Day 2, Death Valley

Day 2 was much warmer, and rode out of Bishop towards Death Valley. Here's what the mountains were like there.


Ended up eating cheap McD's lunch, and as I was finishing in came another guys on the same bike as mine. His name was Rob and he'd ridden up from So-Cal. Cool guy and he showed me the stuff he'd added to the bike. So we exchanged emails and I snapped his pic. Good luck on the road Rob.

Here is the turn off toward DV. Could not get enough of the incredible mountains, nor my amazing motorbike in from of them!


Then road into Death Valley, and what an amazing place. Rolling down into that enourmous valley, felt like I was being swallowed up by the earth. I took a couple offroad trails, almost dumped it again, had my brand new helmet fall off the bike and roll down the hill. Had snacks and water on the most desolate road I've ever been on. It was incredible. Here's some more pics...including the southern valley on Badwater road where it looks like water, but it's just salt.

The campgrounds were weak...bunch of RVs crammed together in a little fenced in area. Wanted to just camp off the many dirt roads but signs everywhere prohibiting. So would have had to sneak it by going off up in the craggy canyons. But with my offroad performances so far, decided that would have been foolish.

So ended up riding on towards Pahrump. It got dark on me<> Parhump had only 3 hotels and no camping. So used Live to get Motel 6 in Vegas, just another hour's ride. You could see the sky lit up over the mountains from Vegas, even in Pahrump. So rolled into Vegas, it was midnight and the city was hopping.

The GPS led me to the motel 6, right in the worst neighborhood I've ever seen. I rolled through with my loaded up bike, past the check cashing places and nice friendly street folk. Decided pretty quick to et back to the strip and pay whatever it costs for the room. :-)

It was a great Day 2 ride, and loged a lot of hours in the saddle. Oh yeah, almost forgot but promise not to report me...in the long long road leading into DV, you could see for miles, so I stretched the Vstrom's legs. Speedo at the time didn't show it but GPS conformed: 122 miles per hour! (and the bike had hit the throttle limiter)

Day 3 should be full day of Grand Canyon, as by pushing through to Vegas, it's now quite close.

Mike