Motorcycle Mojo – July 2019

J ULY 2 0 19 MOTORCYCLE MOJO 25

MOJAVE DESER

T

Situated between th

e Great Basin

Desert and

the Colorado

subdivi

sion of the Sonoran

Deser

t, the Mojave is consider

ed

t

he smallest of North Am

erica’s

deserts. A land of e

xtremes,

temperatures c

an range from

freezing to ab

ove 50 C; elevations

range fr

om 85 metres below sea

lev

el in Death Valley’s Badw

ater

Basin to higher th

an

3 , 630 metres abo

ve sea level

on Char

leston Peak.

IN THE H

EAT OF THE VALLEY

D

eath Valley is the lowest

,

hottest and driest place

in all of

North America

. In 1913 ,

a temperatur

e of 56. 6 C was

recorded, th

e highest temperature

ever rec

orded on earth. July is t

he

ho

ttest month of the year w

ith an

average temperatur

e of 46 C.

Average annual ra

infall is 60 mm.

PAPPY

& HARRIET’S

Pappy &

Harriet’s Pioneertown

Palac

e is located, fittingly en

ough,

in Pioneertown, Cali

fornia.

It’s a permanent 19

40 s western

movie se

t created by

western

• movie star investors

Roy

Rogers, Gene Autry and

R

ussell Hayden and the S

ons of

the Pioneers, a wes

tern-genre

singing group. T

he eatery was

once the t

own’s cantina and

owned

by Harriet’s parents, wh

o

o

pened it in 1972 as an ou

tlaw

biker burrito bar. I kid

you not.

ARE YOU CH

OKING?

Acc

ording to

health

researchfunding.org,

ch

oking is the fourth leadin

g

c

ause of accidental death

and the

Heimlich manoeuv

re has saved

the lives of 10

0 , 00 potential

cho

king victims.

F

A

S

T

F

A

C

T

S

I

f Los Angeles is the City of Angels, then the Mojave Desert

is her dark mistress. Hot, seductive and mysterious on one

hand; cold and dangerous on the other. The Mojave holds

secrets that many men have gone in search of – some never

to return. The Eagles, the Doors and the Band all went in search of

her magic and muse and shaped a generation. The Mojave indig-

enous people would take devil’s weed and wander her endless

plains in a rite of passage to achieve a new state of consciousness.

But we, we are a different breed. We seek wilder things: not just to

wander, but to conquer. We seek to achieve a new consciousness in

only one way – we ride.

On paper the plan looked simple: three friends, four days, four

stops, four amazing adventures. And as a professional musician,

travel is pretty standard fare for me. After 15 years of making

records and touring the world, I would hope I got this travel thing

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British custom Triumphs provided by our friends at International

Motorsports in Vancouver and go for a ride, right? Wrong! On the

map, Los Angeles to Joshua Tree National Park, then to Las Vegas

and on to Death Valley, then back to L.A. looks like four easy days

of riding. But we found out nothing is easy in the desert and you

never know what you will get one day to the next.