Coast to Coast (and back?) with an Italian Supermodel

Great pics!! I love this thread!! Thank you antihero!!!

On following dreams... about 15 years ago I decided to get back into motorcycling. My first long roadtrip was to Death Valley. I ended up at The Amargosa Opera House one afternoon. I got what was then a $50 room. Complete with the stained tile, dripping faucets and bare bulb light fixtures. I think the same dead bugs are still there on the rug.

What was different was, Marta and her husband were there and performing that evening! Myself, four German tourists and a nice French couple were guests at the hotel. Two couples from Pahrump NV. heard she was performing and drove in for the event. I knew I was seeing something special. It is still one of my best stories from the road. Quite a woman with a heckuva story.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/feb/15/marta-becket-leaving-stage-not-her-opera-house/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Becket

"Instead of follof your dreams we declared: Dreams are prey and should be hunted, stalked, decapated, and devoured. And when you've sucked the last bit of marrow from the bones, mount the head on a wall, enjoy it for a moment and begin planning your next hunt"

That one went in my quote book. You're an inspirational man. Training for my first tri, in part because of this, and in part because I can finally run.

Anti-

Thanks for keeping with your RR! Death Valley is now on the list and I still can't believe you take that beauty queen off road like that but she sure does look purdy. Love the writing and wish we could have met up in Minneapolis.

Looking forward to the next post. Cheers

More pics from Dante's View:

I don't think it comes across as an expansive wasteland in the pictures. Desolate? Yes. Devoid of much life? Yes. But intoxicatingly beautiful, empty, wild and free.

The pictures are great and definitely looks like a must visit kind of place.
I prefer a little more iron in the rocks to give them a reddish tint.
Still spectacular!
Really amazed at how clean the roads are!
Keep up the great RR!

<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/qoBUyDQWDjk?hl=en_US&amp;version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/qoBUyDQWDjk?hl=en_US&amp;version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

So after all these miles I'm fairly comfortable out in the dirt--or in this case, gravel/rocks. Since I don't have much in the way of video and this would be one of my last opportunities to capture the moment, I busted out my iPhone and started recording. Only my fingers were too cold to register on the 'smart' phone. Instead of 5% of my attention and 1 hand being devoted to filming, a good 80-90% of my attention (momentarily) focused on whether or not the god damned phone was recording or not (Keith Code is cringing right now). I finally got the video going right before my front wheel sailed into something bad....

Vid:
<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lUAHuFOELp0?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lUAHuFOELp0?hl=en_US&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

Quickly threw the phone, grabbed the left clip on and saved it right before I lost the front/hit the side of the mountain.

Brilliant. I know you had fun riding the supermodel through that landscape, that just had to be incredible

What are those domes in the pictures?

http://www.nps.gov/deva/historyculture/charcoalkilns.htm

Pretty interesting.
Must see it in person.

AH, how where the temperatures out there?

Those domes are charcoal kilns. And they make very good igloos when you show up and it's 2 degrees and snowing. :)

Temps at ~sea level were in the 60s, maybe even 70s, during the day. At higher elevations (by the charcoal kilns) it was probably in the 50s give or take 5 degrees (ok, take). Every 1000 feet you lose a significant amount of heat and the kilns were at 6800 feet.

During the night it's probably 40-50 on the floor.

AntiH...your PhotoBucket link is dead, can you fix?

My experience testing out various P&S cameras is that Canon's cameras are more adjustable and can take truly outstanding photos if you take the time to tweak the settings, but most other brands are closer to outstanding right out of the box. It's a very different story for dSLRs though.

It's the middle of winter, I've been home sick for three weeks, but you took me to summer, and the riding I won't be doing until at least May!

Just read the whole thread! You are amazing!