DAY 17 Ridgecrest to Baker - Death Valley

Taking on tne heat!
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Up at 6.00 am - the earliest yet.

Water purchased - least clothes, prompt start and all five bikes motor out to the dessert.

God its hot !

We pass a large and remote chemical operation where it is getting hotter - no people to be seen outside - why and how do people work here?

The emptiness!
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The road sign offers two ways forward - bullet holes in both signs. Hawk agrres with Phil that we take the left turning- the road surface immediately deteriates - speedsa drop to 20mph. Next there is no road surface - GRAVEL! The road width is less than 12 feet, lots of bends, dust and gravel - will it be like this for the next 25 miles as  the signpost suggests. Phil reminds us taht the GS's were built for thes econditions - Warrior says that he has not been on the off road course yet - its too late we are 100 mile sfrom anywhere!!!

Reaching the lowest point of the USA
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Needless to say we all get thru physically unhurt, but mentally hurt.

We ride thru more explosive scenary and arrive at the visitor centre in Death Valley, before travelling to the lowest point - 110 degrees and minus 283 feet below sea level. We are soon joined by 80 people on two coaches who have arrived on air conditioned luxury - they do not stay outside for long. Interesting that the lowest point is now marked just where the busses stop!

The band of five take a final ride together along Artists Impression -  a one way route of about five mile swhere amazing rock colours are displayed. Everything goes fine until the final of 100 bends - Slasher decides to unitentionally follow Gary off the road and gets a big shock - more conseravtive riding follows for the next 10 minutes!

The hottest place on earth
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We all say our goodbyes after two nights and some 350 miles together - Gary and Phil head north back to Calgary we head south to Mexico.

We have lunch at Shoshone - two hells angels get frithtened bythe lizard walking thru the dinner, but stop to tell us we are only 70 miles from Los Vegas -  decision time - we could be gambling by night time! Hawk keeps us on the straight and narrow and says we shopuld head south - we do and temperaures reach 120 degrees within 20 mins. Slasher struggles over the dessert crossing - falling behind a Warrior and Hawk race to civilisation. Warrior attempts to get his speedometer higher than the temperaure guage but fails at 115mph!

Tonight we rest at Baker - a swimming pool and a luxury - a room each!

We meet a French guy and his partner and enoy runnning Americand down for 2 hours. A poor non descript dinner and then bed.