Thursday, October 28, 2010

Beamer us up Scotty...

We left Beatty Nevada this morning, heading north on Us 95. We soon came upon Angel's Ladies, in the middle of nowhere.

Twenty miles further down the road was Shady Lady Ranch.

When we went to fill our bike before leaving Beatty we found the service station has half a dozen poker machines lining one wall, each with a seat to encourage players to linger. Even supermarkets have areas set aside for pokies...

These activities have been legal in Nevada ever since the government realised they could tax these industries.

About 40 miles up the road we reached Scotty's Junction and turned west back into California and Death Valley on route 267.

Not far over the border in California is Scotty's Castle.

This amazing place in the middle of nowhere has a story that is so bizarre we would not believe a word of it were it not for the presence of the Castle. It would take us far too long to explain, but you can read more about it here.









We spent an hour on the guided tour which was most interesting.

From Scotty's Castle we soon reached a T Junction where we turned south east back towards Furnace Creek (where we stopped yesterday). However, a few miles short of there we took a right turn onto Route 190.


Six miles down the road we dismounted briefly at the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes. It was like being on a beach without the ocean.



A short distance away was the town of Stovepipe Wells where we stopped for a cool drink.

Continuing west on 190, the road climbed steeply out of Stovepipe Wells.

About 10 miles down the road we turned off towards Wildrose Canyon. This road continued to climb first to Emmigrant Pass then even higher to Towne Pass at 4956 ft. In the space of about 20 miles we had climbed over 5,000 ft from more than 100 ft below sea level - amazing!

The ride down the back of the passes was a motorcyclist's dream - twisting back and forth and hardly another vehicle anywhere. The weather at this time of year is great.

As the road took a sharp turn down Wildrose Canyon we had 3 miles of winding broken pavement, dirt and loose gravel to negotiate before emerging onto a smooth straight road down into the Panamint Valley. We headed north back towards Route 190 where we took a left west for a couple of miles into the resort of Panamint Springs where we stooped for the night.

There were quite a few dirt bike riders staying there, getting ready for a weekend of fun riding out in the bush.

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