She's back!

The CFO is back!  After being gone for 17 days, she finally returned on Saturday morning.  She was greeted at the airport by me and my parents, who had driven up the day before.  It was great to see my parents, we hadn’t seen them since Christmas.  We had a low key weekend spending time with them, during which we ate a lot of good food, played some of our favorite games (in which the guys dominated the gals!) and my dad and I went on a couple bicycle rides in the Illinois country side.  Dad headed home Sunday evening (determined to drive through the night, which he did) and mom is staying with us through the week.  I hope she doesn’t get too bored hanging out at the house while we go to work!  We did give her a sewing project to do, so that should keep her somewhat busy while we are gone.  I’ll post some pictures next week.   

After a week of physical therapy, my wrist is still bothering me; however, I can rotate it further than before. (Taking a weekend off from yard work probably helped it some too) Hopefully the progress will continue because I want to get back out on the golf course! 

I realized yesterday that I didn’t have much to write about this week and then something happened this morning (Wednesday) that changed that.  I was driving (the CFO was riding with me) to the gym at our usual 5am time and I was, admittedly, zipping along an empty roadway.  I was totally focused on the stupid high gas prices at the gas station on the left side of the road (over $4/gal) and missed something on the other side of the road.  I was about to comment on the gas prices when I caught a glimpse of a dark brown vehicle that was sitting off the road on a driveway that leads to a farm field.  The sun was just coming up, so he disappeared pretty well there.  Was that a cop?!?!?

He obviously didn’t miss me, as he whipped out onto the road as soon as we passed and started to follow us.  He didn’t turn on his blue lights, he just followed us up the road.  By the time that he caught up to us, I had already lifted off the gas and coasted down to within a few mph of the speed limit.  Since he didn't turn on the blue lights, I continued to drive and he followed us for about ½ mile up towards the next intersection.  I signaled and moved over to the left lane and he followed.  I signaled again and moved to the turn lane.  He followed.  Crap.

I turned left at the intersection and he continued to follow, this was not looking good.  Nothing is worse than those few moments when you know that they are going to pull you over, but they just follow you, teasing you, making you think that “maybe they won’t pull me over.”  The further you go, the more you your hopes increase that they might just let you go... But your gut still says that there is a 99.99999% chance that they are about to pull you over.  You keep one eye on your rear view mirror, just waiting for the light show.

He followed us through the turn at the intersection and then turned on his lights.   I quickly pulled over into a business parking lot, rolled down the window and turned off the car.  He walked up saying that he had clocked me at 59 in a 45 and he followed that statement with the typical, “Any reason why you are driving so fast?”  Of course I had no good reason why, other than the fact that I believe that the speed limit along that road is way lower than it should be and that the speed at which I was driving was entirely reasonable for the time and conditions... (for reference, the speed limit on other sections of this road is 55 and the roadway is no different here... so why the speed limit is lower in this section is a curiosity)

But, saying that would appear argumentative, give him the wrong impression and would probably start us off on the wrong foot, so I replied, “Nope, we are just heading to the gym.”  What else could I really say?  With that he collected my license and insurance card and went back to his car, leaving me to deal with the CFO.  Surprisingly, she didn’t have too much to say, other than the fact that this was going to cost us $$$.  He returned to our car pretty quickly and, to my surprise, he said that he was going to let me off with a warning and that I should slow it down. 

I was shocked; I have never been pulled over without receiving a yellow souvenir (citation slip) to remember the event by.  Perhaps today is my lucky day?  Just in case it is, I’m going to buy a powerball ticket for tonight’s drawing; I’d hate to miss out on my lucky day. 

The good news is that, even with the traffic stop, I was still able to make it to spin class just as class was starting... I walked into the spin room and was greeted by a friendly, “you’re late” from the instructor.