Ok.....the gurus where right as always.....was the gas cap.
I had replaced the one that came with the bike when I first bought it. The original owner had painted it black...I suppose to stop the reflection on the windshild. I bought a used fuel cap and ring off of ebay that was still original chrome. Thought I saved some money.

Well, the used cap from ebay failed.
Got a brand new chrome one coming to replace the dud. All's well in the garage again.

However, after reading about all of the petcock failures on here, this episode has scared me and I'm wanting to avoid the dreded "hydrolock" from a failed petcock.
So as a preventive maintainence kind of thing, I'm going to rebuild the OEM petcock. Have a rebuild kit on order.
While I have the tank off, I'm also going to order a new petcock vacuum line and a Valkyrie fuel line quick disconnect kit from Red Eye.
Is there anything else that I need to do, check or replace while I'm doing surgery while the tank is off the bike?
Thanks for the help gurus.
