Flatlander Ski Bums on a mission

I was attending KSU, and a friend of mine named Rick and I were going to run to Keystone, Colorado to do some work over winter break. I had my 1968 Mustang at the time, otherwise there wouldn't be a story to tell.

You could earn some serious cash working the ski lodges, and we had nothing better to do than hang out with a bunch of ski-bunnies for a couple of weeks and then come back with cash for spring break.

The problem was Rick was late, -I mean REALLY late.

We needed to leave at 2:00 PM to be sure we made it to the lodge before midnight, when we'd lose our spots.

Rick didn't show up until 6:00PM. It took 8 hours just to get to Denver, and Keystone was another 2-3 hours.

So we had a long way to go and not much time to get there, and we had no Bandit to run inteference on 'ole Smokey.

I drove 10 over until we passed Salina. From then on, it was a race against time.

We were getting close to the Colorado border (about 11 miles) when I saw a Highway Patrol car, and swore under my breath. "Oh, sh . .."

Rick looked over and asked, "What? What's the problem?"

"I'm going a little over the speed limit"

He asked, "What? 5 over?

"A little more than that"

"10 over?"

"A little more than that"

his face screwed up, and he asked, "Well? how fast are we going?"

I told him, "Look for yourself . . ."

He looked over and saw we were cruising at 110 mph, and immediately started screaming!! As if we hadn't been drivin' at 110 mph for the past 300 miles already!

I looked in the rearview and saw the cop turn on his lights and begin the turnaround, & immediately tapped the brakelights and stomped on the throttle, looking for the next exit.

Found an exit (marked at 35mph) & took it at 70 mph, went under the highway and over a rise, while shutting off all the lights and braking with the emergency brake.

and waited.

10 minutes later the cop whizzed by, while we watched him.

Rick asked what we were going to do next, and I told him we needed to get something to eat, anyway.

so I went in the opposite direction towards a Burger King I saw -up the road, knowin' the cop was running for the border.

We pull into Burger King and rick is still shaking (at this point I'd been evading speeding tickets for years). We pulled in and walked to the counter, where I ordered a Whopper meal.

Rick started going on about how he couldn't believe we got away from the cops -IN FRONTOF THE CASHIER!!!! I told him under my breath to shut the h*** up. (I should mention here that RIck was a Cambodian immigrant, who hadn't grown up with the Duke Boys and the Bandit)

The cashier started trembling, gave us our change and walked to the back.

The manager came up, sweating & shaking and handed us our meals. I said under my breath, "Je*** Chr***, we're not robbin' anyone, & I snatched the burgers and told Rick to hurry up.

We took off, and sure enough, there was the HiPo, with his lights on on the opposite lane comin' in from the border. I gunned it and we were flying to the border knowing that by the time he crossed the median and accelerated we'd be across the border.

Sure enough we came to the Colorado Border, only to find that they had 3 cruisers, 1 5.0 Mustang Supercruiser, and 4 SUV trucks (I reckon they were there in case we decided to go off road.

Rick saw the assorted vehicles and asked, "what are you going to do now?

I said, "put it in neutral!"

So I put the car in netural and braked until we were at 55mph.

We hit the border at 55mph, but the super cruiser decided to follow us.

Da**ed if he didn't follow us all the way to Denver, but since we were about a 1/4 mile ahead of him, the traffic allowed us to slip away, and I followed a DSM car (I think it was a talon) who was going 75 mph through the city.

We got to Keystone at exactly 11:45PM, enough time to check in and keep the job.

Rick never forgot that trip. Or, rather, he never let me forget it . ..

Some pics from the return trip: