Road Trip

There’s nothing I like better than taking a road trip. I tacked on about 450 miles to my Mom’s KIA over the weekend as I made my journey to State and Central (Michigan State University and Central Michigan University). I’ve driven these routs before, so I know them quite well. I just had to brush over a map and that was all—well except for Mt. Pleasant which is where Central is located.

Gas took a temporary plunge from Friday prices which were about $2.03/gallon. It got down to $1.99 on Sunday. (Man, I miss the day when I got it for 99¢/gal.) Since my parents have this Wal-Mart debit card thingie, I was able to get gas at a 2¢ less/gal, which adds up. So the sticker shock wasn’t so bad for my trip. It was less than $40 on gas plus $5 for a meal, $5 at a casino, and $10 at the bar. $60 for my two day vacation… not bad. Granted, Sara’s parents paid for a good deal of the expenses, so thanks to them.

The weather for driving was just excellent. Everyone was moving at a fast rate. My favorite stretch of the I-94 corridor is between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. On my way back from State today, the roads were nicely packed. It wasn’t heavy traffic or anything, just packs of cars traveling together. I managed to get into a good convoy of drivers. Michigan’s speed limit for the expressways is 70mph or 113kph for you international people. However, between K-zoo and BC, it drops to 55mph in some places. Yet a pack of us, about 10, were going 85-90mph. We never even bothered to get over to the right lane. The advantage of that is that a cop is only going to be able to pull over one of the cars, usually the last one trailing. The rest are safe. So I was happily speeding down the I-94 corridor, never going below 80. It took only 2 hours to get home from Lansing—or about 30/40 minutes less than normal.

Another aspect that I like about I-94 and I-69 is that they are curvy. Especially when you’re going through Kalamazoo, it gets to be fun taking the turns at 80mph and weaving through traffic. It sometimes feels like racing.

Oh, and I happened to see a car with a license plate from Hawaii. --What the hell? I suppose, though, that wouldn’t be as weird as seeing one from Puerto Rico or Guam (which I have not seen.)

I didn't bother taking pictures on my trip, so I ripped the two following pics from another website. To see more, just click on the links.