Death Valley OMG

Until this last weekend, even though I was born and raised in Southern California, I had never visited Death Valley.  I’ve been close.   A bunch of us family friends camped and rode dirt bikes in the Mohave Desert annually after Christmas for a week for thirteen years.  That’s close I’d say.  Maybe an hour away from the actual Death Valley National Monument boundary.  My wife and I loaded the KTM 1190 Super Adventure motorcycle into the back of the truck and headed off to Ridgecrest, Ca on a Friday to spend the night and then adventure into Death Valley for two days following.  We were also anticipating a spectacular “super bloom” of wildflowers in the desert after a bonus year of rain. 

I planned a route on the paved roads with a few short excursions on gravel.  The weather was on the warm side, but we started each day before sunrise (to catch the desert sunrise) when it was still very cool and ended each day in the early afternoon.  Okay, to sum it up, Death Valley was incredible, far more beautiful than I expected.  I’ve ridden and seen a lot of gorgeous mountains in the Western USA, Mexico and the European Alps and I must say the Death Valley scenery and majestic mountains are unique, intimidating and other-worldly.  Death Valley earned its name from early pioneers who, due to how dangerous a place it was to shortcut crossing California, particularly in the hot late spring, summer and early fall, named it so.  One of if not the hottest, driest paces on earth! A group of pioneers who were sure they were going to die making the crossing in 1850 were reported to say upon making through the desert, “Goodbye Death Valley.” 

People still die in Death Valley.  Just two years ago an unwise motorcyclist traveling the same Badwater Road we were on a few days ago, died from exposure in 128-degree heat.  Many other travelers, especially hikers, have miscalculated the heat and died over the years.  On our second day we were on our way to Badwater Road at 6AM from Pharump, Nevada, where we rested our rumps, in 60-degree coolness and boy did we catch an absolute wonder of a sunrise (see pic above).  We drove a few hundred yards off the pavement atop a small hill and took in the 360-degree view (circumference, not heat degrees!).  I had my moment of thinking about how beautiful it was and how dangerous the desert is at the same time.  Isn’t that how life can be? What an amazing thing it is to have a life and live it well.  Not everyone might say their life is well but would agree that living is amazing and all humans desire a good life.  Yet, even a good life is fraught with dangers.  Sickness, accidents, mental health crisis, loss, disappointments.  We hold the dangers up to the beauty of life, or at least a life we hope for, and press on into the goodness of living. 

In taking in the views all through the two days I kept wondering about how the earth is so frick’n beautiful, amazing and unique to all the universe (OMG).  The mountains, seas, forests, jungles and yes, deserts (OMG). The plant life (OMG). Yes, we did see an amazing spread of wildflowers throughout the ride.  The animal life (OMG). Yes, “Oh my God!” As I was riding, while I should be paying more attention to road, my thoughts were saturated with ideas about how this before me all came to be.  Who thinks up all this amazing stuff we call life…living things and our earth?  It is just far too stunning to go with the happenstance view.  It all came about from nothing to THIS.  There is way too much life, color, species to consider it coming from anything else but from a grand Designer, who I consider to be God.  Even as mysterious as God might be to most of us, it makes the most sense to me.  How about you? One of the sweetest moments was coming into Badwater basin and seeing a palette of purple flower bloom but also taking in most aromatic smells of the bloom. A true fragrance of life.  Who thinks up this stuff?? Ride on!