Mt Charleston-October 17, 2011

Never ask a local for directions. We asked the lady in the office who happens to live here for directions to Red Rock State Park. She sent us to Mt Charleston. I was really annoyed at first. Then I realized we were seeing some beautiful scenery. When we left here it was in the high 80s. We are at 2000 ft in elevation. When we reached the summit of Mt Charleston, it was 53° and 8500 ft high. What a view!! And what fabulous weather!! We stopped at a number of places to take pictures. But our favorite was at the top. There was an overlook of what was once a sea. It was so easy to visualize. In that 6500 ft climb in elevation the scenery changed dramatically several times. We started with Joshua trees and ended with them. In between there was almost everything you could name. There were some trees still in the process of changing colors. They almost glowed a very pretty shade of orange. We went through Summerlin, NV to get to our turn off. We could not believe the number of houses. Thousands of them, one after another, like dough squeezed out of a pastry bag onto a cookie sheet. We had no idea we would see that when we left here this morning. It's such a different world than what we see around here. On the way back we decided to stop and see the volcano erupt at the Mirage. We got there early enough to be right next to it. Not a good idea. I think we got our eyebrows singed! But it was beautiful and worth the stop. All in all we are glad the lady in the office sent us to the wrong place. We still don't know where we want to go next. Any suggestions?