Bye Vegas

Wednesday 7th May
When we start off this morning my coms is working again HURRAY!!!!!  We leave Las Vegas and ride down to Fremont street and ride past The pawn shop we've seen on TV.

We ride out of town and up to Red Rock Canyon.  The visitors centre is really cool, we buy some pins and we learn a bit about the canyon.  It is a 13 mile loop through the canyon and out the other side the rock formations are amazing and it's a gorgeous day so a great day for a ride through the canyon. 

Then we head for Pahrump for petrol.  The ride is fairly straight and there is snow on the nearby mountains, no wonder it's so cold.  We arrive in Pahrump and attempt to fuel the bike at one pump and we have a problem that we've encountered before when we swipe our credit card the screen asks for a zip code, we asked the man behind the counter why it does this and how we can fix it he gave us a really round about answer that told us nothing.  Not every pump asks for a zip so we moved the bike to another pump and completed the transaction (which we can do entirely at the pump so unless we want to buy coffee or use the loo then we just ride away).  We bought coffee, hot chocolate and a piece of cake for $2.90!! we then follow our instructions to head to Death Valley and they take us in a complete circle in town bahahahaha so we pull into a bank carpark and ask another biker how we find Death Valley he was very helpful (was riding a very beat up Harley looked like it had been over a few times LOL).  The turn off was just outside of town and off we go.  It's a really cool day so hopefully Death Valley won't be too hot.  As we come into the valley there is a kiosk where you can buy tickets into the park but we decide to wait until we get to the information centre because we want to buy an annual pass ($80) because we are going to be going to several parks, forests and reserves.  Riding through Death Valley is very different to what we both expected the terrain is very hilly with mountains all around, we both expected it to be flat and desert-like there is actually quite a bit of vegetation along the way.  When we get to the information centre the temp is 90F about 32C and 190ft below sea level.  We buy our annual pass and some more pins (they are great with a thermometer on 134F the highest temp ever recorded in Death Valley).  We have lunch at a diner just up the road and are surprised again at what turns up on our plates we both ordered rolls and not only did we get our rolls which were yummy but we also get chips and pickle ha ha

We stop in a town called Ridgecrest at Maccas and get hot tea yay!!!!  Riding out to Lake Isabella we go up to almost 6000ft elevation it's so cold! but a great ride along winding roads.  We get to Lake Isabella and try to fuel up at the service station and come across the zip code thing again so abandon that station and ask the attendant where the hotel is because we had ridden past and doubled back and still not seen it.  While I am in talking to the attendant Dave asks a tanker driver what's with the zip code thingy and he tells him that it's a security function and that it's the zip code of where the credit card was first issued and it doesn't work on international cards so we decided that whenever we come to one of those we will use cash.  We ride over to the hotel we were directed to and find it's the wrong one and the person there tells us it's 4 miles back from the way we came and when we finally find it the hotel is actually situated in a little place called Mountain Mesa and we hadn't even started looking for it so no wonder we missed it!!  By the time we arrive it's after 7pm so priority is food and the hotel manager directs us to a Mexican restaurant up the road about a mile.  On the way there is a service station and yes you guessed it the zip code thing again so I go in and pay at the counter so Dave can fill the bike and the attendant says "oh I LOVE your accent!" hahaha  We go up to the restaurant El Portal and it's very yummy our server Sandy is fairly serious but when we ask her name and talk to her she smiles.  After dinner we head back and after a little mucking around we get connected to the wifi.