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| - I am thoroughly impressed by how remarkably beautiful and well-preserved the landscape is here. It makes me want to go for a long hike with a DSLR. My iPhone camera did not do this place justice. It's one of those places you have to see for yourself to understand the scope.
While you are here, you are going to be driving on an asphalt road with several points along the way where you can take a break, take in the arid Nevada air and scenery, and even have a picnic at one of the rest areas with tables and natural shade. You'll be here mostly to see the distant mountains and prehistoric and unusual rock formations, but if you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of some of the natural wildlife here to include hawks, tortoises, snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions. Maybe you wouldn't be so lucky if you see the last three, but still pretty cool. At the very least, you can expect to see some desert trees, cacti, and flowers, some of which have some f'd up names like Blue Dicks and Bastard Toadflax. Clearly the frontiersmen who discovered these had a sense of humor. Either way, understand that all this is in a conservation area, so please no touching and no littering!
Unfortunately I didn't get to see any animals on my trip back in August 2012, but I did take a picture of an awesome roadside indicating a tortoise crossing. The landscape was enough, too. Plan your trip right, and you can even go see some dinosaur footprints preserved in the rocks despite the many millions of years that has elapsed since this ancient land was swarming with those giants. This place is so majestic.
When you plan to come here, be sure you bring plenty of water both for drinking and hand-washing. The only good restroom here is across the parking lot from the visitor's center. After that point, the restrooms are few and far between, with no sink or other water source as far as I can recall. Use the website for more resources to plan your day. The weather went from really sunny with clear skies to cloudy and thunderous within the few hours I was here, so you might want to consider appropriate gear too, especially if you're thinking about hiking: http://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/
And remember, respect the land.
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