Road Trip: Then and Now

When we resided in Warsaw/Winona Lake, Indiana from 1983 to 1984, before we headed out for the Summer, and for that matter Spring, Autumn and Christmas break too, Dad and Mum would go to the AAA (American Automobile Association) along with a Rand McNally road atlas of the USA and get recommendations on which highways and routes to take to the  destinations they had mapped out. 

Mum had an address book filled with addresses and phone numbers of friends, former classmates and relatives of hers and Dad's that we were going to visit. She would spend the school term corresponding with or calling them up and then deciding the route for our summer road trip to see these folks. 

We would set off from our trailer home in Warsaw, Indiana with the station wagon packed to the gills with our luggage, mum's wok and our violins as we traversed the length and breadth of the United States and also up to Toronto, Canada.

Here are the only pages I ever wrote about that road trip in 1984. I think the trip was far too eventful that I did not resume writing after these entries. 

This was the blue Buick that brought us around the USA in the holiday breaks of 1983 and 1984.
Here mum is posing before leaving the home for class in winter. She audited some college classes at Grace College.

Flea and The Singies

For Felicia Mikesell, the daughter of missionaries to Mexico, LCA was quite a change from where she had grown up on the mission field. Rural Indiana was a far cry from what we were used to in urban Singapore. We clicked. Just like with other students in LCA like the Heldenbrands whose family had served in Morocco and the Dorons whose parents had served God in the Philippines. We got along best with those whose roots were global. Here are a few shots of the BFFs thirty years ago at Lakeland Christian Academy.

In order to make friends, we joined sports. We were in the girls' basketball team in the winter and the softball team in the spring. We didn't like volleyball so we didn't join that in the fall.

Basketball practice was six-thirty in the morning. Coachie would pick us up from our trailer home and we headed to a church basketball court. I cannot recall the name of the church. The girls' team trained in the mornings before the school day started whilst the boys trained in the afternoons after lessons ended at about three.

Cougar Girls
Back row: Sharon Tusing, Teresa Marshall, Jennifer Ellis, Cheryl Myers, Marti Dalquist.
Middle row: Coach Linda Horton, Holly Hart, Darci Nelson, Lois Overstreet.
Front row: Bobbie Nelson, Karina and Charissa Heng, Sara McNeal.

Not exactly Kung Fu but follow through!

Singy lay-up

Singy free throw

Softball 1984: the season we went to the finals in Indianapolis coming in second against Indianapolis Baptist!
Front row: Charissa Heng, Kris Klosinski, Jennifer Rose, Jill Conley, Julie Whitman, Bobbie Jo Nelson, Karina Heng
Back row: Coach Linda Horton, Nancy Anderson, Cheryl Myers, Jennifer Ellis, Peggy Myers, Beth Doron, Kelli Fouts, Barb McGuiness, Linda Pettifor, Assistant Coach Cheryl Lancaster

Felicia was a cheerleader. We played Cougar Basketball!

For all our games, the cheerleaders would be there to get our supporters into the mood. Flea was a cheerleader. 

Hanging out in our trailer home. Check out the 1984 LA Olympics
gear we got from the summer we spent in LA!

Coming in Blue Ribbon Champions for Readers' Theater in the
Association of Christian Schools International competition.
We had read an excerpt from Neil Simon's "California Suite".

Charissa, Felicia Mikesell, Cheryl Myers and Karina

Meeting up in Chicago airport in 1989 when we flew to the US
for Nathaniel's graduation from BIOLA.
Felicia was studying at the Moody Bible Institute.

So Flea agreed to spend two days hanging out with us in the place where we had become friends thirty years ago. We would have met up with Aurora Rife and Cheryl Myers too but they were unavailable.

Catching up on the years that have sped by

Trying to find our house on the island. This was where Flea stayed on the island.

Rodeheaver Auditorium where we played in the Grace Community Orchestra in Spring and Winter concerts

Can you see the chimney stack of a house that has been demolished