We left out of Lone Pine at 7:00 on my birthday, May 29. There was absolutely no traffic when we cut from Hwy 395 to Hwy 136 to connect with Hwy 190 that would take us through Death Valley. The skies were overcast but the morning temperature was already over 80 degrees. About 60 miles down the road I looked in my rearview mirror and was stunned at the view of the Sierras that were now far behind us. We stopped to take a couple of pictures. A couple of ladies in a Toyota came buy and checked with us to make sure everything is okay. When riding through Death Valley it's natural to stop and check on anyone you see along side of the road. Help is a long way away. I always feel a lot more comfortable riding through Death Valley with the HRCA card in my pocket.

About 20 miles outside of Death Valley we stopped to take some more pictures. There is a desolate section of road that goes on and on, straight as a rail. We always stop on this road where Carole gives me the obligatory pose by our bike(s). The silence in this area is deafening. The only sound you can hear is the wind through a tumbleweed. No birds, no traffic, no planes... it is disturbingly quiet. It is always a good reminder of how noisy our world normally is.

Finally we descended into Death Valley itself and stopped at Stovepipe Wells to down some energy drinks and snap a couple of pictures. There were some runners out that day training for the Badwater Ultra Marathon that takes place in July. I will never understand what drives folks to take on that challenge. As most touring motorcyclists are familiar with, we spent a few minutes with one gentleman that saw our bikes and had to learn about them and our journey. Another gentleman wanted his picture taken as he stood beside the Stovepipe Wells sign, and did the same for us.

We mounted our bikes and headed on through the lowest place on Earth. The roads were still fairly deserted so I took some time to snap some pictures of Carole riding while I cruised in the opposite lane at 70 miles an hour. Something about riding through desolation makes you do stupid tricks. The photo session was uneventful but I started feeling some cross winds so I put the camera away and focused more on the ride. As we passed through Furnace Creek the cross winds picked up some serious velocity. Carole and I were getting seriously tossed around. I saw a couple of cruiser type motorcyclists pass us going the other direction and they appeared to be extremely stressed. My concern about Carole's reaction to the wind grew with every mile. Damn, but I wish I had gotten that CB working for this trip. Luckily as we began our ascent out of Death Valley the winds began to die down.

Unfortunately we had to stop just before exiting Death Valley for some road construction. Hwy 190 is still being repaired after last fall's floods. At least I got to check in with Carole to see how she was doing with the wind and all. She was laughing, enjoying the challenges that the crosswinds provided. Cool! We had to wait for about twenty minutes before we could continue on. Carole spent part of the time chatting with the flag lady that was hold the stop sign up. Looked like a good photo-op so I made the most of the time. Finally we got to continue onward.

The ride was fairly uneventful until we took the two lane road into Pahrump called Ash Meadows Road. We had apparently caught up with the weather front that we had seen pass over Lone Pine the night before. The winds were the most ferocious I have ever encountered in my life! They weren't gusting, they were pretty much holding steady at 50+ miles an hour. And most of the ride had the winds going perpendicular to the road. We both had our bikes leaned over at about 45 degrees just to continue going straight. I was expecting to scrape pegs without ever rounding a curve. Traffic began to stack up as all the cars were slowing way down because of the wind. Luckily we came upon a place to pass traffic and try to get into Pahrump as quick as we could. As most motorcyclists can probably witness, crosswinds are much more manageable on a bike at higher speeds.

We rolled into Pahrump about 11 AM and the winds died down to almost nothing at the same time. We stopped at Terrible Herbsts for breakfast/lunch and gave our shoulders and arms a much needed rest. While waiting for Carole to wash up I met a gentleman that was a retired cop from the Bay Area. He now lives in Pahrump and is enjoying his retirement on the back of a trike. He had a 2002 GL1800 trike but after putting over 100K miles on it traded it in for a 2005 GL1800 and triked it out. He and his wife spend almost all of their time riding. Ahhhhh.... the good life.

We left Pahrump and headed on down through Red Rock Canyon into Las Vegas, arriving around 2 or 3 PM. We parked our bikes in the parking garage at the Sahara, checked in, and took our much needed showers before heading out to claim Las Vegas as our town.