Death Valley Days

When I told my wife I wanted to ride a bike out to Death Valley during our spring break trip to Phoenix, I think she thought I was crazy. After doing a little research though, I found AZRide and the planning started in earnest. We have a 2002 BMW R1150RS at home and we knew we wanted something similar. The RT seemed to be a logical choice especially since the lowered suspension was available to help with my in-seam challenges. I made the arrangements on-line and shipped our gear to Monica to hold until we got there. When we arrived, Gabor had the bike ready to go and we were quickly on our way. The first stop was Lake Havasu City. We didn't want to have a super long ride on the first day, so Lake Havasu seemed like a nice place to stop for the night. The bike was great to ride. Does anyone want to buy a nice used RS? :-) Our next day was an even shorter ride to Vegas to visit my cousin (oh yeah and do some gambling). So, we had some time in the morning to look around Lake Havasu before we needed to leave. Despite what the song says, London Bridge is NOT falling down. If you haven't been by there, I recommend you take a look at Lake Havasu. It's a pretty place and there is plenty to do there. After we looked around and took some pictures we hopped on the bike and headed to Vegas. We had gotten a GPS with the rental which was a big help as we were getting into the traffic around the city. If you're going to Vegas, get on-line and go to this link https://clubgrazie.venetian.com/SignUp/SignUp1.aspx. When you sign up for Club Grazie, you get a $15 credit on your club card which you can use to get you started with gambling at The Venetian. If you're playing with their money, anything you win is pure profit and you can't lose! After a great visit with my cousin and a little gambling, we headed off to Death Valley the next day. Unfortunately there was a cold front moving through the area producing 30-40 mph winds out of the south. Since we were heading predominately west, that meant heavy crosswinds most of the way. Temperatures dropped to 46 deg going through the mountain passes. Certainly not what we had expected for late Mar weather. Even in Death Valley the high was only in the mid-60's. But, once again, we were glad we were on the RT because it was very stable and the fairing provided good protection against the chill. Despite the, less than optimum weather, we had a good ride and got some good pictures in Death Valley. We stayed in one of the cabins at Furnace Creek Ranch. It was small, but comfortable.

The wind died down (no pun intended) overnight, but it was still a little cool for Death Valley. We headed to Laughlin, NV that morning. Why Laughlin? It was about halfway between Death Valley and Phoenix and the rooms were cheap. We stayed at the Aquarius (formerly the Flamingo Hilton) for about $40/night. The room was great, the riverwalk was nice and the buffet was good. Overall, a good place to stop for the night. Getting back to Phoenix from there was a breeze. When we arrived at AZRide, Monica greeted us with 2 bottles of water and had packing tape ready for us to prepare our gear for shipping. Once we completed the paperwork, she called us a cab. We could not have asked for a better experience! The service was outstanding and the motorcycle was in perfect condition. If we get the chance to do this again, we'll certainly use AZRide. We can't thank Monica and Gabor enough for making this a really fabulous vacation!