January rides? Anyone?

[rebeccaC]

It was like being a little kid again and getting a new bike for Christmas!

Well I guess it’s too easy for me to change my mind. I’d been planning on doing an organized 200k this past weekend but when Sky King posted about her ride in that texas desert area I felt the need to ride in the Mojave desert again…..this is also a good time of the year to do it. So, we did our own 200k ride (+ a couple) leaving from and coming back to furnace creek in death valley national park on saturday. A long days ride, thankfully with little wind and traffic, but beautiful scenery in the quiet and peace of a desert, very good massages when we got back to the furnace creek inn and a sky with an incredible amount of bright stars in it that night. The next day we just rode up to dante’s view, with its up to 15% grade the last 3 miles, to watch the sunrise over the valley and on the way back to the furnace creek inn we rode artists drive and into the badwater basin with its salt flats. It was cloudy with an on/off very light rain on Sunday morning which didn’t bother me as the views were so incredible……and lots of rain on the drive home later Sunday. Temp’s in the high 40’s both mornings and high 50’s to low 60’s each afternoon. My first time in death valley and I’m definitely going back as there are so many great area’s in the national park that I want to come back to explore more.