My day hike at the Valley of Fire would be hard to top. But I wanted to do one last perambulation through Overton, a town I've grown to really admire for, as a friend said, its "salt of the earth", unpretentious residents. After living for most of my life in the superficiality and freneticism that pervades LaLaLand, those are refreshingly fine qualities. And Overton just so happens to be a great base from which to explore the surrounding spectacular areas. I've mentioned in previous posts a bit of Overton's history -- how its names derives from "Over To Town; it became the main town of Moapa Valley when St. Thomas was inundated by the filling of Lake Mead; the Overton that we know today was settled by Mormons -- but it's the small-town atmosphere that visitors remember after they've left. Good ol' Main Street, USA...
And here is that Main Street -- Moapa Valley Blvd, which runs through the southern portion of the Moapa Valley. As you can tell, this is the busiest time of the day traffic-wise...
The Virgin Mountains looms over everything here. And in front of the Virgins is Mormon Mesa, with the "M" for Moapa visible up and down the valley. The M is maintained by Moapa Valley's high school senior class.
The Inside Scoop -- fresh sandwiches, soups, good filling breakfasts (ask for the breakfast burrito and go burn it off on a hike in the Valley of Fire) -- and free Wi-Fi. Oh, and Blue Bunny ice cream. It's a favorite eatery among locals and return visitors (like me).
The Red Rooster Bar, a familiar landmark in Overton. A friend who lives in town said its trademark red rooster was "missing in action", and expressed the hope that it will be back for my return next winter.
Sugar's Restaurant and Sports Memorabilia; they mostly serve good ol' comfort food in heaping portions. The owners are big fans of LA sports teams -- from left to right, Jeff Kemp of the Rams, and Maury Wills and Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers.
"Like us on Facebook" is what caught my eye here...The Front Porch, Flowers and Gifts, one of many small, locally-owned businesses in the Moapa Valley
The next photo is of the Valley Service Center. Back in 2014, "Eric" here diagnosed an ongoing issue I had with my first Toyota Tundra (which, you'll remember, was destroyed by a deer that cut in front of me on the road). I ordered the replacement part -- it was an oxygen sensor for the catalytic converter -- at the Napa Parts store across the street, picked it up at Napa a few days later, then went back over to Eric and the Valley Service Center to have it installed. He solved the problem that had baffled both a Toyota dealer and a highly-respected independent auto shop back in Los Angeles. Thanks, Eric!
Ah, Carley's...The best pizza place around. (Part of that may be because it's the ONLY pizza place around.) Though I was disappointed to hear that they discontinued their Tuesday's All You Can Eat Pizza Night. And they're getting ready for a move up the valley to a larger building; all they need are the permits. Try their half-Italian, half-Hawaiian pizza. It's de-lish!
This elk fellow in front of the Ace Hardware store along the main drag always caught my eye when I was driving down the street. That's quite a rack!
Mickey D's, one of 4 eateries in the lower Moapa Valley, the others being The Inside Scoop, Sugar's and Carley's in Overton, and Tiffany's Pie And Subs in Logandale, 5 miles up the road and home to the fall Pomegranate Festival and April's Clark County Fair. Before heading out for a morning hike I'd stop by MacDonald's for a sausage burrito combo meal --love those hash browns! -- and Fruit and Maple Oatmeal to go.
But it was time to head back home to Faranuf and Portal. And it was the first long drive for Discovery II; "she's" been at the RV park since I bought her in January 2015. We headed out of town south along Hwy 169, and I just had to take one more photo of the Virgin Mountains, with my home on wheels --
OK, maybe another...This time in front of the Bowl of Fire, along the Northshore Highway.
Here is the Northshore Hwy, running along the north shore (duh) of Lake Mead for about 50 miles. It's scenic, wide-open spaces here with very little traffic.
The bridge was built in 1966 and has one of the longest spans in the southwest. I think it actually adds something to the landscape -- unlike the power poles in front of it that I was always trying to keep out of the picture. There are only a few sections along this section of the creek bank where you can get a good look upstream; this wasn't one of them --
The next photo shows a more placid section of the creek, which at least during this time of the year is more like a river -- quite a sight to see in the classic desert saguaro landscape. So my first thought was -- where are the birds? This must be a wildlife magnet. I finally did see a few water birds --
But (of course) I only had my landscape lens with me. Though it was enough to ID them as a male Red-breasted Merganser with 2 females --
Then they got wind of my presence and took off down the creek, passing right in front of me. Darn, that would have been a good Merganser flight shot for my 500mm lens!
There were a few other birds around -- a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk flying among the cliffs, White-throated Swifts, a Pied-billed Grebe in the creek -- but I really wanted to get a good shot of the river, with the cliffs and bridge. But there was just too much dense shrubbery --
But what a combination of cottonwoods and saguaro. There was a good water flow, too, so I took a handheld shot at about 1/4th of a second to bring out the flow amongst the screening creekside vegetation --
Let's see, how to get that clear shot while standing on a small, slippery rock just at the edge of the water ---
And one of the venerable cottonwoods, set in the very scenic gorge --
I'd lucked out as the campground hosts said this place gets packed on the weekend; I was there on Thursday. Staying at Burro Creek was a nice transition to the desert southwest. And I felt like I deserved a good, substantial, healthy dinner for once. After all, why else did I bring the wok?
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