But as I was leaving, I noticed a streak of lightning miles away. Crap. It was going to storm, and I am strapping my backpack to the bike. I start the bike to let it warm up a bit while I finish the backpack. My phone rings. I already have my jacket and wind breaker zipped up. I unzip them both real quick and answer the phone, just because it is xavi7734‘s ring tone. Our daughter hasn’t been feeling well, and it could have been important. She is calling to see how soon I am leaving, because she is watching a storm form and doesn’t want me caught in it. heh heh I hastily answer “I just turned off the bike so I could hear you. So… Ummm… now!”

I get all my gear on, start the bike back up and head out of the parking lot, up the street, and towards the highway. As I get on the highway, a few drops of rain hit. The a few more. It isn’t really raining yet, but its about to. I get past exit 12 on my way home, where the highway goes from 3 lanes down to 2, and of course, with a few drops of water hitting the windshields, everyone slows to a crawl. For fucks sake people! Get out of the way. If you want to do 45 on the highway, do it in the left lane so I can get the hell out of here before it starts pouring. Did they? No. So here I am stuck in 45 MPH traffic for no damn reason.

I look over to my right, and I see a cop from a county quit north of us. I wont say where, just in case, but I will say he was quite far from his own jurisdiction. So that also tells me why everyone has slowed down, there is a cop visible on the road. Fucking great.

A few seconds later, I hear a horn. Its the cop. I look confused trying to figure out what he wants. He points at me and uses his fingers to show me the numbers “1″ and “3″….

WTF does that mean? I shrug my shoulders in what I am hoping is the universal sign language for “huh?” He points ahead… Uses his hand to simulate veering off to the right, and then repeats the “1″ and “3″ again…

OOOOH!!! Am I getting of at Exit 13!!! I shake my head no and take my hand off the clutch long enough to signal “1″ and “5″ which is quite a bit up the highway.

He points to himself. Then points in front of me. Then points to me. Then points behind me.

Got it. I ease off the throttle a bit to give him room to get in front of me. He moves over and turns on his blue lights. And of course, everyone immediately gets out of his way. We then proceed up the highway at a respectable speed. The road wasn’t wet yet so he had no problem going a little above the speed limit. On the way, before we hit exit 15, we passed two other guys on motorcycles in similar predicaments. They ended up joining me in the wake of this officer. I made it to exit 15, flashed my lights as a way to say thank you, and he continued on up the highway with the other guys behind him.

He must have cut 10 minutes off my commute. 15 or more if people would have continued going as slow as they were. I got off the exit, came through the center of town and pulled into my driveway just as it started to rain harder. I got into my garage with only the slightest bit of dampness on my backpack. By the way, the backpack contains my Digital SLR and Laptop. Not to mention a handful of lenses, memory cards, and a lot of other high dollar electronic equipment. So I am very thankful that I completely missed the rain.