March On The Prairie

Is always a festival of winds - maybe from the north, maybe from the south, but you can be certain it will blow. It will gust, driving dust and sand into eyes and ears. Most of the time, the mayhem diminishes at sunset, then the warmth of the sun in the morning drives it to a frenzy again. At times, it may carry on through the night, day after day, wearing people's nerves to a frazzle. You might notice a sudden decrease of the intensity of the noise and think perhaps, just maybe, it's gonna calm down for a while. But no, the wind has just changed direction as a front passes.

Jeez, why would I be talking about this right now? Cuz it's been blowing all week in western Kansas and eastern Colorado, where I've been working. I've mentioned before our oversize permits limit our movement when the weather is adverse. High wind speeds are considered adverse. How fast is too fast?

That depends. Most of the time it's a judgement call by law enforcement personnel. If the state has issued high wind warnings, then it's virtually certain any movement of an oversize load would violate the permit.

There were two of us, loaded with tanks sixteen feet wide. We had to go to Evans, CO. I was the second truck, behind one of my friends. We both had escorts. Colorado has an anti-convoy rule - oversize loads cannot be closer than one half mile, so when we had to cross the port of entry at rhymes with Slymon, CO, we made sure we were apart. Before we got to the exit, we were informed by a huge message board that there was a high wind warning. I figured we were gonna get parked. When I and my escort entered the port, there were several trucks between us.

My buddy announced he had the green light all the way. There is a message board that tells us to stop when our axles are on the scales, so the normal procedure is to stop with the steering axle on the scales - which are long enough for four or five axles. Most of the time, the message will read "MOVE FORWARD SLOWLY," and if the scale official is feeling friendly, they'll throw on the "THANK YOU GOODBYE" message and off we'll go motoring onward. That was the message my compadre got before he even hit the scale.

But, once in a while, it will say "PARK LEFT BRING PERMITS," which means to bring in all the pertinent paperwork for that truck - registration, insurance, fuel tax sticker, permits pertaining to Colorado, driver's license, physical card and so on. We've got all that stuff in a big notebook for each truck. My license and physical card reside in a billfold. I didn't get the kthxbai message. I got the "PULL YOUR RIG OVER AND GET YOUR HINEY IN HERE" message.

Since the personnel generally want to see all the pertinent paperwork for our escort when we get called in, he figured it was a good idea to accompany me. Into the den we went. I was asked:

Are you aware there is a high wind warning?

"Yes sir, I just saw that on the message board."

Did you call 511?

"No sir, but we checked before we left."

You need to call 511 when you hit the state line.

So, we just stood there waiting for the other shoe to drop. I check cotrip.org on the Blackberry anyhow, but I didn't say anything to him about that.

How many are you today? How many more are going to show up?

"Just two, the guy ahead of me and myself." He and another official went through their list and looked him up - he drives for my buddy tb, so the company name was different.

The tb truck? Okay, he called 511, so he's all right. I'm going to let you go on and run with him, but next time, you need to call 511.

"Yes sir, thank you." and out the door we went. "Did you just hear what I heard?" "Yeah, how did this guy know he called 511?"

So, we motored on.

After we finally caught up, we had questions. How did the scale official know he'd called 511? Did he call the scale to find out if it was ok for us to proceed?

He had not.

Did he have some sort of Jedi Mind Control technique? Why was he holding out on us? The rest of us could sure use that trick! Did he wink at the guy, or have a come hither look?

Nope, he just drove across the scales like so many times before, he had not called 511 or the scale house - he didn't have the number (I don't either).

We went on, got unloaded, and drove back to the Flying J just down the road from the ports. There were all kinds of oversize loads parked in the lot - we'd seen some headed eastbound after we'd left the port, one of our competitors we'd seen back in Kansas - and some wind generator propeller blades that were parked our first time through. The officials were pretty strict with quite a few people, so it sure seemed unusual that we'd been allowed to go.

But, I gotta admit, when I heard the official say what he said, the first thing that crossed my mind was "Are you high?"

Maybe the wind had driven him around the bend.