
Death Valley '07
Day 1
[Friday -
March 16, 2007]
I wake up at 6:00AM to get ready for the trip. Last night's sleep
wasn't bad at all. A good solid 5 hours is normally all I need to
get things rolling. My first order of business this morning is to
get the remaining
equipment onto the bike. This means the Handycam and it's
charging equipment. Easy enough. I plop the camera into its
bag and dump the charger into the right pannier. Next I wash up
and
wait for the guys to show up. About 7:50AM, Minh appears from
riding in a thick fog. He claimed visibility was about 100
feet. That sure won't help with the speediness of things if the
fog has proliferated itself all over LA. The winglet on Minh's
windshield demonstrated the accumulation of dancing droplets from the
fog's moisture.
Not too long after Minh's arrival my wife is taking the my kids to
school. The wife and kids exchange a quick "Hello" with Minh and
head off for school. Minh and I talk a bit and
wait for the next person to arrive. This could be either Russ or
Kevin. 8:05AM Russ shows up. As Russ dismounts, we're all
wondering what happened to Kevin. It's not normal for Kevin to be
the last
to show up for a ride. Something must have happened. We
didn't think much of the matter and went on with other issues at
hand. Russ brought his 2-way radio but didn't have a means
to mount it. He had taken a liking to my idea of strapping the
2-way radio to his arm instead of installing it somewhere on the
bike. Next thing I knew I was scrambling upstairs to find some
Velcro to fasten Russ' radio to his arm band. Being the Velcro
nut that I am, I knew that Velcro was not enough to hold the radio on
his arm band for any length of time. This is especially the case
considering a motorcycle's vibration. As a result we improvised
an additional fastening measure with zip ties I had lying around my
garage. Zip... zip... zip... it's all fastened and Russ is a
happy camper. This babe isn't going anywhere.
At about 8:15AM we can hear a thumping engine noise. It has to be
Kevin. Sure enough a BMW Dakar rounds the corner with Kevin at
the helm.
Kevin parked his bike and then proceeded to mention all the bad luck he
had this
morning. The electronic gate in front of his house didn't work.
Attempts at opening the gate by using all remotes within his possession
resulted in... Nada. Not only was the darn thing broken because
of the fog, or something like that, but fidgeting with the opener
didn't yield any results. He had to resort to strong arm tactics
to get the darn thing to open. A heave and a hoh of a 100 pound
gate yielded better results than any electronic devices for this
day.
If that wasn't bad enough, he also had to contend with the traffic at
the high school next
to his house. Being wide in the behind this day didn't help in
getting him to the meeting place at the appropriate time.
Splitting
lanes was out of the question.
All in all, 15 after 8 is not such a big deal. However, we
leave for the trip right away. Instead we started dilly
dallying. Why? because Kevin isn't ready with his
radio equipment. Once more I ended up hustling around a bit more
to get more
Velcro for Kevin and Minh. The original thought in my head, "Ah
man, they should have taken care of this last night." As a
result, we ended up leaving much later
than we should have. To make matters even worse, I had forgotten to get
money from the ATM last night so I had to swing by the bank to grab
some Dragmas.
Another notch to the tardy mark, Russ wanted to fuel up before heading
out to Castaic. Of course all this resulted in Primo waiting at
the McDonald's in Castaic much longer than expected. By the time
we lifted our kickstands, it was
around 8:30-8:45AM.
Things weren't going wrong for us this morning, it's just going really
slow. We got onto the 210 freeway and immediately got off of the
freeway. Friday's morning commute traffic is as expected.
Traffic being the way it is, we stand a better change of making good
time by taking the side streets instead of the freeway. We got on
to the
210 at the Huntington Drive on-ramp and got off of the 210 freeway at
the Santa Anita off-ramp (e.g. one
exit away). We ended up taking Santa Anita Ave to Orange
Grove Ave to Michillinda Ave then to Sierra Madre Blvd. It wasn't
the speediest path but at least we were moving.
For this entire first section of the trip, I didn't record any footage
on the helmet cam as I figured it's just another boring ride through
the streets of LA. In fact I wasn't planning on turning the video
equipment on until we got decently close to Lake Isabella.
Lo and behold. Our first instance of cagers going nuts around our
group. Now I'm not sure whether it's related with me only or if
it's the entire group. I think it's me only as I'm the one with
the helmet cam. I've witnessed people do strange things before
when they see my helmet cam, and I'm the only bike around. As
mentioned in previous articles, some people freak out about the helmet
cam where as other don't even care or notice it.
So we all stop at the intersection of
New York Drv and Sierra Madre Villa Ave. I was in front in the
left lane while the rest of the pack is in the right lane behind a
large truck. When the light turned green on New York Drive, I
sped
up signaled right and changed lane to be in front of the truck.
My intent was to have the car that was originally behind me pass me so
the guys can have an opportunity to change lane and eventually merge in
behind me. Instead of passing me, the car simply stayed on my 8
o'clock and refused to pass. Of course this ended up boxing the
pack in and slowed all traffic. Nobody could pass. Heck,
nobody could do anything. The speed limit is 50 MPH and I was
doing 45 MPH. As I slow down to attempt to let the car pass me,
the car would slow down also. Everybody slowed down. What
gives? This doesn't make sense. Nowhere on my bike is there
a police emblem. I don't even look like a Cop. For god
sakes people, I have a Rally 2 pro suit on not a motorcycle Cop
uniform. Eventually the big truck made a right turn onto Eaton
Canyon Drv so the pack ended up right behind me.
From New York Dr. we make a right turn onto Altadena Dr to continue our
slow trek to bypass the stuffed up 210 and 134 freeway
interchange. Altadena Drv, Casitas Ave, Ventura St, Windsor Ave
and the the 210 freeway. Happy to leave the slow pace behind, we
make the right turn onto the 210 West bound on-ramp. As we all
get up to speed to merge onto the freeway, I turned my head back to see
two large 18 wheelers in the slow lane. Crap! We have to
move to be out of danger. I pushed the PTT button on the intercom
and blurbed out, "2 Trucks! Speed up to merge!" Everybody
gets on OK. However, Kevin was in
the rear and experienced the typical nightmare of a scenario that is
unfortunately bestowed upon so many motorcyclists. A soccer mom
is tailgating so close that you swear she is able to smell the type of
detergent you used to wash your underwear. Not only that, the
chick is impatient. She treat a 1/2 ton SUV like it's a kiddie
cycle on training wheels. She thrashes the car around violently
to try to pass Kevin. She must be repulsed by Kevin's detergent
and wishes to get away as fast as possible. Any which way you
look at it, whether it be the detergent or the fact that 90% of the
women out that don't know how to drive their living room, it's scarier
than hell. Eventually, the mom changed lane and passed us all.
As noted so many times by myself and so many other bikers out there in
the world, most of the aggression exerted by drivers are
either women in SUVs, tough guys in their overly massive monster
trucks, or jerk BMW/Mercedes drivers. The one thing that is
common to all these drivers, they all think they have a super
powerfully massive power plant under their hood. It's nuclear
powered don't you know. Can you also say HEMI? As a
result, they feel the invariable invincible and the need to demonstrate
their prowess. Against a small 500
LBS or less motorcycle no doubt. To those power loving drivers,
let me
repeat this to you crazy folks... again. Look at our power to
weight
ratio. Look at your power to weight ratio. In case you
folks don't know what I'm referring to, here's something to
consider. Physics. More mass means slower
acceleration. Even on my R12GS, which is not a speed demon,
unless you can do 0-60MPH in less than 3.8 seconds, in that big huge
monster vehicle of your, please don't try to race
us. All you're going to do is either make yourself look awfully
silly or crash. In my case, I don't care to race you
insane people because I don't want to crash. So let's
leave it at that and stick to the street laws. BTW, if a Cop sees
you drag race from a light, that's an automatic moving violation.
There is a reason for you to have that large monster vehicle of yours
that suck up fuel like
your engine can operate on water. What is
that you ask? It's called, you have towing capabilities.
Yes, that
mean you have torque, not speed. So stick to hauling that large
mass of people or large mass of things to the next picnic as oppose to
attempt a miserable race.
Either that or take your SUV to the next track day.
210 to the 5, pass Magic Mountain, and finally Castaic Lake.
In the process of getting off the Lake Hughes off ramp, the big rig
next to me almost ran me over. Several tons versus 500
pounds? Hommie don't play that. In reality I
think the guy lost concentration and started drifting into our
lane. Fortunately he didn't move pass the lane reflector
markers. Driving by braille might be fun for a trucker but it's
hell scary to be on the receiving end regardless of car or
motorcycle. I know better
than to ride next to an 18 wheeler but I made the exception because
we're riding in formation. Trust me, I'm going to break
formation in the future when riding next to something that can squash
me like I'm a little cockroach.
Primo has been waiting for us. He's been at the McDonald's since
8:45AM. Now it's 9:45AM. Yes,
we're late. No thanks to traffic and some dilly dallying.
At least we're here. We all greeted Primo as
we haven't seen him in a long time. He use to work with us but
ended being let go about a year ago. Anyway, we head into Mcee
Dees and got some breakfast. Sausage Mc Muffin, Sausage Mc
Griddle, etc. and we're all chewing away. It's not the best of
breakfast but this is all the time we have. Half and hour later
we're all suited up again to continue to Bakersfield. Before
getting onto the ground-level-flyway, Russ needed fueling up.
Plus
I'm going to fuel up my red gas can just in case anybody in the group
needs that extra boost to get to another gas station. Little did
I know this is going to be the theme for this trip. $7 later, my
little 2 gallon red gas can is full.
Once again, I start seeing the annoying accessory plug electrical
problem with my 12GS.
I'm sure nobody else has this problem since I haven't heard/read
about this electrical problem from
anybody else on any forums including the ADV
Rider forum. I've been having this accessory power problem
for a while now. The symptom manifests itself in the form of the
accessories
power toggling on and off. One minute it's on, the next
several minutes it's off. The bike would do this through the
course of any given ride. What's worse I had recently installed a
new navigation system
(e.g. BMW Navigator III), it's a cool system, but it's useless due to
the power problem. I took the bike to Brown Motor
Works in Pomona for a look over. They found the problem and said
it was a bad grounding wire at the battery. Once they fixed the
grounding problem, they couldn't get the bike to reproduce the power
toggle
effect. Well, this wasn't the case for me. I was able to
reproduce the power toggle problem several times after the grounding
wire
fix. In fact, right after the filling of the gas can, when I
started my bike, the accessories power went off. After subsequent
restarts of the bike, the accessories power exhibited the same
problem. I'm wondering if the grounding wire problem is
more proliferated than the service people at Brown thinks. I
start up the
bike after filling the gas can, a couple minutes later, blip. The
Nav III goes off line. I started the bike again. A couple
of minutes later, blip. The Nav III goes off line. The
second time it went off line, I was flying up hill on the I5 heading
towards Bakersfield. As a result, I couldn't restart the
bike. This sucks. I will need to take the bike in once more
when the trip is over. At least the power toggle effect is less
frequent than what was seen before. I eventually figured out the
pattern involved with getting the bike's accessory power to stay
on. As a result I was able to get the Nav III to work
for long stretches without having problems. Is the computer
confused about whether the accessories power
should be turned on or off ? There's no use guessing as it's a
far cry from knowing the
truth.
I5, 99 freeway, and Bakersfield. The freeway ride is boring as
hell. At least I can't complain as there were no cars harassing
us on the way out. There were enough open lanes and so little
traffic that big rigs, trucks, and SUVs didn't really bother us.
There were a couple of monster trucks that felt the need to be manly by
passing us in the slow lane. That's fine so long as they don't
tailgate us. On the final stretch towards the south end of
Bakersfield, Primo comes up next to me and signals that he needs
gas. That's surprising considering we had fueled up at Castaic
Lake before heading out to Bakersfield. I didn't question the
request too much and decided the find the first convenient spot to fuel
up. We pulled off of the 99 freeway onto the White Lane exit
heading East. We pulled into a Chevron and fueled up. My
trip odometer show 110 miles so I might as well fuel up for the haul
out to Lake Isabella. While we were all fueling up, a guy in a
Harley rode up to the gas station and started fueling also. He
took a look at us and asked where we were going. Lake Isabella
was our answer. He also taking the same path. The minute I
mentioned that we will be heading to Death Valley after Lake Isabella,
he quickly expressed that he's not going that far. Interesting
thing about this Harley rider, he didn't have a helmet on and was only
riding with a T-shirt, genes, and a bandanna. The bandanna is my
helmet. Uh huh. Compared to him, we're all overly protected.
We made a U-turn on White Lane and headed back out onto the 99 freeway
going North. Not too far up, we found our destination. The
178 highway. We take the exit and head East on 24th street.
The amount of traffic was surprisingly dense. It's approximately
12
noon and it's extremely warm. Since we're in a fairly large
group, we couldn't split lanes as it will break the group apart.
Red light after red light we inch towards out destination. 24th
street turns into 23rd street and eventually the 178
freeway. 178 is a freeway? Yup, it's a freeway. Here
I was thinking we'll be on highways and side streets until we get to
Lake Isabella. It was a pleasant surprise
as this will improve our travel time. 178 freeway, boring.
OK, it's part of the journey. We ride for a good 10-15 miles
before the 178 freeway turns back into a highway. I guess that
freeway section is an express way for the folks in
Bakersfield. As with most city suburbs, there is not much to look
at. However, we do see mountains ahead of us. I
have never been on this road before so I didn't know what to
expect. Heck, I've never been to Lake Isabella before.
Once we get to a good stretch where we can stop, I radioed everybody to
let everybody know I'm going to pull over to turn
the video equipment on. Time to start taping.

Stopped on the side of the 178 to put the video equipment online.
During this stop Russ has finally taken notice of Kevin's oil leak and
is concerned about his bike's leaky situation. I told Russ that
it's a minor leak and will not effect the bike's performance.
Nonetheless I told Kevin to keep an eye on it.
As we get closer and closer to the mountains, it was becoming obvious
this is definitely a canyon ride. It's a narrow two lane highway
with many sections of the highway carved
out from the mountain sides. A gorgeous road, a gorgeous ride,
beautiful
skies, and a river to ride next to. What more can you ask
for. How about safer cagers.
The
narrowness of the highway was going to eventually lead to vehicles
crossing the double yellow. Sure enough, it happens. It's
not Kevin's lucky day I say. I didn't witness it myself but
Kevin told me later of his run in with a big truck on one of the
turns. Seems like SUVs and trucks are taking a liking to Kevin
today. Like to run him over that is. In this instance, the
truck driver has taken upon himself to race around the corners of the
highway thinking he's
in a Rally. For this one corner the truck ended up straddling
both lanes driving right down the
center of the highway. I don't know how fast the thing was moving
but according to Kevin, it was screaming towards him.
Fortunately, Kevin was able to slow down enough and pull towards the
right shoulder to allow the 1/2 ton
monster enough time to correct itself and avoid an accident. The
thought of anybody being treated like a
bug in a radiator grill is just not cool. Kevin's a bit shaken up
but is perfectly fine. After this, he's making a point to take it
easy on this road.
Minh and his cool Canon EOS 1D camera.

Primo is down at the river enjoying its icy coldness.

Russ in one with nature.
The 178 road condition is excellent. It looks like the road has
recently been repaved. Much of the remaining ride on the narrow
highway was uneventful.
That is until we encounter an 18 wheeler on the 178. An 18
wheeler on this small little highway? The guy nearly flattened me
if it hadn't been for my immediate braking and a swerve towards the
right
shoulder. I don't know if he's aware of it or if he even cares
but he shouldn't be on this road. It was hard enough already to
deal with SUVs and trucks let a lone a big rig. Dude's
insane. Not too long after this incident the 178 opened up to
four lanes.
Minh, Russ, and Primo seized the opportunity and disappeared into the
distance. I sped up half heartedly to chase them down but knew
that I can't catch them. What the heck, I was enjoying the
scenery and the road, and really didn't care to catch up to them.
Poor Kevin was eating everybody's dust. He was a good couple of
minutes behind me. At certain stretches I was up to as high as
80. Having panniers on and trying to go any faster than that is a
little insane. Plus I didn't feel the urge to speed.
Once I
got close to the 178/155 interchange, I can spot the guys in front of
me on the shoulder of the off-ramp. I decided to park myself
several
100 feet before the off-ramp in the hopes of catching Kevin in time to
signal to him to exit the 178. Sure enough Kev appeared several
minutes later. Here he comes and there he goes. I waved to
him to take the off-ramp but wasn't sure if he got the message. I
was reassured he saw the signal when he changed two lanes right and
headed up the exit ramp.
From there the group gathered up and headed North on the 155 towards
lake Isabella. It's about 1 PM so everybody was hungry. The
maps I've been staring at the previous day makes the route to Kernville
to be a lot longer than it really is. About 1/2 hour off the
178/155 exit we were at the corner of Burlando Rd and Sierra Way in
Kernville. Here's the ticket. I hadn't alerted the guys as
to what the plan is when we reached Kernville. All they know is
that we're going to stop here for lunch and maybe have excellent fish
fillets. The reality of the matter is, Minh had read about a
lodge called Fairview Lodge several miles north of Kernville.
They were suppose to have spectacular fish fillets. When I asked
Minh the night before where this lodge is and what its name was, all I
got from Minh was "Fairview Lodge". Any address or directional
information Minh ever received was, "About 4-5 miles north of
Kernville". Piss poor if you asked me. Regardless Minh and
I resolved to find this place by doing a bit of "Zen driving".
The bad thing about "Zen driving" is that you're not guaranteed
success. In most cases, you end up wasting a lot of time before
reaching your destination, if you reach your destination at all.
Is "Zen driving" equivalent to being macho and not wanting to stop and
ask for directions? Not necessarily. "Zen driving" is more
akin to knowing where your final destination might be and head in the
general direction in the hopes of getting there. The big word
here is HOPE.
We passed up Pine Cone Inn Motel-Restaurant, McCambridge Lodge Motel,
Whispering Pines Lodge B&B, Sequoia Lodge, etc. but no Fairview
Lodge to be seen anywhere. We went in further and further and
even saw a sign that said there is no route reversal for the next 23
miles. About 5 miles in, the guys are getting hot, hungry and
bothered. As a last ditch effort, Minh and I left Kev, Russ, and
Primo behind to venture in a little deeper to find the lodge. No
luck. About 1 mile later Minh and I decided to give up and head
back. We resolved to go back into Kernville to get some
lunch. Much later, several weeks after the trip, I looked for
Fairview in the MapSource program for my BMW Navigator III and found
Fairview the town. It's no 4-5 miles. It's at least 15 to
20 miles North of Kernville. This would have really sent us off
course that day if we insisted on finding Fairview Lodge. We have
to go visit this lodge one of these days.

Out in the middle of nowhere looking for Fairview Lodge.
It didn't take us long to head back into town. One restaurant
after another, they're all closed. Wow! What the heck is
this? This place is like a ghost town. All the restaurants
are either open at night or on the weekends. What is up with
that? We circle around Kernville trying to find a place to
eat. It felt like I was riding in Downtown
LA a month or two before, we were making U-turns like it's going
out of fashion. This time around it wasn't just Minh and I, it
was 5 bikes going around in circles. We eventually got back on
Burlando Rd in the hopes of finding a restaurant that is open.
Place after place, we find nothing. I spotted a sports bar (The
Hut) that appears to be open on the south end of the road and motioned
the guys to head in that direction. I made the U-turn and stopped
in front of the bar but nobody followed me. What's going on
here. I looked back to see several bikes slowly disappearing
behind a building. I made another U-turn and went to see if the
bikes got sucked up by a black hole. No black hole but everybody
was trying to park their bikes. Guess what, they found a
restaurant that is open. The place is called El Jacalito Mexican
Grill. Mexican food, what the heck. I'm not going to
complain now that I can stuff my belly. We all settled down and
some of us even took off our boots, literally. I was walking
around the deck on the outside of the restaurant with my socks
on. It was so nice to dry off my feet. Since there weren't
a lot of patrons aside from us, we all had a table to ourselves.
A beautiful sky, warn winds, and large umbrellas to shade each one of
us. What more can you ask for. Drinks and food. We
all downed the lunch like we were wolves that hadn't seen a caribou for
a week. Part of the reason for this is El Jacalito has excellent
food. I never knew Mexican food can hit the spot so well.
My plate was practically clean. I could have gone for more but
opted to watch my consumption. Suffice to say we tipped the
waiter very well. They were even so nice as to allow us to have
some of their ice for our Camelbaks. Water bladder and stomachs
filled, we suited up to continue our ride.
Back on Sierra Way but heading south this time. As we got to Lake
Isabella again, it was apparent the water level is lower than
normal. Bands of sand and rock that should have been under water
is showing its face to the sun. Once again I'm reminded that this
winter is outside of the norm. By this time of year, we would
have received a lot more rain. The weather pattern is definitely
changing. We all stopped on the side of the road to take pictures
of Isabella sprawled out in front of us. She might be a little
low this year but she is still beautiful with the blue skies and
mountains.
The remainder of the 155 was curvy and fun. There were even a
couple of whooptidos thrown in for kicks. Once we got to the
three
way stop for the 155 and 178, Primo again reminds me of the need for
gas. Definitely the theme for this trip. From here out I
keep an eye out for any gas stations. Not knowing this route at
all has me a bit concerned that Primo or Russ might run out of
gas. However, I do have the wonderfully red 2 gallon gas can
being my pillion. The worry subsides. This entire stretch
of the 178 has me wondering, "Where in the world do these people get
gas if it's so unavailable? It must be a pain to fill up their
vehicles out here." Town after small town. We pass them by
without a sign of a gas station. Not until we reached Onyx do we
see a Chevron. We pull in and fill up. I only used 2
gallons so far and could stand to go another 100 miles without the need
to fuel, but since we're here, I might as well top it off. With
our bikes' bellies full, we can concentrate on the ride.
I don't know if you've been in this situation before, but just about
several miles after the gas station it finally hits me. I'm on
the road (Isabella Walker Pass Rd), riding along and enjoying every
minute and every second of the tarmac rolling underneath me. Man,
machine, and music all connected to form the most beautiful of
synergy. As Terri Nunn whispers You Don't Know in my ears
and the road is winding back and forth in front of me I can't help but
feel every ounce of life coursing through my veins. I have
achieved zendom. What is ahead of me or what is behind me doesn't
matter. What is to come or what has pass doesn't matter.
All I know is the here and now. The perfect moment. I have
no material needs and I'm completely care free while I scream in
concert with Terri.

Terri Nunn, one of the most talented singer around.
Good o' Russ sees me bouncing up and down on my bike and is reminded
that he also has a music player at hand. The scenery changes on
the 178 enhances the experience even more. Deciduous trees give
way to a Joshua forest. Grassy lands give way to rolling planes
of bushes. The brown of granite and sandstone turns into a desert
tan. Unfortunately it is a fleeting moment and has to end.
We connect to the 14 and ride it for a short 3 or so miles to continue
on the 178 to Ridgecrest. The China Lake bedroom community.
As we get to the outskirts of Ridgecrest I can't help but be struck
with two things. 1) my wrist is killing me regardless of the fact
that I have been using the throttle lock, and 2) my ass is sore like a
mutha. My buns were burning. I swear it's an alcohol fire
because you can't see the flames. Anyway, if I'm feeling like
this, the guys must be dying. So I search for the most convenient
parking spot to stop. This lot. That lot. I don't
know where the heck I should stop. Finally I just pull into a
parking lot to give us all a break. It just so happens that we
pulled into a medical clinic's parking lot. Oops! I hope
they don't kick us out of here. Fortunately it's about 4:30 -
5:00 PM and the people of the clinic are going home. Slowly the
parking lot empties. Of all places to stop, a medical
clinic. Perhaps I should go in and ask for my annual
physical. Turn you head and cough please. At first all the
guys asked me why we stopped. I said "I figured we all need a
good break". Soon, they all thanked me for stopping. We
were all sprawled out on the medical clinic's lawn. The sight is
funnier than hell. Primo is lying there talking on the
phone. Russ is sitting not too far back relaxing. The rest
of us are lounging around in one form or another. The security
guard walks by looks at us and enters the building without even a
word. Apparently us loitering like this is perfectly fine.
Finally, the question is asked, "How much further do we have until we
reach our destination?" I said, " I can't tell as the nav system
doesn't give me the overall distance and will only give me the distance
to the next way point." The reality is, I don't know how to use
the Nav system to its full potential yet. The approximation is
180 or so
miles. That's about 2 1/2 hours of riding. What is our next
destination? Trona.
We hung around the medical center for about 20+ minutes. It was
getting late so it's time to leave. As we're all getting ready,
Russ approached me and reminded me about Kevin's oil leak.
I promised Russ we'll stop at the next most convenient place to to get
some oil. It's about 5:00pm when we rolled out of the medical
center's parking lot. As we got closer and closer to the Trona
route, I didn't notice any place that might sell motorcycle motor
oil. As we were sitting at a red turn signal light, Russell rode
up next to me and said that we just passed up a place where Kevin can
get some motor
oil. "OK. Lead on as I don't know where it is and you
do." We all made a U-turn and turned left into a
Honda Motorcycle dealership. How did I miss this? We all
parked it. Kevin and I rushed in to see if we can get some motor
oil. It was clear the dealer is about to close shop. I
asked the guy at the counter if they had any SG oil. With a
puzzled look on his face, "I don't know, but the oil is all over
there," gesturing towards a rack full of motor oil. I checked
this, that, and the other thing. No, no, no ... yes! A very
clear bold print on the back of the bottle saying API, SG. That's
it. When I told the guy at the counter they have SG oil, he was
surprised. Go figure. Kevin paid for two quarts and we all
headed out to have a look at the Dakar. Russ was determined to
put oil in Kevin's bike, but I insisted that we take a look at the oil
level before doing anything. On the center stand it goes.
This sounds a lot easier than it looks. Due to the weight of
Kevin's panniers (with its contents), the height of the bike, etc. it
took three of us (Kevin, Russ, and myself) to wrestle the Dakar onto
its center stand. At one point we ended up lifted the rear wheel
off
of the ground. Eventually, the Dakar gave in and sat on its
center stand. I opened the oil cover and checked the oil
level. It's perfectly fine. In fact, it was at
maximum. Whatever oil Kevin was loosing, it was very very
minimal. Not only is the oil level good, the oil itself was clear
and clean. Now that Russell's mind is at ease, we can all get
back to stripping away that tarmac ribbon. For the first time
ever, I
finally see Minh being concerned about something. Not
knowing what the riding condition is like for Death Valley at night,
Minh was pushing us all to get moving. I know there is an
element of danger for riding at night on the 190 so I can understand
Minh's concern. However, I'm hoping the PIAA Xtreme White Plus
bulb for the low beam and the Philips Vision Plus bulb for the high
beam
will get us through safely.
Once again, we're off. We continue on the 178 to Trona. The
road changes from China Lake Rd to Ridgecrest Blvd to Trona Rd.
As we reach the town of Westend, we see white mountains next to the
highway.
It's a salt processing plant. Pretty cool. The stuff
looks whiter than snow and just sits out in the middle of
nowhere. I hope they do some cleanup work before packaging it for
consumption. As expected, the rest of Trona is nothing
exciting. The streets are fairly straight and slow. As we
near Paramint Valley the road once again gets renamed from Trona Rd to
Trona Wildrose
Rd. This is looking better and better all the time. I know
Wildrose Rd, it's the road to take if we want to go to Telescope
Peak in Death Valley. From the end of Trona (the town), Russ ,
Primo, and Minh are all gone. They made Kevin and myself look
like we're riding 50cc
Vespas.
Right before we start our descent down to Panamint Valley, the guys
stopped (at a pretty bad location) to take pictures. The spot has
a nice view but there is hardly a shoulder to pull all of the bikes off
the road. Several cars passing us had to cross the double yellow
to avoid us. Not good but the spot was visible enough beyond the
turn that we didn't cause an accident.
Down to Panamint Valley we go. The sun was going down but the
temperature was still quite warm. Warm enough that it would have
been nice to ride without all the gear. Fortunately, most of us
had enough gray matter on our shoulder not to pull everything off and
ride in our fruit of the loom. There's only so much of "Let it
all hang out" you can do on a motorcycle. Unfortunately, Primo
had other ideas. He decided to ride without helmet and
gloves. Something like "WHAT!" came out of my mouth when he
mentioned it to me. Just because there are no visible Cops out
here, that doesn't necessarily means you should break the law just
because you can. Even if we rode at 30 MPH I'm praying that he
doesn't crash because that means we're all going to be hovering over
him trying to tend to his condition until the medical vehicle arrives
instead of continuing on the ride. That would be a major
imposition to the rest of us not to mention ruining all of our
vacation. Trust me, we didn't ride at 30 MPH. I've seen
brain before and I don't like the looks of it. I'm sure I will
like it even less when it's on the tarmac. I don't know if Primo
realizes it or given it a whole lot of thought, but we're in the middle
of F'in nowhere and it will be
near impossible to get medical support out here. All I have is a
medi-kit but I'm no licensed nurse. You think I can do
surgery out here? No, playing one on the TV doesn't count
either. Fortunately, everything worked out and there are no
problems. Still, running all possible scenarios through my head
is not a nice thing to force upon me. This is especially true
when
I'm responsible for everybody. Ending my vacation two days early
because of a disaster due to idiocy is not in my books.
By the time we get to the Panamint Valley Rd and Death Valley Scenic
Byway junction, it was dark. Instead of turning right to continue
to Death Valley, we turn left to head to Panamint Springs for
gas.
This sets us back a little but it's a needed stop. The surprise
this time, for me, is there is a real gas station. The previous
year the shop was boarded up and only the pumps were functioning.
This year, we had a full fledge mini-mart. Cool! At least
now I know for sure it's not a questionable establishment. We all
fueled up
and bought some snacks to chew on. "How much further?" was the
question, again. The approximation is anywhere between 70-80
miles to Beatty, Nevada. If we were to lodge in Death Valley,
that would have been better but the rooms are either too expensive or
there weren't enough rooms.
While in the mini-mart, the clerk told us to be careful traveling on
the
190 as there are rock slides all the time through the mountain
pass. I'm familiar enough with the roads that I'm also concerned
about the whooptidos. These aren't simple
little whooptidos, they'll launching you at speeds over 70 in a car let
alone a motorcycles. When I mention whooptidoos the clerk said,
"What did you call them?" I said, "Whooptidoos." He said,
"I
still can't get over that phrase. Where in the heck did you get
that from? Back in Wisconsin we call them moguls." I can
see the correlation with moguls, but for me that is a ski
term. Whooptidoos it remains. Plus it's more fun to say,
"WHOOPTIDOOS!". Obviously California people are silly and like to
have fun. We exchange friendly goodbyes with the clerk and
headed out to consume our snacks. I briefed the guys about the
whooptidoos and to be careful riding up the mountain. There is a
high probability of rocks sitting in the road. Proceed with
caution is in order for the first section of this ride. Not too
much later, we put our gear on and got out of Dodge.
The first thought as we ride out, wow the GS headlights are pretty good
in the dead of night. However, I'm casting a shadow over parts of
my head light from another set of lights behind me. Who is
it? It's Russell. His R1's high beams are super
bright. I had to divert my rear view mirror to prevent myself
from going blind. Wow, nice lights, but dude you're killing
me. With my rear view mirrors point into deep space, I'm now able
to lead the pack through the thick of night. I'm sure having all
this SOLAS tape also helps
the guys to know which way the road is
winding. I'm still laughing in my helmet that the R1 is causing
me to cast a shadow. From this I wish BMW would take Yamaha's
example regarding headlight technology. We continue on through
the mountain pass without too much concern. There were some rocks
on the road but it wasn't anything major. All the better I
say. The whooptidoos were there but we slowed down enough that it
wasn't a problem. However, I definitely feel my stomach flying
around. This would have been great if it was in daylight.
Once we got out of the mountain pass, I increased the speed to 65
MPH. We almost had a rabbit for dinner if I hadn't slam on the
breaks and missed the rabbit when it doubled back to get off the
road. Because of the altitude, we also hit pockets of really cold
air. We went from wanting to be naked on the bike to wanting to
wear animal furs to stay warm. I push us through as fast as we
can go,
but still be safe, beyond the mountain pass in the hopes that it will
warm back up again. Surely enough, when we got back down to lower
elevations, it is warm again.


I almost hit a bat.
Since my mirrors are trying to optically communicate with satellites in
low Earth orbit, I hadn't notice how far behind some of the guys
are. In particular, Kevin was on the slow side when it came to
the mountain pass. The person directly behind me was Primo and
not Minh. I thought it was Minh the entire time. When we
got pass Stovepipe Wells I finally looked in my rear view mirrors to
see there was nobody behind us. "Oh shit" is running through my
mind. Primo and I slowed to a crawl in the hopes that everybody
will catch up. Crawling for a while I was planning on pulling
over or turning around to go find the rest of the guys. I
gestured to Primo, "where was everybody else?" To which he
replied with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of the hand.
When I verbalized it, he must have spotted somebody and told me it was
OK to continue going. I myself did a quick check and saw some
headlights and thought I saw everybody. Ah, this is the beginning
of things going
all to hell. The road (North Highway)
that connects up to the 190 (Death Valley Scenic Bypass) was near
impossible to find in the dead of night even with the Nav system
guiding me. I had to make a visual verification before taking
that left turn. I don't want to turn the bike into some sand
dunes and get stuck. I made it a point to signal a good 1/2 mile
before the actual turn to make sure everybody knows we're about to
alter our course. Later, Russ said that he can see my signal
lights from far away and it looks like I'm about to turn off road to do
the GS thing. The stretch of the North Highway we're going to be
on is very short. The entire time I'm looking for this connecting
road my rear view mirrors are still trying to send signals to the
rovers on Mars. I stopped after the initial left turn for a
really short amount of time because I thought I saw all bikes in my
rear view mirrors. Perhaps the car that was parking on the side
of the road after the initial left turn confused me into thinking Kevin
is with us.
I don't know. Mind you I'm always checking 6 to make sure I see
additional
headlights. What I should have done was to stop, get of the bike
and perform a thorough checking. I can
attribute this behavior to trying to get to Beatty in time for dinner
and get out from the darkness. I know we're all hungry.
The road to get to Beatty is called Daylight Pass Rd. Well, we're
riding Daylight Pass Rd in the dark. We all made the right turn,
doing a bit of off-roading in the process, to get onto Daylight Pass
Rd. We couldn't tell where the tarmac started and ended in the
dark. In my head I counted 4 but in reality it was only
three. Kevin saw us make the left turn but didn't see us make the
right turn. To make matters worse, it is hard to make a complete
count because the road winds back and forth a lot. Yes, Primo and
I are still casting shadows from Russ' high beam. The road keeps
on going
and going and going. What's ridiculous, the speed limit posting
was 35 MPH. You've got to be kidding. There's nothing out
here. The road is in excellent condition and you want us to go
35? Suffice to say, we didn't stick to 35.
Once we passed the California/Nevada border and the road straightens
I finally got a real count of all behind me. Again "Shit!
Only three!" I pulled over to the side of the road and walked
back towards Russ and Minh. "Where's Kevin?" Russ also ask
the same question. I asked, "How did we loose him? When did
we loose him?" Thoughts of Kevin lying on the side of the road
bleeding profusely entered Russ' mind. As for me I was thinking,
"Crap, we have to ride back through all that. I hope he didn't
continue on the 190 to Furnace Creek. That would really
suck." Russ and I were frantic. "Should we split up or
should be stay together? Maybe Primo and Minh can go on ahead to
the hotel." To which Russ replied, "Let's stay together. We
don't want to create any more problems by splitting up." Just
about the time when Russ and I are ready to jump back on our bikes to
go search for Kevin, Russ
sees a small light in the distance. Russ, "That looks like a
single
light." Me, "I don't know, it's hard to tell because of the
distance. It might be a car." "No it looks like a single
light. Let's wait and see. It might be Kevin." Just
about then the light hits a dip and disappears. Russ, "It
disappeared!" Me, "No it's still there. it's just hitting
the hills. See." "It's a single light! It has to be
Kevin." "Yeah, you're right, it's a single light. It must
be Kevin. Hey turn your bike lights on otherwise he might go pass
us or run into us." Sure enough the single light came up and
pulled in right behind us. Kevin was pissed, "Man you guys
ditched me! I made the left turn and you guys disappeared!
You should have pulled over and waited instead of taking off like
that! I was sitting there waiting hoping you guy would come back
and nothing!" Kevin went on a little longer until he started
calming down. I apologized and said, "Well, despite the fact, it
all worked out fine." Russ, "We were about ready to turn around
to go searching for you. I was afraid you has fallen off lying on
the side of the road bleeding." Me, "I was just concerned that
you might have taken the wrong road and headed toward Furnace
Creek." Kevin, "I didn't know where to go but I figured I might
as well head to Beatty because the sign said Nevada. If I get
there and I don't see you guys, I was going to Vegas the next day and
head home." Me, "Well, we don't have to worry about that
now." Since everything has worked out in the positive direction,
Russ and I started commenting about the beauty of the night sky due to
the lack of artificial lighting. To that, I pointed in the south
east direction and told everybody that glow in the distant horizon is
Las Vegas. To which they were all astonished. Yep, Vegas in
all of it's power sucking glory.
We got back to it and headed towards Beatty. I told the guys we
only have 10 miles left. I think everybody was relieved that
we're close to our final destination for the day. We pull into
Beatty at a whopping 25 MPH. As insult to injury and as the last
event of the day, my low beam headlight burned out at one of the two
stop signs in Beatty. Shit! At least we're in Beatty and
don't have to go that much further. I rode the remaining mile or
so with just the high beam light on. We pull into the
Hotel/Casino parking lot and try to find parking. By the time we
get to Beatty it is a little after 9:00 PM. We have been on the
road for 13 hours and did 400+ miles. We check in, take our
things to our rooms, and went to eat dinner.
Dinner. Even this was not uneventful. Now admittedly the
waitress wasn't the most friendly of person but I could hardly blame
her. Who want to work as a waitress in a 24 hour restaurant
serving people at 10:00pm. Anyway, Minh, Russ, Kevin, and myself
were down first and got a table. The first thing we noticed was
the cutlery has a thin film on it. From the looks of it it's not
a case of the silverware hasn't been washed, but It's a case of calcium
depositing on the silverware from the drying off process. It's a
no bother to me as I just wipe it with my napkin. We all looked
at the menu and order our food. A couple of us decided they need
a beer to unwind. Since the establishment being the way it is, I
figured I should get a beer anyway just in case the food is
questionable. Alcohol and food makes for no food poisoning.
Russ gave an "Oh!" after my comment. "Good idea," he says.
We all got carded even though we know we don't look that young.
I'm sure it's just hotel/casino policy. At last Primo
arrives. As he sat down what was the first thing he did? He
handed the waitress his fork because it has food on it. She
wasn't too happy with that. We knew it wasn't food but just the
effect of the hard water they have. I had the seafood soup with
my meal and thought it pretty good. So I told Primo to get the
soup. It wasn't spicy to me but to Primo it was spicy so he can't
eat it. I had forgotten about Primo's ulcer. Oh well.
We all got our food and pretty much downed it. Poor Kevin got the
French Dip and was complaining about it being completely
tasteless. My dish wasn't the greatest meal in the world but it
was fine. After this meal I don't think anybody was planning on
eating at the hotel again the next couple of days. I'm fine with
it but that's just me.
Before we all headed to our rooms to turn in, Kevin apologized to
me for blowing up. I didn't mind it and understood why he blew
up. It's all good because everything turn out to be fine.
Now we all hit the sack and prepare for tomorrow, which is suppose to
be an easy day.
Pre-Trip [March 13-15]
Day 2 [March 17]
Day 3 [March 18]
Written on: March 19, 2007
Last modified: April 23, 2007