Message posted by Roger M on October 28, 2015 at 21:00:01 PST:
I posted a note back in September about a trip out to Rachel for lunch, followed by a continuation of my vacation over to Hurricane, Utah. Here's my story: About 15 miles West of Beryl Junction, on a long stretch of straight desert road, I noticed police flashing lights off in the distance, headed for me. As they grew closer, I could see there were actually three state police SUV's along with a semi truck and trailer ... one SUV in front of the semi, one SUV beside the semi (in my lane), and one SUV behind the semi. As they drew closer to me, the SUV beside the semi began to come over further into my lane, which I quickly deduced meant he wanted me to get over onto the shoulder of my lane. Two things became immediately apparent, that the semi was a VERY wide load, and this convoy of four vehicles was traveling at a VERY high speed ... at least 70 miles per hour. This all happened fast, as they were up near 75 MPH, and I was still moving over on the shoulder of the road. They were coming so fast that I actually couldn't come to a complete stop as they got to me. I swear, as close as I was to the convoy, and even though I hadn't had a chance to completely clear the road and come to a stop ... these guys didn't slow down even 1 MPH. This was a plane, wrapped in plastic, hightailing it across the desert and not slowing down for anything. Headed West as they were, they had to be going to Highway 375. There was nowhere else out that direction to be headed with a wrapped plane, accompanied by serious high-speed security. My question would be, where might they have been coming from, and where might they have been going. Interesting to be sure ... and now it haunts me.
I'm haunted by a very quick occurrence en route from Rachel to Hurricane. After leaving Rachel, I took Highway 93 to Highway 319, which turns into Highway 56 at the Utah border. I then turned South again onto Highway 18, at Beryl Junction, Utah past the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and on to St. George and Hurricane.
My first thought was that it was crazy for them to be going that fast, cutting over into my lane, and essentially running me off the road onto the shoulder.
That first thought very quickly got the hairs on my neck standing up when I realized that the wide load was a huge cylindrical tube, at least 70 or 80 feet long, and completely wrapped in white plastic.
This was a fast moving convoy, and they weren't going to stop for anything.
As they passed me, the "cylindrical tube" upon my brief close-up look ... had assorted protrusions beneath the opaque white plastic wrap, which I quickly identified as likely being a fuselage minus wings, rudder, and landing gear.
Since returning home and thinking about exactly what I saw, I realize that my location - far out in the desert on what can only be described as a back-road - was totally out of sync with a semi trailer accompanied by three State Police SUV's doing 75 MPH.
The trailer behind the semi was a custom flat deck, far longer than anything I've ever seen before.
I know what a 53 foot semi trailer looks like, and this was at least 30 feet longer than that. The fuselage took up the entire 80 feet of the trailer.
I guess poking around on desert back roads in that part of the country does that to you :)
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