The next morning, Fiona felt a little better, which was encouraging. Right off the bat she said, “You know? We don’t have anything to do tomorrow. Why don’t we stay here another day? That way we can see everything without rushing through it.”

Fine by me! I went to the front desk and extended our stay, and booked a surprise for sunset. Without the pressing need to rush, we took our time and relaxed. We all did our hair, our nails and makeup, talked about boys, then had a pillow fight. Traveling with hot chicks is cool!

With our titivating, primping and preening out of the way, we hit the open road, looking for adventure, and whatever comes our way.

We had to share the road with ‘The Toothaches’ – a burly gang of what I imagined were dentist-bikers in full biker regalia.

Our first destination was Rhyolite, an old, haunted ghost town near Beatty, Nevada. Back in 1907, this mining town had a population of five thousand, and boasted electricity, running water, and a railroad. Then, a huge economic crisis hit as greedy assholes started trading derivatives, credit-default swaps and other toxic financial instruments. The boom times soon went bust, and so did Rhyolite. Now, it only has a bunch of ruined buildings, with weird sculptures it’s only residents.

The girls were eager to explore the ruins.

We all had fun with the sculptures.

Not only is there a ghostly sculpture of the Last Supper out there in the middle of the desert, there’s also a huge, rusted miner with a pick axe and… a penguin?

And, if that wasn’t odd enough, there is this little… Lego-like statue… err… thing… sitting out there – whatever else it is, it would be the perfect addition to our little riding group.

Frenchy’s Angels

Leaving Rhyolite, we managed to take the picture we failed to get the night before.

Up next? Scotty’s Castle.

A bell sat at the end of a long rope. Jessica, unable to control herself, just HAD to ring the bell.

Immediately, a dour faced old tour guide biddy in a sad little hat came over to bitch. “You know that bell is to summons the next tour group,” she said. “Now that you rang the bell, you have to do the next tour.”

Uhh.. no we don’t. Instead, in order to pay our respects, we climbed the hill where Walter Scott, the con man who swindled his way into having this castle built, is buried.

These Two Are Troublemakers!

Scotty’s Castle will forever have the distinction of being the place I had the absolute Worst Meal Ever. When starving, judgement can easily get clouded, and something as nasty as a frozen burrito can almost sound appealing. The wrapper had all the necessary warnings, including ‘Previously Handled‘ and ‘Frozen For Your Convenience.‘ Despite these warnings, we ate them anyway.

Trust me when I say that eating anything that was ‘Previously Handled‘ is a bad, bad idea. We lived. Barely.

The excellently named Ubehebe Crater was next on our list.

Death Valley Park is a big place. We had to race back to Furnace Creek Ranch in order to make it in time for our Sunset Surprise.

The surprise? Trading in our hundred-horsepower steeds for a less powerful mode of transportation.

After watching the sun spectacularly dip below Telescope Peak aboard our one horsepower vehicles, we only had a few more thing left to make this Best Day Ever truly complete.

Making up for the horrendous, gut-wrenching lunch, we gorged ourselves full on steak at the Western Steakhouse, then headed out back to look at the most incredible display of the Milky Way I’ve ever seen.

I tried to get a really good circle star trail picture, but the damn sprinklers kept coming on, soaking everything.

And, the best news of all, we had another day to see some of the lesser known sights of Death Valley before heading home.

The final installment of this excellent adventure can be found here.

Author: frenchy