Day 5 continued, and the end of our trip
We rode around in circles on a bunch of 4WD roads, trying to find our way off the mountain and down into the next valley. We'd planned on hitting another hot springs on the playa to the north, but we spent so much time trying to get off the mountain that we had to revise our plans a bit. We'd left all our camping gear behind, so we couldn't just ride til it got dark today, although that is precisely what we did.
Anyway, we found our way down and into the silty valley. I'd taken notice of how trail features tended to disappear from view in the harsh desert sun, especially when the sun was directly overhead and there were no shadows to work with. Well, that wasn't the case when I hit the dirt for the first time all week, but it was still hard to discern the depth of the silt. Guess which side I landed on?
I had grit in my teeth, eyes, ears, belly button, bra...you name it. It was pretty funny, and the only damage was some good scratching on my ginormous tank, and some scratches on my glasses and faceshield.
More water in the desert. It just happens to be in the form of a gigantic alfalfa farm. Sure takes a lot of energy and water to produce food for cows...
...and pronghorn antelope...
Man, this place must have it all!
It was a pretty cool store, just a metal warehouse type of building with rows and rows of stuff! Everything you could possibly need! Their sign wasn't exaggerating, although I need a new 2-stroke and they didn't have any. I got a Mexican walnut ice cream bar. The wall around the complex was built of free-standing rock. All along the top were neat things like obsidian, geodes, petrified wood, bones, cystals, fossils, all kinds of cool stuff. Gee, too bad I didn't get any photos of it. Guess I was grooving on the ceamy walnut goodness...
We were riding along on a ridge top and it sounded all clinkey, like we were riding on broken tiles. We saw a few clumps of rock here and there and, upon further inspection, discovered this stuff...
It looked exactly like terra cotta tiles...
There sure is some neat stuff in the desert!
You'll never guess what we found...
That's right! More water!!
It's nice when the sun's going down...
Oh crap! Sunset? Already? Dang, these days are just too short. Guess we better head back. I knew I shoulda found that loose connection in my headlight...
Eric had a headlight, but it wasn't much help...
I rode back in the dark, and this is how our trip ended with 150 miles on the clock. We finished with about 750 miles in 5 excellent days of riding.
Once again, the desert provided us with a wealth of good times and good memories. Can't wait to go back and do it again
WoodsChick