Fri Aug 9We were up at 2:00am, had a croissant and coffee by 2:30, and moved stuff from the refrigerator to the coolers in time to leave at 3:15am. We drove nonstop for 1.5 hours until we noticed the bikini top starting to unroll, so we got off I-15 at a Main St. exit just before Victorville. While we were there we and also got a coffee at the nearby Shell (and maybe even filled up witih gas). We continued on I-15, arriving in Baker at 6:30am for breakfast at Denny's. That stop took a bit over 1.5 hours, and were back on the road by 8:10am. From Baker we drove straight north on CA 127, stopping on the way at a tantalizingly flat, sparsely vegetated stretch of desert that screamed "Frisbee me, please!" Alas, though trying for more than 15 minutes, the Frisbee was pretty useless in this high wind. The Aerobie did a little better. However our first beers worked very well. Here Bobby found what looked like an ancient beer can, the kind where you had to puncture the top with a church key.

The normal route to Death Valley from here is to go north on CA 127 to U.S. 95, and then through Beatty. This is a remote route across amazing country, with many stretches of the road perfectly straight for miles, where you can see lines converge at “infinity.” But this time we decided to cut a corner, sort of, and try some backroads in the Amargosa Desert closer to the CA-NV border. Two hours after leaving Baker, at 10:10am, we reached the Nevada border, where the road became NV 393. Within a mile off the border, we turned left (west) onto our first dirt road, opposite a little sign at the far corner that said Diaz Dr. Just 1.3 miles down this road, with nothing but flat desert and thin scrub around, I determined we were right at the CA/NV border again. There seemed to be vehicle tracks in the desert going in both directions here but no other indication that this is the border. This was our required stop to air down the tires and release the sway bars (and probably have another beer and maybe even a Frisbee game, because this stop took an hour).

For the next 3 hours we continued on numerous dirt roads past irrigated fields and across large tracts of desert. Soon after the border we found some pure white mounds of what looked like mine tailings, and later saw a big factory in the distance. Later I determined this was the IMV Nevada plant, a company that makes many products from variations of clay and mud. The white stuff was likely calcium bentonite, one use of which is cat litter. Also on our desert drive we stopped at one of those giant rolling sprinklers (this one was linear, not rotary) and Greg and Joey (with a lot of screaming) got their heads blasted at. We also encountered a massive rusty tin can dump.

But the big prize on this stretch of road was finding a cattle carcass, with the hide still on it. There was a complete backbone with some ribs still attached, that you could pick up without breaking it apart, and of course a skull. Another point of interest along this road is Big Dune, a sand dune about 2 miles across that people apparently use for off-roading. We drove cross country between high shrubs, trying to follow tracks that people had made before. We got as far as we dared, until the sand started feeling too soft for our tires that were not aired down enough for deep sand. Even with this caution Bob and Bobby's jeep had trouble turning around without spinning wheels.

The Big Dune diverson took about a half hour. Soon after that, at 2pm, we had to make a decision, whether to continue in the desert or head back to U.S. 95 and get to Beatty. Given the time, we decided to get moving again and reached the highway in 5 minutes, and then Beatty in another half hour. I hadn't been to Beatty since the late 70's, and my memory was of a very run down town, but it actually looked a bit better now and was bustling with activity right near the center of town. Here we gassed up for the the final time for the next few days.