ColoradoMonkeys

Next morning we woke up realizing that it was not a dream, we have really slept on a king size bed in a middle of a garage right next to our motorcycle in a strangers house. This is for sure once in a lifetime experience!

We packed up our bike, said “Gracias” (one of the few Spanish words in our vocabulary) to our awesome hosts and hit the road. Since we had a long day ahead of us, we decided to have a good breakfast. As we were leaving Ridgecrest, we stopped by a local restaurant and filled up on good food, cup of hot java, and energy.
As we got back on highway 395, our good old friend wind made sure to say hello. Not as bad as the night before, but strong enough to make us a little worried. Worried about the weather as we were about to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains on road 178. By the time we finished our lunch in Lake Isabella, a small town in the middle of the mountains sitting right on a lake of the same name, the wind came down and the sunshine brought big smile on our faces. As we found out few months later from our friend Greg Frasier, Lake Isabella is home to Dave Barr, the only double amputee who had travelled around the world on a motorcycle.
From Lake Isabella we continued on route 178 following Kern River all the way to Bakersfield. What a beautiful ride! It felt like riding through the mountains back home in Colorado. I wished for the road to never end.

But everything has to end, even great ride in the mountains. About two hours after leaving Lake Isabella, we arrived in Bakersfield. City with population of more than 300,000 welcomed us with hot climate and heavy traffic. Our goal was just to fill up on gas and head up north toward Sequoia National Park. The first gas station we stopped at had great prices, but nowhere on the pump could I find a slot for a credit card… Finally the attendant explained to me in English with very thick Spanish accent that it is a cash only gas station. We jumped back on the bike and continued down the street for the pricier gas station, which actually accepted our plastic.
About an hour after entering Bakersfield from the east, we turned onto route 65 and headed north out of the city following the smell of nature. Little we knew what smell of the nature was awaiting us… Less than half hour away north of Bakersfield we entered a land of orange orchards. Actually if felt more like diving into a pool filled with blossoms of oranges. I can’t really describe the amazing sweet smell of the blooming orange trees. It was unreal… and we enjoyed every minute of it.

There was actually one moment which Marianne didn’t enjoy all that much on this beautiful road. It was when I decided to test the power and acceleration of our KTM without warning her. I didn’t feel like following two eighteen wheelers for any longer, so I just downshifted, hit the throttle and almost lost Marianne! The bike went from 40 MPH to about 100 MPH in split of a second… forget drugs, this is much better. But next time I will do it without anyone sitting in the back, less trouble afterwords .
Later in the afternoon we took a little re-energizing and refreshing stop at Starbucks in Lindsay, a small town on route 65. Yes, we are both Starbucks junkies, their hot chai latte is to die for (I think).

Around 5 pm we entered Exeter, and it was time to find a motel and get off the bike. The first motel we found had our name written all over it. After unpacking and a little rest, we decided to walk down town for some dinner. We found a great local pizzeria with the most delicious pizza I have ever had. We had a few of them, with artichokes, pesto sauce, spinach, feta… And a pitcher of beer made it all better. The only odd think in the pizzeria was that most of the very friendly local men had shaved heads and black t-shirts promoting anarchy… where our t-shirts are of much happier colors promoting Colorado Monkeys .

We were stopped just outside of Olancha by road construction. Only one lane was open on road 190, so we had to wait for the oncoming traffic to pass by. While waiting we started conversation with the “flagger” who was directing traffic. I have never seen such a dark white man, only the white skin around his eyes normally covered by sunglasses gave him away. Standing on the road all day long with a stop sign in hands under bright Californian sun has its benefits. Since he was local, we asked him where to stay in Olancha. He reacted with big smile and strongly advised us against staying in any of the two motels and one campground in Olancha and instead told us about town call Ridgecrest, about an hour away, with choice of 15 different motels and plenty of restaurants. We looked at the clock, it was 7pm, so we figured we still have time and decided to listen to his advice. Until today I still question if that was a wise choice.
After saying good bye to our new “flagger” friend, we rode into Olancha and turned left from road 190 onto highway 395 south following the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Just outside of Olancha the hell broke loose! Our good old friend “Mr. Wind” wanted to remind us of its ever lasting presence. The wind was blowing so hard from the mountains, I couldn’t go faster than 50 – 55 MPH leaning into the wind to the west and trying to go south. That created also another problem, we became the “slow” vehicle on the road and were being passed by all the eighteen wheelers… NOT FUN! Getting hit by the hurricane coming from the mountains and by the tornado coming from the passing trucks was really keeping us alert. We had to pull over a couple of times just to take a little break and deep breath. We were desperately looking after every turn in the road for the town of Ridgecrest… Finally at 8:30pm we arrived at the first motel in Ridgecrest.
Our fun was not suppose to end. As we entered the first motel, we have learned that they were fully booked; so was motel #2 and #3. As stubborn Europeans, we usually don’t give up so easy. By the time we found the sign “NO VACANCY” on the motel number 4, our optimism slowly but surely disappeared. As we rode from one motel to another, we have met a group of six bikers, who have been looking also for a place to sleep for quite a while without any luck! The receptionist in the fifth motel explained to us that Ridgecrest is actually right next to a huge U.S. Air force base and the government contractors working on the base that week took all the beds in town. GREAT! The fact that there was a fair in town at the same time didn’t really help. This lady receptionist was nice enough to call all the other motels in town for us to find out that there was not one bed left. Well, not exactly… She found one room available in a very crappy motel in a shady part of town. Since it was getting late and we were exhausted, we decided to check this room out. I wish I would have taken photos of the neighborhood and the motel its self. We parked our motorcycle outside of the reception and the owner/manager took us to the room in his beat up old minivan… As we were driving through a dark back alley behind the motel, we could see someone either half way dead or really high on drugs laying against the fence… As we got out of the van and walked to the room, we were informed that there is actually no lock for that room. I am sure that was just a way of the motel owner to support the local community of drug dealers and prostitutes, so they can have a free shelter. And now the shelter could have been ours for a night, we were so lucky! We left the motel and the entire neighborhood pretty quickly knowing that we were not coming back…
It was almost 10:00pm when we entered a local restaurant. So here we were, dead tired in the middle of nowhere, without place to lay our heads down. While we were having dinner, we started talking to the restaurant manager about our little dilemma. He immediately called every place he could think of just to tell us what we already knew, no bed in town. I even told him that I would put my mattress down in the restaurant if he lets me, but he didn’t like the idea. So we asked our waitress if she would know about any place for us to sleep. She called her husband, but he was not really excited about having couple of beautiful strangers for a night at their house. But our waitress was an angel and came up with another idea. A few of her co-workers are sharing a house near the restaurant, and one of them was working a night shift, so we could have his bed. Just a few minutes later we were following the waitress through the dark streets of Ridgecrest wondering, if we will ever find our way out of here. We stopped in a front of a ranch house and our waitress rang the door bell. After few minutes of conversation in Spanish the garage door opened and there was the bed, in the middle of the garage! It was only single bed, box spring and mattress, but I figured that Marianne can take the bed and I will take the floor. But our hosts had a different idea. They took the mattress off and put it right next to the box spring. That was a base on top of which they put a huge king size mattress, which was until than resting against the wall. While all of that was going on, we were standing in a corner wondering if we will ever wake up from this bizarre dream, where everybody spoke in Spanish a we didn’t understand a word. Our hosts ran back into the house and brought clean sheets, pillows and a fan, so we didn’t get too hot sleeping in the garage. They also didn’t forget to move their truck farther away from the garage so we could easily move our motorcycle into the garage! By then our angel waitress was back to work at the restaurant and we were trying to communicate with our hosts, two gentleman, who spoke only Spanish. I speak four languages, but not a useful word of Spanish and Marianne knows a few words more, but our conversation was mostly based on hands and laud spoken english words . Our hosts showed us the entire house, let us know that we can use anything we need, shower, bathroom… I was the real deal, MI CASA SU CASA!!! No matter how hard we tried, our hosts would not take a penny from us and were as happy as if they won a lottery just because they were able to help us. LIFE IS GREAT!

With our bike all packed up, we rode back to see another beautiful part of Death Valley, Zabriskie Point. I will never get enough of its moon-like landscape with beautiful colors just like from painters palette. What is today Zabriskie Point, use to be Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up millions of years ago. What is left today is piece of art created by no one else but Mother Nature.

We took a short walk at Zabriskie Point up to the overlook, from which one can see the entire Zabriskie Point and also a part of Badwater Basin

With our eyes well fed by the beautiful landscape and our bodies boiling in our motorcycle gear, we hopped on the bike and took road 190 through Furnace Creek Village out of the Death Valley. On our way out we stopped at the Visitor Center to have a little snack, fill up on water, and to use their Wi-Fi. As we were sitting outside on the bench and enjoying our fresh pineapple, strawberries, crackers and tuna, a bus pulled up loaded with Russian tourists. One after another Russian got out of the bus and light a cigarette. Of course right next to our bench! It was time to pack up and hit the road again. It was getting late and we had plenty of distance to cover.
As we were riding on 190 going west out of the Valley, we had to stop to see some of the largest sand dunes in North America, the Panamint Sand Dunes.

We left Death Valley through Panamint Springs, where the road started climbing and became quite “twisty”. Our goal was to ride to place called Olancha, where road 190 meets highway 395. But as always, plans do change.

It was getting late when we entered Death Valley, so we have decided to ride directly to the Visitor Center and to the campground at Furnace Creek. There was a surprise waiting for us in the parking lot of the Visitor Center. Over the last few months I have been watching with envy on one of the forums on the Internet a guy name Kevin building his expedition truck. As we pulled into the parking lot I recognized Kevin’s truck parked in the shade, but no one was around. Since I had to go into the Visitor Center to purchase National Park pass anyway, I looked inside if I could guess which one of the many people in there was Kevin. I have never met him or seen him, but somehow I guessed right. I wish I had a picture of Kevin’s facial expression when I approached him and asked him if his name was Kevin:). When he finally realized, that I was not an undercover cop or any other form of law enforcement, Kevin and his girlfriend Ryan invited us for a beer in their camper. What a great idea, away from the heat and sun, sitting on comfortable couch and drinking cold Fat Tire in a middle of Death Valley. At that moment I knew that we will not be doing much sightseeing. Kevin and Ryan were actually on their way out of Death Valley that day, but since they have neither schedule nor job to get back to, they have decided to spend an extra night and camp with us.

Campground was half empty, so we had no problem to find a site for the camper and our tent. The best part of that evening was that by the time Marianne and I put up the tent, there was home made dinner on the table, courtesy of Kevin and Ryan. Life is great. After dinner I have made a quick beer run and we end up sitting and talking late into the night.

The next day started out with a cup of fresh coffee with honey, something I have never had before. And since Kevin and Ryan travel with two motorcycles sitting on the back of their camper, we have decided to head out to Badwater Basin on motorcycles. Two KTM’s and one Yamaha. Our first stop was a restaurant in Furnace Creek Village for breakfast. After refueling on yummy food we jumped on our bikes and head out for the lowest point in the US, 282 feet (85.5 meters) below sea level.

Badwater Basin is a very hot place. The temperature in shade was on that day 103 Fahrenheit (40 Celsius), but there is no place to hide from the bright sunshine, so we were boiling on the sun in our black biker pants. Despite the heat, we took a walk on the bottom of what used to be an ocean. Salt was everywhere.

The last thing I expected at the bottom of Death Valley, would be a little comedy. But when you see a group of Japanese tourists down on their knees, tasting the salt, and than spitting like mad men, you have to laugh. After that little show we had to get out of the heat; cool ourselves by nice ride on our motorcycles back to the campground. There Kevin and Ryan loaded up their bikes on the back of their truck, we packed up our tent and said our good bye’s.

One night in Vegas was enough for us. We were ready to escape the madness for piece of quiet, and the always running A/C for nice heat. It was time to leave the man made concrete jungle lighted with neon lights for a beautiful work of nature lighted by the clear sky filled with stars. It’s Death Valley or bust!
We left Las Vegas bright and early on highway 95. Our first stop was in Indian Springs, a home of Creech Air Force Base. Indian Springs is a small town in the middle of a desert with population of 1,300 named after the artesian spring which provides water for the area. Here we filled up on gas and some food, before heading out into the desert towards California. As we were having a snack, an older couple from Oregon pulled up to the gas station with a cool combo, a hot rod and a camper trailer

The sun was working its magic and temperature was climbing up, so we jumped back on the bike and continued northwest through the desert on 95 to our last stop before entering California, a pit stop called Nevada Joe’s. I have been coming to Death Valley for many years and it became my tradition to stop on this intersection of roads 95 and 373.

We were filled up on gas and water in order to be ready for Death Valley. Since our travels are never dull, we were lucky to meet some very interesting people at Nevada Joe’s. A pickup truck pulled up with two gentleman from London, who were traveling with their American friends across the US. It was refreshing to meet someone who spoke 6 languages (beats me by 2) and was worldly.

From Nevada Joe’s we took road 373 south into California. In no time we were in Death Valley junction, where we turned right onto road 190 and just a few miles later we entered Death Valley National Park.

LAS VEGAS
Right after we checked in at Harrah’s hotel in Las Vegas, my phone rang. It was our new friend T.K., who we met with his beautiful family two days earlier in Laughlin. Since it was getting late and his daughter had to go to school the following morning, he was the only one able to meet with us. It was somewhat of a short “get together”, we were exhausted after long day and so we just chit chat, Marianne and I had a beer and than we said good night. Although it was short, it was nice seeing T.K. and we hope to meet him and his entire family when we are in Las Vegas the next time.
I don’t know if it was the beer or the Vegas atmosphere, but instead of going to bed after meeting with T.K. we have decided to head out. Las Vegas is a crazy place and it can completely change your plans without even asking you. We end up that evening in Venetian, a beautiful casino and a hotel just a block or two from Harrah’s, where we were staying. As you go further and further into the casino, you will find yourself on streets of Venice in Italy. The architects and builders of Venetian did such an amazing job on creating a real Venice atmosphere, it is very easy to forget where you really are.

The sky is blue with nice little clouds; coffee shops, restaurants, and stores are on both sides of the street. As you walk through this beautiful place, you completely forget about time. The sun never goes down on the streets of Venice in Vegas. There is no clock or watch to be found anywhere around. At one point you come to a canal with small arched bridges over it, with gondolas taking people for rides and the gondoliers signing to them. Pretty much all of the passengers on the gondolas were couples, younger and older, married or not. We have also seen couples, who just got married in one of the many wedding chapels in Vegas, catching a romantic ride in the gondolas. The gondoliers are professional singers singing to all the couples beautiful love songs from Italian operas.

What an experience, I have never ever seen anything like it. And as we kept on going further, we entered at one point St. Marks square, not sure if we are really still in Las Vegas or if we were somehow transported in space to Italy.

What an experience! I was exhausted but happy, drunk by a little bit of beer and a lot of smiles and kisses from Marianne. Life is good.

Getting on the road early in the morning seems to be a pretty big challenge for us. We managed to wake up early on Sunday morning in Laughlin, but it was almost noon, when we finally left.

And as it happens on our trip, right outside of Laughlin the wind tried to knock us off the bike. And it kept on trying all the way to Boulder City right outside of Hoover Dam. We bypassed the city on its north side, and that is where we had a first look at Lake Mead.

That is where the wind stopped, but the traffic began. It took us almost an hour to ride 9 miles between Boulder City and Hoover Dam. When we finally arrived, we had a first look at the new bridge they are building over the dam. It should be finished by the end of this year, and that is when they will completely close Hoover Dam for traffic. From then on people will be only able to walk across the dam while cars, trucks, and motorcycles will have to use the bridge.

It was a well deserved break for both of us after two hours of fighting the wind on the motorcycle. Although I have visited Hoover Dam several times in the past, I have never taken the tour inside of the dam. This time we did. WOW! Known as Boulder Dam at the time of completion in 1936, it was the biggest hydroelectric power generating station in the world and also the world’s largest concrete structure. It is hard to imagine such an architectural masterpiece being built without any of the technology we have today. It was later renamed after Herbert Hoover, who was very much involved in the entire project and made it all possible.

The entire dam is 726.4 feet tall, 1,244 feet long, and 660 feet thick at the base (the top is 45 feet thick). The water coming from Lake Mead on the top of the Hoover Dam reaches the turbines at the speed of 85 mph. There is total of 17 hydroelectric turbines on the Hoover Dam, 8 on the side of Nevada and 9 on the side of Arizona.

After our tour inside of the dam, we took a short walk across the dam from Nevada into Arizona and back. As we looked to the north onto the Lake Mead, we saw the chilling reality. The water level is several feet below the water. Now I understood why the tour guide told us during the tour to drink more beer and liquor instead of water.

After nice rest on Hoover Dam it was time to jump on the bike and head out to Las Vegas, the casinos were waiting for us. Of course it wouldn’t be me if everything went smooth, so I managed to miss one turn on the way to Las Vegas and end up taking the long way. What should have taken us about 40 minutes took us over an hour. After a long day we arrived at Harrah’s hotel and casino.

Our original plan was to spent two nights and one full day of rest in Laughlin. It is a small town located on Colorado River about 90 miles south of Las Vegas with population of 7,000 mostly retired people, who are attracted by its warm climate and all the casinos. It is like a small Las Vegas without the chaos. Our great host Melode, one of the retired snowbirds living in Laughlin, changed our plans a little. She has invited us to spend one more night at her place, so we had one extra day to enjoy her company and the beautiful weather. Once again we have realized that you shouldn’t plan your trip too far ahead, you never know what’s around the corner.
After a little break in our hotel room, Melode picked us up and took us over the bridge into Bullhead, AZ. Comparing to rather small Laughlin, Bullhead with population of over 40,000 is the place to go for shopping. We (actually me, of course) forgot the cable lock for our motorcycle in motel in Gallup, so we needed to run to a biker shop to get a new one. Marianne also needed a refill on her meds and Safeway pharmacy was just down the road from the biker shop. It was a nice lazy afternoon enjoying the great company of Melody in the sunny and warm desert.

After shopping it was time for dinner, and of course since we were surrounded by casinos, Melode took us to one of the best buffets in town. The food was so yummy, we just couldn’t stop ourselves from filling our plates over and over. The only problem was that afterwards we had a really hard time getting our stuffed bodies from the chairs. When we finally managed to leave the buffet, it was time to make (or rather loose ) some money in slot machines. Melode normally plays only Bingo, but she had mercy for us and so we end up playing Keno the first night.

We did not know, that it was just a warm up run for the next two days… the Bingo days. After Melode’s departure Marianne and I went to the bar to finish the busy day with a few stiff Martinis. Midnight found us finally laying in bed in our hotel room on the 15th floor of the River Palm Hotel.
Bright sunshine was our alarm clock on Friday. It was time to put on our shorts and head out on the Riverwalk, a great way to discover Colorado River and the casinos in Laughlin. But before going too far, we had to stop at Starbucks for some fuel.

All the casinos in Laughlin are located right on the Colorado River and are connected by the Riverwalk, but if one is too lazy or had too many drinks, there is the water taxi, which operates between all the casinos and both cities, Bullhead and Laughlin.

The walk was relaxing, we just took it easy and enjoyed the sunshine. I was surprised how clear the Colorado River was, we were able to watch the carps playing near the shore but we could also see all the way to the bottom in the deepest parts of the river.

One thing I love about traveling is meeting strangers and making new friends. As we walked on the Riverwalk, we ran into a young couple and their 4 year old daughter. As we found out from our conversation, they were immigrants from Ethiopia living in Las Vegas. When we told them, that Las Vegas is on our itinerary the next destination, they gave us their phone number and asked us to call them when we are in town, so they can take us to their favorite Ethiopian restaurant.

We have made it to Riverside casino around noon. While Melode was finishing her game of Keno on one of the slot machines, we went up to the 3rd floor to see the collection of vintage cars and motorcycles. Of course my favorite was the old Honda Gold Wing owned by Emilio Scotto from Argentina. He has travelled with this motorcycle for 10 years and 500,000 miles all around the world.

After the car collection it was time for lunch with Melode in a restaurant inside of the casino overlooking Colorado River. That is where we were told that we were going with her to play Bingo right after lunch. I had to laugh, in my eyes, Bingo is a game for people little older than us, but I am always up for some fun! So there we were playing Bingo with Melode, a day to remember: May 1st 2010. I have to admit that it was not all that bad, and between the three of us we actually managed to get back half of the money we invested.

After Bingo it was time for some more fun with slot machines, dinner, few drinks and back to bed
The last day in Laughlin was really lazy. We checked out of the hotel almost at noon, Melode picked us up and we spent the rest of the afternoon at her place. After dinner it was time for more Bingo, this time so called “Indian Style”, we played for almost three hours with 15 minute break… a lot of fun but no win. Knowing that we were getting back on the bike the next morning to continue our journey, we went to bed unusually early.

Thursday morning was very unusual for us, we actually managed to leave the hotel way before our regular noon departure. We left Gallup right after our “delicious free continental breakfast” at the motel. The wind was blowing as hard as ever and the huge side of our 26 foot rental truck worked as a sail, but not to our benefit. Depending on our position, the wind was pushing us either sideways into the ditch or backwards back to New Mexico. The result of the fight between our Trojan Horse on wheels and the wind was one too many stops at gas stations. Not just that there was something very close to a hurricane outside, but we also must have had a tornado in the gas tank.

As we approached Winslow, AZ, the traffic on I-40 completely stopped. it didn’t take long and the entire highway became a huge parking lot. We end up sitting in one spot for over an hour. This was the first time in my life when I saw cars going in reverse using an ON RAMP as an escape from the mess. As we looked forward to the west, we could see the air filled with sand.

After a while we found out, that the highway was shut down because of a sandstorm straight ahead of us. The Arizona DOT reopened it after about an hour, but we end up driving through the tail of the sandstorm anyway. It was like driving in a fog, but everything was red and the wind was pretty much dancing with our truck.

It was relieve to get out of the storm as we approached Flagstaff, where we refueled our thirsty Trojan Horse. No more wind, no more sand, no more pushing the gas pedal to the floor to make the truck go. Our excitement didn’t last long. As soon as we left Flagstaff, it was time to turn on the windshield wipers. First it was rain but it turned pretty fast into snow. Our trip is just full of surprises. Just an hour after driving through a sandstorm in the Arizona desert, we were driving through a snowstorm west of Flagstaff.

The rest of our trip with the rental truck was pretty uneventful. We arrived in sunny and warm Laughlin, NV, in the early afternoon, where we were expected by Melode, my best friends mom. We unloaded our bike at her place, returned the truck across the Colorado river in Bullhead, AZ and checked in our hotel, The River Palms.

I had a little eerie feeling when I looked out the window of our motel room on Wednesday morning. The water in the fountain was going horizontally instead of vertically and the trees seem to be ready for take off as the wind tried to pull them out of the ground. Still, hoping that the weather north of the highway I-40 corridor will improve, we packed the bike and left the motel in Gallup, NM. As I was turning right on the first intersection, I thought that we were going down. I have never felt such a wind gust! But as a stubborn Colorado man, I kept on going north on route 491… Not for long. As we reached the town limits, we could see sand storm straight ahead. I had to lean the bike into the wind on a such an angle that the drivers around me were looking for a cameraman thinking that I was a stuntman from Hollywood. Twelve miles after leaving the motel we gave up and turned around. The idea is to enjoy this trip and not suffer through it. The ride back to the same motel we left earlier that morning was the longest ride I have ever been on. The wind was doing its best to knock us off of the bike. Back at the motel we managed to get the same room we were in just an hour earlier. I immediately turn on the weather channel and also our laptop to check on the weather, something I should have done a little earlier.

As we were watching the news, we have learned that we were fighting that morning wind of about 45MPH with gusts of up to 70MPH. We were glad to be off the bike. The problem was that the weather looked bad for the next few days all around us and we had no intensions of spending our vacation in a motel room. We have decided to make it through the storm using the theory of Trojan horse. After making few phone calls we found the last and only available rental truck in Gallup, 26 foot long GMC. Brandon, the super nice receptionist drove us to pickup the truck and then helped us to load our bike.

That night we went to bed early to get some rest before pushing on the next day through Arizona into Nevada with our Trojan Horse.