Summer driving in farm country has an
occasional hazard not found the rest of the year. Harvest convoys.
With the cost of a combine, used three weeks
a year, approaching a half million, many farmers opt to hire out the work. These crews travel the back roads in mile
long convoys of over width combines on flatbed trucks pulling the harvesting
heads on another trailer, long grain hauling semi trucks, large travel
trailers, etc., and miscellaneous trucks of all kinds.
They move along at a good clip but there
is always some damn fool (me, for example) that wants to pass them.
Yesterday I was headed South from
Kimball, NE on Highway 71 to the intersection with Colorado 14 when I met a
harvest convoy going North. Highway 71 has no shoulders, just two blacktop
lanes with ditches on each side.
Yessir, the damn fool tried to pass the
convoy. This not being my first rodeo, I was on alert and immediately stood on
the brakes slowing me down enough to go in the ditch at a slow enough speed not
to roll or even damage the precious Toyota Yaris (with 263,000 on the odo).
My apologies for the borrowed photos as I
was a tad too busy to take my own.
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