From Salt Lake City to Bonneville Salt Flats to Las Vegas

_Day 11 Started with a visit to Harley Davidson of Salt Lake city http://www.utahharley.com/saltlakecity.htm

_The good men there managed to squeeze me in for an oil change with no fuss. Despite the fact that they were quite backed up and there were several bikes ahead of mine, they had me out in less than two hours. Thanks Utah Harley, you guys rocked it.

Salt Lake City is a very pleasant city. Salt Lake City was established by a group of 148 Mormons in 1847after a long and perilous trek by thousands of Mormons across the western US. It was here that Brigham Young decided to build their temple and establish a homeland for the Mormons, free from persecution http://www.utah.com/cities/slc_history.htm

As I had the afternoon free I decided to visit Temple Square and see the temple and especially the Tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings and practices. The buildings were quite spectacular.

Now - Salt Lake City was nice but I was anxious for one of the highlights of my trip - the Bonneville Salt Flats, so I got up early to get out there. The salt flats and Bonneville Speedway are about 2 hours from Salt Lake City http ://www.utah.com/wendover/bonnevillespeedway.htm . The salt flats' potential for racing was first recognized in 1896 by W.D. Rishel who was scouting a bicycle race course from New York to San Francisco. Rishel returned and convinced daredevil Teddy Tezlaff to attempt an automobile speed record on the flats. Tezlaff drove a Blitzen Benz 141.73 m.p.h. to set an unofficial record in 1914. While I didn't set any land speed records for my rides on the salt flats I did get my bike up to 190km/hr which was a record for me. **

Here is a video of my record. Though it doesn't look like it, I am going quite fast

[cid=8307,http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/no_videos_140-vfl5AhOQY.png]

The flats are truly an amazing place to see so if you are out that way you should definitely check them out.

After playing around on the flats for a couple of hours and chatting with the various folks who were also out there, it was time to head to Las Vegas. From Wendover I headed south into the desert along route 93. This area is quite barren with sagebrush, sand and rocks. Despite this I found it to be quite beautiful.Â

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Troughout the day violent storm clouds were all around me but I seemed to be missing the actual storms. That is until I topped a hill and saw that I immediately needed to put my rain gear on. As I approached this storm the winds increased drastically - so much so that I had to lean way in to the right just o keep my bike upright. Then the sideways rain arrived. I must say this is the only time in my journey that I was truly afraid of crashing. I did managed to ride though the storm ok and after picking the tumbleweeds out of my engine, I made the trip into Las Vegas. *