Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

9th June. Mammoth Lakes, CA to Las Vegas, NV

I set off from Mammoth Lakes on the interstate for an hour or so - fairly humdrum stuff.  It was another beautiful day - plenty of blue sky for the most part.

Once I passed through Lone Pine, I started on to Death Valley - how hot can it really be?  I guess I'd find out soon enough.  In the distance, the sky had started to turn grey and look stormy - I didn't know if I should be praying for rain or not?  Nothing eventuated other than some very light showers towards the end of the day.

After some interesting twisties, the road started to dip into the valley.  It started to warm up reasonably quickly - not that it was cold earlier anyway.  Some names of towns/stops in Death Valley - Stovepipe Wells, Furnace Creek, Hell's Gate, etc.  I get the impression it gets hot.  Fuel (gas!) gets expensive as well.  I saw one place advertise it at $5.20 per gallon.  Normal prices, depending on the state, vary from $2.60ish to $3.30ish per gallon.  The record temp for Death Vally is 134 degF.  That's 57 in real temperature speak!!!  You can keep that to yourself.

Once in the valley, the road started to straighten out, and develop woops.  Umm.. if you don't follow motocross, that may not make a heap of sense... look at the pic below - you may have to click on it to see the 'woops' better.  They made the road interesting in a weird sort of way and gave it a type of rhythm that nearly became hypnotising.  There wasn't a tonne of traffic, but I was enjoying the road - in a bizarre kind of way.

Death Valley - somewhere

The temp had increased a fair bit - to the point that it was actually cooler to have my jacket fully zipped, and to have my visor fully closed.  As soon as I cracked the visor a little bit, it became harder to breathe - not incredibly so, but it was way easier with the visor down.  I had to stop at Furnace Creek to pay for a park pass - the temp was showing 107 degF (42 degC).  I could have done without knowing that.  I don't know how those tough dudes on the Harley's would have handled the heat with an open faced helmet and short sleeves.

There were a lot of things to see along the way, as with all National Parks, but I couldn't be bothered stopping for some reason?  At one point, the road dropped to 100 feet below sea level.  The lowest point in the US is in Death Valley at 282 feet below - but I either missed it, or didn't ride along that road.

I ended up going through a town called Pahrump.  For some reason, I started singing "The Little Drummer Boy" for the next 20 mins.  You know the part in the song that goes "parr rumpa pum pum".  Maybe you don't?  Maybe the heat affected me more that I thought and I should've turned on some music... moving on.

Next highlight was Vegas baby.  I tried to guess my way to the strip, but got mixed up in the freeways that crisscross the city.  When I stopped to get my bearings, I was only about 5 mins away.  Not a bad guess.

Anyway, once I hit the strip I was blown away.  It was wild - especially coming from the desert.  The weather was still reasonably warm in the stop/start traffic, but I didn't mind that much.  People everywhere, huge building-sized video screens advertising the latest attractions and performers, buildings of all shapes and sizes - it was a lot to take in all at once.

I found my hotel easily - a block and a half off the strip.  Once i got cleaned up, I went for a walk along the strip.  The first order of business was to get my glasses fixed as I still only had the one nose-rest after losing one in Merced.  Once I got it fixed I was a lot more comfortable.  I walked through a stack of casinos and shops.

Some of the casinos are amazing.  I think it's the Venetian and Palazzo casinos which have a canal system that works its way through the casinos and also outside - complete with gondolas and opera singing boatmen - it was impressive.  I ended up walking around from about 3:30pm to 11:30pm and was pretty knackered after an evening of pizza, a few beers and a full day of riding as well.  It's the kind of place that would've been good to have a couple more days and to also have a few other people to knock around with.

I didn't take any decent photo's of Vegas - just watch a few episodes of CSI or watch Ocean's 11.

Miles today - 330
Total miles - 2089