December 26, 2020 – BOBBLE HEAD TRAVELERS

From our RV Home

Hello Everyone, Jodi and I want to wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Safe Holiday. We do hope you are all staying healthy and avoiding this horrible virus… We just want to update you all on our new Winter hosting adventure here at Desert National Wildlife Refuge outside of Las Vegas; Corn Creek, Nevada. We are about three weeks into our fun working here.

There are a lot of really beautiful and interesting sights in this refuge; many Joshua trees, cacti, and Yucca plants. Then when you get higher up at 6,000 ft. elevation you have many different types of trees, mainly pines that mix in with the Joshua trees. It’s unique and feels special. This Refuge we are working at is the Largest Wildlife Refuge in the contiguous United States. This Refuge has 1.6 million acres of land and contains six major mountain ranges, including the Sheep Range, Las Vegas Range and Desert Range, just to name a few. This Wildlife Refuge was created to protect a variety of species, but specifically to establish a protected habitat for Desert Bighorn Sheep. Desert National Wildlife Refuge is home to 320 bird species, 53 mammal species, 35 reptile species, four amphibian species, and over 700 plant species. Pretty impressive!!

Just a few of the Species… None of these are pictures that I took..

Some of our duties while here at the Refuge are to do trail maintenance, and setting up an information table outside so we can meet and greet visitors. Due to Covid the Visitor Center is closed but we try to answer questions at the table or while walking around the trails. A very important duty of ours is to take care of a Refugium (Refuge Aquarium) that holds about 100 to 200 Pahrump Poolfish. These fish are considered an endangered species that are found in only three other places in the world. Here at DNWR (Desert National Wildlife Refuge) NV, Spring Mountains State Park, NV and Shoshone Springs southeast of Ely, Nevada.

There are 5 walking trails less than a half mile each that surrounds the visitor Center. On these trails you see many birds and animals, and maybe at times even a Tortoise. There is a pond for the endangered Pahrump Poolfish, an orchard with all types of trees that a family, the (Richardson’s) planted back in the 1920s. They were Mormon ranchers. They planted Pomegranate, Walnut, Pecans, Peach and Apple trees among a few others.

While during our second week, Jodi and I had a chance to drive to the rough and bumpy backcountry roads of some of this refuge. Also very impressive! This vast landscape includes flora and fauna from both the Mojave Desert, as well as the Great Basin Desert. It was breath taking, and also very bumpy. We drove 25 miles to the only campground with 6 very nice primitive camp sites, that includes picnic tables, fire rings and a nice pad for a few tents at each site, with two pit toilets. There are a few spots about a mile or two on each road going into the Refuge for campers to dry camp. The rocky 25 mile trip took us an hour and a half one way. Did we mention it was very rough and bumpy? HAHA. A high clearance 4×4 vehicles is recommended for any travel to the backcountry of this Desert Refuge.

We are looking forward to heading to Washington State for our Summer hosting job at Federation Forest State Park, a day use park. It’s outside the town of Enumclaw, close to Mount Rainer. We are excited to check out that National Park.

We will be enjoying the couple of months here and learning more about the Refuges around Nevada. Near Death Valley is another Refuge called Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge, we did visit that refuge and it was a nice place full of interesting history. There are other endangered fish there that they call Amargosa Pupfish. The Pahrump Poolfish are here at Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the Dace Fish at Moapa Valley National Refuge. All 3 of these endangered fish are about 2 inches big, they’re NOT related to each other, and the only kind in the world.

While we are here we plan to check out Red Rock National Conservation Area, Moapa Valley National Refuge, Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Henderson Wetlands and the Hoover Dam. All right outside of Las Vegas. Valley of Fire is a very beautiful State Park that we visited last year, and that is a must place to visit. That is another place to see Big Horn sheep. I took a few nice pictures two years ago. It’s not just all about the Las Vegas Strip, gambling and the bright lights… lots of other beautiful areas to see all around Vegas.