The Bottom of the Earth

The Bottom of the Earth

At -282 feet below sea level, Death Valley is the lowest elevation in North America, That compares to the lowest in the world at the Dead Sea in Israel, which is -413 feet. If you want to count water-filled depressions, then Lake Baikal in Russia is about -1,200 feet at its deepest point. But then why ignore the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean at -36,000 feet? If Zabriskie Point in Death Valley was good enough for Antonioni to make his movie about the depths of the human sexual psyche, then I think we can still consider it the bottom of the earth.

Today we went there, right to the bottom, with a sign painted on the cliff that is Zabriskie Point that shows the spot where sea level would be. It’s a dramatic exhibit, as the road signs like to call it. It was up to 104 degrees, a moderately warm day by Death Valley standards, but nothing like the world record of 134 degrees once achieved at the spot. This is the dry lake bed where borax has been mined for a century or more. I don’t really know what borax is, but it makes Death Valley seem more…clinically barren, to know that they scrape it up off the vegetation-free ground.

Why is a place like this so interesting to people? At least you can sort of swim in the Dead Sea and buy rejuvenating bath salts. By the way, be aware that the high salinity makes you very buoyant, which sounds fun unless your body-type is front-heavy, in which case you float face-down, which is less than pleasant. But there is nothing to take away from Death Valley for special memories or souvenirs. And yet, this is the third time in twenty years that I have come here, so there must be some attraction to the place.

We are staying at a nice enough hotel that has made itself a verdant oasis in this otherwise stark, barren valley. They feel the need to put all kinds of vegetation around the grounds including completely unnatural grass lawns. The place is built on a hillside with the downhill looking like the Garden of Eden while the uphill side looks like Hades. We will drive west tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and will consider this 18-hour stay to be the centerpiece of our five-day trip. I don’t get it, but yet I’m the guy who planned the trip.

When one travels to Israel, one must go to the Dead Sea. You get Masada thrown in, the place where the Zealots held out for months against the Roman Legions and then finally killed themselves rather that surrender. It must have been the heat because there is no other strategic reason for protecting a big Mesa in the Judean Desert. If the Dead Sea was navigable, maybe it would have mattered. And on the way from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea you pass the sight of Jericho, where it’s walls are it’s history.

Should anybody want to study the value of walls in keeping bad things from happening, they should study Jericho. This is where the walls came tumbling down countless times. The Persians, Trojans, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders, Ottomans, British, Jordanians and now the Palestinians have occupied poor little Jericho. It’s like fighting over the entrance to Death Valley. Crazy.

I am convinced that humans like to remind themselves how good they have it by visiting places that we would all consider horrible places to live. There is a very reasonable basis for the names Death Valley and the Dead Sea. Everything within sight, other than the tourists, is dead. Who would choose to live in a cemetery? And no matter what kind of backwater you live in, it sure beats Death Valley, so you leave feeling good.

Going to Death Valley by bus or car is bad enough. But why would you go by motorcycle? I have lots of neat accessories on my new motorcycle, but air conditioning is not one of them. Plus, if you are a smart motorcyclist you wear lots of protective clothing. No shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops. You are either covered in leather or ballistic nylon with Kevlar padding. You have special boots, pants, jacket, gloves and helmet. You are a medieval knight that can barely move and will be lucky to survive the heat of the protective clothing.

Most people assume that when you’re on a motorcycle you are cool because you have the wind in your hair and on your face. The thing is that that works fine when the temperature is moderate. But as soon as the temperature goes over 98.6 you are pretty much screwed. The faster you ride, the more hot air you are pushing against yourself. Riding faster just heats you up. You are basically getting cooked in a convection oven. You are having the moisture wicked out of you as it evaporates into the sponge of the dry air of the valley.

I also imagine that people think motorcycling isn’t a very physical activity, but they would be wrong. A day of wrangling a thousand-pound, inherently unstable vehicle around road hazards and uneven surfaces is about as tiring as anything I’ve ever done. Do it in 104 degree heat and you are pretty much wiped out and ready for the pool, a nap or the massage table. Luckily, all three are generally available to meet your needs on our trips.

I have been doing these motorcycle tides with this group for twenty-five years. I did them solo or with random pals for the twenty-five years before that. I guess I like doing it despite all the mentioned drawbacks. I also guess I like going to places like the bottom of the earth on these trips. Animals don’t do this to themselves. Early man had better things to do with his excess energy. But we, as modern man, choose our craziness and pursue it with passion. It makes me feel alive to come to Death Valley. It makes me feel on top of the world to come to the bottom of the earth. Tomorrow we will drive out of Death Valley and hoof it 350 miles to chill out in Ojai, the center of the hippie-throwback universe. We’ll see what new insights and enlightenment we can garner there.