A Ride to the Valley of Death

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Another fantastic ride report. Tyler sees what most of us hope to see when we are out enjoying our machines but Tyler has the unique ability to capture it in photos.

 
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Tyler you should write a book. Great report and pictures and both Anna and myself are so happy that we were part of this great ride! Will definitely put on our calendar for a rerun as we didn't see everything!

 
This ride report is like a ritious prick tease. Get on with it woman!

BTW. Saw a desert 5 spot the last time I was in the Valley. About 10mm across and indeed, very elusive. But worth the search.

 
Tyler you should write a book. Great report and pictures and both Anna and myself are so happy that we were part of this great ride! Will definitely put on our calendar for a rerun as we didn't see everything!
I've been to DV about 10 times and every time there is something new to see... you definitely should add another day or two to the total trip planning next time! B)

My wife, two daughters and neighbor Nancy and of course Jer enjoyed your pictures very much.
That made me smile knowing it's a family viewing affair! :D

Lovin it...Could use more pics of Tyler, Tyler....

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Hard to take selfies of myself with the big camera... you'll just have to use your imagination. ;)

 
Call me a wierdo, but there's nothing groovier than a series of alluvial fans. ;-)
(Is that Donna, with 2 n's?)

Tyler, thank you for all of the great photos. Holy cow! I've never seen Death Valley look better.

You've an eye.
That is Dona with 1 "n"... it was beautiful, OM... you should take your lady there to see the flowers..

Oh, and you're a weirdo. :D

 
So far so good Tyler. Not trying to buttinski on your excellent report but I did get a couple wildflower shots at the Harmony Borax works.

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Your timing on the super bloom was perfect!!!!!

 
I returned to Longstreet and found a couple of cattle molesters in the parking lot…

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the sun started to set in the dust-filled skies as there were some pretty strong winds going on…

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The fowl were enjoying a swim around their lake…

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Or a quiet moment away from the masses…

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Or flashing their wings to show everyone who was boss…

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Then headed inside, showered, and went down to the bar to chit chat. I had told everyone that dinner was at 7pm in the Colorado Room. Just as I was ready to head upstairs, someone came down and said the Colorado Room was locked. Hmmmmm… so I went to the front desk to find out what the scoop was with our promised prime rib dinner for 50 people. The gal behind the desk looked like a deer caught in the headlights… no idea what I was talking about. The floor manager was called and came over. She too seemed to be at a loss… this was not looking good! She ran upstairs and then came back down a few minutes later saying that they had moved our dinner to the Steakhouse restaurant since it was easier to serve the food from the kitchen there… would’ve been nice to know that! So everyone piled into the restaurant, complete with their own adult libations (smart people!) and waited for our dinner… some longer than others… the last dinner was served at 9pm. Yeesh.

But everyone was cool and patient and had fun visiting with each other and the food was pretty good and the servers really busted their butts to take care of everyone. I brought our friend Beemerdons to visit with his friends… I’ll start a separate thread for this but I’d like to get him to the next gathering so he can attend any and all gatherings this year…

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Even with the headaches involved with scheduling the dinner, I think (hope!) everyone had a grand time. Next time, I think I’ll be looking for other accommodations though.

 
The next morning, folks scattered for different destinations and poor Bob/Intech was down hard with the flu which he appears to have shared with lots of people since many folks, me included, came down with varied levels of the flu but not as badly as Bob.

Heading back through the park, we traversed back up 190 in the cool morning air… it was a beautiful day and 190 is a really run sweeper-type road…

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Heading toward Lone Pine on 373… have I mentioned I never tire of this view?

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In Lone Pine, there is a movie museum, The Lone Pine Film History Museum, that I’d always wanted to check out so a group of us headed there to find out about all the various movies that have been shot in the hills behind Lone Pine… lots of westerns (Lone Ranger, John Wayne, etc.), sci fi (Star Trek, Star Wars, Tremors, etc.), and even the Twilight Zone… you start out with a 15-minute movie that gives you a background of where things were shot and when followed by a tour of the museum by the head honcho of the museum to look at all the memorabilia and such… it was really cool!

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I should’ve had someone stand next to this so you could see how tall these things were!

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The monster from Tremors, a great B-movie starring Kevin Bacon…

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One of my friends, Chris, had mentioned there was a 3-mile loop called Movie Rd. that took you past a lot of different locations where movies had been filmed… the only catch was that it was dirt so most folks decided to find some lunch while three intrepid riders headed for the hills…

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Really cool rock formations…

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You can just make out the moon in the upper left hand corner…

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The road was hard-packed but had some washboard sections that were a bit bouncy on the girl bits but the scenery more than made up for it…

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About this point, I stopped and asked Chris where the hell we were going because we had gone way more than 3 miles and it didn’t look like we were heading toward civilization any time soon… turns out he underestimated the length of dirt road and it was closer to 11+ miles! Marie’s tank-challenged cruiser hit reserve when we first started out but luckily she had brought some extra gas with her which came in quite handy…

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The bottom of the mountains had looked so far away when we started out but here we were at the base of them and found bits of snow too… we were really far up!

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We finally got to pavement and high-tailed it to the meeting spot with the rest of the group back in town and then had a really fun treat… a new-to-most-of-us road called Tuttle Creek Rd. which winds its way back in the Alabama Hills territory of Lone Pine… smooth pavement, cool rock formations, and a very fun little road!

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Which then ends at Lubken Canyon Rd and drops you back down to 395 north of Olancha…

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Cool looking trees on 395… almost looks like it was snowing… but it wasn’t!

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And then back up and over 178/Kern Canyon as the sun started to set turning the hills a golden color…

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We stayed at the Kern Lodge in Kernville which is a great place to stay if you’re ever in the area… and you can walk across the road and have an excellent dinner here…

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They did a tri-tip buffet-style dinner for our group that was delicious…

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We were even graced with the presence of Wendy Crockett/bionicpelvis and her rockin’ little girl, Tess, who has to be one of the cutest babies on the face of the earth! And with parents like hers, she is already stunting on her wooden motorcycle… this girl is going to give them a run for their money! ;)

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Lots of mama-types around to lend a hand…

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And we shared a last toast to our friend, Don…

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Tuesday morning was time to head for home and folks had all kinds of different plans of attack… mine was to do some BMR bonus hunting on the way home… there is a really neat category called Paint the Town which is a list of murals located all over the US… I had no idea there were so many of them as if there was one listed for bonus points, there were at least another 10-20 nearby… the ones I found were in small towns in Central CA, like Lindsay, Exeter, and Tulare… these were covering a whole building in Merced… beautiful artwork!

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It was a gorgeous day and the clouds were putting on a show as I got closer to civilization…

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I pulled into the garage just tipping over 1.5K (s)miles and adding a few more moments in the memory bank… oh, and the realization that I lost my license plate on my little offroad adventure!

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If you’ve thought of visiting Death Valley, now would be a really good time to do it!

FIN

 
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