Saviors from the Chaos – A Revelation in the Desert Southwest

[To clarify the situation for anyone who has not read the previous page,  American Landmarks, that’s where you’ll find details of the dilemma in which I found myself on this long Easter Weekend.]

(Days 8 & 9) I was able to put the damaged tire incident completely out of my mind for the next two days.  I rolled out of Boulder City and looped south of Las Vegas for the short, 140-mile run to the land that God forgot.  There were complex motivations in adding this destination to my itinerary.  First, when Bryan Cady was describing his western trips to me, it was the mention of camping below sea level in Death Valley that stuck most vividly in my memory.  There was a magic to the concept and a challenge in the notion of intentionally going–and staying–in a place bemoaned for its inhospitable and often deadly environment.  And also I wanted to add California to the list of states I have been able to visit on two wheels.

Boulder City, NV to Death Valley, CA:

Almost immediately, the landscape around me started to take on new, wilder, even drier characteristics.  Crossing the spines of some rugged mountain ridges, the  roadsigns reminded me that this was terrain I had never before experienced, and it was home to critters of sizes and shapes we don’t share space with back home.  Mostly I was struck simply by it’s unwelcoming, unforgiving  personality, an assessment that was reinforced each time I saw a warning that motorists “should not wander off the marked roadway.”  And it would get harsher still.

There was no need for a reservation this early in the year at the Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley.  This is not a venue that attracts the masses I encountered at Grand Canyon or at Arches National Park, although I really can’t say why.  Despite it’s lethal reputation, the deadliest things I encountered in this awe-inspiring area were the merchants who seemed hell bent on getting every nickle I had in my pocket. For a small–I mean smaller than a Campbell soup can–jar of peanut butter I paid $3.50.  (Remember: This was in 2011.) Nonetheless, the experience of visiting and riding here remains one of the highlights of my trip. I’ll show you more of it in a moment.

I haven’t mentioned the Senior Pass I carry that’s good in all of the country’s national parks.  It cost me ten bucks, and it’s valid for life.  It gets me free admission (which can run $25 in many parks) and fifty per cent off on campsite rentals.  I paid ten dollars a day at Furnace Creek; I had paid the same paltry rent at Grand Canyon, and I would at Arches a week later.
It’s a great investment.

The last two nights I had suffered in my tent had been frosty events at Grand Canyon–before the motel break in Boulder City.  And I would face more of those frigid temperatures later as I headed north, but the two nights in Death Valley were the best camping experience of the trip… of many a trip.  I didn’t bother to put the rain fly on the tent, and both nights, as the desert breeze wafted through the mosquito netting, I went to sleep in shorts and T-shirt, lying on top of my sleeping bag.  At about 4 AM, as the last of the daytime heat bled out of the dry air and the ground, I’d find myself burrowing under the covers to doze soundly ’til well past daybreak.  I was glad I had taken the advice of fellow travelers and rerouted myself to enjoy the extra time at Furnace Creek.

Riding in the valley is more spectacular than you might expect.  Despite an arid sameness to all its sections, the landscape is spectacular in the harsh extremes it displays around every bend in the road.  Again I have to confess that pictures just can’t do it justice.  But if you click on the link below, you’ll get a tiny taste of  the valley’s desperate beauty.

Video: Click here for a Ride Through Death Valley.

Back to Las Vegas: The Re-tiring of Scarlet O’Honda

(Day 10) On Tuesday I headed back to Las Vegas, and, with luck, I planned to be sleeping that night on the shores of Lake Meade, before riding north to the spectacle of Utah’s magnificent national parks.  But first, I would check my voice mail to see what sort of tire replacement magic Matt Sheen had been able to weave for me before he hit the road to Yosemite. 

One of the gratifying aspects of motorcycling has nothing whatsoever to do with sitting on the big bike and watching with fascination as the scenery flashes by. It isn’t the mechanical or logistical problem-solving or the outrageous duds we get to wear.  For me there is an irreplaceable sense of community and camaraderie that motorcycle riders enjoy which is like only one other I’ve found (while sailing).  I’ve talked about some aspects of that kindred spirit relationship on a couple of other pages, at New Friends and Red Necks and at Biker Buddies and Freeway Friends.  When I was writing both of those pages, I was hard pressed to find a first-person example of the attitude and mindset I was trying to describe. The full magic of it blossomed into my riding repertoire when I rolled into Pahrump, Nevada, on this Tuesday morning after Easter.

At Furnace Creek I had bought just enough overpriced gasoline to get me to this first sizable town on my return run to Las Vegas.  After I  tanked up in Pahrump, I grabbed a breakfast break at McDonald’s to take advantage of the free WiFi and a strong cell phone signal.  I needed to catch up on my communications and post some Death Valley pictures for my friends who were following the trip on Facebook.

My first call was to my voice mail box at T-Mobile.  There was only one message, but it was the only one I was interested in.  Matt Sheen had been unable to reach his mechanic to set up the tire swap; the shop was closed on Easter Monday.  But my industrious new friend–who had to get on the road on Monday for his own vacation ride–left a voice message at the shop and sent a fax detailing exactly the arrangement he was trying to make on my behalf.  His voice mail gave me a phone number, which I called immediately.

Now remember, on Saturday evening my plea for help resulted in a reply from hundreds of miles away, from a person I had never met.  He instructed me to call another person I had never met in the town where I had discovered my problem.  And now that second person was instructing me to call yet another person I had never met to find out about an arrangement I had no role in formulating.  Call me a cynic, but that just sounds like a plan for disaster.

Instead, it was a formula for sheer genius and service beyond the bounds of duty.  My call went through to Green Valley Motorcycles in Henderson, Nevada.  Henderson is conveniently (for me) located between Boulder City and Las Vegas.  It’s owned by Mike Klein, a first class, certified, Goldwing mechanic who is the official wrench jockey for a number of area  motorcycle clubs and riding groups.  The office is run by his wife who told me to make tracks for Henderson and promised that Mike would interrupt his work rotation to get me in and out as quickly as possible.  That turned out to be just under an hour–with a nearly new rear tire, balanced and ideally pressurized for the resumption of my ride.  I still smile–even chuckle–when I think about the saga of my motorcycle tire emergency in the wilds of the desert.  There’s a lot of pioneering fortitude still kicking around out there in the land of sand.  And it’s marvelously layered with kindness, compassion, and true grit.  Almost two weeks later, when I was safely back home in Atlanta, I called Matt–whom I still had not met–to settle up for the cost of the tire.  I am too embarrassed to tell you how generous he was.

It’s this kind of stories, reported again and again on motorcycle chat boards across the country. that have prompted me to list my name, phone number, and email address with the riding groups I frequent online.  They know my good will, my time, my tools, my motorcycle trailer, and–if need be–my family’s guest room are all available to take the loneliness out of trouble on the road.

My plan had been to leave the Las Vegas/Henderson/Boulder City area, to ride up to the shores of Lake Meade and spend the night there before heading north to the fabled national parks of Utah.  The attraction of names like Zion and Bryce Canyon and Arches and Canyonlands burned  hotly in my mind.  But plans are only that, and they’re made for the changing.  

I had gotten in and out of my tire change service call so quickly that hours of riding daylight remained ahead of me.  I did ride up to the Lake Mead campground, but when I got there the sun was still high in the sky, and the roadway north beckoned irresistibly.

Please join me for my ride  From the Desert to the Land of Mountain Wonders.