Some Days Are Better Than Others

After spending 4 hours sitting and waiting and waiting for our trailer to be unloaded in Englewood, CO, we finally got to our next stop which was Budweiser at around 3pm. We picked up our loaded trailer and scaled it and found it was 160 pounds over the limit for our truck, which is 80,000 lbs. If your truck/trailer/load is over its legal weight you can be fined and given a ticket at weigh stations. Budweiser wouldn't take anything off the load so we called our home office and asked what we should do since we had a weigh station coming up within a couple of miles of leaving the Budweiser plant in Ft. Collins. They said to go ahead and chance it and see if they would give us a "grace" overage amount because we're also hauling a refrigerated trailer, with the refrigerator unit weighing quite a bit. So we said a prayer and asked God for some help and left.  As we approached the weigh station and drove over the scales in the road we held our breath to see if we would get a signal transmitted to our onboard unit to, "pass on by - no need to stop" or "whoa, why don't you come see us."  The pass-on-by signal came through and we let out a sign of relief and as we drove by the station, it appeared that they had just closed because there was a line of trucks in the lanes still waiting to be processed. We might have been the first truck to pass by after they closed. A coincidence? I think not!  That was the good weigh station experience for the day.

Now, here's the bad. The next station in Colorado is located halfway up Lookout Mountain as you held toward Veil Pass (elevation 11,062 ft). I was driving and I was taxing every bit of my limited experience as the approach to Veil Pass consists of miles and miles of extremely steep upgrades and downgrades. The upgrades are so steep that with a fully loaded trailer the fastest ol' Clifford could go was 20mph. The downgrades were equally grueling because you are trying to maintain at a slow enough speed not to go careening off the mountainside and keep your rpms below 2000 at the same time. Did I mention it was snowing and compact ice on the roadway?  Anyway, back to the weigh station. I drove over the scales and we held our breath again, but unfortunately, we received the signal that they wanted us to "come on in for a spell."  So, I slowed down and prepared to exit the freeway but the signage for the weigh station exit wasn't clear. Unlike 99 percent of the weigh stations in the US who have their own designated exits, this particular weigh station used the exit for the town that was located right there. Oh, know! We sailed right on by the weigh station.

I didn't know what to do.  Should I stop on the freeway and back down the on-ramp of the weigh station? Probably not a good idea.  Should I take the next exit and turn around and go all the way down the mountain and back up again?  Couldn't see doing that. We kept watching for sirens and red and blue lights in our mirrors but none appeared. So, after being on the road for a little over a month I'm already a criminal! We don't know what the consequences will be. Maybe Watkins & Shepard will get a notice of my infraction. I'll probably get put in prison for running from a weigh station. Do you think they can take my license? Oh, well, I'll keep you posted on this continuing saga. If I get sent up to the big house, can someone bake a cake with a file in it for me?

I forgot to tell you about the mass suicide we came upon last night as we were driving in Wyoming.  We were heading into Laramie and noticed a semi pulled over to the side of the road so we slowed down to go around him. Just before reaching the semi we saw at least 4 deer, maybe even 5, that were laying dead on the shoulder. It looked as though this group of deer darted out in front of not only this semi we were approaching but we saw two other semis stopped further ahead.  At least two of the semis had front-end damage, headlights broken, and a 3rd semi driver was examining the fuel tanks on his truck, as though a deer might have gone under and maybe did some damage in that location.  It was all very sad!

We need to drive all night and have this load to San Diego by 2pm tomorrow.  Like I said, some days are better than others!