Not exactly a great night of sleep – very sweaty.  And it did eventually cool off enough to be uncomfortable without a sleeping bag.  Oddly enough, the ground was still warm at sunrise everywhere I had gear.

Beautiful morning – and since I figured I wanted to get things done before things really heated up, I got moving.

Some geographical location that’s really steep in they Valley.  Can’t see anything…

Rock bottom.  Or Salt bottom, as it were.  Badwater – where the mules refuse to drink and you’re at the lowest point on the Western Hemisphere.  Nowhere to go but up!

I stopped at Furnace Creek to cool down and grab a drink.  Had a nice chat with two girls from Bakersfield.  They mentioned I should take 178 along the Kern River and that the only downside was that it ran through Bakersfield.  At this point, anything involving water sounded like a good idea.   Looping back through Stovepipe Wells to check out the dunes, I decided to get gas at Panamint.  Unfortunately, they were out of unleaded.   All of it.

I went next door to the resort to grab a drink and use their WiFi, hoping that the truck would show up in the meantime.  Managed to set up my service appointment for next Thursday at Ducati Newport Beach.   A large Harley tour group from Europe pulled up into the resort to eat while I was there.

After over an hour of sucking back on iced tea, I figured I should get going.  I heard anywhere from 42 to 55 miles to the next gas stop.  Half uphill, half down and the bike reported I should be able to go 70 miles.  Should be good!  In the end she did 192.2 miles on that tank, and the last bar on the fuel gauge wasn’t even blinking yet.   She’s been good to me and deserves to be named…

Going south, I went onto 178 and went along the Kern Valley as recommended.   Excellent bit of road.  Not as cool and refreshing as I would have hoped – still 33-35C, but excellent roads.  Would have been even better if I hadn’t been trapped behind a pair of 5th wheels leaking some mystery liquid ever right turn.   I don’t know what it was, but getting covered in it didn’t seem like a good thing.   That did mean that I was never in a position to annoy them into pulling over or pass.   But I did stop to take some shots of the river and valley.

The real adventure began as I entered Bakersfield. I saw a sign for some state camping just east of the city, but chose not to stay. Gassed up at a Chevron and did a quick equipment check – not good. Everything was still running low on power. Some poking around as I went through the city seems to show that the tank bag contacts were failing. But if I leaned on or held the bag just right, it would continue to charge. This was a pretty big distraction and probably led to a few more bad decisions, like trying to camp at the National Monument west of Bakersfield while avoiding the major highways. This meant it took a long time to get out of the city. Past dark.

Since riding in the dark trying to follow cars who knew where they were going was giving me flashbacks of “the loop”, I thought it best to Google for a campsite. Supposedly there was a campsite, but in my way was a gate for an oil company in my way. Normal security measures, electronic controls, cameras, etc. But, oddly, there was a detour sign around the gate over a dirt road. I took it… there were roads on the other side. Bumpy and covered with dirt. I made it to the ‘campsite’. Nothing there. Just a corner between two unmarked roads. More tooling around in the dark. Evidently I looked lost enough that the tech on duty that night bothered to come out and talk to me. Phillip was a really nice guy, told me there was no campsite where I was going and that the closest one was Aliso, but a ways into the bush. After a nice chat about his bike and how he was ready to let it go, I turned around and ran back to Maricopa and stayed at the Motel 8. Evening of fail.