Mar. 28-31, 2013 Death Valley nOOb's Rally

friday night festivity


lining up for dinner, name tag and raffle tickets



our first event...bring your own fork and glasses.



shrimp and scallop pasta dinner...thanks pdpete and bertha for the seafood donation. you can see them serving too.



the lucky elfinos - cleaned up the raffle prizes









my apology to m1jeep and klrrob. we forgot about you. someone brought the pulled pork but too late when we found out who. i owe both of you a good dinner.


if you're satisfied with the food and service, feel free to contact nanette at http://partyworksfoods.com/

Joel, I thought they did a great job!

friday raffle. yes, it's correct, we had to split the raffle night into 2 nights due to lots of prizes to give away.

it didn't look packed since few dozens of riders are still on the trail or on the way home






bigtodd was the emcee



suspense building up






larry showing his new german tire pump - thank you tessitori



nice gift certificate for this lucky participant






when you're party starts to get dull....karma tequila is the cure (we found out sat night)...



more lucky winners waiting for their prizes



others didn't win but they get to laugh hard



we gave away about 60 prizes that evening, more to come, much much more on saturday night.

fridays was great. good riding, jl riding demo, awesome seafood dinner, raffle and camp fire stories....what else did we miss?

Joel

Shrimps and scallop pasta were perfect for Good Friday dinner, great choice Joel.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

Friday dinner was great. Thanks to Pete for getting us the seafood.

I thought it seemed unusually dark for a full moon weekend
I think I figured out why

i was about to add that to the caption but didn't.....keith glad you notice....

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to take this time to say THANK YOU all for your kind words, warm wishes and lots of encouragement! I so appreciate it...any feed back and or advice would be very welcome.....

The doc here at Ventura memorial assured me that he will take great care of my guy and promised to put him back together in one piece again

Sitting here in the waiting room at the hospital , I can't help but feel so fortunate that with all the riding Finn does, he only has a few broken bones... Mind you his clavicle is in pretty bad shape and will probably take a while to mend, but he will recover and he will ride again. .. In the meantime, he gets to put up with me and my cooking poor guy!
Thank goodness for ADV


So nice to see all your posts of our rides. I had such a great time Discovering Death Valley and meeting such great people....Our group was The BEST! So challenging but so much fun getting lost with you all! Can't wait to see you all next year.

Joel, the food was great and everyone was lovely....


Thank you all again


~ nancy

Let us know what you need Nancy - you and Finn have our support!

+1


folks....scub has something on the works....

please PM scubalong for details.

and I didn't even make it into the park.

Since joining ADV long ago - the place that has satisfied my wanderlust as much as is possible without actually pissing off to South America with... any motorcycle and a few bucks - I've wanted to explore Death Valley, but that is something best done with others, since the roads have signs like this:



No, no, no that's not it (but forethought is good eh?). Here's one:



A place where mistakes can cost too much. This is not clever foreshadowing, as I have no terrible mistakes to share (I didn't MC the raffle and swill Tequila all night ). The closest I came was almost captured in this great photo (I'm already back on the bike):


(poached from advford)

I had realized the corner was too sharp, grabbed too much front brake, and dumped it on my foot. It hurt, but M/C boots probably saved me), and its almost healed up.

So, this trip started in the SF Bay Area, and the only way south of any interest to me is Highway 25 out of Hollister (Hwy 1 is cool too of course, but not if you are headed east).

If you are taking 25, then you must stop at Flapjacks in Tres Pinos, just south of Hollister. Great food, and a great patio:



Then a glorious ride down a lonely highway that goes thru the middle of the range. Don't get sidetracked! Panoche Valley, Clear Creek (a bit still open), La Gloria Road, Old Hernandez Road (now closed), and more are all before you reach H-198. Then Peachtree Lane, Coalinga-Parkfield Grade (and great food in Parkfield), on down to Panoche Valley and... I'd never get to the event!

So I distracted myself by planning to ride through Tulare Lake. I say "through" because it was drained and has been farmed ever since. Due east out of Coalinga will take you right to it, and a dusty, busy dirt farm road goes straight through, but who wants to eat dust just to see 20 miles of this:



That pic is looking due south through the heart of what was once the largest lake west of the Mississippi River. 700 square miles at its largest extent (varied with rainfall), and historic reports say there was enough fish to pull thousands of pounds with one seine, a sustained turtle fishery that supplied Frisco, and ducks blackened the sky during migration. That valley could really use such a lake; a great place for all those hard working farmers to relax on weekends.

So I stayed the night with family in Porterville before riding another favorite road, Old Stage Rd to Greenhorn Pass, and on into Kernville, then 178 to Ridgecrest for lunch. Old Stage is perfection - good enough to make you forget where you are headed. I choose to go east of China Lake, through Trona (odd place), and up to Panamint Springs. Made it!



TBC

It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. After all, one of us was keeping count of empty bottles. :eek1

good intro dave and thanks.....let's see the rest...

knobbies in the front next time....yes.

I could also keep my inside foot on the peg and use the rear brake or throttle to slide the rear around. More than one way to skin a cat (but who the hell skins cats?!?)

I forgot to mention on my way to camp on the first day I stopped at Ballarat. I met Rocky (the town's sole resident) and sat on his porch listening to stories and enjoying the shade - and don't forget to buy a cold drink - he doesn't even gouge you on the price!

While there none other than Joel came through with a Thursday afternoon group ride, headed to Goler. I've made too many mistakes on my way to camp on the first day so I passed riding with them loaded down. While we were all talking another new rider showed up, advFord (hope your roadtrip is going great).

advFord said this was his first dirt trip, but wanted to go to camp first too, so Joel sent us down Indian Valley Road. I asked about sand and someone said "just a few short sections" ... well it wasn't at all difficult, but after the football field of sand advFord said, "that felt weird" with a big smile on his face.

He was to do this for the entire weekend, riding everything Lost Rider took him and the rest of us on only months after getting his license, and a week after getting his first bike. This has already been posted but I'd like to point out that this was the beginning of day 2, he knocked the wind out of himself after being thrown from the bike in a rock garden after apexing a sand corner at speed, and didn't loose his nerve one bit.


If he decides to follow his dream and tour South America I bet he'll do fine.

Now, where was I... ah yes. So my first time at Joel's gig - wasn't sure what I was going to do, or who I would ride with, but my neighbor turned out to be a great fella (hope your wife came home pinevalley!) and so I went on the Friday and Saturday Lost tours with him and advFord. Enough text; here's some pics:


out of sequence shot of pinevalley to introduce him (and the great DV entrance road climbing the mountains in the background)


Friday group - poached


part of the fun dirt track to Darwin


creepy place - feels like someone's watching you


or something...


nobody discussed coming back to see what happens at night


then on past Owens Lake (dry) - another beautiful place fuct up by us


our leader Finn may be fearless but it gets cold at altitude - recover quickly!


then onto Olancha Dunes - there was lots of falling over (me too)


(Snapseed enhanced - little to much white balance adjustment - sand was not that yellow)


then on to Trona Pinacles after some grub in Ridgecrest; advFord surveying the alien landscape


then back to Panamint, but by a very cool sidetrack that you can see in the background (Lost Rider photo of me)


Day 2 Lost Tour (Saturday) the Panamint Valley Geologist Cabin tour - some you know


great riding between them - another Lost Rider photo - nice to have a fast rider zoom ahead and setup for shots of the group! Next series of three are also his:


rocky climb


GO!!!


Fail...


And some cabins you probably don't know


a shot of the Lost ride leader co-captain izzyblue, on some old mining ruins - unfortunately there were no trials riders with us


some two-track thru the desert whoops - high speed fun


great group rides - thanks Finn and Nancy!



TBC?

Gotta agree, advFord (I thinks that's the guy up top) did great.

And the second pic? It's like I asked you to take a solo pic of my bike. THANKS!!

]

Learned so much on this trip thanks to all the amazing other riders.

ps - just asked my boss last week for a 8 month sabbatical (I get 1 month, but wanted to extend it) and he said yes! So I think I'll be heading south this fall. If that's the case I'll miss next years Noob Rally :-( But I think Central and South America will have plenty to offer.

Congratulations!

You will have plenty of planning work to do before you do such a trip. Some resources here, and much more at Horizon's Unlimited.

That is sooooo cool. Good for you.

that's an awesome opportunity.

dan, let's us know if you need help.

also, i need to finish my rr soon. tune in folks.

finally found the time to finish my RR. thanks for your patience.

being tired from the night before, i opted not to ride on saturday. just relaxed and hanged out with some of the guys

espi and kurt (bdcw)



unknown to most of you, we have an official rescue vehicle which gsequoia's good friend made available for emergency use



nice 690 rally styled bike



peter showing off the set of dubinky outfit he won at last nights shindig



buster of solomotoparts getting to do his first ride after 2 months of healing and recovery. good job bro.



and of course, the moment we're all waiting for, the saturday night raffle which is emceed by jimmy



the house was full






marcia and shae finally getting a break



the nose bleed section










everyone was paying attention



jimmy working on the crowd



the backstage crowd



mixed reactions from the crowd