A Wind Delay and a Basque Dinner

“Sort-of-Sabbatical” Day Twenty-One, Saturday June 23

I’ve packed up, fueled up, checked my tire pressure, re-loaded my grocery supplies, and am ready for a 200 mile sporting run of the Sierra Nevadas.  Yesterday’s survey of Lake Tahoe was lovely, but  a proper motorcycle tour always balances sightseeing with aggressive riding, and I’m looking forward to what I know will be one of the highlights of my summer.

But I'm disappointed to quickly discover that this blustery day is not just going to make for some cold riding.  I’m blown off my line on a 10 mile an hour switchback, and 60 miles into my ride, I already know what I’ll be writing:  200 miles of glorious, twisty road, and I spent the day fighting to keep my Ducati on the pavement. The wind, if anything, is picking up, and I can’t bear the thought of the lost opportunity.  Sporting run postponed, I spend the day holed up along with seemingly every other motorcyclist on the road, catching up on business, instead.  I need to check the weather, and since tomorrow looks promising, line up another night of camping in the area, for Sierra Run Take Two.  I shrug and face reality. I am going to have to traverse the desert again, and I might as well use this lost day to come up with the least painful strategy to do so.   It takes quite a bit of time, checking routes, distances, and weather reports with my slow phone and now well worn maps, but I formulate a plan.  It's almost too good to be true, but the forecast for Death Valley looks shockingly mild for the end of June – barely 100 degrees! – so I opt to avoid some of the boring freeways and cross through the national park instead.  Ironically, I’ll likely be able to cool off in the rain projected to fall in  northern Arizona at about the time I roll into Flagstaff.

While it may have brought a halt to my sporting day, I’ve got inside intel on the Tahoe area, and the wind won’t keep me from my planned dinner destination of JT Basque in Garderville, NV.

I have a passerby take a photo with my phone, so I can email it to friends who I know have shared many lively, convivial repasts here.  It will surely make them smile.




I quickly see the attraction of this place.  While I choose my main course from just a few items, all manner of extras (including wine if I could have indulged) come to the table freely, each one a more delightful surprise than the next.

I’ve ordered rabbit, but first comes bread and a big bowl from which I ladle as much hot soup as I’d like.  Soup is good food.  Especially after my breezy ride.




Now – what’s this? – a beef stew, beans, a green salad, all surprises to me.




Finally my rabbit arrives, with a healthy serving of fries.  Is this all for me?




They must be reading my mind, because after a good meal, I like a little sweet bite.




This isn’t the very best food I’ve ever eaten, but it’s comforting, rustic, and tasty, and the merry, vibrant, genial feel of it all makes this a place I’d like to return to, with a warm circle of friends sharing the bounty of this good table.

I ride back to my home for the evening.  The waves and clouds on Fallen Leaf Lake belie the windy day.




Tonight it’s my turn to be the friendly, helpful camp neighbor. The cheerful trio of campers next to me is not equipped for the cold, and I help them cover the screens and holes in their awkward piecemeal tent with blankets and zip ties. I am rewarded with songs around the camp fire, and a pleasant bedtime snack of wine and s’mores.

The Twelve Days of Christmas: An Index

Can I be done with this Twelve Days thing, already??  

I've made a little index page, since my Twelve Days of Christmas story was interspersed with other posts.  It gave me an excuse to spend four hours learning to merge photos in Photoshop.  I found it doesn't work very well unless you use a tripod when taking the photos.  I don't own a tripod.  But I do have a ceiling fan pull chain conveniently located directly over the table I was using to lay out the maps.  Line up camera with pull chain and... close enough.

Approximate route. Approximate because I'm trying to remember it over three months after the fact.  Still, I think I got it right.

Day One: Shopping (Blech!) 
Gearing up.

Days Two and Three: Floods and Astronomical Phenomena at Chiricahua N. P. and Mount Graham
Fooling Mother Nature.

Day Four:  Desert Rain Cafe and Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
Making some tracks.

Day Five: Route 66
Unexpected traffic in an unexpected place.

Day Six: Lake Mead, Valley of Fire
Pleasant surprise.

Day Six: Vegas and Shining Stars of Another Kind - Christmas Dinner
Spending a week's pay on dinner.

Day Seven:  Arrival - Death Valley
The other end of the dining spectrum.

Day Eight: Death Valley Blitz 
We've got just one day, but half the roads are closed, anyway.

Day Nine: Headed Home
Mother Nature gets the last laugh.

Day Ten: Happy New Year!
Eating in.

Day Eleven:  Kitt Peak Consolation Prize 
Original Day Twelve plans snowed out.

Day Twelve:  Ducati Epilogue!
I knew this was gonna be fun, but holy lean angle, people.


Well then.  I guess it's about time I start my second "What I Did Last Summer" series.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day Nine*: Headed Home

Time to head home for our big finale on the 30th and 31st.  On our way out of Death Valley we stopped at the Goldwell Open Air Art Museum (“Art where it seemingly shouldn’t be…”) in the ghost town of Rhyolite, NV.

Part of the Last Supper (1984) by Charles Albert Szulkalski

Mosaic Couch

The rest of the day was unremarkable, but for the cutest little campsite ever at Burro Creek Campground between Wikieup and Nothing (I didn’t make that up), AZ.  Alas, we did not get to enjoy it.  We arrived well after dark, and awoke to rain.  Rain.  Rain. Cold, cold rain.  By the time we traveled the only 60 miles to Wickenburg, we were chilled to the bone, and looking darn wet.  The diners at the Horse Shoe Cafe (one of the 10 best diners according to AZ Highways magazine) all had a good laugh at our expense when we walked in.  I can’t say the food was the best I’d ever eaten, but it was hearty and tasty and the folks couldn’t have been more welcoming.  We holed up there for several hours, drinking eternal refills of hot coffee, eating an enormous breakfast of omelets and biscuits, while watching the weather radar and strategizing the best route home.

Turns out there was no best route home.  Mother nature got the last laugh, and we finally got rained on for real.  Having survived a number of rides in ugly weather both as rider and passenger, this easily won the prize for most miserable.   Serves us right for gloating about our earlier successes.  Rain, rain, and more cold cold, rain for 200 miles. In almost (but not quite, thankfully) freezing weather.  And stuck in traffic.  Twice.  Which ended up meaning cold, cold rain and more cold rain in the dark, dark, dark.  I paid a lot for my rain suit and it was worth every penny.  But I was still pouring out icy water out of my boots and my “waterproof” gloves (hah!) at gas stops.   My riding partner…  well his rain suit wasn’t quite so impervious.  I think he’s finally a believer in the real deal.

* You’re right.  This is really two days. I’m fudging.  Since my “Day One,” really wasn’t part of the journey, I had to enact a bit of poetic license to get the finally tally to read twelve.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (L'Atelier Robuchon Review)

Day Six (Evening): Shining Stars of Another Kind
Christmas Dinner 
After glorious days of riding across magnificent vistas and camping under shooting stars and lunar eclipses, cruising down “The Strip” in Las Vegas is the “re-entry” to beat all.  Startlingly disconcerting doesn’t begin to describe it.  But it’s a phenomenon, admittedly of a different sort, that should not be missed if one happens to be in the area.  This would be a great spot for urban geocaching, and I had planned to do just that, but I think the lights affected my brain.  I completely forgot.  In any case, the Vegas Strip is one of this planet’s most bizarre and curious places, but also one of the best places to eat bar none.

Christmas in Vegas.  Weirdest. Christmas. Ever.

So, on Christmas Day, finding herself in the midst of  the Vegas hubbub, what’s a girl to do for dinner?  Why, have a nine course meal at a Michelin  starred restaurant, that’s what!

The Michelin Red Guide, as opposed to the Green Guide which is a different beast, is the original touring and eating manual.  The first edition was published in 1900 as a way to convince people to burn through their car’s (if they had one) Michelin tires in search of fine food while touring France.   These days you can buy a red guide to some twenty or more cities around the world, including Las Vegas.  Although some say it’s biased to “fancy” (ie ungodly expensive) restaurants, I wouldn’t drop big bucks  on dinner without consulting one first.  Zagat’s guide or the equivalent US rating of AAA Diamonds just don’t match up when it comes to deciding where I’m going to plunk down a week’s pay for dinner.  It’s one of the few restaurant guides that is truly anonymous with its  “expert” reviewers (admittedly a vague description) rather than any old customer who might give two thumbs up just because the table cloth was clean and the service hoity-toity.  Chefs live and die (quite literally in one tragic case) by their star designations.  The New Yorker magazine (November 2009) has a fascinating (to me, anyway) undercover interview with a Michelin “inspector” which you can read here.

Las Vegas has a statistically decadent concentration of Michelin starred restaurants.  I wanted to be fed by the man with the most Michelin stars of any chef worldwide: Joel Robuchon.  His three star Vegas kitchen in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (“exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey,”  the highest Michelin designation) was booked for weeks, and definitely wouldn’t look too highly upon our dirty touring outfits (new riding jacket not withstanding), but “L'Atelier Robuchon” (one star - “very good cuisine in its category,”  and right next door) was willing to take (lots of) our money for dinner on Christmas (or any other evening).  “Very good cuisine in its category” doesn’t really begin to describe it.  These are really, really good eats.  I’ll let the photos below do the talking.  And yes, the food tasted even better than it looked.

I’m breaking my rule again, using photographs not taken by my own hand (well I stretch that for photos of me, although many of those I've taken myself as well), but it was nice to have someone else do the work while I was enjoying dinner.  Plus a meal this expensive should be photographed with the most expensive camera available to you at the time.

The best seats offered a peek into the kitchen.

 

Roses everywhere.  Hundreds of 'em.

Thank goodness we had the presence of mind not to fill up on bread.  It would have been easy to do.

Foie gras parfait with port wine and parmesan foam.  Or, as we called it, a "meat shake." Yum.

Lobster on a turnip slice with a (the only one I've ever liked) sweet and sour sauce.  Turnips never tasted so good.

Sea scallop cooked in the shell with chive oil.  Our favorite course, although it was a tough decision.

White onion tart with smoked bacon, asparagus and black truffle oil.  I decided the asparagus should have been cooked about 10 seconds longer.  Perhaps that's why this place has only one measly star.

Dover sole (the real thing - usually it isn't) with baby leeks and ginger.  Also a strong contender for first place, in my opinion.

Lamb shoulder confit with sweet spices, couscous and black truffle.  Or you could have had venison with black truffle and poivrade sauce.  Between the two of us, we had both.  But this photo was the better of the two.

 

 

Why not cleanse your palate with a fresh mint white rum granite with lychee fruit?  Fun!

 

Hazelnut dacquoise, light mascarpone mousse  (dessert and cheese course in one, I suppose) flavored with almond liquor.

A little coffee wraps things up.

  

If you’ve been counting carefully, you are correct.  There are only photographs of eight courses (bread doesn’t count).  We forgot to photograph course five, the egg cocotte topped with a light Jerusalem artichoke cream.  Oh well.  We decided it was our least favorite, anyway.  Not that we were complaining.

Motorcyclists are everywhere.  It’s like a secret society.  One was masquerading as our bartender (we ate at the bar – some bar food, eh?).  He gave us a great tip - Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area.  (He got a good tip, too.)  We camped there that night (taking wrong turns and finally setting up in the wee hours, on what had become a cold and rainy night), and detoured the next morning via the Red Canyon Back Country Byway  before we carried on our way.

Here are a few photos snapped haphazardly from the back seat.

The rain of the night before gave way to cool clouds.  I'll bet that's a rare sight. I think I could have touched them if only I had had my 36" pasta rolling pin on board.  A bit much to tote on the moto, perhaps.

Our next meal couldn’t have been more different…

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day Six:  Fire and Dams on Christmas Day
Lake Mead NRA, Valley of Fire State Park, Hoover Dam
Merry Christmas, Nevada!  Our day started with a ride down scenic Northshore Road (Nevada Hwy 169) in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, barely making it to the Circle K in Overton without running out of gas. (What is it with guys, anyway?)  Circle K was packed with people still wearing their pajamas.  I didn’t quite get that, but, yanno, “whatevs.”  Then a chat with fellow motorcyclists (they’re everywhere) sharing our thoughts about equipment, packing strategies and the like before we went our separate ways.

A view from Northshore Road near Lake Mead.  I admit it, I'm partial to a short depth of field these days.

Thanks to the park ranger who convinced us it was worth a stop (and the fact that you have to pay the entrance fee even if you are just passing through on the state road), we came across another trip highlight:  Valley of Fire State Park.

If memory serves, this is the Fire Canyon overlook.

 

Colors reminiscent of grocery store sherbet, non?

 

I took this whilst holding (rather tightly) a very expensive camera (not mine) over my head and blindly snapping away.

 

Petroglyphs on Atlatl Rock

On to the Hoover Dam and the newly constructed Callahan-Tillman Memorial Bridge, open for tours every day of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas (go figure), yet completely mobbed on Christmas Day (weird, but I guess that includes us, so…).  Oh my, what a picture you could get of the newest wonder of the world, the Callahan Bridge, at sunset, with lights twinkly against the dusky sky.  If you were allowed to stop at that oh so perfect vantage point on the road, that is.  I saw a spectacular photo exhibit of the construction of the new bypass at the Etherton Gallery in Tucson.  You can view some of its photos here.  If you click on only one link in my entire blog, click on this one.  Who knew a construction site could be so stunningly beautiful?

If you have any doubt about the effects of the ever increasing population of the American West combined with recent drought (which, evidently, is more of a return to “normal” rather than actual drought), take a look at this picture of Lake Mead.  See that white stripe along the edge of the lake? That’s the world’s biggest bathtub ring.  Yup, the water level in both Lake Mead and its companion, Lake Powell, has dropped lower than ever in the past decade.  Make your own conclusions about our future.*

Hoover Dam at dusk.  Well not the dam itself, I guess.

A quieter corner of Lake Mead

 
And what did we have for Christmas Dinner?  Ahh, that’s worthy of its own posting...


*Just this moment I heard a news article on the radio stating that, thanks to heavy snow in the Rockies this winter, the lake level may rise up to 20 feet by this summer.  This will stave off our imminent water shortages for 1-3 years.  1-3 years?  I guess that's better than now, but it doesn't sound all that great.  This past summer, the lake was only at about 40% capacity, and at the time of these photos, it was at its lowest level ever.  This, despite all that rain we'd been circumventing on our trip.  Yikes.