It was a beautiful, clear, and initially warm night. The desert was still and silent. That has been said about this place—that there is a quietness to it and I will testify to that. Sounds get muffled somehow and it is tranquil to the point of being eery. I fell asleep immediately. But not for long. The coyotes set up a chorus of chilling howls in the wee hours that brought me to full attention in a hurry. I don’t know how far away they were, but I’ll tell you I looked outside the tent to see if they had made off with some groceries off the bike. Their pups could be heard chiming in as well with their little yips and whines, just happy to be part of the pack. The babies were now part of the choir! Evidently they had dispatched some poor little rabbit and were having a primal ceremony. I have seen something similar at football games. In any case, all the other rabbits are on the alert, I'll wager, and those dogs won’t be sneaking up on another one right away.
On the road this morning I encountered a coyote who had mastered a unique hunting/gathering strategy. He stood in the middle of the road and cars invariably stopped to take pictures of him and occasionally throw him food.
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| "Hey Buddy, can you spare some change"? |
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| "Hmmm.. whatcha got in there"? |
I stopped as well and he came over to sniff out the festering foodstuffs in my saddle bags.
Did some good riding and good dawdling today as I rode due south down 178 to take in all that Death Valley has to show. Another windy day that kept me on my toes anticipating strong side gusts in the exposed sections, which was pretty much most of it come to think of it. When following another bike I could see how we were leaning into the wind by several degrees just to keep a straight course. We must have looked like sailboats. It was warm, about 32C, but that was very easy to take. The record is 134F which by my calculations is almost 57 C. There has been less than one inch of rain in the past 12 months. Spring is late, and little yellow flowers are popping out on what I believe are mesquite bushes.
That said, I was quite surprised to see a sprawling grove of palm trees, green grass and all sorts of plants at Furnace Creek. This is a classic oasis, where water burbles out of the ground in the middle of the desert. It is an odd phenomenon that has something to do with confined aquifers, but I won’t bore you with more geology today.
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| An Oasis, named after a car wash of the same name. |
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| Water!!! |
On to Badwater Basin which is a huge salt pan at 282 ft below sealevel. There is some water in it but it is quite undrinkable. Believe it or not there are little snails that thrive in the stuff. The mountains across the valley at this lowest point reach almost 12,000 ft high! This is truly a landscape of extremes!
Man in Black at The Badwater Basin
Finally turning east over the 5000 ft pass to Shoshone and found myself emerging from Death Valley alive and well. Quite an unforgettable place!
Some drunk went wild with a paintbrush and splattered the rocks and hills with an unlikely palette of colours. There are colourful and contorted sedimentary strata and evidence of volcanism as well. Lava flows and cinder cones are seen here and there, and these weather from black to red, orange, yellow, and sometimes blue/green.
And then… what the heck. Las Vegas is only an hour and a half away and The Bruiser has never been there before. So we cruised up and down The Strip a couple of times, and people waved at us and cheered. Evidently my blog has an impressive readership!
The Bruiser cruises The Strip!
Oh but it is a garish place! As much as it is bright and lively and flashy and colourful, it is seamy and excessive beyond measure. Little wonder so much of the planet despises the western world!
But, it had to be seen. And such a contrast from the stillness I awoke to this morning!
Hot, tired and dusty it was just too difficult to keep going that late in the day with the task of finding a campsite beyond the city. Coincidently my home for the night is called the “Oasis”, which is fitting… and not. It is situated right in the Old Vegas to the north of The Strip and a block from Fremont which is the old strip, but renovated to now include a huge digital screen canopy over the street that lights up with a loud video production every half hour. Dinner was a gross hotdog and beer. Joining the throng of middle class America I walked it from one end to the other, taking in the shops and casinos and bars with their blinking lights of all the primary colours and the antics of buskers and dancers and painters and magicians and people dressed up as cartoon characters.
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| Yes, you read that correctly. |
I think I prefer sleeping with sagebrush and coyotes.
