Chicago Force visits the East Troy Electric Train Museum

On October 6, 2002, members of Chicago Force traveled to East Troy, Wisconsin to visit the Electric Train Museum there. The Museum has two working trains, and a warehouse of other restored train cars, many of which came from Chicago.

Those in attendance where Mark "Jodo Kast" Franklin, Phil "Mos Eisleian Radio" Salomon, Thom "Thom Solo" Olsen, Ray "Rex Karrde" Bosques with daughters Leah and Leann, and Matthew "Hazmatt" Callison. We were met by 3 members of the Milwookiee Council from Milwaukee, Wisconson: BYOB Kenobi, Jedi Isadore and Dawn. The Milwookiee people were great sports. We had arranged to meet there at 11:30 AM, but ran a bit late as Jodo Kast guided us through the wilds of north-western Illinois. When we didn't arrive by the time the 11:30 train was leaving, they boarded and made the trip. We got to East Troy just before they got back and met them as they disembarked. In true fan spirit, they purchased additional tickets and rode the train again, just to be with us. Our hats are off to you, Milwaukee, that was a very cool thing to do.

Now, on to the photos!

The scoop on the railroad.	Don't they make a cute couple?	Trains, trains, trains.
They hit you with the gift shop early.	"Fifteen thousand? We could almost buy our own train for that!"	"Where'd they go?" "Where'd who go?"
"Well, I think that the dichotomy of good versus evil is best summed up by the Crimean conflict of 1830..."	Hey, we all made it!	Thom favors us with a soft-shoe number.
Pete, our conductor.	Arrival at "The Elegant Farmer"	Mark show us his Caramel Apple.
Mark plays with Ray's melons (yes, I know pumpkins are really a squash, but the joke doesn't work that way)	"BYOB Kenobi" must stand for "Bash Your Own Bee"	The train ride back.
Mark does his Bee Dance. (1.6 MB Quicktime movie) OK, the entire time we were sitting at the picnic table, these bees kept harassing us (leading up to the "insect-icide" shown above), and Mark had this little dance he did to fend of the deadly creature that was just hilarious. The problem was, by the time I could get the camera up and switch it to movie mode, he would be done flailing about. I finallly switched to movie and just sat there, camera pointed at Mark. As luck would have it, no more bees stopped by. So when he did this on the train, I just had to capture it, although it isn't one tenth as funny as the others.
We arrive safe and sound.	Mark shows off his Interactive R2-D2. Very cool.	Anakin's father must have stopped here for ice cream (you really need to read the white sign at the top of the picture).
"Yes, but if we take 3 to the X power of Y, we find that it is close to the binomial derivation of the cosine..."	We love ice cream! Oh, yeah, and 'Star Wars'.	Ray and Thom pull the "Oooh, the train is really moving" gag.