Well I made it

kind of sort of to the Desert National Wildlife Preserve. We started out headed to Lake Mead. I had heard there have been a great many sightings of Bald Eagles there recently. En route to the freeway I decided to try and find the Desert National Wildlife Preserve I had been reading about on the web. I should have printed directions......

We ended up driving about 1.5 hours or so. We did get to see the preserve but there was no way to enter it. The up side is that we got to go to the Pahranagat National Wildlife Preserve. It is located in the Pahranagat Valley which was a main stop over point along the Mormon Trail. Here is a map of the preserve:




Here is a picture from the preserve.

We did see some wildlife there. There were thousands of American Coots there and god only knows what other waterfowl. Below is the best bird shot I got. A raptor of some sort. I was un able to determine the exact kind, so if you recognize it, leave me a comment and fill me in.
It is a Red Tailed Hawk.


We also saw this little guy hanging out.

Again I was unable to figure out what it was. Bums me out!...A Horned Lark

On the plus side, we did decide to go to the E.T. Highway.



This road leads to Area 51. I've read that the fine for getting close to Area 51 is $600, and if you actually cross into it you can be shot on sight by the military....no questions asked. This is one of the places the military uses to build/test prototype aircraft. It is also the place where aliens are rumored to be stored by the U.S. government.

This is part of the E.T. Highway.


Note that they do not call it the E.T. Highway for nothing...as seen below:



We also saw some cows and horses:





Overall a good trip. I would rather go there a bit later in the year when the sun is up longer so we can see more.