When I made reservations at the Valley of Fire State Park, I got so annoyed that I trimmed our stay from 3 days to 2. Welp, that was likely a bad choice, but we had a great time exploring this park while we were here.

The annoyance was largely that it felt that they kept adding on fees and charges for things that weren't optional. I first read that the camp sites are $10- great!, but there's the day use fees- per person, there's the out of state person surcharge, there's the taxes applied to the bill, So the $30 for 3 days turned out to be $85.

But we lucked into the most amazing, fantastic campsite! It was in its own little red rock amphitheater, with amazing formations, sunshine, shade structure with picnic table, water and trash cans. The neighbor said that we'd hear/see bighorn sheep in the evening and maybe a desert fox - right! What?!?! For real! The big horn are smart enough to turn on the water spigot, but not turn it off.

There's no describing the excitement of exploring the nooks and crannies of the sandstone erosion, only to find petroglyphs carved nearby.