Richard Hyatt: A memory not so easily forgotten

It was the kind of night that if authorities in Colorado said they had photographs of me skiing naked down a slope in the Rockies, I might not have questioned them. Instead they had pictures of my license plate rushing through three unmanned tollbooths on Highway E-470.

By then, we were well into a day that wouldn't end. It began in Columbia, Mo., and made its way into Colorado. The few motels we had found were either full or pricey and we hoped to find beds in Denver.

Interstate 70 merged into E-470 near the Denver airport and it was lonely. We were fighting sleep and assumed someone at a tollbooth would help us find civilization again. But neither tollbooths nor human beings were found.

Rest didn't come until the other side of Denver, in the tiny suburb of Loveland. We had covered nearly 900 miles and were in walking comas by the time our credit card was swiped and we stumbled into a room for three.

That was Day 2 of a 2,800-mile trip to Oregon. We spent the next night in Utah before collapsing at our destination. We made record time but our bodies paid for it.

That was July, and by this week we had nearly recovered. We had forgotten that night around Denver until we got a bill in the mail for $10.20 from a company called License Plate Toll. They had our license plate number correct, but I questioned the rest.

A customer service representative knew why I was calling before I even gave him my name. He quickly assured me that I hadn't broken any laws, that this was the way they collect the tolls on that highway.

"We find it more efficient to do business this way," he said. "Our cameras took pictures of your license plate at three tollbooths. You can send us a check or I can take your payment over the phone."

E-470 is not an interstate highway. Completed in 2003, it is a 47-mile stretch of an unfinished beltway around Denver that was built with non-public funds. It was one of the first toll roads in the country to adopt an electronic collection system.

Now they tell us. That night we needed to ask someone for help and all we got was a stupid picture that isn't suitable for framing.

-- Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net.

This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: A memory not so easily forgotten."