Outside Las Vegas: Mount Charleston & Red Rock Canyon

When we left Corn Creek, we drove up into the Mount Charleston area.  A road follows Lee Canyon up into the higher reaches of the mountain.  We were above 8,000 feet when we turned around due to some interesting weather ...

This was hail!  And the temperature plunged down to 40 degrees!  We were starting to get worried about dents in our rental car, so down the mountain we went.

On to the third destination of the day: Red Rock Canyon.  Here, the weather was a very nice 80 degrees.  This is a gorgeous little place, lots of stratigraphy!

 The main attraction is a loop road that leads to quite a few hiking opportunities in and around various rock formations.

Here's one of the denizens of the area, some kind of extra-pointy lizard. 

And every once in a while I remember my camera has a timer function when we're near something to sit it on :)

So we had a really nice day, with a 60 degree swing in weather to boot.  On the bird front, I was able to see white-throated swifts in Red Rock Canyon, which were another life bird for the trip!