|
|
It seemed like a good plan -- do a month long bike tour, looping from Yuma to Las Vegas to Death Valley to San Diego and back to Yuma. Well, some parts of it happened, but February '08 was just too cold, windy, rainy and snowy to pull it off.
1.
In early February, Randy and I drove to Las Vegas, found a Warm Showers host to stash our cars for a month, and began biking towards Death Valley, where we were going to meet the Wasatch Mtn Club on it's annual mid-winter pilgrimage.
We did make it by bicycle to Pahrump, after hiding out in a few motels along the way to escape the bad weather. Then the plan changed...we bailed. We decided to bike back to the cars just as fast as our frozen toes could pedal!
 |
2. After we retrieved our cars from Boulder, we drove to Death Valley and met the other bikers at Furnace Creek. We had a great several days of biking, camping, and eating fine dutch oven meals with the Wasatch Mountain Club.
It was with sad hearts that we went to Death Valley without Bob Wright this year. Bob had died just the month before, but Marilyn Bickley was able to continue Bob's tradition
We camped at the Furnace Creek Campground and did day biking/hiking trips to places like Badwater and Scotty's Castle
Once you click 'Play' on the video, click 'Play' or 'Next' inside, or else you'll be gawking at Randy and Rick a gawdawful long time!
The 'Bicycle Song' inside the video was written and sung by David Rovics
 |
3. After the others went home, we did more car camping and day rides in the Panamint Valley area in Western Death Valley.
We camped at the Wild Rose campground, and it was quite chilly at 4,000'. The road to the charcoal kilns was covered with snow, so we drove, didn't bike, to the best preserved charcoal kilns in the US. We biked from the campground over Emigrant Pass and to Augureberry Point, then we drove the 9 miles of dirt road to actually get to the overlook and the Eureka Mine. The next day, the the 50 mph cold headwinds that was causing a dust storm deterred us from biking any more.
We car-toured to the Skidoo and Ballarat ghost towns.
 |
4.
We were contemplating what to do next as we sat in a coffee shop in Barstow CA, when Randy was called back to MN because his brother-in-law Bill was in failing health.
Called to see if I could visit my cousins who winter in Yuma. I loaded up my bike, drove South through Joshua Tree NP...I'd never been there before, what a great place! I'll have to go back there soon.
Had a fun week in Yuma, sightseeing and hiking with Kaaren, Butch and Tom.
 |
So it was a good month, just not what I had planned!