Monday October 20th, 2014
Total Miles: 314

The day started with a good breakfast at the Coral Hills Best Western.  We slabed it to Vegas.  Ran down the strip.  It has changed a lot in the last 14 years which was the last time I was there.  I actually flew to Vegas with one of my best friends for Spring Break my Senior year of college and this was my first trip back.  Galen showed me where the Convention Center was located which hosts the International Builder Show that he attended the last few years.  Found a “Welcome to Vegas” sign and got a good pic with the bike.  This was located in the middle of two roads.  We waited for the police officer to get a green light and drive off before Galen jumped the curb for this photo.

Went to Freemount Street .  Parked in the 15 min loading zone at the 4 Queens which gave us just enough time to walk the street and spilt a beer.  Vegas, check!

We loaded up and headed to Death Valley.  It was sunny and hot.  We stopped in Pahrump to try and get more info on Death Valley.  We stuck out like a sore thumb in this town.  It was full of retired people who gamble.  We couldn’t even find a spot that offered craft beer.  We finally found the Chamber Of Commerce which is on the second level of a bank.  We picked up the Death Valley info paper.  We fueled up at Terribles which had non blender pumps.

Death Valley here we come!

We stopped in Shoshone at the Crowbar Cafe and Saloon.  There was a tour bus there full of folks from France. We ended up each having a Death Valley Pale Ale and moved on.

It was way hotter than we thought it would be for October.  We were in 100 degrees for a number of miles. Here is a picture that shows 100 degrees at 5:01pm and we are 114 ft below sea level.

The road was full of ripples.  Trying to capture the ripples in a photo is a challenge.

Checking out some off road options.

Badwater Basin

Sunset in Death Valley

Galen has had Death Valley on his bucket list for a long time.  He was loving every minute.

It was 96 degrees at 6:30pm when we started to set up camp in Furnace Creek.  There were way more mountains then I thought there would be and way more people than I thought there would be in Death Valley.  We humored ourselves and stopped by the Furnace Inn to see about a room.  Rooms there start at $360 a night.  Tonight we will be tenting.  We set up the tent jumped on the bike and headed to the Saloon for some A/C, drinks and dinner.  The place was packed.  We enjoyed $6 beers and $16 burgers which were mediocre at best.  Seems like everything is overpriced in Death Valley.  When we got back to camp even the whiskey was too warm to really enjoy.  It was still in the upper 90’s when we laid down to sleep.  It was the first time we used the tent without the rain fly.  The stars were amazing.  Temps got down to about the upper 70’s.  Too hot to even make coffee the next morning.  By far the warmest I have ever camped.  If we were to do again we would have drove through Death Valley earlier in the day and camped just outside the park in Panamint Springs.  This would have saved us some money on food, drinks, park fees and camping fees.