Bowers Mansion, one of Nevada’s most famous residences, memorializes the first fabulous Comstock mining era that brought Nevada Territory to statehood during the Civil War.
Trip of the Week
Margo Bartlett Pesek writes about day trips from Las Vegas and information about the surrounding areas. Her column appears Sunday in Travel/Living.
Big Bend of the Colorado State Recreation Area, the newest addition to Nevada’s state park system, nestles in the southern tip of the state adjacent to Laughlin.
Nevada Basques annually honor their heritage during two summer festivals. The two-day Winnemucca Basque Festival gets underway Saturday at the convention center.
The Mojave Desert contains extensive areas of mountainous sand dunes. Early travelers tried to avoid the sand, but today the sands attract many modern travelers, some for their sheer beauty, others for their recreational opportunities.
Southern Nevadans seeking nearby outings on short winter days cannot go wrong with Lake Mead’s Northshore Road. This 62-mile scenic drive within Lake Mead National Recreation Area offers sweeping views of the lake, colorful desert panoramas and rugged mountains.
The Verde Canyon Railroad provides a scenic adventure through spectacular canyons in a wilderness area along the Verde River near Sedona, Ariz.
Retracing historic Route 66 is an iconic road trip, variously scenic, nostalgic and quirky.
Recognized as one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in North America, Montezuma Castle in central Arizona annually draws about 350,000 visitors.
Nevada’s public lands hold a wealth of rock art left behind by native cultures that developed long before Europeans arrived in the New World. Exploring Nevada’s rock art sites offers glimpses of the past and intriguing clues about ancient history.
The Hualapai Mountains near Kingman, Ariz., offer year-round recreational opportunities in a high forested setting. Campers, picnickers, hikers, mountain bikers, ATV riders and horsemen pursue their favorite activities in this pine-scented getaway surrounded by desert. They find cooler temperatures in summer, colorful foliage in autumn, snowy landscapes in winter and wildflowers in spring.
Proud of its history, the Nevada town of Mesquite invites visitors to get acquainted with the border town’s past, starting with a visit to its diminutive museum at 35 Mesquite Blvd. Housed in a flat-roofed rock building erected to serve as a library during 1939-41, the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum contains remnants of its past dating back to original settlement by Mormon colonists in the early 1880s. The single-storied museum, later turned into a hospital, was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
Unique among local recreation sites, the Old Spanish Trail Park focuses upon the early history of the Las Vegas Valley when it was a major stop along the historic overland route connecting settlements in Spanish New Mexico and California. The 2,700-mile Old Spanish Trail received deserved recognition with its 2002 listing as a National Historic Trail.