This is quite a depressing post... the end of the trip... well mostly the end. I'm actually in New York City now, but I've left the DR in LA and Malcolm and Joe have gone back home to return to their real lives. I'm going back to LA in a week or so and will get the bike and go for a ride again, but I have a bunch of work I gotta do there and I'm not sure how much time I'll get for another ride. I really wanna get to Utah? But yeah we'll see...
The photos above are of our ride from LA back to Pappy and Harriet's in the desert where we essentially started our trip. We'd had an amazing time there that first night and we were all looking forward to going back to knock this thing on the head. It was a pity Darren wasn't still with us. Compared to our first leaving LA and riding to the high desert we felt like seasoned pros now. Our first ride out of LA was a bit of a disaster. We were all over the place on the interstate, and since we didn't really know where we were going we didn't lane split or anything. This time however we just hooned on through heavy Friday afternoon traffic. It was great. I dug it. That's what motorcycles are for in cities I reckon!
Our spirits were high when we reached Pappy and Harriet's, and we were pleased to set up camp again with old John, the ex-military desert cowboy campground manager, chatting to us. I have a photo of him somewhere I'll put up here soon. He was great. Joe gave him a fern. We set up pretty quick and went to the bar where we proceeded to eat, drink, dance and party to the band of Sarah Petite (from Nashville)...
The band were great and dug the guitarist's (Eric) playing a lot. I did my usual drunken banter with the band afterwards, topped off this time by ranting to Eric's parents about how awesome I thought it was that they'd created such a great guitar player. I got way too drunk (again), managed to lose my way to the campground and lose my glasses. That's a longer story I won't bother going into here except to say I was pretty stoked when Joe found them, undamaged, in the carpark the next day.
We stayed a 2nd night at Pappy and Harriet's, but I was rinsed and Malcolm and I went to bed early. Joe, of course, stayed out late. I slept like a log and didn't even notice other campers come in and set up around us during the night.
Joe and Malcolm managed to sell Malcolm's bike on the last night! Is that luck? In fact we almost had both bikes sold, but the chick who was gonna buy Joe's pulled out last minute. The guy who agreed to buy Malcolm's showed up at 8am with $2k like he said he would though, and then BAM! It really did feel like this thing was coming to an end. The thing to figure out then was how to get all our gear and Malcolm onto two bikes and back to LA?
After quite a bit of fucking about we finally left Pioneer Town with me taking Malcolm pillion and Joe taking all Malcolm's gear. The DR went surprisingly well 2-up, and we made it back to LA and into Claremont in good time. The Tuckers weren't home so we went to the pub and watched a car chase that was literally going on around us on the TV. Then we went to the Tuckers compound and that was kinda that... I feel like I should have some big reflective kinda summary here? Maybe that'l come? Right now I have limited time on the wifi cause I gotta do boring shit like banking, and the chick at the cafe counter here is looking at me like if I'm gonna stick around any longer I better buy some more coffee. I don't want or need more damn coffee, so we'll call it done for now.
Thanks Malcolm, Joe and Darren. And big thanks to James and Colleen Tucker. See ya'll again real soon...
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