Sierra Blanca Checkpoint

East of El Paso on Interstate 10, the daytime legal speed limit is 80 mph. There's not a whole lot of traffic, it's flat, desert, no one seemed to go over 85 mph. I watch what other drivers are doing; I try not to stand out. So I went with traffic, kept my sped down to around 83, and cruised past few sneaky patrol cars, speed traps, just waiting to accelerate out onto the super-slab, and nab some law breaking speeder. Forty miles west of Van Horn, all traffic was funneled into a Border Patrol checkpoint. The officers looked very serious, and had serious looking military style equipment. There was one man in the booth, one man standing near the side of the lane with a short barreled assault rifle, and one man holding a vicious looking dog on a short lead, all at the ready, and very serious. No smiles, here. The dude in the booth, he asked me a question, but my hearing was all shot to hell from all the wind noise of high speed riding, and the roar of the engine. On a good day, my ears still ring from Vietnam. But I could see his lips moving, but I just couldn't hear a fucken thing he was saying. His lips moved again. "WHAT", I yelled. Rose leaned forward, cupped her hand, and yelled in my ear, "... they want to know if we are citizens." The soldiers were waiting for my answer. Very serious. Yeah…I nodded affirmatively. The lips moved, and I accelerated hard, brought that bike fast up to 90, made some thunder blasting back out onto the highway, then dropped her back down to 83 mph, and cruised. Willie Nelson got busted there, when they found something illegal in his tour bus. So did Snoop Dogg. A few more miles down the road we would turn the clocks ahead…Central Time.

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