80 Days in America

Haha, I’m wondering what you all would be thinking after reading today’s headline. Well, I can say that it was an exciting day today. It started early in the morning when I woke up in a freezing cold car. Seriously, there was ice on the windows. These days I’m very happy that Dawn & Debbies mom gave me an extra blanket. The first thing I did when I woke up was turning on the air-conditioning to maximum heat.

After I was warmed up and dressed I hit the road again. It was still early in the morning and I was now in the state Wyoming. The road was empty, I turned on the radio and drove a little faster than the speed limit. Suddenly I saw a police car coming from the opposite direction, but I saw him to late. In my mirror I saw him braking fast, turning around his car, putting his lights on and following me. I knew that I was busted and stopped the car. The officer stopped behind me and walked in my direction. I opened the window and he said to me: “The reason I pulled you over was your speeding. I clocked you at 74 miles per hour”, and that was true of course. He asked for my driving license and where I got the car from. Then he went back to his car and told me to wait. In my mirror I saw him writing down things, I thought that that was not a good sign.

It’s interesting what goes trough your mind at a moment like that. The first thing I thought about was that I was very lucky that someone told me the other day not to go faster than nine miles over the speed limit. Then I thought about stories I heard of tickets of about $250,00 and more. It also came in my mind that I already drove more than 3000 miles yet, so that it was about time for something like this. I was realizing that I was also very lucky that I didn’t met this officer last night, because things would have been worse then. Finally I was also thinking of my brother who always proudly tells about how big tickets he always gets for speeding in the Netherlands, that made me smile.

A little nervous I waited for the cop to return. After about five or ten minutes he came back with my driving license and a piece of paper. I was expecting the worst, but thank God: only a warning this time! I was very happy, thanked the officer and continued my journey. This time I drove exactly the speed limit, but now with a big smile on my face. I thought how ironic this situation was: about an hour ago I wrote yesterdays post with my complains about the bad traffic here and looks who gets pulled over now. But I learned my lesson and will keep on driving the speed limit, at least for the rest of today. 😉

Although I was happy directly after I returned driving, the big smile didn’t stay for very long, because the rest of the morning was mainly about fighting the temptation to drive faster. Maybe it’s a guy thing, I don’t know, but let me try to explain. You drive your car through wide open fields. In every direction you can watch as fas as the horizon. The road is almost empty and stretches out for many miles in front of you. It’s a long, very long empty road begging you to race it and there you are in your car, having the cruise control put on exactly 65 miles per hour (that’s about 100km/h) trying not to fall asleep. It definitely was the longest road I’ve ever driven. It even became worse when big trucks starting to pass me by at the end of the morning. It really takes quite some self control not to go faster at those moments.

Fortunately the landscape became more exciting when I was entering the state Utah in the afternoon. The wide open fields made place for beautiful mountains and red rocks. The rest of the journey of today was a lot more beautiful. In the evening I was tired of driving, so I stopped earlier. I parked next to some fast-food restaurants and there also was a red box, so I rented a couple of movies and relaxed the rest of the night in the back of the car, something I love to do after driving the whole day long.

P.S. I know that my journals and photos come online a little more irregular these days, but that’s simply because there is not so much internet in these nature area’s. 😉