Day 15 - Sequoia NP to Death Valley NP

Destination: Death Valley! Today was filled with diverse scenery and twisty roads.

We started the morning riding lower in elevation on Grant Highway through the park. Great scenery at every turn. Rob warmed up the Wing's horn alerting drivers on the other side to learn to drive in their lane and in general. About 50% could not stay on their side on the curves. It's really not that hard, people!

We turned on US 190 and Rob had planned for a scenic mountain ride in another part of Sequoia. The road was was closed in Springville due to active fire. The smoke was dense in that town. Houses and businesses had signs thanking the fire fighters. We got fuel in a small town and turned around with a new route.

The new route took us back into the agriculture farms, mostly oranges. The road was very twisty.

  

 

We rode up a mountain pass and the scenery changed. This road had a very steep 13% grade all the way down. Rob said 2nd gear wouldn't hold back the Wing from exceeding 40 mph. The 450 pounds of trailer weight helped push us down.

We stopped for lunch in Inyokern at Bernardino's Restaurant. It was really good southwest/Mexican. The tortillas were handmade and delicious.

We only had about two and a half hours left to reach our hotel in Death Valley. It wasn't long before we arrived at the park outskirts. We stopped at the Father Crawley overlook to get the first glimpse of the park.

What a cool place, there was a lot more color in the rock than we expected. Bonus that a few of us got to see three coyotes trotting close to the road, sorry, no pics of them.

Rob was hoping for triple digit temperatures, which he thought would be most fitting to our location. The Wing got up to 102 degrees (104 on Tom's and Mike's bikes)! Toasty! We also learned that our GPS will reflect NEGATIVE elevation, and went well over negative 200 in elevation below sea level

We arrived at our hotel, the Furnace Creek Ranch, at 5:15, unpacked and got dinner. It was still 94 when the sun went down.

We topped our temperature range for the day beating our 2009 record. Today was 43 when we left Sequoia and 102  in Death Valley. The three Wings did great, barely rising in water temp up the long steep grade in the park.

Tomorrow we have a full itinerary including scenic rides around the park in the morning at sunrise, heading over to Hoover Dam, possibly riding around Red Rock Canyon and maybe a drive up the Vegas strip.