epilogue

It was time to bring the bike back to California in two days. I flew to Las Vegas on Sunday night and picked it up Monday morning. Unfortunately the bike wasn’t ready and I wasn’t able to depart until 1:00PM. The extra time did allow me to pick out the perfect cool macho Harley bandana. Soaking it and tying it around my neck provided excellent air conditioning on the ride across the desert.

I had to make up time so the ride to Furnace Creek was fast. The most exciting thing was the Roadrunner I saw while passing though Shoshone. He was too quick to catch on camera as he literally disappeared in a cloud of dust. Meep meep!

Macho Harley Bandana

From Furnace Creek to Lone Pine the temperature averaged 111 degrees. Each time I stopped my cool and macho Harley bandanna was bone dry. Lone Pine wasn’t much warmer at 106 degrees. I got a slightly better shot of Mt Whitney as I passed on the way to dinner in Bishop.

Mt Whitney on the way back.

As I left Bishop the sky started to change and the cloud formations began to assume pretty interesting shapes indicating that a pleasant sunset might be in the works.

The sky starts to change

This was the view looking south

If you're interested there is tons of information and Web links to this beautiful area of California. A good place to start is HERE.

These rock formations at Mono Lake are called "Tufa's". They are formed by water bubbling up from the lake bottom. The water contains calcium carbonate, which creates the Tufa's.

Continuing north I started to get a strange feeling that I might not be alone and that perhaps this wasn't a sunset at all. Yikes!!

The Alien Landing

I came around a corner to behold without exaggeration the most amazing sunset that I have ever seen. It took me about 45 minutes to go the last mile because I had to stop and gawk (as well as take pictures a number of times. Even the normally jaded truckers were pulling over to stare.

Unfortunately, photographs can never capture the complete effect, but these will give you an idea.

Beautiful sunset or...

Ultimately I decided that if it was an alien invasion I could deal with it because they sure picked a great spot for it. They must have good taste.