Three Dudes, One Truck - Rubicon or Bust

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We ask the lady at the front desk if she has any recommendations for dinner. She kinda chuckles, and says the Bowling Alley. After she reassures us that she's serious, and promises that we will not be disappointed, we make the several block walk down the street.

There I find one of the best burgers I've had in my life. Top five easy. I get a bacon & blue cheese, and it has almost as much melted blue cheese as it does burger. We wash the burgers down with a few Sierra Nevadas from a tap that I swear must have been piped straight from whatever spring in the mountains that this stuff comes from.

Damn.

I still have dreams about this place.

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Jeez, Cameron. Rubicon Trail, Yosemite, Death Valley -- all in one trip? Some of us spend a lifetime doing those things (over and over and over).
 
TrickyT said:
Jeez, Cameron. Rubicon Trail, Yosemite, Death Valley -- all in one trip? Some of us spend a lifetime doing those things (over and over and over).
Click to expand...

I know... it's a tough job, but...;)
 
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Day Eleven - Tues 6/25

Once again we raid the motel breakfast - waffles, fake eggs, and sausage. We make a bunch of sausage & english muffins to take and eat for lunch:grinpimp:

Fixin' to hit the road...

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The coffee is horrible, so on the way out of town we stop off at The Looney Bean to top off our tanks. This place was awesome. They rinsed out and filled up our mugs and giant thermos with some SERIOUS coffee for just a few bucks.

Minutes later we are back on the road. By now, 395 has become my favorite highway.

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We make it to the Park, which is still at a pretty good elevation. We haven't yet made it down to the valley floor. We pull off at a rest area/scenic overlook. By the looks of the restroom door, BilRiiiley has already beat us through here.

I'm taking a picture of this canyon next to the parking lot. And then I'm taking a picture of my truck, when I hear the roar of a jet. But not just any old jet. This thing has straight pipes...

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The roar gets louder and louder, and I start looking in the sky for it...



Just then, it becomes deafening - THERE'S A F***ING FIGHTER JET SLICING THROUGH THE CANYON RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!!



%$#@!!!



I regain my composure and somehow manage to fire off a few rounds from the camera before he's out of sight.


Unfortunately for my dad and Andrew, they were in the bathroom while this was going on and they come out trying to figure out what the hell just happened.:lol:


As I'm trying to unflip my lid, it sneaks back up in full ninja mode and blasts back through right next to us, our ears splitting as it comes past.



$#@%!!!



What a way to start the day!

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Our little convoy of trucks has been strafed so many times in DV, I've lost count. Once in Saline Valley, which is wide and flat, with 10000 foot sides, I looked beside me and there was an F16 about 100 feet away and 50 feet off the deck, going so fast he was fully silent, until he was down valley. Then the deafening noise caught up and we were right in it.

Or the time we were sitting in the springs, and there was a 2 on 1 dog fight right over our heads for 10 minutes or so. Love those guys. Amando got a pic back in the day of an F14 upside down flying directly over the hot pool at Saline so the pilot could check out the nekkid hippie chicks.

Thanks for this thread though, seriously. Seeing the Rubicon through the eyes of a visitor on a vision quest made me realize that living here we do take it for granted, and we should not. It's an amazing place. I'll look forward to the next DV installment, but the offer stands. If you saw it from the pavement, you saw 0.001% of what's there, and it deserves a return visit.
 
Those fighter jets were from the Naval Fighter Weapons School (top gun) based in Fallon, Nevada. As Andy says, they love training in Death Valley.
 
Cruiserdrew said:
Our little convoy of trucks has been strafed so many times in DV, I've lost count. Once in Saline Valley, which is wide and flat, with 10000 foot sides, I looked beside me and there was an F16 about 100 feet away and 50 feet off the deck, going so fast he was fully silent, until he was down valley. Then the deafening noise caught up and we were right in it.

Or the time we were sitting in the springs, and there was a 2 on 1 dog fight right over our heads for 10 minutes or so. Love those guys. Amando got a pic back in the day of an F14 upside down flying directly over the hot pool at Saline so the pilot could check out the nekkid hippie chicks.

Thanks for this thread though, seriously. Seeing the Rubicon through the eyes of a visitor on a vision quest made me realize that living here we do take it for granted, and we should not. It's an amazing place. I'll look forward to the next DV installment, but the offer stands. If you saw it from the pavement, you saw 0.001% of what's there, and it deserves a return visit.
Click to expand...

TrickyT said:
Those fighter jets were from the Naval Fighter Weapons School (top gun) based in Fallon, Nevada. As Andy says, they love training in Death Valley.
Click to expand...

I think y'all may have just attracted the entire CLC.
 
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The temperature is climbing, so we keep moving. It was still "cool" while we were there. A few weeks later it rose another 20 degrees.

Heading down to the Valley floor...

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Down at the floor. It's getting warmer!

That dirt is as hard as concrete. It's been cracked for a while too, there's all kinds of sand and rocks in the cracks.

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We leave the Panamint Valley disappointed that we haven't seen any elevation signs at the bottom. There are signs at the higher elevations, but not at the bottom.

We climb back up, and then head back down into another valley.

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We finally hit bottom of Highway 190. (though it still goes down another 90' in Badwater)

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We pass on playing a round at the Furnace Creek Golf Course and head towards Nevada.

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