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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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A Bat Out of Hell
I moved this week, from just outside Boulder, Colorado, to rural Ridgway, Colorado, in gorgeous Ouray County. Actually, I'm not even in Ridgway (population: about 700; the entire county only has around 4,000), but outside town, on a mesa looking at two mountain ranges. I've long said that as a writer and online publisher, I can live anywhere I want -- so why was I in a city when I truly prefer more rural areas? As long as I have a decent Internet connection, I can live anywhere I want.
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On my way over to the new digs, I finally got the opportunity to give a cop some Get Out of Hell Free cards -- but it wasn't to get out of a ticket. I was driving along in the middle of nowhere when I saw a squad car coming the other way on the two-lane highway. Like everyone else, my first reaction was to check my speed. No problem: I was 2-3 miles under the limit. So I was a tad surprised that as soon as he went by, the cop whipped a very fast u-turn and chased after me, lights flashing and siren blaring.
Huh?! What did I do? He explained that he pulled me over to let me know that I had blown a tire on the small trailer I was pulling. I had no idea! It must've blown less than a minute before I saw him, since the rim wasn't destroyed yet. I didn't feel a thing, and I didn't hear anything, even though there was little left of the tire, since I had the stereo going. (Playing at the time: "Pick Up the Pieces". Yes, really.)
I profusely thanked the cop, who turned out to be a National Park ranger from the Blue Mesa reservoir, and gave him a few GOOHF cards as a good will gesture. He got a good chuckle out of them and slipped them into his pocket. Thanks again, Ed!
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Posted by Rich in California on November 24, 2007:
That reminds me of my first motor home trip. About an hour north of Las Vegas, Nevada, a car passed me with the passenger waving energetically to get my attention. She then pointed to the rear. I slowed down, pulled off on the shoulder, and stepped out for a look around. When I got to the little car I was towing, I found the tread of the left front tire completely missing with just the side-walls remaining! I likewise never felt a thing and was lucky that it didn't set the towed car on fire.
As soon as I got home, I ordered a wireless tire pressure monitoring system for all 10 tires on my rig. It has since saved me one tire which had a slow leak. It may not be cost effective for slow leaks and is useless for blow-outs, but it does provide much peace-of-mind.