F

I’ll never learn. So My BFF Angelina flew in this weekend for a restful vacation that included plans to go to a spa, watch Mama Mia, laugh, eat good food and see Les Miserables in St. George at the Tuacahn Amphitheater. I am not really a planner but given the 8 hour drive we had on Friday I knew we had little wiggle room. I thought I had it perfectly figured out. She flew in at 4:30. So I would pick her up a 4:35 p.m. (she carried on) and we would be out of the Salt Lake Valley right before the 5 p.m. rush, giving us a solid 3 hours and 45 minutes to bomb it to St. George. But I forgot one vital issue. It’s 2008, the Murphy’s Law year, remember? Among half a dozen other things, it has been really bad for travel i.e. two delays, a cancelation, a car accident and a missed flight. Similarly it’s been really bad for interactions with law enforcement i.e. three pull-overs for various license plate violations and a rather high speeding ticket that I declined traffic school for since I vowed I would not get another and my insurance would only find out if they had reason to run my history like getting in a wreck or buying a new car. (I know now this convenient and twisted rational borders hilarity in retrospect, but it seemed logical at the time).
So, that all being said, I should have known this plan was doomed. Even so I was extra careful, making sure we wouldn’t be late, planning routes, doing everything ahead of time and being prepared to take off the minute Ange stepped foot outside the airport. Well apparently the freeways suck as early as 4 p.m. because we were doing stop and go while merging from the 215 to the 15. So we were a bit behind and it had to be made up on the road. I am constantly hearing stories of people getting nabbed on the freeway between Salt Lake and St. George so I tried to use discretion in areas where I had heard there were camper cops. But DAMN Millard County. Nailed at 91 mph. I swear that cop had dug a hole, covered himself with shrubs and waited for me. He came out of nowhere. Anyway that delayed us a bit, which meant I had to make up even more time on the road. I was using the GPS to indicate what time we would arrive and when it was all said and done I had shaved off quite a bit of time, but we were still around 15 minutes late. As we were looking for the turn to go to the theater we passed another cop who claimed he clocked me going 48 in a 35, however said that “visually” I was going over 50 mph. Whatever the hell that means. I asked him to cut me a break which only pissed him off more and he ticketed me but indicated he was doing us a favor by opting to “lead” us to the theater going approx. 9.4 mph in front of us for another 4 miles. Oh, and did I mention my gas light had been on for a good 25 miles and the needle was lower than I had ever seen it? So by the time we got there we were about 30 minutes late but they started late so we didn’t miss much. It took a few songs before I could finally relax and just enjoy it but by intermission it was all good. Nonetheless, now that our little five days of fun in the sun is over I am dealing with how I am going to handle this black eye on my driving record…okay, umm black eye, split lip and dislocated jaw. Maybe 2008 will also see the revocation of my driver’s license. Neat.