Lincoln County, Nevada: Stargazing and Dark Sky Preservation at Spring Valley State Park

Marcia Hurd and Dawn Andone - Lincoln County NV - Audio

Howard Fox: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is Howard Fox and welcome back for another episode of the Outdoor Adventure Series, the podcast that celebrates individuals and families, businesses and organizations that seek out and promote the exploration, stewardship, conservation.

Access and enjoyment of the outdoors. Marsha Herd and Dawn Andon, our our guests today. Marsha is the executive director for the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism in Nevada, and Dawn is an interpretive ranger with the Nevada State Parks.

And I'm excited today for this chat with Marsha and Dawn because they're going. Chat about their Dark Sky Preservation and Awareness Initiative, and this is a process that they are undertaking to get Spring Valley State Park here in Nevada designated as an official [00:01:00] international dark Sky Park. I am excited and I'm excited.

Marsha and Donna have you on a podcast.

Welcome.

 Dawn Andone: Thank you.

Marcia Hurd: Thanks Howard. Like your background that you've chosen for today, it's perfect for this discussion.

Howard Fox: I, I thank you so

much. I, I was chatting with, with Don before you had arrived that I have a, it's funny, next week I have, Francisco Silva.

 talking about, the Las Vegas Astronomical Society, and I just figured you both probably know Francisco because of the, the dark skies and the events that take place up oftentimes in Lincoln County.

 And so it's wonderful to, to hear about this initiative. That you are all involved with. And so what I'd love first is just to get to know a little bit more about each of you. Marsha, I'll start with you as the executive director, uh, for the Lincoln County, uh, authority of tourism.

Tell us a little bit about your job and a little bit about, uh, just this involvement in this initiative.[00:02:00]

Unknown: That's, uh, my job is wearing multiple hats and so of that, doing grants and grant writing. the Nevada Department of Outdoor Recreation and did an infrastructure grant for encouraging for dark skies and what have you. We definitely jumped on that bandwagon because we have a lot of designated dark sky viewing areas here.

So, but as far as our organization, we are a nonprofit organization that promotes tourism, and we do that through marketing. And advertising primarily. Then we maintain the websites. We encourage events, support events. So that's, that's our job as Lincoln County Authority of Tourism. We are not part of the county.

We are independent.

Howard Fox: Okay. Very good. And Don, share a little bit about, uh, your background.

 Dawn Andone: Well,

Unknown: I have been with Parks. Here in Lincoln County for over 16 years, and my [00:03:00] job as an interpretive ranger is to basically interpret nature and to help with these different kinds of initiatives that we do, take people on, programs set up, um, events such as the, uh, Las Vegas Astronomical Society. They come here twice a year actually to Cathedral Gorge State Park in Lincoln County.

And so I work with them to set up their events, one in the spring and one in the fall. So those are the kinds of things that I do. But our region actually runs from Cal E in Lincoln County all the way up to the Idaho border.

Howard Fox: Oh really?

Unknown: yeah, it's big region. But within Lincoln County, that's where most of our parks are.

We have six of them right here in the county.

Howard Fox: I had not realized, uh, that you had so many parks and I'm excited. A little bit later we'll go into the website 'cause I have been. To, uh, cathedral Gorge and I had, I taken some photos that's, I think I was showing you my, my, uh, [00:04:00] background on my desktop. And then I spent, uh, a long, rather long evening in Echo Park doing a time lapse of the Milky Way.

And, uh, so I'm excited to go back and remind myself what that time lapse looked like. But this is very exciting. And, and I'm curious, Marsha, as you began to. Get interested in this initiative? What, how did this idea start to percolate from this? Ooh, look at, look at what they're doing, or this idea into something now you're actively involved with.

Marcia Hurd: Well, that's a good question. I think

Unknown: typically what happens is. I take for granted our dark skies out here. I mean, I can walk out on my back porch and see the Milky Way, and you get to talking to tourists who come through and they're like, oh, I can't believe these skies. And we're like, wow, we shouldn't keep this a secret.

So that's part of where this was motivated. And it's like [00:05:00] people don't even realize the depth of, The difference between the city night sky and the rural night sky, and we're lucky we are in a class of dark sky that is like the best where the state park is. I mean, the only thing that's better is to get out into

Marcia Hurd: outer space.

Howard Fox: Okay.

I think there's a, um, a measurement, and Don you probably know this, uh, it's like a bal bal scale, bal one through six, and I think it's, it's the lower number means the darker. I think that's the way it goes. So, what is what, like, for example, we're gonna talk about, uh, spring Valley State Park.

What, what is the bal scale for

the park?

Unknown: Yeah, so one is the darkest

Howard Fox: One, it's darkest.

Unknown: Spring Valley, which is the reason that we chose, one of the reasons that we chose that particular park is because Spring Valley's a two.

Howard Fox: Wow,

okay. So that's pretty darn [00:06:00] good. I mean, it's, enough said, I know how dark it is and it's fantastic up there. I have to ask though, uh, the photos behind you, these, uh, like came up on Canva or these photos that have been taken in your, in your dark skies.

 Dawn Andone: Yes, they're.

Howard Fox: Okay. Excellent. I love that. So this idea began to percolate and your inter, uh, don went, went. When Marsha, did Marsha come to you and say, Hey, I've got this idea, or we, we wanna do this. What do you think, how does this start to then get noticed inside the, the, the state of Nevada and, and the, the, the department that manages the, the state parks and the land. How do you then take this information and say, yes, this is something we want to get our, get our arms around as well?

Unknown: Well, I, I was really excited when Marsha brought it up because it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time now. Initially, when I first started here 16 years [00:07:00] ago, I thought maybe we could do it at at Cathedral Gorge. Unfortunately, the lighting even around Cathedral Gorge has gotten to a point where Spring Valley's even darker than it is here.

We're still very dark, but not quite as dark. So, we had, we looked around to see which one was, which park would would benefit the most, and that was Spring Valley. So then we have to go to the park ranger at that park. We have to talk to the regional manager, and then the regional manager will go to Carson City and talk to the director to make sure that everything's above board.

And of course, everybody was very excited because. The only other park is the only national park in the state is Great Basin, and they have been designated a dark skies park, but they're another two hours north of us.

Howard Fox: right.

Unknown: And so we're just three hours out of Las Vegas and you'd have to drive another two hours to get up there.

[00:08:00] So we have the advantage of being, uh, a lot closer to Vegas and to still have very dark skies here.

Howard Fox: That's

fantastic. Any, any way you could, you don't have to have that. Light dome is a good thing from coming from Vegas and I, and I love the fact too. From Las Vegas and, and I see this in some of the other communities, like down in Searchlight with a Quame, and then Boulder City is a dark sky, or I think they're, they either I have been designated or they're pursuing.

To become a dark sky community and they've gone through the steps to like have different, uh, lighting fixtures outside for the streets. But I love the fact that I can land or visit Las Vegas and every, and I, and I can go just three hours is nothing for a drive. I never realized how tall the state of Nevada was and how it's like this takes you a long time to get, even get up to say Reno or Carson City, but.

It, it, the, the, in the middle of the [00:09:00] state or three hours north is this wonderful community of, of people that live here, work there and enjoy Caliente posh. But then you have these wonderful parks nearby and it's like you could spend a, a, a large amount of time just enjoying the rural, rural Nevada.

These wonderful parks in a dark sky. And I just think that is totally amazing. Like, yeah, come to Vegas, but get in the car and drive north is, was what I usually, uh, will, will tell my, uh, my friends who are coming for a visit. So in addition to this initiative, and I wanna talk more about it. Are there other types of initiatives that both of you would be partnering with?

the, the lot, the, uh, in the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism and the, the parks. What are some of those other initiatives?

Marsha?

Marcia Hurd: Okay,

Unknown: so this is just the beginning. So in order to identify and to share the concept of dark sky. [00:10:00] We, we kind of picked on, let's get a certification. Let's, let's go for that. So we're, it's a big process and we're still in the application process, but from there we start working on the dark sky communities, dark sky awareness.

Even our little communities, if you pull us up on a, on a, a light pollution chart, you'll see that all of our little communities are blasting off a lot of blue light around them. So it's an education process, and I think this will be our next step, is to start educating our communities so that they can be more conscious of their lighting and hopefully start reducing that.

I, I would say that's our biggest next step, and I know that's one that the, the state of Nevada's very concentrated on with their Starry Skies

Marcia Hurd: program.

Howard Fox: Okay. And,

I, I, I'll love to hear a little bit more about that, Don, but one quick question. How long is this application process anticipated? Let's say everything goes as planned anticipatory. [00:11:00] What, how long is this, should this take, or would you like, do you anticipate it's going to take.

Unknown: Once we get the application in and, and you can't even submit the application until you've got Night Sky monitors up that are registering Night Sky quality, uh, for a certain period of time you need to do outreach programs and you've got a lot of checklists to go through. And once that's done and the application goes, and it's still gonna take us anywhere from two to six months for them to approve it.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Now, uh, a couple month or so, back when I was at Quame, I know at the end of the event they took folks out. That volunteer to go out and do the monitoring and the measurements. typically how, how many times, um, if you don't know this, I get it. I didn't, I promised you no gotcha questions, but you're an executive director, you're supposed to know this stuff. [00:12:00] A a as you go out and do the measurements, is it, so many measurements, uh, within this geographic area of the park that have to, uh, happen over a period of time.

Unknown: It's, they allow us to put it in like one location in the park, and then they literally do it nightly. And then we come and we pull those statistics down. The park Ranger comes in and he, he is got a little, uh, Bluetooth device that pulls that information down and we start keeping. Track of it. So it's, it doors it up and that's part of what we include with

Marcia Hurd: the application.

Howard Fox: Okay.

What are you doing right now to kind of help prepare, uh, for this, for this initiative? In addition to, attending meetings, but out with the community inside the park, how are you helping to facilitate, uh, this application process?

Unknown: Well, one of the things that Marsha [00:13:00] mentioned. Is the outreach. So we have to do a number of outreach programs, and since programs are what I do as my job, we have to explain to people why dark skies are important and why they're so important to keep them dark and how to do that. So we, I offer, and when Las Vegas Astronomical Society was here in September, we did a little program on, on all of that night.

Skies are important for your health, they're important for wildlife. how do you make sure that you keep your dark skies? Well, don't put lights where they're not needed. When you do have lights, make sure they're aimed downward. and then make sure that they're on motion detectors so the only time they're coming on is when they're actually needed.

So those types of things are part of what I do. To ensure that the public knows what is going on and why we're doing it. And that's what Marsha was saying. Kind of [00:14:00] our next step is probably going to be looking at how do we let the rest of the community know and hopefully bring them kind of into the fold to do these things.

Because when I said earlier that it's not as dark at Cathedral as it used to be, it's because some of the businesses around here don't have down lighting. And even if they just change their lights from lights that shine up into the sky to lights that shine down onto the ground when they're needed, that would go a long way to make it even darker here and in the communities.

Howard Fox: Okay,

now I, I'm curious and I am not a journalist by training. I'm a recovering IT business consultant, and my day job is I am a coach, but I do realize some folks. Don't want to be told what to do. It's my land, my business, I get to do what I want to do. I'm paying my taxes. How do you [00:15:00] and I, either or both of you get to chime in on this, how do you present this persuasive argument about, about why this is good for the residents?

Because I, I mean, if I'm in. A astronomy, enthusiasts, dark sky. I love getting out to the desert and just seeing the stars. I like to have a beverage while I'm doing that, preferably, but how do I, but it's an easy argument for me. I get it. I'll do whatever I can 'cause I want to go out and when my eyes adjust, there's the milky way.

But how do you, what are some of the. Opportunities you have or, or are thinking about, perhaps even this podcast could be of help to help the residents, the community understand why this is really good stuff for all of us. Don, why don't you chime in

first.

 Dawn Andone: I think

Unknown: one of the things, and I'm also part of LCAT as I'm, I'm the parks representative for [00:16:00] lcat. and so we try to do a lot of things through there. Also to have like public meetings, different types of programs where we bring the, we want the business people to buy into the different things that we're doing and.

I think for the most part in our community, we're pretty lucky because a lot of them are very cooperative. And now, don't get me wrong, there are some who are kind of, a little resistant to some things, but, but they understand the, uh, I think a lot of them understand the importance and they would definitely look at doing something different if they could help.

Howard Fox: Okay. Marsha, what's your take on this?

Marcia Hurd: Well. Of what we do is

Unknown: as, uh, linkee County Tourism is promote economic development through tourism so people understand when it we're talking about [00:17:00] their pocketbooks. So if we go into a business and we say, we, in order for us to encourage more tourism, we're gonna do this new dark sky thing and we'd like you to be on board with it.

Being on board with it, it translates to X, Y, and Z, which then gives you business. So, anything that we can do to increase tourism will help their businesses. And, and it's taken us quite a few years for them to really understand that. But I think we're, we're making great progress.

Marcia Hurd: We really are.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Marshall, what is some of the, the other initiatives that are going on within your purview to attract visitors? To the county and to your Caliente and the Poe and all the other communities to get interested in say, the dark sky experience itself. What are some of the, in addition to this initiative, what else are you [00:18:00] doing actively.

Marcia Hurd: Well,

Unknown: I, I think we could probably tag into the fact that we have, Lincoln County excursions that we've been putting together, and it's gonna be due like tour excursions and special events, and. And it's events that pull in, uh, people through an advertising campaign to just come up for our, a dark skies experience.

So we'll be selling that as an experience that they didn't know they could do. They don't know where to go particularly, or maybe they don't have the right camping gear or something. And we, uh, we can connect them with hotels and all the hospitality factors and make sure that they aren't out, out there freezing there.

Little fannies off in the middle of the, the night. So it's like, so we we're trying to be very conscious of our tourism packaging and uh, including dark skies is obviously just one of the pieces of the puzzle.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Very

good. on Facebook. This time of the year, I get [00:19:00] this, uh, Facebook, uh, post and I'm probably a part of the, their, uh, I think I'm, I'm on their search, i, I for some list for some reason. But they advertise this dark sky, n getaways where they have these little, four weather tents come out and camp.

You can have the tent and they have all this show, all this, uh, programming around to see the dark skies. And that's, as you were sharing that. That's what I was envisioning. 'cause I mean, I would love three hours away, nothing, just Friday, I'm out of here. I'm going to go drive up and stay a couple nights, see some dark sky and just relax and get away from work and just take advantage of the, uh, of the beauty of, of your area, plus the skies.

That's, that's fantastic. Dawn. earlier the, the idea of the starry sky. And, uh, programming WA was brought up. What? Tell us more about that.

 Dawn Andone: Well,

Unknown: What we're looking at doing. We have, like I [00:20:00] said, Las Vegas Astronomical Society here is here a couple times a year, and we always try to do programming around theirs. But now that we're trying to get Spring Valley to be a state park and we have other dark skies areas with in the county. We're going to expand that to be able to do a number of, of different things.

Just like you're talking about, take people out, have, have them there for a weekend. Take some telescopes. one of our other parks currently within the county, Kershaw R State Park, they do a program during the summertime, um, like once a once a month where you can come out on a Saturday and they have their telescope out.

So. It's just a number of different parts and different places where we're going to be able to allow people to look through telescopes, which is what we do when the Las Vegas Astronautical Society is here. They put their telescopes out and we invite the public to come learn about the stars and to be able to [00:21:00] look through a telescope and get them involved in, um, may maybe, they wanna buy a telescope themselves or maybe one of these new fancy, uh, picture takers that you were talking about earlier.

and so to get them involved in the community, involved in those types of things. And we also try, lots of times what happens is when Las Vegas Astronomical Society is here, we'll try to. Even engage them with like maybe a Boy Scout troop or something. They might be up here and then they will do a program specifically for them, or we'll, we'll put something together for, uh, that type of, uh, any type of group, whether it's Boy Scouts or, or whatever.

And then they can specifically have a telescope that they can look through and learn more about the

 Dawn Andone: stars.

Howard Fox: Excellent. Excellent.

I would love if we could, is to, I wanna share my, my screen. love if we could take a, a quick look. Say, uh, first at the, uh, Lincoln County Tourism [00:22:00] your website, and then Don, we'll go over to the Nevada State Parks website. Just do a quick tour. 'cause that way we can highlight some of the, the, the, the experiences that are available not only in the county itself, but also the Nevada State Parks.

So if you both are open to that, I'm gonna share my screen. Okay?

 Dawn Andone: Okay.

Howard Fox: All right. And hopefully technology will work. And let me just, so, okay, Marsha, I am gonna start with you.

All

right. So let me center this so I can see it. So, Marsha, take us on a little

tour.

Marcia Hurd: Okay, so what you've landed on

Unknown: here is you're actually within one of our categories called discovering.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Unknown: And it's, uh, and it's going to talk about the different state parks. And you're specifically on Spring Valley State Park,

Howard Fox: I didn't. Okay.

Unknown: [00:23:00] yeah. Yeah. So, and this one's going to spend a lot of time on, uh, the actual hours and fees and locations and details about the park and what to bring in, what you'll find there.

Howard Fox: Mm-hmm.

Unknown: How to get there. We're, we're very conscious of the fact that when you get out of the city, sometimes it's hard to find your way around. So we try to give you enough information to get you on the road so the know before you go and the events calendar. So these all link together and then we, we actually have some wonderful drone videos on it.

Howard Fox: I, I was watching this. This was pretty cool.

Unknown: And this is, this is just Instagram links from, uh, our Instagram posts. So we're very active with our social media marketing, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and, uh,

Howard Fox: And, and I, and I see you're oftentimes, you're promoting your biggest fan down here, the little

Marcia Hurd: Yes. Our little alien guy.

Howard Fox: Yeah. I love it. I

love it.

Unknown: He is our, he's our [00:24:00] character. We have a, a little couple, we still haven't named them yet. We keep talking about doing that. So on the, on the homepage here, you're going to get your most current upcoming events. There's our little guy again, and he's out camping. And then, uh, scenes from different events that we have around the area.

We're very active in mapping, so we have a lot of maps available for people. And we have, we're putting together all these self-guided tours. Uh, a lot of these links aren't, this is a brand new website. We just refreshed it and some of these links aren't up fully, but, uh, we will have. Literally self-guided tours all the way, uh, for each of the major communities and get you driving instructions on what you're gonna find and what's involved.

So.

Howard Fox: I have to say I am. Why I love this, uh, interview with you both today is I've been to Alamo, I've driven through Caliente. I stopped off and got a cup of coffee and took a picture of the train depot. I don't think I've been to [00:25:00] Panka, but I've certainly have. I stayed when we were doing Cathedral Gorge, uh, at the old hotel in in, in Posh.

So it's like, I've been

here, I've been here. I love that.

Marcia Hurd: So, and then this.

 Dawn Andone: did you get the haunted room in pooch?

Howard Fox: Yes. Yes,

I think I did.

Unknown: So that what this, this little screen right here with the Lincoln County excursions. So these are gonna be, um, we have three tours on online for this next cycle. One is an alien country tour where we're gonna. Kind of get you out where the aliens are and what have you. We're doing the rock Art tours and the Trilobytes, um, and, but these are the, we'll end up having dark skies tours on there as well.

And it, even though, Dawn, forgive me for this, we wanna do, um, we want our designation at Spring Valley State Park. We actually have several other locations viewing locations that are excellent. And if somebody wants a more. One on one personalized things we can take you out to. We [00:26:00] can send you out to BLM land and you can just do it on your own.

Howard Fox: I love it.

There's just so much to do in this area and, and it's just like, it's so accessible, which I, I love, I love this. before we head out to the, uh, to the state parks website, Marsha's, er, any o other highlight that you would like to call out here before we can.

Marcia Hurd: If you just scroll to the top, we do

Unknown: have under the events. button. We've got a complete calendar of events, and then we get into the cycling events to spring, summer, fall, winter.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Unknown: if you, you can jump on those and they're gonna give you, uh, different information. And it also talks about people who are from the city don't recognize sometimes some of the, requirements of being out in the middle of nowhere, like, for example, cell service and, um, ser any kind of food service, gas services.

Look, we've got some great stuff coming up. and probably our next one is the little town home charm. [00:27:00] Hometown charm of our little towns doing their Christmas stuff. But we also are a center for coming out and cutting your own Christmas tree. So we're

Marcia Hurd: gonna be promoting that soon. Yeah.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Very

cool. I have to, uh, share. I, I, it did not. I did not realize this, but I was looking at those, uh, those family or kids playing hockey on ice. I don't typically equate Nevada with ice.

Marcia Hurd: We don't always get it.

 Dawn Andone: That's true. Although we are cooler than we're cooler than Las Vegas.

Howard Fox: Oh God, I remember that when I was, 'cause I was up, I think it was during, when I was doing the dark sky. Stay over in Poosh. I was up there during like 4th of July weekend and you had your banners up all through the on Caliente and the By the, uh, the train depot. Well, this is very cool, and again, this is just a fantastic area and so much going on.

It's, and [00:28:00] I love that photo. There's the Milky Way. this is fantastic. And you do have a store, I imagine we can probably get, uh, some type of alien style souvenir. I lo there he is. Very cool.

Marcia Hurd: And we're restocking that, that's our old logo,

Howard Fox: Okay. Hey, when you get new t-shirts with the, with the, uh, alien three xl. Okay. Just remember that. Okay.

Howard wants a three xl. Okay. All right. So I am gonna shift over to Nevada State Parks. now hopefully this worked. Can you see, uh, don your page?

 Dawn Andone: Yeah. Yes,

Unknown: indeed. Yeah. So, Nevada State Parks has their own website. When you go on their website, uh, you can actually look for the park that you want to go visit. And as I said earlier, we have. Six state parks right here in Lincoln County. So if you're driving up from Vegas or you're coming over from Cedar or St.

George, Utah, uh, you have a lot to do, not [00:29:00] just within the state parks but outside state parks. But the state parks themselves offer, offer a lot. Cathedral Gorge is right there. You can see that one on the parks, uh, webpage. If you, uh, scroll down even further. Cave Lake is actually in our region, but that's up in Ely.

Howard Fox: Mm-hmm.

Unknown: And then if you keep going, echo Canyon, uh, Elgin Schoolhouse. Those are both here in Lincoln County. And then Kershaw, Ryan Kershaw, Ryan's down the canyon. Yeah, that's,

 Dawn Andone: that's did right in Kelly there.

Howard Fox: Right. Wow.

Unknown: And you can see some of the other ones in the different regions. We have three regions within the state.

Howard Fox: All right, so this

is what I'm gonna click on, right.

 Dawn Andone: Yep. That's the one Spring Valley right there.

Howard Fox: so I'm gonna click give a click. I love that photo. See, I need some new, uh, photos from my backgrounds. By the way, did I let, uh, share with you, Marcia, that we're gonna need a, a [00:30:00] whole bunch of photos for our show notes?

so you're in, you're in charge of that. That's my ask, but, uh, as long as there's at least one of the alien, everything else is your choice. But, oh. Oh, this is

very cool.

Unknown: On, on the individual park pages. You can find out more about the park. You can find out all, all the details, what you can do at Spring Valley, how to get there, the different things it offers, such as the campground, fishing, all the different things, the amenities. We have actually flush toilets there at in the campground.

We have some hookups in the campground. Some, some sites have both electric and water. So if you bring your RV up. You can get those water's off during the wintertime, but it's on during the summer. it tells you a little bit about our park fees. And then there you go. There's some photos, some different things throughout the year.

So there you go. There's your snow. Yeah.

Howard Fox: Oh, who knew I didn't. [00:31:00] All

Unknown: that other picture earlier was also taken at Spring Valley, the one you were talking about with Marsha

Howard Fox: Okay.

 Dawn Andone: other's website.

Howard Fox: Okay.

Well this is very cool. I love this.

Oh, there we go.

 Dawn Andone: I guess we don't have any of our dark sky photos up there yet. I'm gonna have to make sure they add some of those to the website.

Howard Fox: There you go. Just use me as a, Hey, I was on this podcast talking about dark skies, and we need a dark sky photo up here. I can send you one that I took, if you like. No.

 Dawn Andone: Oh, I'd love that. Absolutely.

Howard Fox: All right. This is very, I'm a, again, I am just. really, uh, i's, it's not amazement because I'm not surprised in, in and of itself, but it, it's that this is just so accessible, from down in, in, in Las Vegas visitors coming in for a conference and [00:32:00] before you go back, spend a couple days drive up north and just enjoy these communities.

And then you've got folks coming in from. from, uh, Utah. This is wonderful.

Unknown: Well, and it's a total easy drive from Vegas, right? I mean, all you do is get on the 15, take it to 93 and head North on 93. It's just a really easy

 Dawn Andone: drive.

Howard Fox: I am definitely gonna have to plan an event, plan something coming up just to get away. And it's gonna be in your community. I, I am gonna have to do this. Yeah. all right. I am going to stop sharing the screen. And we are back, uh, before we, head out today. And I do want to also just ask you both to repeat the website URLs and just mention the social sites.

But as you kind of look back on the work that you're doing. I'm curious about for each of you, what your, what I call [00:33:00] them your aha moments is when you kind of take a step back. It's been a long week, maybe you wanna sit back, put your feet up, go out to the park or whatever, have a nice meal. But you think about, wow, I get to do what I do for a living.

Don, what's your aha moment?

 Dawn Andone: well, moments

Unknown: every day I, every day I walk out and think. I can't believe that I get to spend my whole day in one of these parks. I mean, it, it is just, they're amazingly beautiful and the beauty of Lincoln County is something that I never get tired of.

Howard Fox: Okay. Very nice. I like that.

Marcia Hurd: I, I kind

Unknown: of already gave you my aha moment previously, but it's, it's when I walk out of my back porch and I can see the Milky Way, it's like, oh my goodness. And I, I kinda live in the middle of 40 acres, so I, I, I look out and I don't see my neighbors, and it's just, it's. Just so peaceful and quiet.

[00:34:00] That's the other thing you, you don't realize until you're out with those stars and you're just out there listening and watching and it's so quiet and that that's like, oh, I've found home.

Marcia Hurd: That's the way I feel about it.

Howard Fox: I love, I love that too. And, and it is like with the Podcasting Outdoor podcast, my coaching, I literally could do it anywhere and I, I would be kind of cool to have a home like yours to just sit outside, do my work, and then enjoy nature. That's all around me. I mean, I, I have a, I'm in a, a subdivision.

I've got lots of. airplanes flying over, we're on the flight path to North Vegas airport. But it's just, I mean there's nature around. I love going up to the, some of the, the more local parks in this area. the, the, what is the wildlife refuges is one right nearby. But this idea that, Lincoln County and all these parks that are accessible to you and marsh out your backyard is [00:35:00] just, it's got a feel.

It's got a wonderful feeling every day. I can only imagine. So. Thank you for that.

Marcia Hurd: every single one

Unknown: of our parks is unique. You, you don't go to the park. See the same thing. And I don't mean to put, grand Canyon down or anything, but you can go from spot to spot to lookout to lookout to lookout. And everyone's kind of like, okay, yeah, I, I see a difference in the rocks, but it's all very similar.

You go to each one of our state parks and they're all unique. They don't, they don't, they aren't similar to each other at all. So I, it's the blessing that we have. It's not boring here at

Marcia Hurd: all.

Howard Fox: I love that. that actually brings up a question. I oftentimes see a post on Facebook, folks coming in from Europe or some other part of the country. Yeah. I want to see the Big five, or I want to see the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. And yes, I want you to come to Boulder City 'cause I do work with Boulder City.

And see the Hoover [00:36:00] Dam and listen to the Best Dam podcast along the way, however. I, I think it'd be kind of cool just to do an RV tour of your parks. Just spend a couple nights here, explore, spend a couple nights here, explore. I imagine there's a map somewhere, and if there isn't, there probably should be.

There's my, that's another, that's a consulting give, give me to you guys, uh, is to have this map, spend your week in, in Lincoln County and visit each one of these parks. It's doable. I would've very doable.

 Dawn Andone: It is

Unknown: very doable and people do do it all the time. And we have people who come here. one year I had a whole bunch of people who came here from the Netherlands. And I was asking, I was like, well, how did you, oh, well my friend told me about it. So I decided to come and that, and it was to say like this, it snowballed one year where they, we just had all these people and they all knew each other and they all ended up here.

and, and it's an easy drive from Vegas. It's an easy [00:37:00] route to be on if you're doing national parks, because if you're going to. death Valley or you're coming up the other way, and going through Utah and coming around, we're on that loop completely. Fly into Vegas, loop around, do a bunch of national parks, and do all the state parks here in Lincoln County too.

Howard Fox: That is

fantastic. Well, I'm gonna, uh, as long as I am here in, in Nevada and I'm gonna make it one of my to-do lists to do something like that, I'm definitely gonna come up for a long weekend. I will do that. That's easy enough. now I am curious too, uh, before we head out today, another, uh, question I often ask my listeners or my guests is for an insight to go, this is something you would like to personally share with our listening audience about.

it could be a book, a quote, why The Dark Skies? Why the Initiative, why These Starry Skies program? But why should they come to Lincoln County and to, and to [00:38:00] the, uh, spring Valley, uh, state park and care about this initiative? Don, this is, I'm gonna tee this one up for you

first.

Unknown: I, as Marsha has said, and we have alluded to, our skies are gorgeous. It is, it is amazing. It is so relaxing to be able to come here and sit under the stars and maybe have a beverage and uh, just relax in the wintertime even is a great time to come here. And I love to just go out. I too can go out on my back porch and look up and see the Milky Way.

And in the wintertime when it's a little cool outside in the evenings. The stars are so incredibly bright. It looks like you just reach out and they're like diamonds. You can pull down from the sky, and I think everybody should be able to

 Dawn Andone: experience

Howard Fox: Okay.

I, I was just thinking as you were sharing that is I haven't planned my, uh, my break between, uh, Christmas and New Year, and [00:39:00] I think I now have, have the, the spark of a plan. Okay. All right. And I know I have two friends that have back porches that we can enjoy a beverage of choice, whatever that is.

I love that. I love that. Marsha, what would you, uh, like to share with our listeners for your insight to go.

Marcia Hurd: think the thing is, is

Unknown: it's magical to be able to do this, and you don't wanna miss the magic in your life. So if you can have that opportunity to hop in a car and just drive a couple hours and start getting immersed in something that is fresh and clean and enjoyable, I, I think we've got that for you.

And that's. Lincoln County is just more than night sky. We've got great daytime activities.

 Dawn Andone: It's true.

Unknown: One of the things we don't talk about, we haven't talked about is that Lincoln County is like 98% public land [00:40:00] managed. When you think of that, we have, our communities are very small. We have about 5,000 people in the entire county, and our county's over 10,000 square miles.

So for us that that moment is you get out here and you're gonna feel. Small and tiny,

 Dawn Andone: True.

Unknown: but then you can immerse yourself in that environment and that's,

Marcia Hurd: that's what you've gotta go for.

Howard Fox: I

love it. Well done to both of you. Well done. Now, uh, Marsha, before we head out, just a reminder for our listeners, where is the best place to go to learn more about. Lincoln County and the, the dark skies and all the other experiences that are

available.

Marcia Hurd: Easiest place to go is

Unknown: Lincoln County nevada.com, all spelled out. Lincoln county nevada.com.

Howard Fox: Excellent. And we also have your social sites. We'll have back links the website as well as to your social sites on our show notes. Dawn, how about yourself?

 Dawn Andone: [00:41:00] So you can

Unknown: learn all about Nevada State Parks at Parks Parks with

 Dawn Andone: an S

Unknown: dot NV for nevada.gov.

Howard Fox: Excellent. And, uh, are you guys, do you

folks have social sites as well, like Facebook

 Dawn Andone: Oh yeah, they're all on there. Those links would be available on the website. Yep.

Howard Fox: E. Excellent. So we'll, we'll have the, the, the URLs to the website. Perfect. Ladies, it has been a pleasure to have you, uh, on the podcast, and I am excited. Number one, that I have been to the. A lot of little towns in your area. I've seen the dark skies up there and I know I'm gonna be coming back for, for more.

So thank you so much to, to share about this initiative and really the, the jewel and experiences that, uh, are available up in, uh, Lincoln County and through the Nevada Park. So thank you both.

 Dawn Andone: Well, thank

Marcia Hurd: Thank you, Howard. We appreciate you.

 Dawn Andone: We do.

Howard Fox: Listen, stay in the line. We're gonna do a very quick close and then we can have a final chat. [00:42:00] Okay. All right folks, we have just been chatting with, uh, Marsha Hurt. She's the executive director for the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism, and Dawn Andon is the interpretive ranger with the Nevada State Parks and.

I, I don't know what, I can't really, I've, I've repeated this a number of times. If you're coming to Las Vegas, plan a couple extra days and get up to Lincoln County, it is absolutely wonderful. I have been there, I have camped there. I have stayed in a haunted room there. I even saw the infa, one of the infamous boot hills.

but I also enjoyed the parks and really the starry skies up there are just absolutely amazing. And so if you have any interest in, uh, photography, dark sky photography, astronomy, this is the place to visit here in Nevada and do go out, uh, to their websites. Now we're gonna provide the Lincoln County, Nevada.

website, uh, [00:43:00] on our show notes as well as the the Nevada State Parks website, as well as all of their, uh, social sites as well as for us. You can find this episode on our website, outdoor adventure series.com. We're on Facebook and LinkedIn on our outdoor adventure series pages. The video of this episode will be up on our YouTube channel.

And of course, when you're making the drive up to, uh, Lincoln County and you're have nothing to do at night except, look at the stars, have a beverage or two, you can listen to one of our many podcasts, uh, on whatever, uh, platform you get your podcast from. Just search for Outdoor Adventure series, and we look forward to having you join us on a future episode of the Outdoor Adventure Series podcast.

Take care now. [00:44:00]