Death Valley: Day 3, Part 3 and Final Day

I had entered Death Valley from the east, through Nevada.  I left through the main western exit, via California highways 190 and 395.  Mono Lake, visible in the distance, sits just over Tioga Pass from Yosemite National Park.

The lake has no outlets, and thus has very high levels of salt and alkalinity.  It does have an active ecosystem, however, based on brine shrimp.  Like the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, it is also prominently featured is geology text books and was a must see for me.

Just over 8,143-ft. Conway Summit is the turnoff for the ghost town of Bodie.  Unfortunately, like Scotty's Castle, I arrived shortly after closing time.

I did get a pretty good zoom shot of many of the remaining buildings though.  Will have to try again in October.  Looks like an interesting place to snoop around.

Bodie's access road is mostly paved, but the last few miles are very scenic gravel, especially on the return trip, when the backside of the Sierra Nevadas is in full view.

Yosemite Valley lies on the other side of that ridge, but the road over the pass was still closed for the winter.

You may recall that I had been concerned about the three high passes along route 395 south of Reno.  Primarily for that reason, I had opted for the desert route into Death Valley.  I decided to take my chances on the way home, and so far things had gone well.  Then I saw this wall of dark cloud at a gas station in Bridgeport, with one of those passes still remaining.

By the time I reached 7,519-ft. Devil's Gate Summit, however, the clouds were nowhere to be seen and it was all downhill to Reno!  That IS snow on the top of the ridge behind me though.

Oops.  Here come those clouds again!  But they look much more friendly.

One hundred eighty miles later, I had passed my previous campsite at Honey Lake and made it on in to Susanville.  "And you made it before dark," you exclaim in disbelief.  No such luck.  The darkness descended about an hour and a half before my arrival.  I took this photo the next morning.

All loaded up and ready to go again.  The Apple Inn turned out to be a great Mom and Pop stopover - simple, warm, clean, quiet, affordable.  And the proprietor was even interested in my bike and trip stories.  'Continental Breakfast' consisted of 2 cellophane wrapped snacks of my choice from a large basket of assorted goodies.  Honey Bun for now.  Granola bar for later.

Only thing wrong with this stop, was that by the time I had checked in and unloaded, all the restaurants but fast food were closed.  I went through the drive-through at McDonald's (a bit tricky to pull off, as you might imagine) and had a surprisingly great chicken sandwich back in my room.

Last order of business before departure was to air up a bit more for the freeway I'd be on later in the day.  Yes, I have several ways of airing up a tire in the boonies, but slipping a few quarters into the machine is so much easier and quicker - usually.  It took some doing to get the change shoved up into this one!

Susanville is a quaint little place - kind of on the border between the desert and the forest.

Just outside of town, I saw a deer get smacked by a car coming towards me.  I was plenty far back, but the deer went tumbling across my lane and I was sure he was a goner.  Then he jumped up and bounded away into the trees.  I took the remaining 150 forested miles to the Interstate on high alert, and a bit slower than I might have.

It really is a different ride, going the opposite direction.  I had completely missed this view of 14,162-ft. Mount Shasta on the way down, a few days before.

Ashland is a small Oregon town near Medford that I've often heard people talk about.  It's famous for its Shakespeare festival, and for this elegant old hotel - among other things, I imagine.  On this day, it made a nice little break from the freeway - and my last bit of new territory for the trip.

No, this photo is not at breakfast the next day.  I actually did make it home before dark for a change.  My wife was still away in Kansas City, so I called my buddy Dave and he was happy to share in a little post trip pizza celebration.  He even listened to a few stories and seemed genuinely happy for me, even though he had not been able to go himself this time, and might have been just a tad bit jealous.  Good friends are like that.

Death Valley: Day 3, Part 2

After my cold Coke at Panamint Springs, the next sign of human inhabitance along the main paved National Park road was Emigrant Springs Campground.  The humans, however, were strangely absent that day.  I did happen to notice a pay phone in the shade, beside the only building!

Yes, pay phones are still in operation in many National Parks, and other out of the way places, where signals from cell towers cannot reach.  I took the opportunity to check in with my wife and let her know I'd made it out of the desert - sort of.  'Out of the frying pan and into the fire,' was probably more accurate.

Just past Stovepipe Wells, I passed a 'Sea Level' sign and kept going down, down, down.  I tried to imagine what it must have been like to drive your dehydrated wagon team through here, back in the day.  I was very glad for the 90-something horses powering my little orange wagon.

The Furnace Creek Ranch was not quite as elegant as I expected.  I thought I remembered seeing a sprawling, castle-like mansion in a magazine, years ago.  Oh well.  I wasn't planning on staying long anyway.  In fact, I just posed the bike for this shot and promptly left.  The shade under the palm trees sure looked inviting though.

I turned off onto the West Side Road, which appropriately skirts the west side of Badwater Basin, a  five-mile wide salt flat which occupies the lowest elevation in the United States - 282 feet below sea level!

Salt flats are other-worldly places.  Their surfaces can have widely varying textures.  Here, it almost looked like a goose down comforter - badly in need of a wash.

This area is called the Devil's Golf Course, as the flat surface is completely broken up by large halite salt crystals.  The smooth part, just on the other side of the bike, is the unpaved road, composed of a mixture of gravel and salt.  It made an amazing rolling surface!

The temperature was nearly 100 degrees by this time and climbing fast - and it was barely noon.  The map showed almost 40 more miles to the next paved road.  If the surface conditions continued like this, and nothing went wrong with the bike, I'd be across the basin in less than an hour.  If not, I might have to spend a very long, very uncomfortable time in one of the most inhospitable places on the continent.

Allowing the relative wisdom of my 40+ years to trump my excitement for a change, I turned around and took the shorter, paved way to the more touristed side of the basin.  The enormous parking lot and deck were a bit hokey, but I liked the simple wooden sign.  Did I mention it was hot?

There's a well worn path, leading from the deck out into the middle of the salt flat.  Not waning to shed all my gear, and not wanting to melt into a fluorescent orange pile of goo, I settled for walking only a couple hundred feet out.  Here, the surface was the smoothest yet, but still not something you'd probably want to play a round of golf on.  Did I mention it was hot?

By the time I got back on the bike, it was definitely time to get some air flowing around me again - and get back to sea level and above.  On my way out of the park, however, I couldn't resist a side trip on Artists Drive, a one way, single lane loop through some colorful rock formations.  Once I got around a large RV (who must have had a nearly impossible time in the curves to come) the road was all mine.

It's hard to tell through my large-beaked helmet, but I'm grinning from ear to ear!

I got off the bike once, at the high point of the 5 to 10-mile drive, then saddled up for the best part.

The trick here was leaning over far enough to avoid the overhanging rock on the right, but not so far as to bump your head on the rock on the left.  Yes, this is great fun!

Here the rock hazards were replaced with a fairly shear drop-off.  This was a good time to put the camera away and get both hands back on the bars.

On the two-lane again, approaching the junction with the main road, I spotted something I hadn't really noticed when I was coming from the other direction.

It was the Furnace Creek Inn!  The Furnace Creek Ranch I had parked in front of earlier, turns out to be the low-rent alternative to this original, 86 year old 4-Diamond rated Inn, which goes for $345 a night and up!  If only I didn't have to be back to work in a couple of days - and made about twice as much there as I do - and could send the private jet to go get my wife!

Naaa, I was pretty happy with the way this trip was turning out.  If I had a bit more time, I might try to drop in for a cold beverage, but by then it might be 120 degrees out.  I was content to head for the mountains and put Death Valley in my rear view mirror - for the time being.  As I write this, plans are already confirmed for a return trip in the fall, via 4-wheels, with my Dad and oldest nephew, to hit the spots I missed on the bike.

Yes, my life is that good.