Well I just finished my first multi day trip. It wasn't a huge trip but long enough to start with. I travelled just over 500 miles total but broke it into 3 days travel. (and spent time with friends along the way.)

  Overall it went well but I did run into soe issues on the way home today and wanted to get some advice. A couple of times while riding on the Interstate, I would suddenly lose power (I would drop from 70 mph to maybe 60 or so.)  When this happened, blue smoke would come out the back but then in a few seconds it would run fine again.

  Also, at one point, it cut out completely and I had to set the petcoc_k to Pri for it to start. After it started, I turned it back to On but after a short while, it suddenly died again and again I had to set it to Pri for it to start and kept it there the rest of the way home.

  I'm assuming this would be an issue with fuel line, filter or carb. Can anyone narrow it for me?

This may sound confusing, but I almost sense 2 separate issues here, and one may have caused the second.

How old is your bike?

Typically "blue" smoke is caused by burning oil and "black" smoke is caused by too much fuel.

The "blue" smoke sounds like oil and the loss of power sounds like a loss of compression.  If you lost compression while running at highway speeds (and high temp)....I almost wonder if the engine cooled while you sat still looking for the problem....AND changing the petcock position just happened to be the last thing you adjusted before it started again.

I could be completely off base, but if you had "blue" smoke I think that you should look for any way that you could be burning oil....check your engine breather and drain the airbox where oil vapor will collect.  If the problem continues, you may also want to check your decpression lever adjustment (keeping exhaust valves open).  AND finally check your compression.....

I WOULD NOT WORRIE TO MUCH ABOUT THE HIGH TEMP ON THE FREEWAY .I HAVE RUN MY 86 ON HARD 13 HOUR TRIP IN ONE DAY 8)