A week and a half ago, my buddy and I left fridged Canada (-32C with windchill) driving to Vegas on the I15. The roads were icy in places but it wasn't too bad. Once we got into the states, we were a blur till we hit Ogden, Utah. Since my X5 doesn't have mph below the kms, I thought it safe to do 150-160kms/hr the whole way down. We picked up by other buddy, who is a state trooper and continued on the next day. I had been driving the whole time till we stopped at a gas station somewhere between Salt Lake City and Vegas. My cop buddy was a little bothered by my driving saying that I was aggressive on the roads and didn't have any patients with other motorists, and I drove way too fast blua blau blau.. I decided to let him drive and figured it would be a nice change and I'd do a little reading. This guy hadn't ever driven a BMW because he was a hardened domestic guy, well the BMW demon took over within seconds of him getting behind the wheel. He was shocked and amazed at how easy it was to cruise along at 150-160kms/hr and then pass someone in the right lane because they hadn't been paying enough attention to him flashing his lights at them. At one point he got frustrated with the amount of traffic in the fast lane so he put the pedal to the floor and hit 200 within seconds. I smiled and looked over to him and saw his mouth hanging open. I had to laugh; that moment was priceless.
Needless to say, we got to Vegas in record braking time. Vegas was great, the Shot Show was huge as usual with tons of walking every day.
The ride home was equally as exciting with me at the wheel at first. We had barely left Vegas with a full tank and I rolled up behind a blacked out charger. I couldn't believe he wasn't getting out of my way till he turned on his blue and red lights signaling for me to Back OFF!!! I nicely waved to him and set cruise control for whatever speed he was doing. As hard as we prayed for a Ferrari or Corvette to come rip'n up behind us, it never happened and hours later, he turned off. We got back to Utah a full 1.5hrs later then we'd gone down and after dropping off our buddy we headed of into the night heading for Idaho Falls. An hour into our drive the weather turned really bad with high winds and blizzard conditions. To top that off, as we passed truck stops I quickly realized why there wasn't a lot of traffic on the roads. The truck stops were full from end to end. Apparently truckers talk and the verdict was plain to see. Aside from the wind and visibility, we really hadn't noticed anything else until we saw flashing cop lights attending to rollovers in the ditch due to the pavement being a skating rink. We only found that out after my buddy stopped to take a leak and just about fell on his back. I didn't believe him so I got out and slid to the edge of the road. It was insanely slippery and it was only when we took the traction control off and stomped on the gas that we fully realized the situation. We tested the conditions along the way more regularly by touching the brakes. It was pretty slick but my new, oversized winter Blizzak tires (285/60/R18 Rear) (265/55/R18 front) were amazing and kept us feeling like we could tackle anything.
Somehow along the way, we managed to completely miss the turn to stay on the I15 and hours later after driving into Twin Falls, we realized we were heading for Boise, Idaho and on to the west coast. We used my buddy's Iphone to figure out a course correction Hwy 20 from Mountain Homes to link up with Idaho Falls. I had brought my Kestrol with me to see what altitudes we were climbing to along our trip and from Mountain homes at 3200ft we climbed to over 5200ft. before dropping back down to a normal altitude of the rest of the country. Through the night we'd driven right over a mountain range passing snow plows clearing the highway with very little traffic to help us out had we had trouble. It was a daring maneuver on our part but we arrived in Idaho Falls at 7:30am, roughly 5hrs behind schedule. We had breakfast and kept driving. I hadn't slept since the day before at this point and felt pretty good now back on the I15. The roads were clear and I was haul'n ass head'n north for Butte where my buddy would finally start driving and i could sleep when out of the blue a state trooper in a brown car nailed me doing 94mph in 75 zone. Luckily for me, his printer wasn't working and he told me he'd have to mail me the ticket. The rest of the drive was uneventful till we hit the border where my vehicle was thoroughly search and we were kindly let go. Since we really hadn't bought anything at the Shot Show, all was well and made it home safe and sound to an inviting +7c and it’s been warmer ever since.
I had to say, aside from putting so many kms on my 4.6is X5, I'm glad we took it because had we been in anything else that I have access to, we wouldn't have faired that well. Now for pics from the Shot Show.

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If you can still see the disapointment on his face in your rear view mirror, he's not far enough behind.
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