Travel Stuff: life in the desert

So I've been back from New Zealand for 3 weeks now. It was a pretty fast transition to the desert tortoise job in the Mojave. Las Vegas is just as washed out and crazy as I was expecting, however I haven't really spent any time in the city itself. I've mostly been out in the desert during the week and taking off on the weekends. We've had a lot of training for the job, mostly because the tortoises are a federally protected species and so we have to know how to properly handle them. Apparently, in the past biologists have contributed to the spread of diseases between tortoises, oops. We also got wilderness first aid training, which was really nice. It was stuff that I really should know, being in the backcountry so much.
Not having spend a lot of time in this part of the country, I wasn't sure what to expect. When most people think of the desert they think of a barren wasteland. I'd spent a lot of time in the Sonoran desert in Arizona, but I'd never been to the Mojave, which is a lot hotter and drier than the Sonoran. Luckily this time of year is much cooler than it gets in the summer. There is actually an incredible amount of cool places to go hiking, birding, and other outdoorsy things in the area. One big advantage the Southwest has to the Pacific Northwest is the amazing diversity of reptiles It's been really fun to learn new species that I haven't seen before. Some really cool new species of birds as well. Red Rocks is an amazing recreation area only a 10 minute drive from my front door. It's one of the best climbing areas in the country. There is more to Vegas than casinos!!!
Last weekend I went to Death Valley to explore. My co-worker Andrew and I barely scratched the surface of stuff to see in a short weekend but I was pretty blown away by the amount of slot canyons to explore, dry washes to hike up, and all the colored rock formations present. Death Valley used to be the bottom of an enormous lake, and eventually all of the various earth layers got all mixed up and pushed around and the result is really cool rock.
I only have 3 and a half more weeks until I head to my summer job in Yosemite and I'd really like to explore this area as much as I can while I'm here. I plan on using every second of my weekend time seeing cool outdoor stuff. Except for when Emily comes to visit in a couple weeks and we do tons of kitschy Vegas stuff like mini-golf and Guinness World Records museums, etc.