I pulled into calm, quiet little Sugar Grove around 4PM yesterday afternoon.  While I enjoyed my trip (at least certain aspects of it, you which I mean!) it felt good to be home.  So, what was the first thing I did when I got home after hugging the family?  Went butterfly hunting of course.  I knew the weather that was on its way, and that the sun would not be shining for days, so while it was still sunny, the wife and I went over to the magic clover field at school for some lepping  Unfortunately, they had mowed the magic clover field, probably about the time I left, so most of the clover was out of bloom.  Goldenrod was in bloom and we saw a few things, most of them the typical bugs: Buckeye, Monarch, Eastern-tailed Blue, Pearl Crescent, Clouded Sulphur, Cabbage White.  The butterfly I got most excited about was American Copper.  I haven't seen many of them this year, and I think they are really pretty butterflies.  Also saw several of a strnge little noctuid moth that was nectaring from the goldenrod, during the day to boot.  I'll have to send a pic to my new moth friend Nate out in Portal, AZ to see if he knows it.
  Well, after 5,179 miles, I can official award the Idiot Drivers Award to . . . drum roll . . . the great state of . . . another drum roll . . . OHIO!  I had been on the bike over 5,000 miles before I had a really close call.  Some guy pulling out of the Ceasar Creek Swap Meet started to pull out in front of me.  Of course, I'm going 55mph at the time.  Scooted as far left as I could and laid on the brakes.  Screeching sounds and bike fishtailing slightly.  The guy finally saw me and stopped when he was about a third of the way across my lane.  I was where the yellow line would've been, if it wasn't broken for the intersection.
  Then, about 50 miles later, in downtown Circleville, Ohio, a guy, looking straight at me no less, makes a right on red in front of me.  Since I was only going 25mph, that one did not require quite as dramatic maneuvering to avoid.
  By the way, the second place award for Idiot Drivers goes to SHow Low, Arizona.  Had a woman make a left in front of me there, but once again I was going slow enough that I was able to avoid her, and then 30 minutes later I have a different woman drift into the left lane (my lane) in order to make a right turn (go figure).  A toot of the horn got her back where she was supposed to be.  My biker friends at the custom bike shop in Lakeside referred to these two drivers as "f----- flatland a--holes.  Year arounders don't pull that f----- s---."  For non-Arizonans, 'year arounders' are people who live in the mountains all year; 'flatlanders' are folks from Phoenix who go up to their cabins in the mountains for weekends or a few weeks at a time. 
  The third place award goes to the state of Texas, where apparently the shoulder of the road is considered an additional driving lane.  I cannot begin to guess how many Texans I saw driving down the shoulder of the road.
  Haven't talked much about the bike (except for the luggage rack) or shown pics along the trip.  Guess I was afraid if my friends saw how I had it zip-tied together they would've taken my keys away from me, so I'll post some pics of my mighty steed.  Really, engine wise, the bike ran good except for in the mountains.  It did not want to start or idle strong in the mountains, I assume because the air was thinner.  Or, I might need a new air filter.  I will look into that in the next few days.  Early in the trip, it was burning oil like mad.  For the first 1200 miles I burned probably close to two quarts of oil.  Over the last 4000 miles, I maybe burned one quart total.  Not sure what that was about.
  I also learned in the last couple days how much wind resistance there is from my rain gear.  I am estimating that my rain gear cost me about 6 miles per gallon of gas with wind resistance.  On days in which I had the rain gear on all day, I got an average of about 42 miles per gallon.  On days without the rain gear, 50mpg.  On most of the rain gear days I also had a stiff head wind, which I am sure cost me at least a couple mpg.
  Finally, the BBY is not over.  I hopefully have another 3-4 weeks of butterfly activity, although the odds of picking up any new species at this point are really thin.  So, stay tuned for future updates!

My trusted steed!

The evil blue cargo box.  The black trash bag was added to the rigging in Springerville, AZ, when I discovered I had no place for my hiking shoes when I was wearing my rain boots.  Of course, had to buy the whole $10 roll of bags when all I needed was two.  The rest were donated to the El Jo Motel.

Chris engineering!  The bolt below the zip-ties was added at the biker shop in Lakeside, AZ.  The U-clamp and zip-ties were added in Cadiz, Kentucky as a fail safe in case the other bolt holding all this mess together failed.  The conduit clamp, I-screws (slightly out of pic at top) and additional zip-ties added in Springfield, Missouri.

Engineering perfection!  The one innovation that worked perfectly, the entire time, that caught the most teasing from other bikers on.  Rather than coughing up several hundred dollars for proper front foot pegs, I invested $14.95 in a pair of vice grips and used those as foot pegs, and they worked perfectly!

American Copper