Friday, June 11th, Valley of Fire State Park and Overton
Valley of Fire State Park, the first state park in Nevada - Another fantastic place to go (or so they say).
When I pulled into the parking area to pay my entrance fee to the park, I got out of the car and saw that I had a flat tire. Although it was early morning, the temperature was already around 90. It was hot. Opened the trunk of the car, pulled out the jack and donut spare tire and then tried to figure out what to do. A park employee came over and helped me decipher the instructions. It was hot. Jacked up the car, burned my hands taking off the lug nuts. It was hot. Put the spare on and lowered the car. Did I mention it was hot? I was filthy. The park employee let me wash up in one of the park facilities, but the dirt from the tire did not all come off. The nearest place to have the tire fixed was more than 20 miles away. It took a long time to get there because I did not want to drive quickly on the so-called spare. This wasn't too bad because it gave me a chance to observe the scenery – didn't do any stopping though. The park was named Valley of Fire because of its red rocks, similar to those I had seen the day before. I drove into the town of Overton and past the "landmark" store that would have pointed me to the tire dealer I had been told about. Along the way, I saw Loggerhead Shrike, Common Raven, and Turkey Vulture. I drove on, too far, and finally turned around and found a service station with a repair facility. It didn't take too long for the tire to be repaired. It did take me quite a while to figure out how to get the spare and jack back into the trunk in something like the correct manner.
Okay, I was in Overton. That was not too bad. I was planning on going to the Overton Wildlife Management Area after the park. In fact, the guide book had the park in a section called Overton. So I drove on to it. The guide book said that area near some Cottonwood trees was good for passerines. It wasn't. It also said that introduced (wildlife management areas are hunting areas) Wild Turkey might be found there and I did see one. At first, I entered it in AviSys, but have since decided to remove it since it is not on the checklist of Nevada birds. Drove on and came to about six Cattle Egrets in a tree. Passed some Mallards in the impoundments; also Great Blue Heron and Snowy and Great Egrets. This was rather nice.
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Saw a night-heron fly by. Was pretty sure that it was a Black-crowned but stopped to look in my books. Convinced myself that my identification was correct and then started to go.
Let me now quote from Southern Nevada Birds – A Seeker's Guide.
"...a maze of dirt roads, which may be impassable after heavy rain, winds through the WMA..."
Well, it had rained a week before, but not heavily, and the road had looked good. The tires spun, the car did not move. I got out and looked. The driver's front tire was in some mud; the passenger's a little deeper. I tried rocking the car by shifting back and forth between drive and reverse. The car only budged a little (and that was in a downward direction). Got out of the car and started looking for things to put under the tires. Then I noticed, several indentations in the road where other cars had spun their tires. Picked up some boards that someone had used. Tried those along with the floor mats from the car – no luck at all. Started trying to dig with one of the boards. Managed to get a splinter (which I could not get out until later that night with my handy Leatherman multipurpose tool) but no luck. What to do? 911 naturally. Fortunately I had my cell phone with me. I gave my location (the number of some of the hunting blinds) to the operator who said she would get some help to me. I sat in the car and waited. Thank heavens for air conditioning.
After a while, I figured that I might as well get some benefit from the wait and scanned the impoundments. Watched the egrets and American Coots for a while and then saw some American White Pelicans and Yellow-headed Blackbirds. Waited some more. It was now more than a half hour since I had asked for help. Finally, a car pulled up behind me. It was a man who worked for the WMA. He told me that the 911 people had called the Bureau of Land Management (even though I had told them it was not Federal Land) and they, in turn, had called him. He told me that one of his employees with a back hoe would be coming soon to pull me out. He said that he was considering closing the road since a number of cars had gotten stuck. I said my book had mentioned that the roads might be impassable after a heavy rain, but it didn't look like it had rained lately. He said that it hadn't but that the roads had been underwater for months and had still not dried out! He left and about 10 minutes later the back hoe arrived. The driver pulled out a long chain with a hook and looked for a place to attach it to the car. When he couldn't find a hook on the back end of the car, he said that he couldn't attach it himself. He suggested a place, but let me attach it just in case something went wrong. Then he told me to get in the car, release the brake, put it in neutral and steer. He didn't want me to do anything else. He started backing up, I felt the chain grow tighter, I started worrying about the part I attached it to breaking, the chain grew more taut, the car did not move! The sinking feeling (pun intended) that I had grew worse. The driver came back to the car and said that the car was in deeper than he thought so that it might be best if I put the car in reverse and give it some gas. He started the back hoe up again and slowly, very slowly the car moved backward. The driver refused a gratuity and stayed around to make sure that I got safely out of the area. I was filthy, hot, but relieved.
Decided that I did not want to see any other parts of the WMA, so proceeded to the main road. I was forced to brake abruptly when a Wild Turkey with a brood of young, started to cross the road. I pulled over and watched it a while. Then I drove on toward Bowman Reservoir in nearby Logandale. On the way, I saw a Western Meadowlark. There were not many birds in the water at the reservoir, but I did see Great Blue Heron, three Eared Grebes, and California Gull. Also, some American Coots, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe and Gambel's Quail. And, not falling off the edge of the impoundment into the reservoir was a definite plus.
I decided to stop off at a do-it-yourself carwash before going to the next place. I think that I may have been the only person to use it to only wash the underside of the car (didn't want the mud to cake on and have to explain it when I turned the car in). Then on to Overton Beach section of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Funny thing, the bird book gave directions there, but did not mention anything at all about birds. Maybe not so funny. I saw about four House Sparrows there and nothing else.
Finally on to Valley of Fire State Park
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Copyright © 1999 Richard L. Becker
