Make Booty Your Favorite! A Death Valley Treasure Hunt with BigWan and LittleWan

[LittleWan]

Hey Guys!
Long time, no see.
Great to see some friendly, familiar names, and lots of new ones, too.
Thanks so much for checking in - it’s not going to be a long report, but I’m hoping that it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Originally Posted by bigdon

Booty

pop the top pop the top pop the top!

Originally Posted by dabracing

Awesome idea Kelly! Thanks for tagging onto the original, this should be interesting.....

thanks, Don - I'll do my best. No promises, though :)

Hi Pink Pillion!

Originally Posted by SenorPeligro

Oh what the hell.

live dangerously!

Originally Posted by VFR

Hey, finally in at the start this time!!! I used your saying several times last year & am sure I will be needing it again.

Thanks for joining in - the more people who get the jokes, the better!

Originally Posted by Just Paul

SO IN !

Sad you guys didn't visit the Saline Valley Hot Springs.. you were 30 miles from it at Racetrack !

We are going the end of this month.. get cracking on that RR so I can find some BOOTY ! I know how you guys roll !

Hi Paul,
Oh, we knew the hot springs were there. We talked about going.
But, I think I like the idea of hot springs better than actual hot springs.



Heh heh.


Hi Liebchen & Izzy - don't worry, you won't regret it. Much.

Originally Posted by madeouttaglass

Same here. Spill the beans!

haha, you gotta sit through some nonsense first

[bigdon]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

Hey Guys!
Long time, no see.
Great to see some friendly, familiar names, and lots of new ones, too.
Thanks so much for checking in - it’s not going to be a long report, but I’m hoping that it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

pop the top pop the top pop the top!
thanks, Don - I'll do my best. No promises, though :)

I just about had that song out of my head! Now here we go again!

[LittleWan]

“Professor - What’s another word for pirate treasure?”

“Why, I think it’s ‘booty.’ Booty. Booty. That’s what it is.”

- The Beastie Boys
“Professor Booty” (note: link is Not Safe for Work - it’s just the song, but they use the f-word a lot)



OK.
For those of you who haven’t read one of our reports before -


I’m LittleWan (Kelly) and that’s BigWan (Matt)


This is our beautiful, wonderful bike


2007 KTM 990 adventure S
She’s awesome and we love her.



When BigWan suggested a Death Valley ride, I have to admit I wasn’t all that enthusiastic.
I mean, I really enjoy DV ride reports and I like the idea of riding in DV, but I wasn’t in a big hurry to go back.

We had ridden 2up in Death Valley once before and it hadn’t gone all that well.
Matt and I had been heading out to Colorado to start the TAT West and thought we would stop in DV for some practice dirt.
He had been going to DVDaze and was excited to show me some stuff that can’t be seen by car.


Unfortunately, we were there on July 18, 2009. Death Valley was in the midst of a heat wave and hit 128°F that day.



Despite the heat, we rode 240 scorching miles.
We were staying in Beatty, so we did a nice loop.

Beatty --> Rhyolite --> Titus Canyon --> Ubehebe Crater --> the Racetrack --> Hidden Valley -->
Hunter Mountain (exploring some trails and mine stuff) --> Saline Valley Road --> Panamint Springs (where we had lunch and drank 3 pitchers of iced tea) --> Beatty.
The guy at the store in Beatty told us we were going to die.
He said it at least 4 times while we were buying snacks after the ride.


A couple pics from that ride...
the Racetrack was smokin’ hot



the old sign at tea kettle junction



The ride was interesting, and we saw a lot that day, but I wouldn’t really call it “fun.”
Matt's pretty sure I was having heatstroke on hunter mountain.
Doing all that riding in the heat was pretty stupid, actually.
Surprise, surprise surprise.
At least we didn't crash or anything. We had some deep gravel and some silt, but it wasn't bad.


Obviously, spring was going to be a lot cooler and more comfortable, but I was still concerned about the fun factor.
Matt had just done a boys trip to DV in January, and I knew he had enjoyed blasting around on the unloaded 990.
Would 2up be horrible after that?

I envisioned us slogging through the sand and gravel on our overloaded schoolbus, bogged down and hating life.

So, I dragged my feet when it came to agreeing to a ride.

That is, until I saw this ride report - 2 Day ride in Death Valley, find the Playboy magazine and win a prize.

OOooh.
I don’t really care one way or another about naked women, but I love a good challenge.
It had been almost a year and no one had claimed the prize...
I. Want. That. Magazine!


Next, I saw that this guy, cjbiker, had lost his wallet in Death Valley. Poor cjbiker, that sucks.
Hmm. More treasure to be discovered...
I didn’t want the reward, but wouldn’t it be amazing to find a lost wallet in DV?
Nearly f-ing impossible, but still. A challenge.

Okay, BigWan - let’s go to Death Valley!


Our objectives:
1. Find lots of ridable, interesting, dirt - and enjoy it, 2up
2. Find the Playboy magazine
3. Find cjbiker’s lost wallet
Seriously, Do It. Do It. Do It


By the way, that thing up there ^ is a sound clip. just click on the arrow to play....

[BigWan]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

Our objectives:
1. Find lots of ridable, interesting, dirt - and enjoy it, 2up
2. Find the Playboy magazine
3. Find cjbiker’s lost wallet

Our objectives:
1. Find lots of ridable, interesting, dirt - and enjoy it, 2up
2. Find the Playboy magazine - and enjoy it, 2up
3. Find cjbiker’s lost wallet - and enjoy it, 2up

Fixed.

[larryboy]

[Gale B.T.]

YAHOOOOOOOOO," WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN" ?? THE LONG RANGER AND FAITHFUL PARTNER RIDE AGAIN.!!! opening video!!

Way to go you two, Matt, tough and good looking as ever, I wished when I was coaching i could have had an entire team like you!!! hello Kelly

Ok western part of TAT, sure as hell when you get this far I will be on a ride, but just in case, check in. I am sure you have already completed this part.

have a great ride, gale

[SenorPeligro]

Originally Posted by LittleWan

“Professor - What’s another word for pirate treasure?”

“Why, I think it’s ‘booty.’ Booty. Booty. That’s what it is.”

- The Beastie Boys
“Professor Booty” (note: link is Not Safe for Work - it’s just the song, but they use the f-word a lot)

You got class, like pink champagne.

[LittleWan]

Originally Posted by Gale B.T.

Ok western part of TAT, sure as hell when you get this far I will be on a ride, but just in case, check in. I am sure you have already completed this part.

hi Gale! Uh oh, that was confusing, huh?
Those pics were from 2009 - we aren't doing the TAT again (I don't think?), this was just a short trip to Death Valley.
I'll be sure to let you know next time we're in Colorado!

Originally Posted by SenorPeligro

You got class, like pink champagne.

Why, thank you! Heh. You ain't seen nothing yet
As I explained to dabracing, over in his RR, "I'm littlewan and I'm a 'lady'!"



Hiya, larryboy! It's not Death Valley without you!

[LittleWan]

Day 1: 3/11/2012 bay area to Topaz Lake, NV 210 miles

The weather forecast called for an 80% chance of snow in Strawberry, CA. We were planning to take Hwy 50 up and over, so this was a concern.
In the past, BigWan has been screwed by snow in the sierras and we really didn’t want to have to ride all the way down to Tehachapi (like he did for DVDaze 2008. or was it 2007? one of those).


I couldn’t find my crayons, so here’s a google map:




Living in the bay area, bites. We’re so far from good riding. The worst part about any ride is leaving/entering the bay area. So much f-ing slab.

On Hwy 80

I tried to take a photo as we passed these guys, but I hit the wrong button. Gah! I suck.
(we finally got a new camera and this was the first time I’ve used it. I’ll be ranting about that later)



So, it wasn’t snowing in Strawberry. The weather clowns blew the forecast.
I didn’t take many photos along the way.
My hands got too cold.
I tried to warm them up by putting them in between the two of us and Matt said it was like someone dropped a bunch of ice cubes on the seat!
He could feel them through his pants, jacket, and liners (4 layers).
BigWan offered to let me put my hands up his shirt (rawr!) so I could glean some warmth from his heated vest, but I was okay.




When BigWan and Gravitycheck rode through here in January, they had rain and sleet.
I was quite happy with our weather.












We didn’t plan our time very well and we got to Topaz Lake pretty early. Way faster than we had expected.
Normally, we would have kept going, but against our better judgement we had booked a room in advance.
Two hundred and ten miles sounds kinda wimpy, huh?
But, it was super windy and we were both secretly glad to stop.




This is the Topaz Lodge, a.k.a. the Gardnerville Super 8.
(wow, those Trip Advisor reviewers are harsh! I thought the Topaz Lodge was great.
Clean, comfortable, and the people were nice)




And, I’m pretty sure they had the cheapest gas we saw on the whole trip.




They gave us one of the upstairs rooms (#53)




With a view of the lake.
It’s hard to tell from this pic, but the wind waves were getting pretty steep - it was really honking out there.




Matt and I don’t have cable at home, so motel stays are always kind of fun.
TBS was having a comedy marathon of some kind, so we took off our gear, lay on the king sized bed, and watched hours of crap. It was great!

We watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Old School, and The Hangover.
Wow, they give you all the highlights in those trailers.
If you watch all 3 of them (instead of watching the movies), you can keep from wasting 4 hrs and 29 minutes of your life.
You’re welcome!



I have to admit, we own the unrated versions of all three of those movies (jealous? I thought so. ), so I wasn’t fully paying attention while they were on.

I do love the ridiculous censored-for-tv fake swearing. It’s hilarious.
This one is my absolute favorite (don’t worry - very Safe for work)



“I’ve had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!”


In Old School, Vince Vaughn’s character uses an interesting device to protect his children from hearing inappropriate language or references.
He says, “earmuffs!” and the kids cover their own ears.




I’m thinking that such a technique might be useful in this ride report, so as to shield our more easily disturbed readers from things that might offend his or her delicate sensibilities.

So, from now on, if something questionable is about to come up, I will make a note:

{{ earmuffs! }}


What you do with the warning is up to you. I’m not sure how that will work, exactly.
I guess you can close your eyes. Look away and scroll down? I dunno.
I trust you will figure it out.

I’ll also be using one of my new favorite words, courtesy of the TV censors:

Motherbrother!

That one got a lot of use on this ride.


And, finally, instead of “freaking,” which played heavily in the Summer of Stupid, I will be using “mucking.”
I’m lazy. One less letter to type.
It doesn’t work great for Muck You, You Mucking Muck, but. whatever.

So, let’s continue with this mucking motherbrother!


After rotting our tiny brains with hours of mucking trash, we decided to head over to the coffeeshop and have dinner.


There’s a collection of spurs just outside the coffeeshop entrance (inside the casino).
Here’s one of the several display cases.
Most of the spurs seemed to be from Spain and Mexico.




We both had the teriyaki top sirloin. I think. Teriyaki something.
The meat was cooked perfectly - very rare. Almost squishy. It was really good.
I wasn’t wild about the sauce and would skip it next time, but still a tasty dinner.




After dinner we went to the bar for our complementary drinks.



Gin and tonics. Yum.
They were a little watery and made with cheap gin.
Just like the G&Ts we make in Mexico.
Oso Negro anyone?




The casino was a trippy way back machine with a fun oldies soundtrack.
I hadn’t heard this song since I was a kid...

Catchy.
Maybe not as catchy as “Let’s Drink Beer” (hi bigdon! ), but catchy just the same...


Okay, you guys have been good.
Dirt tomorrow. I promise!

[RedRockRider]

Very entertaining. And we haven't even gotten to the dirt yet. Anticipation.

[Bob]

My sincerest apologies for being LATE to the party!
I love the start, BW roaring across the silver screen, food, drink and scenery.

[LittleWan]

Yay!
Hi Bob

Hi RedRockRider! Yes, dirt will be coming up soon

I got distracted, looking at cute dog photos - http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=775154
Sigh.
I just uploaded 50+ un-cute, non-dog photos for Day 2...

see you guys in the morning!

[DIESELWRENCH]

Glad im not to late

[Questor]

Another "Wan" Ride Report!!!

Awesome!
I can be happy again as we all laugh at stupid stuff together.

I saw your original post where you found the Playboy, but I won't spoil it for everyone else.

Great to know you guys are out and about again,
I'll sit patiently and let you tell your story.

Q~

[Questor]

So. Where's the rest of the Ride Report?


Q~