DAY 167
Week 24
SALINA (Kansas, USA) to FORT COLLINS (Colorado, USA)
Monday December 4th, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 479 miles or 771 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 37935 miles or 61050 kilometres
What's with all the white stuff on the road!!! 
I think I've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating. I've traveled the 252 miles (406 kilometres) between Salina (Kansas, USA) and the Kansas/Colorado border four times now and it would have to be the most policed stretch of road that I have ever been on. I lost count at 52 police and sheriff's vehicles, 23 of then had people pulled over. Fair dinkum, my radar detector was going off so much that I turned it off, not that I was speeding as I was towing my Harley in the 6 X 12 foot trailer.
To put this into perspective, for the entire 231 miles (372 kilometres) between the Kansas/Colorado border and Fort Collins (Colorado) I only saw 6 police and sheriff's vehicles with only one motorist pulled over. I've got to think that Kansas has a pretty good thing going with the cops and their revenue raising efforts.
I'm kind of getting used to looking for black ice. After a while, you learn to look out for the little tell tales like shaded areas, bridges etc and slow down accordingly. One hazard you do not have any control over is the flying sheets of hardened ice that flies of the roof of vehicles and trailers.
What appears to happen is that when the vehicles are stationary, snow collects on the roofs and melts a little on the bottom of the pile due to temperature differential i.e. turning the heater on. As they drive off, the air temperature plummets due to wind chill factor. The road wind blows the top layer of loose snow off, then all of a sudden, you get a sheet of ice about 3 inches (75 millimeters) thick flying off the roof, landing on the road behind the vehicle it was on.
I was rounding up a 15 seater van when a sheet that looked to measure 6 feet by 6 feet came straight at me and I had nowhere to go. The only thing I could so is to take my foot of the accelator and let the combined weight of my vehicle, the trailer and the Harley slow me down. I didn't dare hit the picks as I may have just locked up the brakes causing me to loose traction, I couldn't go right as there was a truck pulling a 53 foot trailer beside me and I couldn't go left as there was a median that was full of snow and hitting that at 70 miles an hour would have me coming a miserable second on those efforts.
Luckily for me, I had slowed down just enough for the sheet of ice to hit the road, burst into chunks the size of your fist before I drove through it.
Today ended with a bad taste in my mouth and talk about highway robbery. I took the E470 toll road that bypasses Denver (Colorado), travels in front of Denver International Airport and deposits you on Interstate 25 about 46 miles (75 kilometres) south of Fort Collins (Colorado).
It cost me $18-00 to travel 28 miles (45 kilometres) and they only take cash. Unbeknown to me, it only cuts 7 miles (10 kilometres) and 10 minutes off the journey than having to go via Denver's freeways. This mob wouldn't have an issues in selling a blind man a rats arsehole as a wedding ring. Thieving bastards!!!
According to the weather guru's, tomorrows journey may well be the worst day for snow and ice. Maybe I should just bring alcohol???