Bob’s (Major WWWobble) report

Carl’s Pictures

Marc writes:

My alarm went off at 5:30 Friday morning. I put my riding gear on while not fully awake. No worries, though. I packed for the ride to Death Valley Thursday afternoon. I’m camping again, this year, joined by fellow mid-week rider Randy. He missed the airhead ride to Death Valley this year and so decided to join me on the SMBC ride.

We would meet with another mid-week rider, Bob (AKA Major WWWobble although he claims that WWWobble is some other guy), in the Valley. Bob was not camping. He left Thursday, taking two days to get to the valley.

I got to the Cozy Cup in Hollister for breakfast where I was to meet Randy. After breakfast we headed down 25 in the fog around Hollister. By the time we got to the obligatory rest stop at 198 the skies had turned blue, but the weather was still on the cool side.

We continued on 198 into Coalinga where we stopped for gas. From Coalings we headed down 33 to 46 and other rest and snack stop where 46 crosses 99. The weather didn’t look bad enough to change our planned route of Famoso road to Granite road to 155 over Greenhorn Pass into Wofford Heights and then down to 178 at Lake Isabella. Nice ride.

We stopped for gas and a rest break east of Lake Isabella. then continued on through Ridgecrest for another rest stop at Trona. Lovely Trona. Randy took the opportunity to increase his knowledge of the thriving community. I finally removed some liners from my riding gear.

From Trona we rode through the Panamint Valley and took the Wildrose path into Death Valley. I promissed Randy a beer at Stovepipe Wells which was provided by waiting SMBC members. Our ride wasn’t over yet, though. We still had to get to Furnace Creek and set up camp which we did just as the sun was setting. WWWobble met us at the campground and helped us look for a suitable site. Once camp was set up the three of us went into Furnace Creek for dinner.

I was up with the sun Saturday morning after a mostly comfortable night. I got a cramp in my foot and no amount of massaging helped until I finally got out of the tent about 1 AM and walked around under a full moon. The 10 minute walk was almost worth the cramp. After morning coffee I put on my riding gear for a leisurely day of riding.

The riding day started when we met WWWobble and the SMBC regulars at Furnace Creek for breakfast a little after 9. Participants were Randy, Carl, Stan, Dan, George, Fred, Adrian, me, and Bob.

After breakfast some of us went to Scotty’s Castle where Randy, Bob, and I wandered around taking pictures. We climbed to Scotty’s resting place. The winds that started with the rising sun were getting stronger, quite noticeable at the higher elevations. Fred and Adrian were waiting to take one of the castle tours.

We left Scotty’s and went to Ubehebe crater as Bob wanted to attempt to get a photo of the crater where it looked like more than a hole in the ground. The winds at Ubehebe made the gusts at Scotty’s grave site seem like a gentle summer breeze. I put my helmet on the mirror stalk of the GS because it can’t accidently get knocked off the bike sitting there… so I thought. The wind was strong enough to lift the helmet off the mirror stalk and crash it to the ground, breaking the front plastic vent cover. The helmet then bounced and landed on its back side, leaving a nice ding in the finish. We didn’t stay long at the crater.

We headed east to Scotty’s junction then south to Beatty where we stopped for gas. Didn’t need to fill up, but $3.60/gal sure beat the $4.70/gal at Furnace Creek. The wind was really blowing, now. Next stop was the ghost town of Rhyolite.

You could see the wind blowing up a huge dust cloud from Daylight Pass. I was hoping that the cloud was over Badwater, but as we got closer to Furnace Creek we could see that it was over the campground. We stopped at our now-full-of-dust tents to pick up some swimming trunks then rode over to Bob’s room at the ranch where Randy and I changed to jump in the pool for a while. It was close to 100 F and blowing a gale. The pool was great.

After our swim we went back to Bob’s room to change, again. The three of us wandered over to the bar for some beer followed by dinner at the cafe. I hoped that the wind would die down with the setting sun. My guess proved to be correct. Had it not been Randy and I would have experienced a very noisy night. We rode back to camp and shook the dust out of our sleeping bags. It was another very bright moonlit night.

We helped another rider who was quite tired after fighting the wind all the way from Phoenix, get his bearings in the campground. Once he was settled he came over to our campsite with some beer. We swapped riding stories and drank beer until it was time to climb into our tents. All-in-all, it was a good day.

We broke camp Sunday morning. Bob met us in the campground and we headed over to Panamint springs for breakfast. The cast of characters was the same as Saturday’s breakfast in Furnace Creek. Randy stayed with us until I-5 before he headed home. Bob and I continued on 58, passing the other SBMC members just as they were getting ready to leave from a rest stop in McKittrick.

The ride to Paso Robles was un-eventful save for George pulling along side and signalling about 25 miles from our destination. We was, or soon would be, maybe, out of gas. I suspect the red gas containers on the back of my GS got his attention. I dumped the 1/2 gallon into his tank and we finished the ride.

In Paso Robles we talked, snacked, drank, had dinner with Fred and Adrian, talked some more, then planned the departure up the coast for the next morning.

We left the motel about 8:30 Monday morning under sunny (but cold!) skies. The goal was Cambria for breakfast via the always interesting Santa Rosa Creek road.

After breakfast we road up the coast with the obligatory stop at Nepenthe plus one other stop between Cambria and Big Sur just to enjoy the view. Bob and I got gas in Santa Cruz. We originally planned on riding the coast all the way to Half Moon Bay, but the wind picked up north of Big Sur. We were tired enough of riding in the wind to skip that last 40 miles and instead took 17/85/280 to home.

I put about 1250 problem free miles on the GS. The only problems observed during the trip was with Dan’s Duc which wouldn’t hold a charge and had to be bump started after every stop on the ride home. I’ll let someone else tell that story.