Rich and Jim visit the Desert

By – Jim Smith (2008)

I've made a habit of riding to the desert every year, usually in March, but last year's ride that our illustrious Mr. Hole planned encouraged me to try an earlier ride this year.  Thus when I set out to plan it I decided that the Presidents Day weekend would be a good time to be away. I decided to try and make a whole week out of seeing our desert Southland.

Rich and I left Friday Feb. 15th after meeting at the IHOP in Dublin for a big get-us-started kind of a breakfast.  As we headed down Livermore Ave. toward Mines Road I told Rich that we were going to meander down the central valley toward Button Willow before picking up Ca-58 and heading over the Tehapachi Pass where we would make our determination of staying the night at either Tehapachi or Mojave or Ridgecrest.  We did indeed meander through the valley taking such scenic roads as Ca-32, Ca-33, Ca-268, Ca-198 and a little bit of I-5.  The weather was dry and cool and partly cloudy for our ride South.  We decided to stay in Mojave for the night. A dinner at Denny's and a little television rounded our night off.

On Saturday we went for Breakfast once again at Denny's and then got checked out of the motel.  As we were gassing up the bikes we commented on how many campers, toy haulers, and pickups there were with dirt bikes and ATV's in them. We finally turned right onto Ca-14 and headed up the road to the Randsburg turnoff.  When we arrived in Randsburg we were greeted with signs in the street warning us to proceed slowly and with caution, along with two Sheriff's cars.  We proceeded through town and found another 5 cars at the other end.  Curiosity got the better of me so I stopped and asked a deputy what was going on, as it looked like some kind of Sheriff's competition was going on.  He replied that no, they were all out there to try and keep the peace over the weekend as this was perhaps the biggest off road weekend of the year with perhaps 100,000 off-road vehicles in the area, most of which would be in or around Randsburg.   Well, that certainly explained why we'd seen so many in Mojave.  As we left town we saw acres and acres of parked trailers – vans – and assorted vehicles for transporting their off-road vehicles.  We tooled along through Searles Valley into Trona, and then the Panamint Valley before finally turning right onto Ca-190 and into Stovepipe Wells where we had a light lunch.  The sky was a beautiful cloudless blue, the temps in the upper 60's and all in all really excellent weather.  We proceeded on down to Furnace Creek and got checked in and then met up about 4:00 for a ride down to the Artists Loop.

One of my major reason's for going on this ride was to learn a bit more about my new DSLR camera that I got last year as I am still trying to learn the mechanics and to develop an eye for composition, color and light.  There just isn't anything quite so stunning and dramatic as the views that abound in the desert.

Here's a couple of shot's from our afternoon efforts:

That's Rich at Golden Canyon, then the next three are at the Artist's loop and then another another Golden Canyon Shot and of course Rich had to pose for another shot.

After a huge steak dinner at the steakhouse on Saturday night we toddled off to bed – we discovered Saturday night that there is a little small area where you can get a wireless connection to the outside world – it's in front of the restaurants , also in front of the registration building.  We were housed so far out that we decided that it wouldn't be worth the effort of trudging back to the room and then lugging the laptops back just to check emails.

Sunday morning we got up early and ran up to Zabriskie point to try and catch the sunrise.  We were a little surprised to find that we weren't alone! There must have been 25 or 30 folks there with all kinds of cameras and equipment set up in the viewing area and the surrounding hills.  Chatted briefly to one guy who was videoing the occasion on a brand new Cannon High Definition Production video camera.  He was shooting for some kind of special – must be nice!  Here's what I was able to come up with for the morning's shoot.

Here's a couple of Zabriskie Point Shots.
           

After the sun was well up we decided to take a ride over to Beatty to see if I could track down some of my internet friends from www.gl1800riders.com that were also riding in the valley over the weekend but were staying in Beatty.  The ride out of the valley, and over the 4300 foot Daylight Pass, had us both reaching for our heated gear again.  Beatty at some 3300 feet was considerably cooler than the valley was.  We gassed up and took a tour of the motels and casino parking lots, but only saw a couple of bikes, none of which were Goldwings, so we turned around and headed back stopping briefly in Rhyolyte where we did finally meet one of the guys from the bulletin board.

I took a couple of shot's in Rhyolyte – It was fun re-visiting this historic Ghost Town.
  

On the ride back into the Valley we stopped briefly to take a closer look at the desert flowers that were in bloom.
  

The ride back into the valley put us back in Furnace Creek right at Lunch time – along with a whole lotta other folks so we put our name on the list and proceeded to wait our requisite hour plus before being seated.  What we discovered was that while there appeared to be plenty of seating to accommodate larger groups of people, the kitchen was overwhelmed. We completed our patty melts and decided it would be fun to make our run down to Badwater before it got too late.

We rode back to the creek and took a couple of hours to rest up then went out again – this time up to Dante's View.  The ride up to the 5500 foot view was exciting to say the least with many sections of the ride being directly into the sun.  I needed to ride standing up in order to see enough of the road so as not to run off of it.  Once on top and in the parking lot we were rewarded with some pretty spectacular views.  The ride back to the ranch was considerably easier. 

We settled in at the bar and waited for our table where about the best we could do was to order soup and salad.

   Monday we got up late and packed the bikes up preparing to go.  We checked out and were on the road by about 10:00.  We decided to try our luck with the Southeastern exit. So we turned right off of 190 toward Badwater once again and headed toward Shoshone.  It was the first time I've been that way as it was for Rich.  The ride was uneventful and quite beautiful in places.  Some 77 miles later we arrived at the intersection of  Ca-127 and turned South toward Baker and a fast lunch and some fuel for the bikes.  Route 127 proved to us once again that there must have been at least 100,000 off- road bikes out there that weekend, because as we approached Dumont Dunes, there was a constant string of vehicles carrying bikes and ATV's again, along with a constant dust haze in the air.  After lunch we jumped on I-15 for a quick run down to Newberry Springs and then onto I-40  West for 20 miles to the “Old National Trail Highway” or Route 66.  Route 66 took us into Amboy and the Amboy Crater, as well as one of the largest Natural Chloride ‘mines' in the USA. We spent the night in 29 Palms. And after a huge and most excellent meal of baby-back BBQ at the Rib Place, we called it a night.  Tuesday we were going to ride through Joshua Tree National Park.

We were on the road by 8:00 on Tuesday and heading East to the park entrance.  It was once again a beautiful mostly clear sunny day, as we rode along.  This was my second time through Joshua Tree and I wanted to take a few more minutes than I did the last time so we went pretty slow and stopped a lot. When we saw a turn off for “The Keys View” we took it and soon found ourselves at about 5000 feet overlooking the deserts natural funnel – sucking the LA smog out of the basin and into the netherworld of  the Mojave.

Some more shots we took while in Joshua Tree --->

We completed our tour of the park around noon and decided it would be fun to take a ride down to the Salton Sea.  As we headed southwest we noticed mile after mile of Citrus groves all full of fruit.  I again never realized how much agriculture there is in the area.  After a very quick visit to the area we headed back to I-10 via the Box Canyon Road, which is quite scenic.

We decided to spend the night in Needles on Tuesday and then head up to Oatman and riding some more of route 66 on Wednesday.  The route out of the Salton Sea included I-10 East to Desert Center, then Ca-177 to Ca-62 to US-95 North into Needles.  Needles has a new restaurant in it called Juicy's and it's right next to our motel.  Good food, good prices. If your in the area stop by and say hi!  Oatman was a bust.  The burros we expected to see were all up in the mountains eating the nice green winter grass and had no need to come into town for the tourists to torment!  So, we rode east on Route 66 all of the way to Sellingman where we stopped for lunch were I convinced Rich to spend the night in Lake Havasu so I could visit the London Bridge.  The ride back West on I-40 became quite interesting when we encountered a pretty nasty thunderstorm. Lots of rain and lots of wind too.

We made it into Lake Havasu City, and after several wrong turns finally made it to the Best Western only to find that they were booked.  They directed us to the Island Inn a short ways away.  We checked in just as one of the worst downpours we'd encountered hit the city. Most messy.

Thursday we quickly visited the bridge and then headed out of town.  Today's destination was Barstow, via Henderson where Rich wanted to visit the Las Vegas Trike shop.  Then headed West on I-15.  We arrived in Barstow at 5:00 and checked in.   Pizza and beer for dinner, and an early bedtime.

Friday we got a little bit of a late start as I had to find an auto parts store to buy a lug-nut iron so I could change one of my trailers tires that had developed a very bad flat (bald) spot.  We were on the road by 8:30.  Had some wind coming across the 58, but no rain until we hit I-5 and then it was spotty pretty much all the way home with one very heavy downpour around Newman.  I pulled into my driveway at 3:15 after about 2300 miles. 

This was a good ride.  Next year I think I'll try and include the Mojave Preserve in my planning and maybe visit the area around Borrego Springs.

Till next!
Jim