DAY 57

Valley of Fire, Nevada to Mesquite, Nevada

An early start as the sun broke over the red mountains.  The wind is already about and ferocious!  A 6km trip to Rainbow Point a stunning vista of the prehistoric wind carved valley.  The headwind/side wind is pummeling us with sand  and blowing us all over the road.  When for however brief a moment it is a tailwind, things are smooth sailing. At times we are actually blown uphill.

Lunch and blogging session in  a library Overton, (a windy town where everyone must be in a perpetual bad mood because the wind NEVER subsides) where Luke leaves his driver's license.... 

Then our path takes us to our first stretch of freeway, where the wind is buffeting us from one side and the traffic from the other- its deafening and such a slog. The road is littered with glass and tyres and rubbish too. To get some sort of reprieve from the wind we stopped by a stinky dumpster to eat lunch!! You could liken the experience to playing Mario Kart, you are Yoshi, minding our own business, trying to avoid all the banana peels and green shells flying everywhere, while Bowser screams past every 3 seconds. You're also out of coins so you spin out every once in a while... We arrive at Mesquite late and stay in a crusty casino and watch the third presidential debate, on foreign policy, Obama kills it!

DAY 56

Callville Bay (Lake Mead) Nevada, Valley of Fire, Nevada

Perhaps the best days riding of the trip in terms of scenery, completely unexpected.  Every twist in the road brought a new volcanic sandstone/limestone/lake/desert view, plenty of colours and contours.  However, there was a ferocious side-wind mixing with the desert heat which made it a little challenging.

Valley of Fire on first impression, is named so aptly.  It is red rock sandstone walls that are carved by wind, and when the sun hits them it is ignited.

That tiny dot in the middle of the road is Luke!

 

DAY 55

Las Vegas, NV to Callville Bay, Lake Mead NRA, NV

Begin the day riding the length of the Las Vegas Strip, passing all the big name casinos, weaving in and out of traffic, so much fun! Crash bang down to Earth (not literally), we spend the next hour riding through the very average (read: run down, rough) Las Vegas outskirts. We climb a tiny pass and suddenly the city is gone and we're back in the Mojave Desert, a reminder of the pop-up form this bizarre city takes, it's really in the middle of nowhere. The rest of the day is spent leisurely making our way to Callville Bay, a popular boating spot, on the lake created by the Hoover Dam. A day of 3 completely different sides.

DAY 54

Rest Day - Las Vegas

Gee whiz we love Vegas! We spend almost the entire day treating our bodies to a little luxury at the spa/salon at Caesar's Palace, soaking and steaming away in style. We leave feeling somewhat like we did 2 months ago before the trip. Normal, that is.  We also saw a Dale Chihuly (American glass artist- all hand blown) exhibition and installation at the Bellagio, which was stunning! 

When we're done we head to the local University, UNLV, which is hosting an NBA pre-season game between the LA Lakers and Sacramento Kings. For those of you who don't know, and there can't be many of you who don't, Luke has been obsessed with basketball and the NBA his entire life. So an unexpected game in an unexpected city was a dream come true, really. The stadium is packed to the rafters, and we are 2 of about a combined 5 Kings fans in the entire joint to see the Kings cause an upset. Seeing Kobe, Nash, Gasol, World Peace (yes, that's his surname) and the Kings young guns in action was awesome. 

Back on the strip, we both played a midnight poker tournament at the Luxor, in which Ada is, believe it or not, chip leader at one stage after a couple of big early hands. While her stack dwindles, it lasts just enough to finish one spot higher than Luke, something which qualifies her as better than Luke at poker, if you ask her.

 

DAY 53

Rest Day - Las Vegas

On with the show. First things first, we bus to old Vegas again for lunch at a restaurant Ada had read about pre-trip and was dying to go to (pardon the pun): the Heart Attack Grill. We order the "triple bypass burger" and a "butter thickshake". The menu also contains a burger it claims is the Guiness World Record holder for most calorie filled hamburger. The waitress' dress as nurses and patrons are admitted, hospital style, and made to wear gowns. Punter's weighing over 350 pounds eat free. Unashamed over-indulgence. Very gimicky, we loved it. On our way back we continued to get our tourist on by stopping at the pawn shop from the Pawn Stars TV show, which was actually pretty disappointing, none of the fat dudes and grumpy grandpa who run the joint were there, and half the shop is full of souvenirs. Oh well. The night is spent at the MGM Grand casino where we are treated to one of the best things we've ever seen in our lives: David Copperfield. The world's most famous magician completely surpassed everything we hoped for. 10 out of 10. Disappearing, reappearing, going into the future and back, he was funny, he was genuine, spontaneous. Every act completely blew our mind. If you're not familiar with him, Youtube him right now. We also played blackjack at Hooters.

DAY 52

Rest Day - Las Vegas

We kickstart another day in this theme park city for adults by playing arcade games for a few hours, where Luke consistently asserts his dominance at motorbike riding/machine gunning/football throwing/ice hockey fusballing etc... We then head to New York, New York, a New York themed casino complete with all the famous landmark's, where we ride a rollercoaster! Although only lasting a minute or so we leave feeling very sick on adrenaline and upturned stomachs. What next? Luke plays another poker tournament at the classy and quiet Mandalay Bay casino, where he busts on pocket kings. We meet up with Kyle again that night and head to old Vegas for a night of cheap thrills. Old Vegas is hilarious. The casino's here are much rougher around the edges, filled with smoke and old-timer music and plenty of loudmouths having a good time. The street's are lined with street performers, plenty of freakshows doing whatever they want, lots of scantily clad barmaids and pedestrians alike, CSI Las Vegas is filming in the middle of the walkway, people are ziplining above our heads as the roofed street is ablaze with lights and music. We play some blackjack then head back to the glitzy new Vegas, where we watch the famous fountain show at the Bellagio, say goodbye to Kyle, and hit the sack about 5 hours past our usual 8:30 bedtime.

DAY 51

Rest Day - Las Vegas

We've had about one rest day in the last month, criss-crossing the Sierra's (God knows how many combined meters of elevation we've climbed) and then traversing the Mojave Desert. We're knackered. Some serious muscle soreness going on. And we're in Vegas. So, we're having 5 days off! And we're going to live it up. We lounge by the pool for most of the day. We see Chris Angel, a world famous magician/illusionist (Google him), and while the magic is cool and the effects are cool, he himself kinda rugs us the wrong way with his Emo/gothic/teen hearthrob/mr niceguy style. We walk The Strip, that is, the street where all the famous themed casinos are, which is an hilarious experience. Anything goes. Beer on the streets, lots of cleavage, fountains, shows, bright lights, street performers, hustlers, nude girly magazines, stretch limo's and hummer's, it's all incredibly surreal. There's a Paris themed casino (complete with Eiffel Tower), and Venetian one with gondolas and St. Mark's replica, a New York one with basically every New York landmark forming the casino, in all there's maybe 2 dozen like this lining the road with thousands of people here for a good time enjoying it. When Ada calls it a night Luke plays a poker tournament at the Egyptian themed Luxor (a black pyramid building with a light beaming into the night's sky from it's peak, with a huge sphynx out the front) where he is, of course, unsuccessful.

DAY 50

Pahrump, NV to Las Vegas, NV

We get halfway through the days ride before Ada's saddle sores make it unbearable for her to ride anymore, so we hitchhike with Nelson to his hometown of Sin City, Las Vegas. First things first, we do some shopping (clothes, bike gear, sandals, lots of goodies from Wholefoods) before settling into our hotel/casino right on the strip, the Excalibur, which is knights of the round table camelot themed and looks like disneyland from the outside and on the inside has a reputation for being the 'family friendly' casino on the strip (read: it's cheap and full of drunk bogans).

DAY 49

Furnace Creek to Pahrump, Nevada

Leaving Death Valley we stop at Zabriskie Point with views of golden and brown badlands with the Valley for a backdrop. The days ride is pretty standard desert scenery, hot, physically draining, it takes forever to reach the only landmark on the horizon. We reach Nevada again, which we've missed. We know we're back when the gas station we stop at for gatorade and chocolate has slot machines in it. Tonight we warm shower (couch surfing for cyclists) with Kyle, our hosts are Donna and her friend Jenny, who are pretty eccentric characters to say the least. Fun facts: Donna's house was built by her husband who's not a tradesman whatsoever, the house is full of fostered cats and dogs (one named Lois Lane), it's also full of hundreds of books which Donna will sometimes read in a day, Donna (in her 50's) and Jenny (21) met on Youtube when commenting on their favourite American Idol videos (Jenny moved to Pahrump from Hong Kong to meet Donna), and the two were famously lost in Death Valley in the middle of summer for 3 days with a cup of water between them! Needless to say they were entertaining hosts and we're very greatful for their hospitality.

Sidenote: It's election time in America, for seemingly everything (the senate, the school board, the water board, judges) and Pahrump was full of funny ones like Judge Kim Wanker and Donna Cox. We'd vote for them.

DAY 48

Furnace Creek to Badwater, Death Valley (return)

We began the day with a buffet breakfast and we made damn sure we got some bang for our buck, with roughly 2 breakfasts each, an early lunch and pocketing some snacks for the days ride. Nice. The atronomy club was out and about again, this time with telescopes set up looking at the sun with all its sun spots and solar flares, very cool. We wait to mid afternoon to ride to Badwater which, at 85 meters below sea level, is the lowest point in the western hemisphere. It's basically an eery set of salt flats in the middle of Death Valley, it's starkly beautiful and bloody hot, so we don't stay too long. In fact Ada is up to her old tricks again and is getting heat stroke symptoms so we call it a day, sort of, and ride back to camp in the blazing heat. On the way we stop at Golden Canyon for a nice short, shaded walk. The night is spent climbing around the rock formations surrounding the camp ground, watching a shooting star or two, and hearing a pack of coyote's howling nearby.

DAY 47

Stovepipe Wells, CA to Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park, CA

We left at midday, we had to let almost everything dry after last night! It rained for most of the morning too, meaning 3 days of rain in 3 days in Death Valley. Unbelievable!

Speaking to one of the rangers we found out that Death Valley holds the record for hottest temperature of all time (54 I think) and only 2 months ago it was over 50 degrees. Celcius. Yep. Anyway, once underway our first stop was the Mesquite Sand Dunes, which we walked across and up and down, the sand beautifully carved and sloped by the wind. The rest of the day we spent making our way through the Valley, surrounded by pyramid style, but more multi-dimensional, mountains, with salt flats in the foreground, at one stage riding downhill past sea level! You read that correctly, downhill, past a sea level marker. In fact Badwater, where we will be going tomorrow, is the lowest point in the western hemisphere at about 86 meters below sea level.

We spent the afternoon gorging ourselves on overpriced National Park priced junk food. As a surprise bonus, the Las Vegas Astronomers crew put on a free 'show' of sorts that night, where incredible telescopic images of far away stars/galaxies were broadcast and a laser torch presentaion of the night sky and some constellations was made by some experts, in the pitch black of the Death Valley desert. Awesome.

DAY 46

Panamint Springs, CA to Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley National Park, CA

We start the day with a behemoth of a climb our topography maps let us know is coming. We've got to summit Towne Pass to get into the Valley. It's long and it's steep, no surprises there, but we haven't sweat as hard (even though it's not hot out, yet) and we haven't felt as though we were really stamping on the pedals as we did this morning.

Roughly 10% grade for 30km's. It's pretty comparable to the Tioga Pass road in all honesty. An absolute beast. But we conquer it. And do so feeling surpisingly good and upbeat. At the summit we meet Kyle, a cycle tourist from Houston, Texas, who we end up riding with for the next 5 days or so. He's a great bloke with a few quirky cycling traits (he rides wearing a ski mask, backpack and vibrams). The descent is enormous, a 5,000ft drop spread nicely over 30km's, a descent which takes us into the Valley and to sea-level! Later, as night approaches, it becomes very windy (Kyle's tent blows away to be rescued by Luke), there is incredible lightning striking every mountain range on every horizon, making for a once in a lifetime skyline. It rains on and off all night, hard, (yes, Death Valley is the hottest driest place in the US) the wind blowing a gale then ceasing then up-ing the ante again, and during the course of the night we find out the hard way that our cheap tent isn't waterproof! Everything is damp, once a welcome, calm morning arrives. What a night.

Sidenote: we meet a park ranger with one of the greatest names of all time, befitting his grey ponytail and manicured beard: Sardius Stalker.

Another sidenote: Luke has beaten the distance he rode in New Zealand.

DAY 45

Ridgecrest, CA to Panamint Springs, Death Valley National Park, CA

The highlight, if you can call it that, was passing through Trona, probably the wierdest town we've ever come across. There's some sort of mineral mining going on in this town, and it's residents have a very temporary feel about them. About 3 in 4 shops and homes were boarded up, and each entrance to town was marked by a rotting, rusting pile of trucks and RV's and boats and metal. Very eery.

Otherwise the scenery all day was very nice, a bit highway 50 like, riding through desert basin terrain, surrounded on all sides by multi-hued (red, brown, gold) mountains, with a few sand dunes here and there. Actually this was much more "lonliest road in America" style than highway 50 was supposed to be, maybe a dozen vehicles past us in a 6 hour day. One descent carved its way into the mountains, the road bored right through them. Eventually we make it to Panamint Springs, inside Death Valley, very tired, very salty (sweaty), very dusty, and very jarred from the incredibly bumpy condition of the road.

Sidenote: Without a fly on our tent (why would we? It's the driest place in America and the night sky is crystal clear) we are woken by light rain at 5am, causing a mad rush to cover up and tie up the panniers.

DAY 44

Wofford Heights to Ridgecrest

First of all we ate a huge pack of cereal for breakfast.

Second, after skirting Lake Isabella for a little bit, we reached a town by the same name and had a funny conversation with two blokes in a pickup truck. "Where you guys riding?" "Ridgecrest" "Thats a lotta luggage you got there for Ridgecrest. Hang on, Why the hek are you goin to Ridgecrest?" "Oh we're on our way to Death Valley" "Why the hek are you goin to Death Valley!?" Both men making their I've never seen anything like this before what the hek faces. Back on the road we had our first decent meal in a long time at a cute old store in Onyx, before climbing a very manageable pass, into which we had one of the most enjoyable stretches of road we've experienced: Long, flowing descent past a forest of Joshua Trees, a bizarre cactus found only in this part of the world. Ridgecrest was a pretty shitty town.  No offense...

DAY 43

Porterville, CA to Wofford Heights, CA

The cherry on top from yesterdays day of days was we awoke to a flat tyre we had to change, realizing in the process we each had about a dozen little thorns and prickles stuck in our tyres. Nice. On the road, very happy to be leaving Porterville, we took a backroad "shortcut" (oh no!) which started as an undulating country road in crappy condition past a handful of houses, all of which seemed to have between 1 and 10 German Shepherd sized dogs going bonkers at us, before turning into an uphill slog through ranching country.

This practically dormant backroad was, as seems to be the case with any non-major road in these parts, extremely steep, roughly 20% in parts, utterly ridiculous. Great shortcut Luke! So after a few hours of this, entirely on our own, sick to death of uphill, and following one encounter with a loose mutt who bounded alongside us until Luke told it to "get out of it", which it did, we hit Glenville and stopped for lunch at the aptly named Saddle Sore Saloon.

By now it's 3pm and we realize we've only climbed 3,000ft of a 6,000ft upcoming pass! Resigned to cutting the day short (there's no way we'll finish the climb alive today), Dianne and Julianne, two friendly country-music listening gals who both work at the Saloon, offer us a lift to the summit, which, of course, we gladly accept. So we hop in the pickup truck and the girls take us to the top. Once there we enjoy a 13% descent over 12kms, which takes about 10 minutes, into Wofford Heights on the shore of Lake Isabella. Funny old day.

DAY 42

Exeter, CA to Porterville, CA

God what an average day! Nothing to look at, just more orchards, an inexplicable amount of traffic, not even a hill or two to spice things up. The light at the end of the tunnel, for want of a much better phrase, was Porterville, which was, in a nutshell, the biggest dump we've been through. It has a very bogan suburban feel to it, some very roug areas, lots of immigrants walking around with nothing to do, lots of people walking around with trolleys/bikes loaded with cans and bottles.  Lots of perpetual yard sales. We eat a big big big lunch at a chain diner, which we leave feeling sick. What else? We hang out at a Best Western Hotel all afternoon watching ESPN. A day we had to have.



DAY 41

Lodgepole to Exeter, California

It's our 2 year anniversary! 2 years ago we went on our first date, skateboarding in an alleyway behind Luke's house in Richmond, and now here we are riding bicycles all day every day. Make of that what you will. 

We were treated with a massive massive descent (6,000 ft) of hairpin turns along a gravel road-works road into the foothills. What else? Luke nearly got run over by someone cutting a corner. We made our way to our first flat stretch of road in probably 2 weeks which was nice. We passed a lot of citrus and pomegranate and olive plantations. How else did we spend this romantic day? We blogged and surfed the internet for ages. We got a pizza at a sports bar and watched the baseball. Then we passed out at the crummy motel. Nice.

DAY 40

Rest day, Lodgepole, Sequoia National Park, California

It's a day off! So we leave the tent and our bags and the kitchen sink and ride, unloaded, to the nearby Sequoia grove's. The first big tree we come across is the General Sherman Tree. The Sherminator is the world's largest tree. Not tallest, largest. It's pretty bloody tall though, 84 meters. But it's its volume that makes it the largest, the biggest, the biggest living thing on Earth. Probably the best size description we read was that the size difference between a mouse and a 6 foot human is the same between the 6 foot human and General Sherman. 

We sat and tried to take it all in before small hoards of dorky tourists arrived and we couldn't stop laughing at the rubbish photos they were taking and poses they were making (try straddling the wooden railing, sitting on a bench with legs curled up revealing crotch etc). It's amazing how many people's experience of the tree is through the camera lens. So we moved on, taking a long, slow and very enjoyable walk through the Giant Forest, where we were alone with abundant sequoias, it was magical.

The little black figure in front of General Sherman is in fact Ada

DAY 39

Grant Grove to Lodgepole, Sequoia National Park, California

As part of our new take-it-easy-for-a-few-days approach we're stretching way more and eating healthier (if possible, it's often very hard to find something healthy to eat in the US, there is often nothing fresh available in the national parks except onions and potatoes). But this morning we do: canned spinach and tuna for breakfast. Mmm. 

Today's ride takes us to neighbouring Sequoia National Park, through some of the most luscious forest yet: Giant Sequoias, mossy pines, rocky outcrops and fern undergrowth. In fact all the forest we've ridden through on this trip has gotten progressively better looking. In the arvo we go for a scenic 2 mile hike to a waterfall, which at this time of year is dribbling out about a mouthful of water at any one time, but it's set in a wonderful enclosed arena of rockface which echoes brilliantly whatever we want to yell out, like "yodeleyhihoo" or "dogroll" or "biscuits n' gravy" for example, whatever.

DAY 38

Cedar Grove to Grant Grove, Kings Canyon, California

Just what we need to get the ball rolling: the best downhill of the trip (and that's saying a heck of a lot). The road is smooth, straight, not too steep, there's no one about and its not 35 degrees. We're retracing our route from yesterday but it's amazing how your perspective changes when you're sitting up relaxed to enjoy it all as opposed to hot and bothered and wishing for it to be over. It was nice to really appreciate the canyon. At it's lowest point, and in accordance with our new take-it-easy-for-a-few-days approach, we hitchhike to avoid the 3,000ft climb back up. 

Once up, we spend the arvo taking in Grant Grove, a grove of Giant Sequoia's, a serene, fantastical place, which really brings out the childish wonder and imagination in us; these trees are HUGE. We spend hours here, straining our necks looking straight up most of the time.