red and blue flashing lights

I'm trying my man.

Well, they caught me.  After 6 years of driving, probably breaking plenty of traffic laws (innocently enough) and getting away with it, the cops finally caught onto my scheming.  And honestly, it shouldnt have happened at all.

After leaving Missoula, I had just exited the Bozeman, MT area, en route to Yellowstone, and saw a road on the map that looked like a shortcut....

...Ill stop right here and say that shortcuts are rarely a good idea.  You ever seen those horror flicks?  Slasher films like "Wrong Turn"?  The shortcuts never work out for the adventurous youth in those films.  Someone always ends up dead.  But I digress....

The shortcut is a small exit off the main highway, and as I'm approaching the exit, I see the sign that says Trail Creek exit, 1/2 mile.  That's my turnoff!  Somehow I get distracted and blow right past the exit.  Immediately noting my mistake, I pull up to the onramp for the highway....you know...where cars merge ONTO the highway.  In my stubbornness to take this shortcut, I think of going off the exit, via the on ramp, completely illegal.  I can't turn around and go back to the exit that I missed.  And I know there's no turnaround for miles.  I'm in the middle of nowhere, Montana, in the mountains.  I look down the ONramp.  No cars.  I check for cops.  No cops.  So for 30 seconds, I'm traveling OFF the highway, using the highway ONramp.  Illegal, I knew.  But I got to the bottom, turned left, and was on my way, no harm no foul.  Well wouldn't you know it, in that rebellious 30 seconds span, a cop must have come around the bend in the highway, saw an idiot driving the wrong way on a one-way road, and bam....lights flashing.  I couldn't believe my misfortune.  How unlucky!  I shouldn't have missed the exit in the first place, but geez, talk about bad timing!  I actually had to get out of my vehicle and go sit down in his passenger seat while he took down my info.  At first I thought I was being cuffed!  Thankfully theyre not that harsh for a simple traffic violation.  He was nice enough, telling me that my shortcut eventually turns into a dirt road.  Nice enough, that is, for a guy citing you an $85 fine.

Ends up my shortcut was full of potholes.  I turned around about a mile down the road, rejoining the highway via the onramp that caused me my first ever ticket.