"Excuse me ma'am...

...were you going the speed limit?"

Last Friday Brien and I headed down to Henderson for the weekend. For those of you brave souls who have driven to Ely, it's pretty much the same experience regardless of which road you take. As we passed through the town of Lund (about 30 miles south) I asked Brien, "Do you think we'll pass anyone before Alamo?" He took one look at the speedometer, set to 73 mph (speed limit is 70) and said, "No."

We had a few cars pass us on the 95 miles between Lund and Hiko (the next "town" on the highway), we even passed a semi-truck. At Hiko you slow down to 45mph for about 3 miles, maybe more. We usually look at each other and say, "Did we pass the speed limit sign? Can we go 60 yet?" While traveling through Hiko another vehicle passed me, evidently they didn't want to obey the 45 speed limit. Shortly after that we saw a Sheriff's vehicle on the side of the road exiting a ranch gate. I was happy that I had been obeying the speed limit.

As we continued on our way we only increased to 60 (the posted limit) as we approached the junction; in the small town of Ash Springs we slowed to 25. Needless to say I was shocked when a short while later, on the far edge of Alamo I noticed the Deputy was on my tail and had his lights on! (It was maybe 15 miles from where we saw him off the road.)

When we pulled over he asked how fast we were going. I replied, "Uhh, 72." He then proceeded to tell me that I was going that speed now, but he saw me earlier and I appeared to be speeding, appeared to be going about 80. I gave him my license, registration, and recently expired insurance card (I truthfully told him it had been renewed, but the new card was at home.) He explained that he didn't have me on a radar gun, but he had been going 96 to catch up with my speeding vehicle. I looked at him dumbfounded and explained that my cruise control was set at less than 75, the fastest I was going should be 74.

He was very nice. He said it would just be a verbal warning. He asked us where we were from and where we were headed. When we mentioned Ely he told us that he had lived there until a year ago and we looked familiar. It was decided that he likely saw us at church. As the conversation was more friendly, we again told him we were innocent of speeding. We explained that Brien had been pulled over last September and given a ticket for going 80 in the 70 zone and since then we hadn't taken any chances. (Especially in Lincoln County.)

As we pulled back onto the road after this 7 minute delay the deputy promptly flipped a u-turn to go after someone else. Maybe they were legitimately speeding.