Milky Way from the Red Rock Canyon State Park

I randomly decided that I wanted to go photograph the ghost town of Bodie, CA. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to go that far this weekend. Instead, we decided to explore a ghost town in Southern California which turned out to be a few destroyed structures far from being spectacular. I scanned the map to see if there was anything in the vicinity that would be worth visiting and found this small state park. Something about it gave me hope that we'd be able to make the 120 mile trek worthwhile. When we arrived, the sun was setting, so we only got a few shots. We decided to get some dinner and return to the canyon after dark and experiment with some night photography. I was amazed at the fact that we could actually see the milky way. After about 3 hours, here's what I came up with.