Flat Lined

 

Nothing is poking a blog post or posts right now. The (P)regressive’s are doing their usual, financial scandals are being swept out of sight, voting irregularities keep coming up, and PDJT recently eviscerated the Emperor on social media. The most I can muster is a yawn.

Some readers like car stories. This may, or may not, be a rerun.

Trinidad and Alamosa offsite sales were usually good for us and I tried to hold them one week to the next.

Between the two we had three deals fail due to bank declines and I need to get the cars back. In addition, I had one trade in to return, an early (very small) Honda Civic.

Departing Longmont with my sister in the front seat and my son and very pregnant girlfriend in the back, we headed for the hills (US 285).  A mere 4:26 hours and 251 miles. Nobody was comfy.   In Alamosa we delivered the Honda and retrieved both a Spectra and Rio. Sent son and girlfriend back to Longmont in the Spectra and Sisty and I proceeded to Trinidad in the Rio, a mere 2 hour 110 mile jaunt.

 The Trinidad customer was young, and the lender would finance her with a co-signer. At her uncle’s house, he had the Rio blocked in his driveway. Inside he had his internet lawyer forms spread about and was prepared to negotiate.

 The conversation flowed along these lines.

 “Sir, in the next ten minutes one of three things will happen. One, you sign the documents I’ve brought with me. Two, my associate will drive away in the Rio. Three, I will go to the police station and file a stolen vehicle report”. (I'm such a silver tongue devil)

 We departed in the Rio forth with.

 At this point we had over six hours and close to 500 miles into the day. It was hot, Only one Rio had a/c. Those 2002 Rio automatics at 6,000’ ASL had enough power to drive 75 mph without a/c or about 50 with.

 We still had nearly four hours driving ahead of us. Past Walsenburg are a series of hills and I was behind a Honda in the right lane. A State Patrolman was ahead of us in a crossover, and the Honda driver, who was driving the speed limit, panicked and hit the brakes. I reacted by switching lanes, nearly wiping out my sister who was using the downhill to get enough speed up to use the a/c.

 Of course the patrolman saw this and pulled me over. Sisty passed and stopped further on the hill under the only patch of shade for miles.

After telling my sad story, the patrolman indicated he would give me a ticket if the driver up the hill requested.

 “Please”, I begged. “That is my sister and she will lovingly throw me under the bus”. No ticket.

As Always, YMMV