Ringstad Ramblings: Red Rock Canyon

Today we started off with a timeshare meeting and we ended up buying some more points. They are starting a new program with our timeshare called Time and Leisure. It opens up a lot more sites for us to go for, we can book air BnBs, hotels and other timeshares with our points. We can also use our points to pay down some of the maintenance fees which will make it much cheaper. We can also use our points to buy other vacation spots like Disneyland and RV parks. It also gives us the option to sell the timeshare back after 10 years, which we didn’t have that option before. So we are hoping that it will be easier for us in the long run.

After the presentation we headed for lunch and then went to an Antique Mall, it was probably over 20,000 square feet, there were probably over 400 vendors with little booths. It was a little overwhelming but lots of interesting stuff. Brenda found a really neat picture, it was a silhouette of a couple with a tree and a scenery background, the cool part is it had a bubble glass over it so it looked three dimensional. This was an $15,000 sculpture of an horse head that someone welded together. It was a little too big to fit in the truck to bring home

After that we headed to one of the factory outlet stores. Len and I got some new sketchers and I found a bathing suit top for $10. I brought a bathing suit with me but packed two bottoms and no top, so now I can go to the hot tub.

We then went the the MGM Grand to get our tickets to see KA, this was the free gift we got for going to the Timeshare presentation. We are looking forward to seeing it on Saturday.

The next stop was Red Rock Canyon, it is a national park on the west side of Vegas. They have a 13 mile scenic one way loop that you drive around the park. There are numerous pullouts to take pictures and explore some trails. It took us about 2 hours to complete the loop. The scenery is amazing. This is the first site that you see on the look it is the Red Spring Calico Basin.

So the reason that the rocks are red is because 180 million years ago, Red Rock Canyon was very dry and covered in giant sand dunes. Theses shifting sands eventually cemented into sandstone rock. Initially each sand grain was coated in an iron-rich mineral Hematite . When exposed to air and water, it turned the rock red like rust on an old pipe. Other iron bearing minerals cause the different colours that you see now.