I knew you'd want more miles! 
Such a mileage letdown from v1.0. Will you even break the 500 mile barrier? Ride safe bro.
No doubt 2012 will be a little less epic for some of us than 2011 was. That is a good thing since more and different riders are involved. I still met the 500 mile mark and then some yesterday. And we still haven't figured out what happens next, so I'll get a few more.
Curemode mentioned his difficulties above after picking up GZ ver 2.0 in Evanston. So we arranged to meet in Snowville as originally planned. Sorry to all, but I did not feel like riding down to Lehi and back on I-15 through Salt Lake. I've already driven that twice this month. So we arranged to meet in Snowville, UT as originally planned. Here is the handoff at the Flying J in Snowville with Curemond making me look like I am standing in a hole -
Lefty and I left Snowville headed southwest on UT30 and immediately ran through several miles of rain. It felt good as it cooled everything off. After awhile, it dried out and there was no more rain for the rest of the trip.
By the time Lefty and I got to Park Valley it was very pleasant -
It didn't stay that way for long. I wished for the rain to come back as the miles unreeled. Temps got up into the 90's and the headwind became pretty brutal, gusting and coming from first the right and then the left. A couple of times gusts caught me by surprise and came around the windshield and smacked me in the torso, nearly pulling my hands from the bars. I didn't take a lot of photos on that 100 mile stretch as it isn't particularly photogenic through there and visibility was poor from the dust in the air. Here is a couple where it wasn't so dusty. The hill was about the only notable feature on that stretch -
Nevada in the bag -
The wind was bad enough that the bike went on reserve 20 miles sooner than it usually does. It is 110 miles between gas stops between Snowville and Montello, NV. I am glad there was gas at Montello even though I was carring a gallon gas can. The next gas was at Wells, another 50+ miles away. With the way the bike was eating gas in that wind, I'm thinking I wouldn't have made it.
I stopped for something to eat in Wells. I had originally planned to take it easy and camp out over night, going home by way of Elko, then up past the Wildhorse reservoir, a very scenic route. The wind hadn't let up its hammering, though. The country is all open and I knew it would be a noisy night in a tent. It was only 5PM, so I decided to just head for the barn. So north up US93 it was. Jackpot, NV, mecca for blue hairs and their bags of nickels for the cheap slots -
Idaho is accounted for for 2012 -
Another pic for those of you who can't get enough of my bike -
From there, I cut off from US93 south of Twin Falls and took old US30 westbound. This is the original highway before the interstate was put in across southern Idaho. I highly recommend going that way on a bike. Above Hagerman, ID -
All things considered, it was a great day to be on the road even with the wind and the dust. The bike did great as always, cruising 70-80 mph for long stretches. It still amazes me what it is capable of after all these years and miles. It rolled over 137,000 miles on this trip.
659 miles for the day, 412 of which were GZ miles.
