A Brush With The Law

Thursday 16th February 2017.

Sunday 12th June 2016 – So to pick up the story where I left off, I’d just had the most fantastic 10 days ranching vacation in Kara Creek with my best pal Sally Ann. To get back to Denver airport in time for our flight to Dublin, we had a very early 4am start and a long drive through the rolling plains of first Wyoming and then Colorado.

With Sally Ann laid out fast asleep on the back seat of our Chevy, I was making good progress at the wheel, watching the miles fly past on the empty roads. That was until I heard the ominous Whoop Whoop of a police patrol car and got dazzled by the red and blue blinking lights in my rear view mirror.

Yes, that’s the actual police car. Sally Ann decided to take photo momentos of the whole thing.

Oh cripes! This is it I thought. We’d just passed through a “town” that consisted of a disused gas station and two tumbleweeds and I’ve seen enough late night movies to know that this was the scene in which we were about to get brutally raped and/or murdered.

Despite having watched nearly every episode of Law and Order ever made, I couldn’t for the life of me think of the protocol. Was I supposed to get out of the car? Was I supposed to lay down on the roadside with my hands on my head? Or would keeping my hands behind my back as I sprawled face first on the bonnet be a better pose? I vaguely recalled “perps” placing their hands out of the window onto the roof in an attempt not to get shot by the cops, but in the end plumped for staying statue like in the front seat with both hands gripped to the wheel.

As the officer was making his way suspiciously towards our hastily paused vehicle, Sally Ann awoke from her slumber. “Oh good! We’ve stopped.” She mumbled. “I really need to pee.” She said, before attempting to open the car door and pull her jeans down by the side of the road. “STOP! STOP!” I yelled, “We have a situation…” I continued, just about managing to lure her back into the back seat in time, before urinating in public and public indecency were added to our list of impending charges.

Officer Williams of the Torrington Police Department, was actually very nice and cordial, once we’d established that neither one of us was about to shoot and I’d keep my hands where he could see them. Having taken down all my vital statistics, he eventually let me away with just a warning and a small lecture on the dangers of driving too fast, as it turned out I’d been doing over double the permited speed, being that we were still within the “town’s” limits and therfore still in the significantly reduced speed zone.

After escaping a fine in excess of $200, this warning slip became like my lotto ticket!

What he was doing up and about, and patrolling for crime in this deserted district at 7.30am on a Sunday morning goodness only knows. In all honesty, I’d been going that fast, I hadn’t even noticed that we’d passed through a “town”. Still, I thanked the member of Torrington’s finest profusely, invited him to tea if he was ever in England, and drove off very cautiously until he was far out of sight, before pulling over once more to let Sally Ann relieve herself on the lush green verge.

After that it was a pretty uneventful rest of the drive back to the airport and I was glad to board the plane and escape the country without a felony rap sheet to my name.

The remainder of my vacation time passed by all to fast, and I was soon back on a plane to France, ready to catch another flight back across the Atlantic. Before that Sally Ann and I spent one final fun day together messing about at the Parc Asterisk theme park on the outskirts of Paris. I avoided the most scary of rides, but we still had a lot fun and got drenched on the water rides. We said our goodbyes, I shoved the remainder of my next 9 months worth of belongings into my bag, and it was goodbye real life, hello Ship life once more.

*P.S. I was having trouble uploading the photos onto yesterday’s piece (darn slow ship interweb), but they’re there now if you want to take a look.