amanda_lodden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amanda_lodden) wrote2010-02-25 11:16 pm
amanda_lodden) wrote2010-02-25 11:16 pm
Entry tags:
If it's Thursday, we must be smuggling
Tonight's stop is Rolla, Missouri. To the natives, those two words end with the same sound ("Ral-AH, Miz-ur-AH").
We took a slight detour to avoid a tangled mess of freeway interchanges (including a toll road) in Tulsa, which took us very slightly into Arkansas and through the Ozarks. I'd really like to do it again sometime, in a smaller vehicle and during the fall. Even with all the leaves off the trees, it was a beautiful sight, and I imagine that it must be absolutely stunning when the leaves have turned.
However, I would like to gift the state of Arkansas with some of our new-fangled technology. Here, gentlemen. It's called a "guard rail". Please install some.
For the first time in five days (of driving, plus one at Rose and Brian's), we got stopped by a police officer who wanted to ask questions about what was in the truck (in theory, he stopped us for speeding, but CJ said "Sorry, I was pacing myself off the car ahead of me and didn't notice" and the cop flat-out said "I'm not concerned about your speed"). Mind you, we went through a Border Patrol station in New Mexico, and even that officer wasn't concerned about what we had in the back of the truck. Even so, this cop didn't want to actually LOOK in the back. So, the secret to smuggling in drugs and/or illegal immigrants is to look the officer in the eye, say that you're moving, and have balls of steel so that you don't flinch when you offer him the key to the lock on the back of the truck.
We took a slight detour to avoid a tangled mess of freeway interchanges (including a toll road) in Tulsa, which took us very slightly into Arkansas and through the Ozarks. I'd really like to do it again sometime, in a smaller vehicle and during the fall. Even with all the leaves off the trees, it was a beautiful sight, and I imagine that it must be absolutely stunning when the leaves have turned.
However, I would like to gift the state of Arkansas with some of our new-fangled technology. Here, gentlemen. It's called a "guard rail". Please install some.
For the first time in five days (of driving, plus one at Rose and Brian's), we got stopped by a police officer who wanted to ask questions about what was in the truck (in theory, he stopped us for speeding, but CJ said "Sorry, I was pacing myself off the car ahead of me and didn't notice" and the cop flat-out said "I'm not concerned about your speed"). Mind you, we went through a Border Patrol station in New Mexico, and even that officer wasn't concerned about what we had in the back of the truck. Even so, this cop didn't want to actually LOOK in the back. So, the secret to smuggling in drugs and/or illegal immigrants is to look the officer in the eye, say that you're moving, and have balls of steel so that you don't flinch when you offer him the key to the lock on the back of the truck.