My kids go on a vacation with their mother's father.  This year, they also were going to spend a week with my father just before school starts, which for them was the day after Labor Day.  I arranged a meeting place for the grandfathers to hand off the kids from one to the other.  This was to take place on Saturday, August 24.  I then got busy planning a way for me to be there also.

I decided that if I rode to Salt Lake City, UT, and then to Wells, NV, I could travel 1,000 miles to Ely.  Then it was a simple matter of going 500 miles back to Sylmar via Bishop, CA.

I did a SaddleSore 1000 to get a feel for LD riding.  Taking the lessons learned, I carefully planned my gas stops.  I programmed these stops into my GPS, a Garmin GPS III+.

I was looking forward to this trip.  One of my dreams is to travel the route of US-6 from end-to-end.  (also see the US-6 Tourist Association)  US-6 used to stretch from Long Beach, CA to Cape Cod, MA, making it the longest US highway.  In 1964, US 6 was cut back to end in Bishop, CA instead.  I would travel from Ely back to Sylmar along this highway.

When the day came around, I started out at 5:11 am.  The trip was fairly uneventful.  I did forget to get a receipt in Baker (the gas station was crowed and I just wanted to get out of there).  I also had the power cord come loose and the GPS shut down between Baker and Las Vegas.  For being a superslab, I-15 through southern Utah is fairly nice.  I especially liked the Virgin River gorge in the northwest corner of Arizona.  On a bike, it is a blast.

I-80 west through the Bonneville Salt Flats, and through eastern Nevada was just wide open riding.  I finally pulled up to the Motel 6 in Ely at 7:35pm.  It took me 14 hours and 24 minutes to cover 1,038 miles.  Thus, I earned a SaddleSore 1000.  All I needed was 500 more miles to add a BunBurner 1500 to that.

We all went out for a meal in town.  I bunked in with my dad for the night.

The next morning, I greased the chain.  The bike was on a slight incline and I forgot to put in back into gear.  While I was attaching the tailbag, the ZRX rolled forward and fell off of the kickstand.  For those of you with a ZRX, you know how easy this is to do.  My son knocked the Rex down in the garage when I only had 50 miles on the clock.  He broke a turn signal.  This time, I did not see any significant damage, other than my pride and a scratched timing cover.

I get moving out of Ely at 7:20 am.  Now to tackle the long stretch to Tonopah, NV.  Research had revealed that it would be 170 miles until I got to a gas station.  Just because of this, I was carrying 2 - 1 liter bottles of gas under the seat.  I carefully kept the speed near 70 so I could get at least 40mpg.  I made it to Tonopah and took on 4.3 gallons of gas.  While filling up, I noticed a coolant puddle growing under the Rex.  Oh S--t!

I searched for the leak.  It was coming from the inlet pipe to the water pump.  Attempts to tighten were unsuccessful.  So I removed the side panel so I could get to the reservoir and I topped it off.

I bought some extra water.  I headed on to Bishop.  I stopped at Bishop for a while.  I removed the gas tank and checked the coolant level, it was barely down, but the overflow reservoir was emptied.  I continued on to Sylmar, stopping every 100 miles to top off the reservoir, and even spraying down the engine and radiator in Mojave.  By the time I got home, the whole lower frame was slick with green snot.  But I did make it in time, arriving at 4:17 pm, after traveling a total of 1,571 miles.