Well today I realised another lifelong dream – to ride through Death Valley. I don’t know why this has been an ambition of mine. Maybe because this place is regarded as one of the most extreme places on the planet as far as temperature differences are concerned. Well today it was just beautiful, nice and sunny but only about 20’deg, except in the basin, which is below sea level, where it felt like the temp was about 25’deg. I was reading in the visitors guide that Death Valley holds the world record for the highest temperature over consecutive day, I think at 135’F (~57’c) for 6 days in a row. Then in the evenings it can get down to ~-10’deg and tonight it is about -6’deg. Apparently November is one of the best months to visit the place because the weather is very mild. Well thank god. Looking at the terrain, I could easily imagine the place in the full brute heat of the summer. The place is just covered in rocks and must just keep heating up. There are absolutely no trees, only spindly little bushes.
Here's some photo's http://picasaweb.google.com/jamesc71/41OnTheRoadThroughDeathValley
When you are driving along, there are signs on the side of the road like, ‘To avoid overheating, do not use Air Conditioning for the next 10 miles’ and ‘Radiator Water next 1 mile’ – scary. Something that I didn’t expect is how mountainous the whole area is. Riding into Death Valley the elevation is over 5000ft, then when you get to the basin, it is a couple of hundred feet below sea level. Then when you leave, it’s over 5000ft again. There were many places of Death Valley I could of seen by road, but I just didn’t have enough time.
I did how ever meet another really friendly motorcyclist while stopping for a drink. Alan was there by himself on a riding holiday for Thanks Giving week on his dual sport KLR650. He was having a ball burning around the numerous mountainous dirt trails. Stay in touch Alan, and when I return next summer, let’s try and catch up somewhere.
I think the continuous number of days riding is starting to wear me out. I am finding it really hard to get up early and get things packed and get back on the road. And for the last three nights, after I have had dinner and got back to the hotel I have fallen asleep on the bed fully clothed with all the lights on and TV blearing and then waking up about 7 hours later. I have however had a good nights sleep and feel good now – but I am finishing writing this blog at now a 5:30am. So I will try and get another 1-2 hours sleep as it is well below freezing outside and I probably won’t be able to start riding until 9am.
After a very late start yesterday because of sleeping in and updating the blog, I was quite late leaving the Death Valley and it was getting dark and getting very cold with another 80 miles riding a head to get to my destination. While leaving the Death Valley, I had to go through some smaller valleys to get back onto the main road. These were some beautiful long drifting roads and the temptation to open up the bike was just too much. After covering a very quick 30 miles in twilight, I was on the main road and heading south – but lighter on gas than I would normally be. Before long I hit my turn off to head up to Lake Isabella, but I was low on fuel and had the fuel light on. This road was disappearing off into the moonlit mountains and the GPS was telling me there were no gas stations in that direction within 40 miles. So instead of heading off down this road and hoping for a gas station to appear that isn’t in the GPS (which happens a lot) and risking freezing to death – I turned the opposite direction and headed for some lights I could see on the horizon that corresponded with a town showing on the GPS. Luckily I only had to go for about 10 miles before hitting the edge of the town and a fuel station. The option of turning around and heading back to Lake Isabella sounded a bit dangerous as if I had a problem I would be out in the middle of nowhere in extremely cold conditions. So an unscheduled stop in Ridgecrest was the call. It turns out that Ridgecrest is a military town and there a huge US Navy Airbase here that is the Navy’s primary weapons testing centre. While riding from Las Vegas for the last two days, I have passed many military looking sights and airports that can be seen in the distance in the middle of valleys. But what I never expected to see was many valleys that looked like a massive rifle ranges, with huge distance marker signs spaced in what looked like ½ mile intervals and many lines in the earth making grid like patterns. I assume these are weapon testing ranges as I also pasted a compound that contained a heap of tanks like vehicles covered with radars and cameras. I couldn’t really get a good picture of these ranges because they were just so huge that it was very hard to photograph. So in the morning I am going try and see how close I can get to the Airbase and see if I can see some more jets. I wish I had a couple of more days, as I would love to do some research and find out where a good viewing point is in the mountains to watch some jet fighters screaming around. I don’t know how close I got to Area 51, but I passed through a very little town yesterday that had sign saying ‘Last fuel station before entering Area 51’
So today it looks like I have some really nice twisty motorcycling roads ahead going up to Lake Isabella and then through the mountain ranges to the Giant Sequoia National Park. I am going to try and then get up to the Yosemites by sunset. But time is running out and I have to get to Los Angeles by Wednesday night. I am also worried about the fires that have also started up again in South California, as this might delay the trip down the Pacific Coast Hwy from San Francisco to LA. Fingers crossed.
James
