M/C Raven Trip Report 25 – California Here I Come

I rode south through Southern Utah and into Northern Arizona to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. While there I stayed at the DeMott Campground just about 8 miles from the entrance to the Park. Campsites were primitive and, after Red Canyon Campground, kind of disappointing.

The Grand Canyon was, of course, beautiful with all the spectacular scenery you’d expect. I took some pictures of the canyon but, since I’ve been taking so many canyon pictures, they’re starting to all look alike to me. I’m wondering whether I’ll even be able to appreciate the Copper Canyon in Mexico when (if) I ever get there. After visiting the North Rim, I headed back to the campground for the night with plans to ride through Zion National Park in the morning.

Left DeMott CG early and headed to Jacob Lake for gas and breakfast. Gas – expensive by Utah standards, breakfast very slow service. No reason to linger… headed north to ride through Zion NP.

Ride through Carmel Junction was a repeat of the day before, turned west and headed to Zion NP. By now, I’ve been in Canyon Country for about 2-weeeks. For me, the best part of the ride to Zion NP was the 1.5-mile-long tunnel that snakes down thru the mountain. Every ½ miles or so the tunnel runs close enough to the canyon wall that there’s a kind of window for 10 or 15 feet then, back to tunnel. When you pop out into the daylight you zigzag your way down into the low desert where it’s very hot. Very hot became the theme for the rest of the day.

I’m ready to head back to California so just jumped onto I-15 and headed towards Las Vegas. Found a campground (Callville Bay) at Lake Mead for $5/night – even had cell service and I was able to call all the kids. Thank you mom for all those minutes.

It’s so hot here that when you go to the water faucet to fill your bottles, hot water comes out! Even if you let the water run for several minutes, the water never cools. I took the opportunity of hot H2O to rinse out my t-shirts.

After I left Lake Mead I made a side trip to Hoover Dam. The dam was impressive but, to me anyway, the new bridge is even more impressive.

I followed my gps through Henderson and Las Vegas and headed to Pahrump where I broke down and bought a new tablet to replace my Acer with the missing power cable. Turned out that my new Nextbook was actually $50 less than I’d paid for the Acer back in April. It even has 4G capability (with a contract from Verizon of course.)

While driving through Vegas, I pulled up at a stoplight next to a Lamborghini Quatraporte. He revved up his engine, I revved up mine… the race was on. Off the line, I had him (or he let me win). After about 100 yards, he blew me away. Way cool! How many times am I going to be able to drag race with a Lambo?

I followed Highway 190 into Death Valley where it’s currently 107deg and -190ft below sea level. I think I’ll only spend 1 night here before I head toward Lone Pine and the Eastern Sierras. 

Still undecided about going up to the Bristlecone Pine Forest. Some of the oldest living things on the planet (more than 4800 yrs old). Seems like a good place to leave a little of Chrissy. Today is the 14^th so, I’ve got plent of time to get to the Horizons Unlimited get together.