Midsemester break to Chicago 2001

Mid-semester Break to Chicago - the windy city (Fall 2001)

Kim first started mooting the idea of going to Chicago for the mid-semester break and went about jio-ing people to go along via our excellent email network. At one point, there were as many as 14 people who expressed interest in going, but anthrax scares, parental objections and other whatnots downed quite a number of us, so it was down to 10 of us, 5 guys, 5 gals. General Letch and Col Evelyn commandered the airborne unit, with Xiaoxian and Yilin and parachuted down to Chicago, while the rest of us, Kim, Ann-Marie, Colin, Dianne, Leiming and yours truly went by our maroon red Armoured Personnel Carrier aka Chrysler Voyager.

Preparations were made and while two of the three drivers were still playing Starcraft Broodwar on the eve of the trip, the rest were busy packing their stuff in eager anticipation of the trip to Chicago - the windy city!

Kim and yours truly went down to Enterprise to pick up our family-van, a maroon red 3.5L V6 Chrysler Voyager at 8.34am on 19 Oct 2001. After filling in the required blanks and whatsoever, we got a shock - the total cost of renting the vehicle for the four days came up to $420, a hundred more than we had expected, because we were not quoted the price of full-insurance coverage. Nevertheless, the trip had to go on, and after taking over and inspecting the vehicle, we proceeded to the UC Turnabout to await the rest of the vehicle-bound personnel.

We arrived at the UC Turnabout at 9.30am sharp, and after a short wait for everyone to grab their breakfasts, we were on our way! With Kim taking the lead in driving and yours truly navigating, we got lost while exitting Pittsburgh and had to make a double-detour to get back on track. Soon we were cruising smoothly on the Interstate 80 towards Ohio...

On the interstate..
Inside view: Interstate 80 West

In the van..
Our rear seat passengers looking snug and comfortable...

Kim driving..
Kim overtaking the rest of the slow-coaches on the road...

Apparently, we were cruising too smoothly, at 95mph (x1.6 = 152kmh, try that in Singapore!) in fact, until a siren and flashing lights woke us up from our peaceful cruise. Alamak..highway patrol! We looked at each other, wondering if the siren and lights were for us, unanimously decided that yes, it was us. Kim pulled over to the right side of the road, and we awaited our judgement. The burly police officer strolled over and requested for Kim's driver license and car registration papers, which Kim meekly handed over. After looking at the flimsy piece of booklet which constitutes Singapores IDP (International Driving Permit), the police officer took a look at the mice sitting meekly in the vehicle, gave a snort, and waved his finger, "I'm going to give you a warning this time..." - to which all of us gave a sigh of relief and we zoomed out of the breakdown lane from 0 to 100kph in 5 seconds, leaving the police officer and his car eating our dust, not...

It was surprising that we did not see the police car "creep" up behind us; it must have had been hiding or drafting behind one of the huge trucks and aiming it's laser speedgun at any unsuspecting victims like us. We drove near or at the speed limit thereafter, keeping a constant 70-75mph for the rest of the journey...

stopping at petrol kiosk to top up petrol
Stoppinng at a rest stop to refill petrol and to stretch our legs...
Surprisingly petrol is cheap in the US, at USD1.19 per gallon...

Colin's red matches the car's maroon red
Colin eagerly anticipates his turn to drive the lean mean red machine...

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