I Miss All The Fun Stuff!

The last time your intrepid reporter posted was early Thursday morning when I couldn't sleep. I said something about being back to the shop at noon. WRONG!!!

I woke up to a winter wonderland. Snowing lightly with the wind blowing nine million miles an hour. Adverse conditions, in other words. The kind of adverse conditions that the revenuers think is too dangerous for oversize loads to move. I tightened all the chains on the stupid coils once again, and headed out. If I headed directly to I70, my route would take me directly into the Colorado DOT's Limon eastbound Port of Entry.

Did I wanna risk that? Not really. I went through town. Not good if I got caught. However, when I got to the other side of town, eastbound I70 was closed. I did not know why - www.cotrip.org's mobile site had not updated and said it was open. US287 was (turned out to be a wreck). So, southeast I headed.

But it was ice packed and snow covered with the wind blowing enough to significantly reduce visibility. Were I to get caught by a LEO, my drivers licence would be picking up some points. So, I turned around. That is a shot northbound of the I70 overpass at the east side of Limon where US287 intersects.

I eased ever so carefully back to the motel and called in, and then I had the bright idea to call the port. Kudos to Google for finding the number right off while CDOT and COTRIP do not seem to have a clue. At any rate, the officer informed me that no, they were not letting oversize loads move, but their troopers were reporting that the sky was clearing and the ice and snow were breaking up. In a couple hours, perhaps.

Back to the room and a nap! I had to be out of there at noon their time, so I called in to the port again. I got the same guy, and his answer to my question about oversize moving was: "We're letting all oversize loads but YOU move." Smart alec anyhow. I answered: "Well, that's a hell of a note!" and laughed, he laughed, and told me to bring it on in and we'd go from there. And when I actually got the truck warmed back up and headed thataway, the port was temporarily closed. The roads were clear and I got home easily.

The fun I missed was a week ago last Friday. Right here at my house, on mine and Sis's property, dang it. My neighbors were grinding hay and saw a car hauling hiney headed east between our places. There is a pretty good drop if you are eastbound, and they thought they saw the car catch air - it was going so fast. So, it was decided that the son should go check it out, since the car was likely to self destruct on the cow path that "road" really is.

That road goes for a mile behind the house and comes to a T intersection. There are a couple bad spots where it's pretty rough - little washouts that can get deep cross that road. If one hangs a right, the road disappears into worked ground. Just. Not. There. Anymore. That does not bother GPS units, which try to route people that way to get to my house from Dodge. It hasn't been a legit road for over forty years.

To the north, the road snakes around several washouts that the neighbors occasionally fill in, but one does not drive fast and look serious through there. This driver did, unfortunately. The windshield was broken, and the gal driving was walking on the "road" when my nabe came upon the crying woman. He told her to stay put and he'd call an ambulance and a wrecker. He called the sheriff instead, and they sent all the necessary appliances. Apparently, the ambulance came to one of the washed out areas and decided they could go no further and had to call in one of their four wheel drive rescue vehicles. Turns out she had stolen the car.

A worker for one of the windmill crews had just hooked up with her in Great Bend the night before, rescuing her from an abusive boyfriend or hubby or some such. Apparently, he'd put her up in his motel room in Dodge, and made it to work in the morning just in time. She, for some reason, managed to finagle a ride out to the site and steal his car, for what reason we have no clue. There has been no indication this ever happened in any of the local online rags.

Alcohol was involved. Probably clue enough, I suppose.

That's the kind of excitement I always miss. I always get the stressful drive in bad weather kind, or similar. Dang it!