Henderson Canyon Sky Art

Ease off the gas and let your eyes wander the flats along Henderson Canyon Road, because this is the densest gathering of them all. They call it the Sky Art, and right about here the desert turns into a menagerie. Off to one side, a band of bighorn sheep picks across the open ground, the very animal that gives this park half its name. Beyond them, a pair of African elephants, trunks raised. A giant tortoise hauling itself across the sand. Then something that makes everyone do a double take, a nineteen-forty-six Willys jeep rendered entirely in steel, parked out here as if its driver just stepped away. Keep watching for a Spanish padre on horseback, a quiet nod to the expedition that crossed this desert, and the great profile they call the Indian Head rising off the flat. Take it slow, and if you find a safe place to pull off, you can walk right out among them. One more thing to picture: come a wet winter, in a good March, this whole plain goes gold and purple with poppies and sand verbena, and the metal beasts wade up to their knees in wildflowers. On a year like that, there's nowhere on earth quite like it.