2012 Discover Kern County 200 Rally

The 2012 Discover Kern County 200 Rally (DKC) was scheduled for Saturday, November 10.  Rather than slog down the interstate to Bakersfield, CA from home, we decided to leave a day early and visit Death Valley, taking more scenic roads to our final destination.  We left Ivins, UT on Thursday morning stopping in Mesquite, NV for breakfast.  From there, we rode I-15 to Las Vegas where we then got on Highway 95 toward Beatty.  It was windy!  Big, blustery gusts that had me hanging on for dear life.  We took an ice cream break in Beatty before heading into Death Valley.  Our destination for the day was Panamint Springs.

As we rode across Death Valley it appeared like mist rising from the sand dunes.  Very surreal.  I have never seen such a thing - it was sand blowing off the top of the dunes.  Yes, it was very windy :-)  We also reached a high temperature near 90 at Stovepipe Wells!

We arrived at Panamint Springs Resort and checked into our room.  No phone, no television, no Internet, no microwave, no refrigerator and no air conditioning.  Very bare bones and quite rustic.

After cocktails in the room, we went to the restaurant for some dinner.  Hmmmm...I had a cocktail and Eric had a beer.  We split an appetizer plate of six coconut shrimp and had a pepperoni pizza with pineapple and green peppers.  Total cost for dinner?  $68.00 before tip.   Hahahaha - captive audience.  We enjoyed our stay here but it is unlikely I'll do it again.

Up the next morning we headed out on CA 190.  A new road for me and what a great ride up out of Death Valley and over the mountain top.  Sweet curves round and round to the summit and then more of the same on the down side.  It was cold but I had my heated liner on so was comfortable.  The sun was shining and not another vehicle in sight.  Oh yes!

We then got on CA 395 and began looking for a place to stop and eat.  We decided to not have breakfast at Panamint - I was afraid of a $50 bill for brekkie.  We made a gas stop here and decided to move on.

We proceeded to CA 178 toward Kernville.  More scenic riding through rural and mountainous landscape.  At Kernville we made a stop to visit Wendy Crockett at her shop, The Cyclesmiths.

We had a great visit with Wendy and took a few pics of the mural just painted on the wall beside her shop.  Very cool mural!

Wendy directed us to a great little hole in the wall diner for breakfast, The Cracked Egg and we were not disappointed.  Food was fantastic - just what I was needing.  And it didn't cost an arm and a leg.  We followed CA 178 into Bakersfield where the rally was starting the next morning.  This was a great road following the river with lots of twists and turns and awesome flow.  Very little traffic until we got to Bakersfield.  I wanted to turn around and do it the other direction!

A quick stop at the visitor center netted us a good map of Kern County which we were warned we might need.  Then, on to our motel, the Howard Johnson.  We ran into a couple of other riders there.  Matt Pflugh, the rally master had arranged a place for riders to meet for dinner and very kindly gave Eric and me a ride to the restaurant.  I think about 18 - 20 folks showed up for dinner which was delish.  To our delight, the major sponsor for the rally picked up everyone's dinner tab.  Wow!!!  This rally is fantastic and it hasn't even started yet :-)

Next morning we were up early and rode over to the Rocket Cafe which was rally start.  We ordered a light breakfast and impatiently waited for our rally packs.  At 7:05, rally packs were distributed and I immediately dove in.  This is an 8 hour rally starting at 8:00 and ending at 4:00 and not much room for error.  You had to ride at least 200 miles to be a finisher.  The rally was contained within Kern County, CA (which is a very large county).  There were two threads you could pursue for multiplier points as well as memorial and veterans bonus locations.  The threads were Zombie and Big Things.  In order to claim any Zombie bonus, you had to obtain a Zombie Killing Permit (Bonus 32) which was a timed bonus only available from 8:15 to 9:15.

Going through the rally pack, I immediately discarded a number of bonus locations because of distance and lack of big points.  That narrowed things down.  I decided to get the Zombie Killing Permit even though I really thought I'd do better on points going after the Big Things.  I plotted a route mostly up and down the Highway 99 corridor with in and outs along the way.  After a quick discussion with Eric we were ready to rock and roll.

I loaded the Zombie Killing Permit location into my GPS and we headed out.  Well, I thought I loaded the location properly.  We ended up 30 miles north of where we needed to be and remember, this was a timed bonus.  Yikes.  We reversed our route and Eric was able to find the location.  We made it with 10 minutes to spare. I inadvertently used the wrong format for the coordinates when loading the GPS.  As it turned out, at the end of the day, we needed those miles and we made the bonus location - so all was good.  But.....what a huge mistake right out the gate.

The Zombie Killing Permit bonus required you to have your picture taken with a Zombie and to kill a Zombie.  I wasn't so good at the killing with only one head shot.  The number of head shots you made was the bonus multiplier you would receive.  Eric got all 5!

Okay, first bonus completed.  Next was #43, Shafter Veterans Memorial.  Easy peasy!

Followed by my first Big Thing, a Giant Red Lady Bug.

Another Big Thing, Wasco Rose Mural.

Followed by the Wasco Veterans Memorial.

And the North Kern Cemetery Veterans War Memorial.

The next bonus location, #28, Two Big Horses was a bit more difficult to find.  the GPS coordinates had an extra digit and the address was listed as 16000 Block of Zerker Rd.  I finally found an address around 17000 Zerker Rd. and headed that direction.  Yippee, score.

I should mention that Eric has a very old GPS and it won't accept coordinates in any format other than GPS so, for the most part, I was the navigator on this rally.  LOL, just a little pressure :-)  Especially considering I blew the very first bonus.

I should also mention that it was COLD but sunny.  I kept my electric jacket and handgrips on the entire rally.

Heading toward our next bonus #22 Marine Corps Devil Dog, we stopped for a Micky D lunch and then I spied the Pig.  Situational awareness!  Bonus #11 Giant Pink Pig was on my list and we were able to snap the pic from our lunch stop parking lot!

We then quickly got the Marine Cors Devil Dog.

Next up was #31, Okie Rays Veterans Memorial.  At Okie Rays Barber Shop there is a private Armed Forces Memorial which was built using donations from the community.  It is a cool memorial.  Although I dinked around so long getting a picture that Okie Ray hollered at us :-)

#19 Indian on the Circle was next.  I entered the coordinates into the GPS but only after a short distance, I realized that was NOT right.  I was going the wrong way.  The GPS had me going 50 miles away and taking dirt roads across country.  Nope - that wasn't right for sure.  We had an address so Eric put it into his GPS and took us directly to the Very Big Indian!

Pursuing the Big Things, our next bonus location was #16 Giant Soccer Ball 2.  After a bit of riding through a lovely park, we got back on the highway to find the Giant Soccer Ball a few more miles down the road at, guess where?  The Soccer Park!

From the Giant Soccer Ball, we headed back to downtown Bakersfield for a photo of #7 Father Garces Statue which counted toward the Big Things thread.  This was a bit tricky to find if you were not familiar with the area which we were not.  It is on a roundabout UNDER the main highway.  We made a quick stop to discuss finding this bonus and decided to take a frontage road and low and behold, there was the bonus!

#10 Giant James Dean #2 was only a few blocks away and an easy score.  The mural is on the side of a Woolworths building.  Very cool.

Following the Big Things theme, we found #14 Giant Shoe Building not far away.

Our last memorial bonus location was #20 Kern County Veterans Memorial.  The wind was picking up at this point and no place to anchor our placards so Eric held mine while I snapped the pic.

Our last bonus of the day was #8 Giant Baseball.

Okay, time is just about up so we headed to our finish location which was the home of Roger and Mary Van Fleet who were also the major sponsor for the DKC Rally.  This year the rally raised funds for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation.  Mary, very fortunately, survived a brain aneurysm and is a fantastic supporter of the foundation.  This is what we found when we arrived at the finish.

Well, we actually found a lot more folks than Peter P.  But the banner was a great touch.  Here are a few of the bikes at the finish.

We were treated to a fantastic meal of bbq beef, chicken, salad, cheesy potatoes, bread, desserts, sodas, coffee, etc.  There was a raffle for a number of cool items and then an auction for even more cool items.  The bidding got hot and heavy a few times.  Very good fun.  All funds go to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation.  Then, the moment all had been waiting for - the results!!!!!

Congratulations to Nancy Lefcourt who won the rally by a large margin.  She planned a great route and rode her plan.  All results are listed on the DKC Rally website www.discoverkerncounty200.com

Eric and I finished and I was happy with how we did.  Best of all, we had a great day of riding around Kern county.  I was surprised to find such diversity and have a new opinion of Bakersfield, a positive opinion.  We found all kinds of fun things and places.  Matt did an exceptional job putting this together with no repeat bonus locations from last year.  I really enjoyed the themes and the places I went. I had a blast riding this rally with my honey.  We worked really well as a team and had zero issues or stress.  For me, this was a total no stress rally that I thoroughly enjoyed.  You can bet I will be there next year.

Actually, this was the first rally I've ridden with no issues, no frightening moments, no horrific weather, no weirdos.  Just a lovely day ride, my bike ran perfect and I was "on" my game and rode well.

A heartfelt thanks to Matt and Andrea Pflugh and Roger and Mary Van Fleet for the wonderful job you did in putting together and hosting this very special rally.

But the fun didn't end there!  We went back to Howard Johnson's to spend the night.  We headed out the next morning - oh, brrrrrrrr - it was cold :-)  Made a gas stop in Tehachapi and rode CA 58 to I-15 where we turned north toward home.  We stopped at Peggy Sue's in Yermo for a late breakfast which is always good home cookin food.  We planned to stop in Baker for fuel but about 20 miles south of Baker my bike developed a front end wobble.  Just a little bump here and there with no rhythm.  I told Eric on the CB that I needed to stop so we pulled over and he checked it out.  Nothing.....  So we got back on the freeway and went about a mile and I said STOP.  We took exit 230 Basin Road and stopped at the top.  The wobble was getting progressively worse and it simply was not safe to continue riding.

Just my luck, huh?  In the middle of BFE Mojave Desert broken down yet again with BMW tow service sending me a truck.  Fortunately we both had cell service.

Just over two hours of waiting time.  It was beginning to get dark and I was cold so I plugged my heated jacket into the bike and turned it up high to get warm.  Boy, for a nowhere exit that goes nowhere, it sure got a lot of visitors.  Finding a bush to hide behind to pee was a challenge :-)

The tow truck finally arrives.  It had come from Las Vegas, just over 100 miles away and would take me back to Vegas to the dealer.  While waiting, we found a hotel near the BMW dealer and made a reservation.

 Eric rode it up the truck.  Thank you, honey!

We got the bike to the hotel that night and then the few blocks to the dealer the next morning.  Eric rode his bike home (another 107 miles) and came back to collect me in the Blazer.  Home sure looked good that night!

The saga of the F650GS continues but that's for another post!

White Stag Rally 2012

White Stag is usually held the last weekend of January.  However, due to some medical issues, the rally was delayed until February 25th.  Rally HQ was in Beatty, NV at the Stagecoach Motel.  This would be my 3rd White Stag.  At the 2010 White Stag, I was a rally virgin but came home de-flowered (in a very good way).  This year was to be a "Stagger" rather than a scavenger hunt type rally.  All good fun.  We were warned to arrive with a fresh condom.

Eric and I headed out on Friday, Feb. 24 and took a round-a-bout way to get to Beatty.  We were also participating in the Big Money Rally and wanted to grab a few bonus locations on our way to White Stag.  We rode through Las Vegas and then headed west on the Blue Diamond Hiway where we got our first BMR bonus - a summit sign, Mtn. Springs.

From there we headed toward Tecopa, CA for another BMR bonus.  Whoohoo, score!  Tecopa is pretty much nowhere with nothing but a glorious road to get there.

Oh my, just a little bit of my pink LD Comfort zip top is showing!  The best LD underwear ever!

After Tecopa, we aimed the bikes toward Shoshone, CA for yet another great road with no traffic, great scenery and nice curves to another BMR bonus.

Although we rode over several passes, none had good signage for BMR purposes, so we pushed on toward Death Valley.  We took a left on CA 178 and rode to Death Valley via the Badwater Road.  It was fantastic.  Little to no traffic, clear blue skies and around 68 degrees.  I love Death Valley!  Past Furnace Creek we took a right on the cut-off to CA 190 which put us into Beatty by late afternoon.

It was awesome to see many riders had already arrived and were ready to begin the White Stagger!

Boys will be boys no matter their age.  These guys are already into kicking tires, telling lies, and doing whatever else LD riders do at a gathering.

Quick, look, there's the new, svelte, awesome, Ms. Heidi S. with her entourage!

One of the BMR bonus requirements was to get a picture of the White Stag Rally Master holding your placard and the Rally Master holding up fingers to indicate how many points you got for that bonus.  Since Tom Almassy hadn't yet arrived, Steve Lotsofsky was the substitute Rally Master.  Here's my bonus picture.

Yup, Steve kindly gave me the full 5 points!  This rally was off to a great start.  As with pretty much any rally or LD gathering, riders hung out in the parking lot, kicking tires, telling lies, partaking in adult beverages and just generally having a great time.  It's so fun to see old friends and make new friends.  I was tickled that I knew a majority of the riders.  I was also tickled to see what fine company I was with.  Some of these folks are simply legend.

Ernie A. arrives from Oregon with a big smile and looking very stylish in his LD Comfort head liner.  I think he had a good ride getting to Beatty and was looking forward to the Stagger.

A Stagger just wouldn't be complete without RenoJohn.  Camera in one hand and drink in the other.  No wonder I love RenoJohn so much.

One of my heroes, Bob M. shows up wearing a grin (typical of all the riders)!

Oh yes, that's Chuck H. and his dog Amos.  Although Chuck and Amos drove in a cage, they were just as pumped as the riders to get this Swagger going.

 The parking lot is starting to fill up.  You know something good is going to happen when a motel parking lot is full of strange looking motorcycles.

Lloyd G. from Everett, WA and Chris P. from Henderson, NV shooting the bull.

 Pat F. from Tehachapi, CA, RenoJohn, Mike C. from Oregon and the dude with the outstanding Honda TransAlp (sorry, forgot his name, but totally remember the bike!).

Yup, more lie telling and tire kicking while imbibing.  That's pretty standard rally gathering stuff.

Steve Lotsofsky, substitute Rally Master and Mr. Transalp enjoying a beer on a beautiful afternoon in lovely downtown Beatty, NV.  Doesn't get much better than this.  Well, maybe if they were actually RIDING it might be better :-)

Don S. (another Legend) hangs with Lloyd G. and Chris P.

Dennis Y. with his BMR placard arrives from Vancouver, WA on his new, nicely decorated, Yamaha Super Tenere.

That Chris P. just kept getting new audiences.  Here with Andy M. and Doug B., both 2011 IBR finishers.

Hahahaha.  Mac M. got roped into carrying swag and didn't want to let go of that drink!  Oh, this guy runs marathons as well as awesome LD riding.

RenoJohn and I have a camera face-off.  Good silly fun, always.

So, that's pretty much the first evening.  Some of the folks walked down the road to a new BBQ place for dinner and some of us just went to Subway for a sandwich.  We all got our rally packs and found out what Saturday would have in store for us.

The 2012 White Stag would be a "self-guided tour" of Death Valley or wherever you wanted to go.  There were two checkpoints and each rider was assigned either Checkpoint 1 or 2.  Eric and I got Checkpoint 2 which was a condom shoot at Titus Canyon in the afternoon.  Hooray, this worked out really well for us because we intended to go BMR bonus hunting in the morning.  Checkpoint 1 was a more northern location where the riders stopped at a summit and had to coast until they stopped with the winner having the longest coasting distance.  But....someone who did that Checkpoint will have to tell that story.  I heard lots of hilarious things went on there.......but not actually being there, I can't say.  My lips are sealed.

Saturday morning we loaded up the bikes and took off on our self-guided tour.  We headed to Death Valley and Stovepipe Wells.  As we descended into the valley, the temperature went from 47 to 67, nice!  The sky was blue and the roads were clear.  Absolutely, flippin, fantastic riding.  Did I mention I love Death Valley?

From Stovepipe Wells, we rode toward Panamint and turned south toward Trona, CA, our first BMR bonus location.  For those who've never been, Trona should definitely be on your list of places to visit.  Yes, it is run down and depressed.  But...it is also a wonder.  I'd like to explore more of Trona sometime.  Yes, we copped the bonus!

From Trona, we headed to Randsburg, CA, where the wind picked up and tried to push us around some.  We persevered and finally arrived at Randsburg.  This is a tiny, off-the-beaten-path, mining town that now caters to the OHV crowd.  Really cute place with lots of antique stores, general store and I'm sure a place or two to eat if you looked hard enough.  We searched high and low and round and round for the Post Office.  This was the best we could do.

You can barely make out the words "Post Office."  I think the RM gave us the points but apparently other riders found an "official" US Post Office sign somewhere else in town.  We did ask a local and he said there is no longer an operating post office in Randsburg and that they use the Johannesburg post office.  We went there too, but it didn't say Randsburg which was the requirement.  Personally, I like the Randsburg Post Office shot we got.  Lots of character!

At this point, we pointed our bikes to Ridgecrest and some much needed lunch.  We ate at a cute little family restaurant that had great food.  After a pleasant meal and a bit of a rest, we mounted up and headed back to Death Valley.  We returned pretty much the way we went.  Just glorious.  Riding Death Valley is a treat and everyone should experience it at least once.

Backtracking, we stopped for a quick picture of the Death Valley National Park sign for yet another BMR bonus.

Not too far from this site, we turned off on the gravel Titus Canyon road.  About a mile down the road we found our Checkpoint.  I guess we were a bit early because nothing was set up yet although there were a number of riders milling around, shooting the bull.  Typical huh?  Eventually, Tom Almassy the official RM, declared the Checkpoint open and Eric and I were first to set up our targets.

My very thoughtful sweetie blew up my EXTRA LARGE condom and tied it to the post for me to shoot.  Unfortunately, no matter how big the target, I couldn't  hit it.  Three shots and no love.  Oh well, I just reminded myself that I shot my condom last year at White Stag and I killed Barbie last year at Gerlach.  So, I wasn't too concerned.

Cute, little Ms. Rosie Sperry shot after me and I think on her first or second shot, popped that condom dead.  She's quite the gun pro, that Rosie!

Sorry, no pictures from Titus Canyon, but I think others have posted some interesting ones.  Maybe a little incident about Bob M. shooting a flare gun at the condom and setting the desert on fire?  Nah, that couldn't have happened.  Good thing I had a pretty much full hydration bottle on the bike......

After our shoot, we turned the bikes around and headed out of Titus Canyon and back to Beatty.  We arrived at the motel, cleaned up and did the parking lot tire kicking, lie telling and adult beverage drinking for a bit.  Because the motel had changed restaurants to a Denny's we didn't have a banquet.  Instead, we all got tickets good for $30 of food at Denny's!  Who could possibly eat $30 worth of food at a Denny's?  Geez, the guys all got steak and shrimp and more shrimp.  I just couldn't do it and had a very nice chicken salad.  So, because we had so much $$$ to spend, we ordered dessert and breakfast to go.  Hahahahahahaha.

Following dinner, it was time for the final results and swag meeting.  Oh boy, good fun.  We all eventually filed into the meeting room and tossed our swag tickets into various buckets for all the goodies we wanted to win.  This is a very, very fun thing :-)

 The room is starting to fill up and everyone has their swag tickies in front of them hoping to be the winner of whatever they want to win.  There was lots of good swag to choose from.

 Tom A. kicks off the swag meeting, giving a bit a detail about the White Stag rally and its duration.  It was fantastic to see Tom and we hope he continues to hold White Stag ad nauseum.  The first rally of the year, sometimes a riding rally, sometimes a stagger, no matter, it's always good fun.

 Riders checking their tickets, hoping they are the big winner!

 Oh no, RenoJohn again, obviously cracked up this group.

 Steve Lotsofsky was incredibly humorous in his descriptions of the various swag items being raffled.  No really, I wish I had recorded him.  He is a natural comedian.  Kudos, Steve.  Good Job!

 No, no, no, I really don't want this....but if I must take it, okay :-)

Dennis Y. scores on a mesh riding jacket.  Ernie looks a bit jealous.

I don't have a photo, but Fisch scored on the Bilt Multi Helmet, the prize most of us wanted to get.  What's really nice is his old helmet was 11 years old.  Yes, that's right, 11 years.  And, best of all, the new helmet fit.  We saw him as he headed out the next morning and he was all grins and giggles and wearing the new helmet.  Congratulations.  Couldn't have gone to a more deserving rider.

Well, folks, I cleaned clock on the swag.  Seems like every other number was me!  Whoopee.  Call a number, put my hand up and I won something awesome.  What good fun.  I gave a few of my winnings to other deserving riders.  Hey, they've done the same thing to me.  Just an awesome, good, fun time.  (PS - last year I didn't win a single thing.....).

Just yet another good score, the motel had three cases of Valentine candy that they handed out to everyone.  How in the heck did I end up with six boxes?  Yummy....canny.....ummmmm......

After the swag meeting, we all headed out to the bar.  Oh surprise?  Not really.  Riders hanging out after a good day of Death Valley roads...everyone had a story and some should probably stay at Beatty.  Suffice it to say, all had a great time.  We enjoyed our rides and enjoyed visiting with each other.  Yes, we got silly, but that's all in good fun.  Never have I met a better group of genuine, good fun people who actually like to get out and ride a mile or two.

George S. provided a great swag for everyone, Klim hats!  Sweet!  This last picture pretty much sums up the rest of the evening.  Look at RenoJohn's blog for all the photos.  Seems like White Stag turned into White Tongue.......

The next morning, Eric and I were slow to get up.  No wonder, huh?  We packed up the bikes around 10 and headed home.  Heck, it was only a 250 mile ride on Nevada Hiway 95 and then I-15.  Easy, peasy.  We had some strong winds on 95 but they settled down and the rest of the ride was sweet.

White Stag 2012 was a huge success.  Yes, it was postponed, but that was okay.  The turnout was fantastic,  we all had awesome rides and the gathering both at the front and the end was incredible.  I love my LD family and thank you for enveloping me in your fold and making me feel a part of the group.  You are the best folks ever.

See you on the next ride :-)

Cletha