26 MOTORCYCLE MOJO JULY 2019
Leaving La-La Land
I landed in L.A. and met up with
my friends Zach Graham, owner of
International Motorsports, and Travis
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videos for The Congregation, my new
band, and have some fun. We hit the
road with a vengeance and ready for
our spiritual awakening with all the
fanfare and bravado of young warriors
ready to accept our trials and claim our
manhood. Only we didn’t realize what
dangers lay ahead.
The temperature that day was 13 C
and a nice departure from the -23 C
that I’d left behind in Canada. But with
the wind riding on my T-120, I was
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California sun. We rode out of the city,
leaving the last vestiges of safety, out
into the wilderness and the mystery of
Joshua Tree.
The ride out of town, for the most
part, was probably the most dangerous.
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dealing with nervous drivers and the
high-speed lane-splitting bikers were so
foreign to us as Canadian riders. What
we thought would be an easy two-and-
a-half-hour ride exiting L.A. quickly
T H E H E AT WA S
PALPABLE, DRYING OUR
BONES, AND OUR PASTY
CANADIAN SKIN BURNED
IN THE SUN
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escaping the city core for the weekend.
Pioneertown
As soon as we left the main roads,
civilization began to melt away. By
dusk we were winding up a mountain
road into Pioneertown and the famous
Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace.
Established in 1946, Pioneertown was
built as a living movie set of a 1870s
frontier town; more than 50 feature
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Pioneertown Palace, recently brought
back to its glory days, has hosted
legends, from Paul McCartney to
Robert Plant.
The smell of the barbecue and the
hippie rock ’n’ roll coming from the bar
was a welcome blast to the senses after
the long, cold ride. We ate and drank
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the band, an activity that turned into a
late-night jam session that meandered
into the early morning hours until we
retired to our rustic lodgings in “town.”
We rose early on the second day,
shook off the fog from the evening
before and were greeted with even
more cold and more wind. This time
TRAVEL CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA