Ooops! I did IT again!

This is Part-2 of my previous post "AND I finally did IT" Not long ago I was narrating the heroic attempts to cross 100mph on US roads...I was pretty proud of the fact that I escaped all those watchful (cops') eyes and drove at such high speeds. I had realised towards the end I was getting more and more arrogant about the same.. had been driving quite fast on all roads...I am not a rash driver and even my worst critics have praised my driving but As they say.. someone up there was watching....

I went on a trip to Washington DC recently... had gone to Connecticut to a friend's house and drove to DC from there... it was a short but nice 3 day long trip where we made halts @ Univ of Maryland and Baltimore. The "IT" above happened while we were driving back from DC to Stamford, CT on the last day of our trip. I had a flight back to Chicago the next day morning.

We rented a mini-SUV Pontiac Vibe.. Initially I was very excited to hear the name SUV (it has been a dream of mine to drive one) but when I sat in it... I felt more like driving a Maruti 800 or a small car in India... Average pickup and below average traction control.. the whole car was shaking at around 85 mph.... Anyways it was during one of this attempt of mine to test the vehicle's performance (read max speed) that the "Oooops" happened!!!!!

For people scratching their heads - I got a speeding ticket of (a freaking) 290 US Dollars (thats around 15000 INR).... in Maryland... The cop who caught me said I was at 87 mph (Speed Limit - 65 mph) and the first question he asked after pulling me over -" Why are you going so faaaast?" I didnt know what to say.. I am definite I was between 75-80 @ the instant he saw me but arguing doesnt help in these cases...

I am yet to pay my fine.. maybe will do so in a day or two.. am so so so inclined to contest this in a court but have to go to Maryland for that...which is impractical... people say that cops esp fine higher amounts to out-of-state people as they know they will not bother travelling to the state just to contest a speeding ticket...

What you see above is the "sadu" car (err.. mini SUV) and next to it is the "famed" Oooops (speeding ticket)... must say I have started driving within limits now... only yesterday I saw a cop (full camouflaged) with his radar gun waiting for few more preys.....

AND finally I DID it!!!

Well people! before you start imagining the "it" lemme warn you its not something which most of you would have in your mind ;)... well during the Memorial Day weekend I happened to go out on a bigg road trip.. covering around 2400 miles (approx. 4000 kms) in 4 days.. and IT was not like we were driving all the time.. we had enough time to visit places... so it was a trip to NYC, Boston and New Jersey... Awesome trip but will not get into the details of it (as that's not the "it" I am talking about here :)- )

Okay enough of beating around the bush.. While driving back home (to Chicago) from NYC.. we were fighting against time and I had the most crucial strech to drive.. and it was then that while driving in Pennsylvania, I CROSSED 100 mph (I touched around 105 mph (170 kmph)) and cruised at that speed for almost 10 mins.... From the time I have learnt driving, my only dream had to see the speedometer going past 100... A couple of months back I would have been happy if it would have been just 100 kmph but HERE I went way beyond... Speedometers in US are in miles per hour and when the pointer crossed 100 in it, I was at 170 kmph (way beyond my earlier dream of crossing 100 kmph)... and what you see above was the MEAN machine which helped me reach it - A Chevy Impala!!!!