5 November

We go for breakfast at a little Mexican restaurant that Sue found on the internet.

A great breakfast-bacon,sausage,onion,spuds ,cheese & fired egg on a sizzling hot hot plate...yummy!

Everyones breakfasts were HUGE!

After breakfast Scott & Dona did some technical adjustments with a piece of aluminium foil,trying to sort out sound problems with the music on her zumo

We then head back on Daylight Pass to Death Valley.

We stop at Rhyolite, a ghost town.

We are now in Death Valley, heading south.

This place,totally blows my mind. It is nothing like I imagined it would be. It is so hard to put in writing what it is like,I hope these pictures give you some idea...

( taken from my bike, but should be horizontal!!)

Badwater...so called because the water is salty and not at all drinkable

Sue stops when she spots this coyote on the road in front of us,as this on my tick list of things to see.

But I nearly didn't get to see it,alive anyway, as 2 bikes behind us overtake,then stop suddenly when they realise why we have pullled over...well one of them stops, the other a Cam Am has to do a major swerve because they can't stop in time and nearly hits the poor animal!

"Scott" the coyote

It is at this point that Scott notices Sue's back tyre has worn rather badly down the middle, but with the aid of a bit of tape she manages to drive safely to Pahrump-where amazingly there is a bike tyre shop.

Whilst waiting for Sue's tyre to be fixed Dona & I head to Walmart ( another place on my tick list!)

The lady in the tyre place also tells us that we can go on a guided tour of a nearby brothel and buy a souvenir menu of what they offer-but in the end we do not have time to do this.


The tyre shop owners are lovely chatty people and when they realise I am a Brit,they 1. take the mickey out of my accent " an accent so thick you can walk on it" 2. give me a free T shirt and ask if /I would send a photo back to them of me wearing it in London for their collection. I'm more than happy to do this ,but go one better by giving them a Clean Bike Clinic t shirt in return.

The tyre fix has taken a few hours out of our day,so when we next stop for gas the decision is made to stay in Las Vegas for the night. We had discussed this previously and discounted it,but now the opportuniny has arisen I'm quite excited about the thought.

Riding through Las Vegas on the way to a hotel

Night time on The Strip

After checking into a cheap and chearful hotel we head to the strip. We go to New York New York,where we take a ride on the Big Dipper,then down to the Venetian,where we sit by the sside of the "Grand Canal" in "daylight" drinking cocktails and watching the gondolas go past http://www.vegas.com/attractions/on_the_strip/gondola.html

Anything is possible in Las Vegas!!

Las Vegas is mind blowing-the sights & sounds are lloud and brash in every way,a true sensory overload.
One of the weirdest sights was the groups of people ( I assume mexican immigrants) every 100 yards or handing out porn business cards. Apparently they are known as "porn slappers' as they slap the cards from one hand to the other. For a better description than ?I give check out http://www.urbanphotos.net/gg.htm

Its been a day of total opposite extremes the barren beauty of Death Valley to the brash , bright, madness of Las Vegas...I know which one I prefer.