of traveling America’s roads and highways. Of course careful drivers scan the roadsides to avoid disasters of making roadkill of wild things, while youngsters in the vehicle make a game of listing species seen. They note the surprising variety of creatures of the woods, meadows, desert, mountains and waterways of our diverse landscapes, perhaps the only opportunities they have to see such creatures outside of city zoos.
Stripped of roofs, windows and doors, stark adobe ruins remain of buildings that once comprised Nevada’s first military installation. Strife between native Paiutes and white settlers in 1860 resulted in the establishment of Fort Churchill east of Carson City. Now preserved as Fort Churchill State Historic Park, the outpost saw nearly a decade of active use during turbulent times.
