Last weekend I was supposed to go on a drive through rural Washington with some friends. It was to be a 400-mile trek during which we could enjoy our vehicles, form important male-bonding type stuff, and bitch about work. That was the plan, anyways.
It all started out last Sunday morning. The plan was to meet at a gas station about an hour north of Seattle, at 8:30am. I was careful to go the speed limit and leave myself plenty of time to get there. Ominously, I saw two cars pulled over on the way down, which seemed like a lot. I also saw about 4 billion bikers. One pack, some riding 3-wide in a lane, 15 rows, no fewer than 30 bikes at least, passed me on the right. Something was amiss.
I showed up a little early to find Ben and Keith already there. We gassed up and waited for our other friends, Jerry, and Forrest. At about 8:40, we decided to call them. “We’re on our way, we just got held up” was the reply. About 10 minutes later, they arrived, and explained what the delay was. Forrest was pulled over for speeding, getting his first speeding ticket ever. We commiserated briefly, I gave him the name of my lawyer, and we all made the requisite “ominous start” and “better not get another one today” jokes. They gassed up and we proceeded on our way.
We went Ben first in his dark blue BMW, with Keith as a passenger, then me in my black Acura, then Forrest in his red Honda Civic Del Sol (it’s a very nice car, not your run-of-the-mill civic) then Jerry (I forget what he drives, but it was white and fairly unassuming). There were bikers everywhere. We also seemed to be seeing a lot of cops. As we came to the first turn, there was a police car right in front of us, in fact. He made the light and turned left, while we sat at the light and waited for it to turn.
After the light turned, we made our left and proceeded down the road. We had little radios, and Ben and I were talking over hands-free cell phone as well. We weren’t sure of the speed limit, but this close to that many cops we were taking it pretty easy. I warned them that my radar was going nuts, but we were going under the speed limit anyways. Sure enough, the radar warning was right on, there was a cop sitting directly off the road, facing in our direction. As soon as we passed by him, he pulled out and headed right for us. I immediately saw this and exclaimed “oh shit”. I assumed Jerry was about to be accosted, but as Jerry pulled out of his way, he made a beeline for Forrest, and pulled him over. Again. Second time today. And we were CLEARLY under the speed limit, all of us.
Via the implicit, unspoken rules of common sense, we immediately entered radio silence, but Ben, Keith, and myself continued to speculate over the phone. We saw a church and pulled over in the parking lot, and waited for Forrest to catch up. There was this adorable white kitten we found – he was initially on the roof of the church. He jumped around, into trees, back to the roof, exploring, clearly playing and having a fine time. I grabbed my camera and the photo shoot began. After a while he decided to check us out. Forrest called us on the radio and we said where we had pulled over. When he arrived he explained that the cop pulled him over because he didn’t have a front license plate. Ben frowned, noting that he didn’t have one either. The cat literally jumped into Forrest’s car. He climbed in the driver side door, which was ajar, then all over the seats, then out the back window (it is a convertible which had the top down). The kitty started to climb into Ben’s car but he shooed the cat away since he is allergic to cats.
This time, the cop let Forrest off with a warning (what is that? I’ve certainly never heard of this strange “warning” you people sometimes talk about…I just get “Hello, sir, I see you have a pony tail, here is your speeding ticket”). He also explained to Forrest that there is a biker rally to the east today, and the entire area is crawling with cops, especially the back roads. He should expect to be pulled over several more times before the day is over unless he gets that plate on. Realizing that 50% of our caravan was now big shiny cop bait even without speeding, and the cops were CLEARLY biting today, we decided to call it off and try again next weekend.
Carefully ensuring no kitties were in the way, we pulled out of the parking lot and headed to a Denny’s to grab some breakfast, then headed back to Ben’s place for Rock Band. On our way back to the highway, we passed about 10 cops, including an unmarked car sitting by the side of the road training their radar directly at us. On the bright side, I had plenty of opportunity to prove my radar detector works (if you were curious, WA cops seem to use K/Ka band radar in that area, not laser). Drivers, bikers and car operators alike, were “dropping left and right”. I think they made their entire ticket quota for the month that very morning. Fortuitously, none of us were pulled over. Hopefully this means they will all have some vacation next weekend, I guess we’ll just have to try again then. Stay tuned for part two, and adorable kitty pics!