DVD-Sunday

[tugrik]

Motel sleeping isn't much easier on the 2nd night. It's usually the third one before I've settled in to it, so I'm looking forwards to a good rest after writing this entry. The irony, of course, is that tomorrow's the trip back. Most of my vacations end up like this, actually. By the time I'm just getting into the groove of being not-at-home, I'm on the way back. I think I need to make a resolution to work towards full week+ vacations instead of these little weekenders. Once I get back I'll have 68 hours of vaction remaining (one week, and 3+ days), and will only keep gaining while I try to think up where to go next. It's so weird and wrong feeling to be ahead of the curve like that...

We slept in a bit this morning. I think both of us woke up once or twice, found the other asleep, and went back to sleep ourselves. It was like tag-team laziness, which was actually kind of nice. When we finally woke up, we sat around and decided on our day. The restaurant was closed at Stovepipe, so we figured we'd head back to Furnace Creek to catch our morning calories.

Stovepipe is really tiny. by the way. It's a gas station (with 87 octane only), restaurant, and motel -- nothing more. Seriously, nothing more. The motel is a group of disconnected buildings that are actually much nicer inside than the cabins at Furnace Creek -- but strangely, they had no phones in the room. At least at Furnace I could try (and fail) to get the laptop online. The water in the rooms is not potable (drinkable). It's safe to shower in and brush your teeth, but if you actually want to drink there's a single drinking fountain outside of each building. You get to park right outside your door, but there's no pavement; just rocky-gravel like most of the surrounding area. While Furnace Creek feels like a resort/oasis, this place feels like a glorified version of sleeping in one's car on the side of the road. No, that's too harsh -- as the beds are nice for the price. FYI, we spent about $90 for each night, vs. the $110 for Furnace Creek. Even with the lack of amenities, it's still kind of fun to stay here. Eve puts it best: there's not many places in the US you can stay where there's no phones and no drinkable water... so for a short visit, it's actually pretty novel.

The sand dunes below Stovepipe are strangely out of place. Sure, sand dunes are supposed to be in the desert, but they really don't match the landscape. It's like someone spilled a giant sandbox in the middle of the basin, and nobody really cared to clean it up. The generous handful of tall dunes stick out like they were put there for tourist value alone. Eve, ever the helpful geology-tour-guide, explained why they were so natural: Wind coming down Emigrant pass carves out the hillsides, leaving the most amazing erosion marks I saw when entering the park. The finer grained particles stay airborne, down across the basin. Other major windflows come up from the southern basin, around the east side of Telegraph Mountain, and yet another comes in from the north, heading down from Scotty's Castle. The three get spun up in the center of Death Valley, and tend to overpower and empty out which ever wind was the weakest that day, or just swell upwards as thermals. All the suspended material has time to fall out as the winds entangle, eddy and still... falling in about the same place, and forming huge piles of sand over the years. These get sculpted into dunes by the winds like sand tends to do. Voila. Pocket-sized Sahara.

Since it was nearly noon, breakfast became lunch. The burgers at the Furnace Cafe were okay, but nothing worth extolling the virtues of. The target of the day was to hit Dante's View, outside the east edge of the park and then back in, 5200' directly above Badwater, our location the day before. While we worked out how we wanted to get there and what else to do, I recognized GSDave and the other Dave (I forget his online handle) eating at a far table. Greetings were exchanged, and we caught up for a few minutes. The ADVRiders had made a busy weekend of it, and they were doing their relax-a-rides today. Plans were made to meet up with them at their campsite at sunset, and Eve and I headed out.

The trip up to Dante's Peak is about 40 miles, going 1 mile upwards in the process, most of it right at the end thanks to a lovely little 15% grade. You end up on the ledge over Badwater, and it's literally right down the slope to the salt flats below. From this viewpoint you can see all of Death Valley, as well as the largest altitude difference available in the world: from -287 feet right below you, to the 11,000'+ of Telegraph Mountain there on the otherside of the relatively narrow valley. It wasn't steep enough for a base jumper to use, but a hang glider would have either been in heaven or totally freaked out, depending on their experience level. Many photos were taken, and a few bikers greeted. I ran into Turkish up there and renewed the plans to meet up with everybody back in camp by sundown. I fumbled around in my pockets with gloves on to get my keys out, sending them all tumbling to the ground -- scooping them up and then following Eve back downhill.

On our way back we did the incredibly fun and downright silly little road known as "20 Mule Team Canyon". It's a simple loop off the main road that's covered in white-powder, as if someone decided to carve a road out of talc. It's upsydownsy and rollercoastery in all the right ways, and only about 4 miles long. I highly recommend it to any motorcyclist, but it would probably just annoy a car driver. Eve seemed to like it, but more for the geography of the place instead of the drive.

Zabriski point was the next stop down the road, which Eve had already been to while waiting for my arrival on Friday. I didn't want to hike up the rather nasty grade; I was only stopping here for the restroom break. Eve and I split at this point, as it was now about 3 pm. I was going to kill time until meeting the ADVRiders, and Eve was going to go hike Golden Canyon with her handy geology field book. It's only a few miles from Zabriski back to the campground, so I did a buzz-through only to find none of the ADVRiders home yet. They weren't at the general store, either.

I figured now would be a good time to re-do Artist's Drive. Digging in my pockets for my earplugs (my head was ringing after the ride back from Dante's View, having not put them back in) I only found the left one. Oh, crud. You know those keys I pulled out of my pocket haphazardly? Well, like an idiot I'd stowed my earplugs in my jeans pocket instead of in their little case that fits into my riding jacket's liner-pocket. I could just visualize the right one falling out as I fumbled keys, 40 miles back there and notably upslope. Since I had emergency backup plugs (foamies) for the ride home, I could do fine without... so I mentally weighed the annoyance of going back up there vs. the $45 custom plugs' price. The $45 won out, and back I went.

The 2nd trip up Dante's View was much quicker. The radar detector did it's job no less than twice, as the staters were out cherrypicking the road between Furnace Inn and the exit out to Parump for some reason. Much to my surprise, it took all of 30 seconds once I was off the bike to find the missing earplug. A little water from the camelback, and all was good. Back down the long hill, as the sun was setting. I did go do Artist's Drive anyway, finishing the pretty loop as darkness was setting in, putting me back in the campground just after 5:15.

The guys were there, just chilling and chatting. Turkish was putting his hardbag mounts back on the bike, preparing for the trip home. Much chatting, comparing of gear, sharing of tales, and smoky campfire log-burnings ensued, along with the requisite beer drinking and bad chili in cans. Turkish, one other fellow (gaah I hate being bad at names) and I didn't want the can-food, so we trundled the bikes the 1/2 mile back to the cafe and had lasagna instead, which like most of the food this weekend wasn't stellar, but wasn't half bad either. We made plans for tomorrow morning that involve us riding out of the park together as far as Owens Lake, and then our group splitting. They're going up to South Lake Tahoe and down through Sacramento, since they live way up near Antioch in the northeast bay. I'm going back the route we came in on, since I know it and it's going to be pretty safe as long as I take it careful over the Lake Isabella mountainy area. I'll probably be a little bit more direct once I hit Coalinga instead of once again chewing over the Hernandez Resevoir path. If the fog's gone from the central valley, I may slab it up I5 and 152 just to Get The Heck Home. Yeah, I'm a little concerned at going it alone most of the way, but I'll be back in cel-range. It's just the usual 'be prepared' worries of not having travel partners. I'll be over it once I'm in motion.

There's something to be said here about the difference in crowds. I once wrote about how I fit somewhere inbetween the Relaxed GoldWinger and Hearty Adventurer crowds... and how that relates to my self-expression through my online character and other places in my life. This was driven home even more so during these last few hours. I could relate to these people, the ADVRiders. Smiles, stories, experiences shared. Yet, I wasn't one of them... and it was embarrasingly obvious at times. They accept me within their group well enough, but it's definately not a stock-and-standard membership. They drink. They smoke. They were going on and on about ogling these supposedly Venus-like women driving an accord that they bumped into on and off all day throughout the park. They were comparing notes on equipment I'll never be able to wear, even if I lost all the weight -- and about bikes that I'll never ride. They spoke of the currently finishing Paris-Dakar rally as if they were only a year or two away from doing it themselves. You might note how much I'm using the word "they". I was interested, and could keep up with the convo -- but these things were so not Me. Sure, I may dream about the P-D rally, but I don't really get much out of ogling the female body (or at least my view of physical beauty is notably different from the American Male Norm). I neither drink nor smoke, save for maybe some sampling of unique liquors at the urging of friends (I love sipping old malt-whiskies, but can't take more than a sip or two before it's just nasty to me).

I got respect for how I rode and how I endured. I was made to feel welcome not only at this fire but also many fires to be held in the future... but always as kind of an outside traveller welcomed. This is a positive thing, though it may bear the edge of lonliness within its bounds.

After dinner I rode back to Stovepipe, where Eve was settled into a good book with the TV on for background noise. I got the bike prepped for tomorrow, re-used the internet kiosk to say HI on the muck and get the latest weather data, and then came back to write this note. I'm now going to shower and crash out with the hopes of being on the road by 7am tomorrow for the long haul back. Once I get back and get next weekend's convention over with, there's a long entry I need to write about some of the feelings riding through the desert brought out. Some of the deeper thoughts that an adult needs to think -- but often doesn't want to -- finally went through my head. Thoughts on love, mortality, goals and failures. Moments on the road felt liberating and then downright lonely and cold, as these little avenues in the mind finally got walked down. In the end I think I've unearthed some things that I'm terribly afraid of and admitted them to myself. Like any wound that needs healing, the first step is to identify it and give it a good cleaning out even if it's painful. Then the healing can begin. The ride back is going to help me think through this more, as will the coming weeks back in familiar, safe territory. Please don't get upset if I lock off those entries. Some won't be easy to share, if ever.

And with that, time for shower and bed.