Amazing Roads in Death Valley

I made it here to Taco California and I'm at the little campground here .

It's late in the morning .

I didn't quite get the best sleep that I wanted and I woke up a little later than I wanted and just kind of slowly getting myself back in the right frame of mind to get back on the road and keep shooting some videos for you guys .

This morning's track is going to be through a across Death Valley .

It's looking like it will be a hot day out there .

So I want to be prepared , have what I need to do .

My filming and riding .

I can't film a drone in Death Valley National Park .

Of course , that's against the rules .

So if I do anything , it will have to be with the go pros or the cameras on the tripod .

So maybe a little more work in that sense .

But as always do the best we can with any luck , maybe I'll end up in a cooler high altitude place to camp this evening .

You know , I said it before that I generally prefer to camp out in the remote wilds .

And one of the reasons is I feel like when I get to these little campsite scenes , there's always people with generators or power tools and it gets pretty hard to do my work .

So a little slice of real life .

This is a really small town out in the California desert .

I always particularly like coming to this little hot springs resort .

This one is called Delights and I like it because there's four or five different little hot springs that you can soak in .

They have little cabana for rent here , $35 to camp .

Take a shower , get myself all put back together for life on the road .

I think the thing that's in order right now is to maybe go sit in the hot spring for a few minutes and soak my bones .

Good hot spring when you're on a long ride , wash all my problems away .

That's what I'm doing right now .

Well , what do you say friends ?

Is it time to get back on the road and go brave the heat or Death Valley could be a real scorcher out there today .

In fact , I was just talking to someone yesterday who said that two people recently died out there .

They abandoned their vehicles and they hiked for a couple of miles and they passed away out in Death Valley .

So it's the real deal .

Pretty awesome to do a morning silk or even an evening silk just to kind of clean up a little bit and get the aches .

And pains to go away on to death .

Ellie .

Ok .

All packed up , ready to go .

Everything looks secure .

It's 10 30 right now .

But that's ok .

That's one of the things that I really like about a trip like this riding solo is that there's no pressure , I can really ride my own ride .

Take it easy when I want to or go fast when I want to .

And this morning was taking it easy .

So the name of this place is delights .

If you come to Taco , there are a few different hot spring places here in town with campgrounds and some little R V parks .

So if you come through Taco and you're looking for this place in particular there it is .

Bye .

So this is one of my favorite parts about taking a long motorcycle trip in these kind of places that you just get to find the most unique historic things along the way .

Like this place .

We're here in Death Valley Junction at the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel .

I find it really interesting to just look around here and think about the stories from the past and who might have stayed here when this place was in its heyday and what it is now a living piece of history .

There is just character oozing out of every little bit of peeling paint and crumbling concrete under the shade of this very long porch .

It's really beautiful and I would like to have seen it in its heyday when there was operatic performances happening here and people coming and going .

It's quite a piece of history .

There's quite a story behind this opera house and the woman who was in the dramatic arts and came here and made it her life's mission to build this opera house way out here in the middle of Death Valley .

And it prospered for a number of years until she passed away .

And now it's kind of a relic of time gone by .

There's this fire hydrant out here .

I don't imagine they had any kind of city water .

They must have had some kind of reservoir or tank or some source of water , obviously to have a fire hydrant .

And then over here across the street , what looks like something similar to what's in Marfa , Texas , a Prada store out in the middle of nowhere as if you were down on Fifth Avenue and it looks like there's something similar happening out here .

Kind of interesting riding into Death Valley .

We're at 1000 ft of elevation .

That's what the sign says up there .

So let's go have a look , look at these rock formations all around here .

So cool Death Valley can be a photographer's paradise , but you really have to get here when the lighting conditions are right .

I would really like to spend some more time in Death Valley , particularly in the spring when the desert wildflowers bloom , the temperatures are cooler .

It's like a little oasis here .

The in Death Valley water basin is off to our left here and that's the lowest elevation inside of the United States right now .

The sign says elevation , sea level .

So that's where we're at right now .

We just passed through Panama Springs and we're climbing back up into the mountains now , on the other side of the valley .

And as I recall , this is a really nice twisty paved section of road here , man .

How do you like that ?

What a road , huh ?

Well , this is Death Valley here .

We're heading back up into the mountains now .

Picking up some elevation .

Looking forward to that .

It's going to get a little bit cooler .

A good place to stop and say goodbye to Death Valley .

481.79 --> 584.739

I think we found our home for tonight .

This is going to be a really pretty place to camp .

I'm excited .

We'll get it set up here .

No time and cook us some dinner .

So today was a good day of riding , filming , poking around seeing some historic sites along the way and everything more or less went according to plan .

What more can you ask for ?

Tent just goes up in a jiffy .

I love it .

Two poles and that is it .

But there you go .

No time at all .

And the tent is set up on a level ground facing the sunset should be pretty good .

Just what I'm looking for .

A chair so we can get some proper rest and relaxation in tonight .

Goes along with my camping philosophy , keeping yourself elevated elevation starts with keeping yourself and your stuff off the ground .

Once you get started on a trip like this , man , it just starts going and going and going .

And before you know it , you've got days and weeks under your belt .

I feel like I just left home the other day that said I've been keeping pretty busy doing the ride , doing the filmmaking .

It's all going good .

We've got lots more beautiful locations and rides and things to see and do .

So I rigged up a little clothes line here using my Moto pod .

It's actually a mono pod which you used to put a camera on .

But since it's attached to my motorcycle , it's called the , the Moto pod .

Anyways , I rigged up this little clothes line here to air out the clothes .

And I want to tell you guys in a upcoming video about the clothing that I'm packing on this trip because it's really important in this stuff in particular is pretty awesome because it is made out of a certain material that doesn't really require a lot of washing .

And as long as you air it out and keep yourself clean , your body clean , you can wear this stuff for days without having to wash it .

It's , it looks good .

It's comfortable and it doesn't smell , it doesn't pick up odors .

So pretty impressed with it , pretty happy with it so far .

And I'll definitely share more about the , the clothing and packing and stuff like that because I've got it down to a science and I think you guys could learn some good stuff from it .

So I'm camped out tonight in a place called the Alabama Hills .

And it's by Lone Pine California on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains .

And I've been coming here for years .

It's an absolutely beautiful piece of land with free camping and it's just so peaceful and quiet here right now .

Get out the camp kitchen and get that set up .

So this is yet again another use for this motor pod on the back of the bike .

I can hang my hamp kitchen from it and keep it elevated off the ground .

This is a collapsible sink so I can do dishes .

This is a gravity water filter .

So if I find a lake or a stream or a pond , I can filter water .

And then in here I've got my plates , a frying pan , a kitchen rag .

A basic , they have like this sort of big cowboy plate that's deep .

I could put a salad in there and then I've got a frying pan right here .

A little cutting board and a basic plate .

A pair of gloves that I like to use when I'm doing the fire box because things can be hot and it's good just to have an extra pair of gloves in case I lose my motorcycling gloves .

And I've got my pot grabber .

I've got some little tongs to flip meat or things like that .

I've got my Bush craft folding saw so I can cut wood for the fire box .

I've got my fixed blade knife .

Good for so many things .

And then up here a wooden spoon for cooking titanium spoon and fork .

And this is my spatula .

Never been a big fan of the plastic folding spatulas .

I just think they're kind of cheap and I like the feeling of this solid wood spatula .

I've got a set of these open all knives .

This one is your typical cutting knife , but it has a cork screw which can come in useful .

And then there's a little vegetable peeler here and then the big one here as if I have bread , it's a serrated blade .

And then I've got some like dish cleaning supplies , some so little pot scrubbers , things like that .

That's what lives all in this compartment here .

That'll do it .

This thing works awesome .

Hanging right here .

So tonight , the plan is to make a little cucumber and tomato salad with some olive oil and maybe some sriracha salt on it , tomato here and the cucumber and then I'll probably cook up some pasta and I've got some mushrooms and some broccoli to go along with that .

I really like eating fresh food at the end of the day .

That's what it's all about for me to get a little bit of freshness , some goodness into my system .

And I'll tell you what a salad even like this with just some olive oil , salt and pepper .

Tomato cucumber .

Maybe a little spice .

That could be a meal in itself .

Gonna drizzle a little bit of olive oil on here .

And then I'm gonna put some of this Sriracha salt on it .

Yeah .

There we go up a tea , a simple summer salad .

The sun has set beyond the Sierra Mountains over there .

It's the last light of the day and we've got a good spot here .

Let's not forget to take a moment and just recognize the beauty that's all around us here .

Even though the sun went down in the other direction , these clouds over here are truly beautiful like a Maxfield Parish painting .

There you go guys .

Day number four of my riding solo .

And I hope that you guys have enjoyed this episode as much as I've enjoyed making it .

It's always good having you along for the ride and I encourage you to stick around and follow me because there's a lot more adventures to come .

But right now it looks like my dinner is just about ready .

So I'm going to call it a night and just take care of feeding myself and relaxing here in this beautiful environment .

We'll see you in the next episode .