Picto Diary - 25 to 28 January 2026 - Mid-Winter Motorcycle Trip

Above: Death Valley Ranch Hotel. Furnace Creek, California. 25 January 2025.
Image just post arrival on 243-mile-long ride to Death Valley, CA, via Las Vegas, NV, from Ivins, UT. John Galt's 2019 Goldwing motorcycle foreground left. My 2021 Goldwing motorcycle at far right. In the middle of the image is Wyatt Earp's 2012 BMW F800 GS motorcycle and beyond, minimally visible, Ahn Rhee's KTM 700 dual sport motorcycle. Most notable on this riding segment were the 31-degree temperatures at the top of the pass, early in the AM, riding from Ivins to Beaver Dam, AZ and I-15. Brrr.

In the first decade of the aughts I used to do an annual mid-winter motorcycle ride. Taking a break from skiing, with riding friends, I visited locations throughout the southwest in January or February. Tombstone, Bisbee, Yuma, Palm Desert, Julian, Rocky Point, Lake Havasu... stream of conscious recollections. We thought it would be fun to resume the mid-winter riding tradition starting from my home in Ivins, where four of us met on 24 January 2025 to enjoy a dinner of Veyo chicken pot pies precedent to getting on the motorcycles the next day.

Above: Independent fuel station. Furnace Creek, California. 26 January 2025
Note the price of the diesel fuel. Is the symbolically potent price per gallon number a joke? a coincidence? "Selfie" image by Mwah (sic) astride my 2021 Honda Goldwing motorcycle.

Above:  Badwater Basin, Death Valley, California.  26 January 2025
Lowest elevation in the US.  Note Telescope Peak in the background.  
"Its summit rises 11,331 feet (3,454 m) above the lowest point in Death Valley, Badwater Basin at −282 feet (−86 m),[6] in about 15 miles (24 km), and about 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above the floor of Panamint Valley in about 8 miles (13 km).[7] This is comparable to the rises of other tall, but better known, U.S. peaks. It is even somewhat comparable to the rise of Mount Everest above its northern base on the Tibetan Plateau, a rise of roughly 13,000 feet (4,000 m). However, Everest rises much more, and much more steeply, above its southern base in Nepal. (Wikepedia).[8]"
Very visible in the area are erosion markings on either side of the road from the recent rains AKA atmospheric river storms.  Further out in Bad Water Basin there is still standing water. 

Above: Badwater Basin. Death Valley, California. 26 January 2025.
Image: Mid-Winter riders. Bishop, Wyatt Earp, Ahn Rhee, and John Galt. Ahn Rhee, riding a KTM 700 dual sport motorcycle, is 85 years old. He has ridden his motorcycle... well... everywhere. Start with circumnavigation of the Black Sea and throughout Iran. Too many other trips by Ahn Rhee to name. I have ridden with Ahn Rhee in Patagonia (also with Galt), Africa, and Mongolia.

Above: Ruths Chris Steakhouse, Palm Desert, California. 26 January 2025.
Today's ride, from Death Valley to Palm Desert was about 340 miles, including forty miles from Furnace Creek to Badwater Basin and back to Furnace Creek. We rode from Furnace Creek across Mojave Desert terrain to Baker, California, further south to Kelso, California, Amboy, Twenty-Nine Palms, to Palm Desert. We saw the "two Californias." At an Amboy pitstop was a dilapidated, dirt surfaced, old Route 66 cafe relic that had been turned into a souvenir store. Bodily functions were performed in a dingy, blue porta potty outside. Later in the day, we celebrated "the other California" at Ruths Chris Steakhouse in Palm Desert.

Above.  Harris Ranch, California.  26 January 2026.
Riding distance from Palm Desert, California to Harris Ranch, California was 320 miles.
Image:  Mwah wearing a Harris Ranch cap.
The ride today, in four segments, totaled 320 miles.
Segment 1 - Palm Desert to San Bernardino.  70 miles.  I-10.  Moderately crowded freeway heading direction Los Angeles.  Ahn Rhee, familiar with the route, led out and I rode sweep.  Ahn Rhee kept a pace slightly faster than base line traffic (roughly 70 mph) and didn't let conventional freeway driving discipline (keep right except to overtake) cramp his style.  At multiple times on this route, we used all of the four lanes weaving in out of traffic.  In a perverse way there is method to this madness as it keeps the rider very alert.  Speaking for the sweep rider... Mwah (sic), the calculation is to keep at a safe distance following your fellow riders but not be so far back as to lose them as they maneuver from lane to lane.  I wonder what the effect on intelligence will be when all travel is by autonomous vehicle and the brain calculation analytics to ride at a quick pace on a crowded freeway are lost.
Segment 2 - San Bernardino - California, City. 103 miles.   Leaving I-10 in San Bernardino, we rode for a few miles on I-215 before picking up a back route, SR 138, bypassing Pasadena/Los Angeles behind the San Gabrial Mountains, to Palmdale, and SR 14 to California City.  Most of the riding on this segment was fairly benign on low traffic four lane highways with the occasional intersection/light and small town.  
Segment 3 - California City to Gorman Pass.  70 miles.  At California City we turned westward, still on SR 138.  The route westward to Gorman Pass and I-5 northbound was a more or less straight two-lane highway with good visibility down-road.    If you had time to look at the landscape on this road you would have noticed unseasonably green fields and hills.  The atmospheric river storms of a couple of weeks prior had turned California's traditionally brown winter landscape in to "Spring."    But there wasn't much time to gaze at the landscape.  The road was packed with westbound trucks bypassing Los Angeles, like we riders were trying to do, to get on northbound I-5.  Ahn Rhee, still leading the pack, set a rapid pace as our group must have overtaken at least forty trucks along this seventy-mile-long segment.  Oncoming traffic was light but enough that the rider needed to take great care in overtaking.  We got a lot of downshift (initiate the overtaking) and upshift (when overtaking speed reached) practice, along with lower gear, high speed, high revs on our bikes.
Segment 4 - Gorham Pass to Harris Ranch.  80 miles.  All I-5 northbound.  About thirty miles of this segment was in Tule Fog.  Notwithstanding the fog, visibility wasn't bad at 100 yards.  Speeds here were 70 to 75 mph.
 
Tule fog (/ˈtuːli/ TOO-lee) is a thick ground fog that settles in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley areas of California's Central Valley. Tule fog forms from late fall through early spring (California's winter season) after the first significant rainfall. The official time frame for tule fog to form is from November 1 to March 31. This phenomenon is named after the tule grass wetlands (tulares) of the Central Valley. As of 2005, tule fog was the leading cause of weather-related accidents in California.[1] Wikepedia
Post ride cocktails and jabbering were in my room following the ride.  Harris Ranch is known for its steaks.  Notwithstanding last night's ribeye at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Palm Desert, we did a ribeye repeat here at Harris Ranch.

Above: Harris Ranch California. 28 January 2025.

California has rules on the books that call for the ramp up of electric vehicles.
Starting with model year 2026: 35% zero emission vehicle (ZEV) sales.
Increasing annually (e.g., 68% by 2030).
Reaching 100% ZEV sales by 2035.
As I observed the empty charging station here at Harris Ranch on my early AM walk, I wondered whether CA's ZEV goals made any sense. Tesla sales have been flat for the last year or so.
Tesla is discontinuing (or eliminating production of) its Model S sedan and Model X SUV.
This was announced by Elon Musk during Tesla's Q4 2025 earnings call on January 28/29, 2026. Production is expected to wind down next quarter (Q2 2026), effectively ending by mid-2026. The move frees up space at the Fremont factory to produce Optimus humanoid robots instead, as part of Tesla's shift toward autonomy, robotaxis, and robotics rather than traditional vehicles.

Furthermore, the stigma on fossil fuels seems to be abating as there is a growing need for increased electrical power for the age of AI and as drilling and exploration constraints are eliminated. Are California's expectations to go all ZEV at odds with current national and global trends?

Above:  Harris Ranch California. 28 January 2025.
Grok.  The primary water complaint from farmers in California's Central Valley revolves around insufficient and unreliable access to surface water for irrigation, particularly through the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and related systems. Many farmers describe this as a "man-made drought" caused by regulations, rather than purely natural conditions. Key elements of their grievances include:
  • Low water allocations — Even in years with good rainfall, full reservoirs, or above-average snowpack, South-of-Delta agricultural contractors (a major group in the Central Valley) often receive only a fraction of their contracted water. For example, in 2025, allocations were around 55% despite mostly full reservoirs, which farmers called "disappointing" and inadequate for planted crops.
  • Environmental regulations and protections — Farmers argue that rules to protect endangered species (like Delta smelt or salmon) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta divert too much water to the ocean or for fish flows, reducing what reaches farms. Common claims include that 80% (or more) of California's river water flows unused to the Pacific instead of to agriculture, with highway signs and protests highlighting this. They see this as prioritizing environmental mandates over farming needs.
  • Chronic shortages and unpredictability — In drier or critically dry years, allocations can drop to zero or very low levels (as seen in multiple years like 2021–2022), forcing reliance on expensive groundwater pumping, fallowing land, buying water on the open market, or abandoning fields. This leads to higher costs, lost revenue, fallowed farmland, and economic strain on rural communities.
  • Other related issues — Groundwater restrictions under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) limit pumping to address overdraft, adding pressure. There are also occasional complaints about poorly timed water releases (e.g., from dams) that farmers can't capture for irrigation.
These complaints are longstanding but persist into recent years (including 2025–2026), even amid wetter periods, due to policy debates over balancing agriculture, urban use, environmental protection, and Delta ecosystem health. Federal actions under different administrations have sometimes increased deliveries by loosening rules, but tensions remain high among farmers, environmental groups, and state/federal agencies.
California's water is mismanaged on a biblical scale.  In addition to the Central Valley farmer concerns above, Sierra runoff reservoirs are half of what is required for California's 40 million people.  Plans had been developed in the 1980's to double California's reservoir capacity but they were deep sixed by politicians expressing environmental concerns.  1MM acre feet of water runs needlessly from the San Joaquin River into the sea to preserve the snail darter fish, a fish not even native to the area.  There is virtually no catchment of water in California's coastal ranges.  Yet, Californians vote in, year after year, politicians who vote for water shortages.  Are restrictions in draught years limiting Californians to three showers a week really worth the faux environmental virtue signaling of California's leftist government?

Above: Ride itinerary. 28 January 2025. The graph is back to front. My ride was eastbound from Harris Ranch to Ivins. Notable after Bakersfield were the green grass hills watered by the recent atmospheric river storm. I rode the final hour in the dark, from Beaver Dam, AZ to Ivins, UT, on old highway 91. After Barstow, the rest of this segmentt was "slabbing it" at freeway speeds on a moderately, not overly so, crowded I-15. I only saw one other motorcycle, another Goldwing and rider who overtook me, just before Baker, CA.

Wyatt Earp and John Galt, seeing favorable weather conditions for a direct two-day ride to their homes in Walla Wall, WA, headed north. Ahn Rhee rode directly home to Marin County yesterday. My ride today is described in the above graphic. 508 miles from Harris Ranch to Ivins, UT. My total riding distance for the four days of riding was 1411 miles. This trip was a good reintroduction of the annual mid-winter motorcycling trip. Challenging riding, good companionship, good food and new insights about the world in which we live.