Wackiest trip you've ever taken.

[Thrifty Ray]

Whats the wackiest trip you've ever taken? Here is mine:

My 3 older kids (16, 14 and 12 at the time) and I were going from Oregon, down to So. California. We left on a Friday morning at 3am- with no special plan, except to get to So. California the next day.

Took off, and stopped for breakfast in Redding, a few hours from home. While there, the kids and I decided to head over to the Winchester house for a tour (San Jose) and then go down the coastal route. (I thought we had just added about 5-6 hours to the trip-but it ended up being about 10 with the wind-y coastal roads!)

We arrived in San Jose that afternoon, did the tour and now it is about 4pm.

IN my mind, Im thinking we can find a hotel---hopefully something with an ocean view. A treat for all of us. (What a mom...yeah, right)

Pull into Big Sur about 7pm and paid over $2.50 per gallon (at the time, that was a huge ouch) and asked the attendant where we could find a nice hotel....He looked at me kindof funny and said..."Youre traveling down the coast on a 3 day weekend without reservations? (It was the 4th of July weekend) This was the first I realized Id made an err in judgement...oops. He told us we'd be lucky to find anything within 3-4 hours. OMG. (even the overfill spots for the campgrounds were packed)

At 10pm, we pull into a little mexi restaraunt and luckily, they let us in even though they had just closed. DD1 was 16 and she offered to take over driving. The kids all voted to keep going and just get to our destination.

I took back the driving at about midnight and at 3am was in Hollywood and there were LOTS of cars?? on the Fwy. Don't those people sleeep? All passing me like I was sitting still and I was going about 70mph...OMG.

Anyhows....we finally arrived in the town we were originally aiming for at about 4am...found a hotel and went in and literally passed out from exhaustion..

The kids still look back on that wacky trip as one of their favorites.

What's yours?

[Ima saver]

We went on a bike Inn to Inn in Vermont vacation. No, we had never biked or even owned a bike since age 12. It was early October and we planned to spend the night somewhere. We started stopping at 5 pm, to get a room . all were booked. We tried in New York, in New Jersey and even in Vermont. Finally, in Vermont about 9pm., we found an all night diner and stayed there. We told the waitress our plight and she even called all the bed and breakfast place.
No room. Everyone had come to the area for "leaf looking"
We spent the night, in the car, at the diner. DH stayed up all night, worried, cause we were in a big city. We drove a little the next day, but had to stop again and sleep in the car cause dh was so sleepy.
Then when we got to the first Inn, they explained how we biked Inn to Inn, but they would ride by all the time in case we got tired and could not make it.
The first day was 33 degrees, raining and we had to bike 30 miles. They passed us once, early in the morning, and we never saw them again. We made it finally, but we learned that week that everyone needs "biker shorts" and shorter people should have their own bikes made just for their height!! What a week!!

[Broken Arrow]

One night, back in the college days in New York, a bunch of guys and I hopped into my car to find this party somewhere in town.

Unfortunately, the directions we got weren't so clear, and as we trekked further and further out, the road signs-- or any signs of civilization for that matter-- became less and less. However, being the intrepid and generally niave college kids that we were, we boldly pressed forward.

After a while, when things started to look really bleak, that when we saw the entire night sky light up-- just over hill-- with lights galore! Relieved, we drove towards the light, and that's when we finally realized where we were.

The large sign in front of us read, "WELCOME TO CANADA"!

So, what was suppose to be a small trip around town turned out to be an over-night, cross-border invasion. We ended up cruising cluelessly around Montreal, but having a good time anyway. Old Montreal is beautiful, by the way, even in the middle of the night.

Actually, that may not have been the strangest, but I think it was one of the more amusing....

[boefixepa]

My friend and I decided to take a weekend to Las Vegas and just see what was there and have some fun....OH my, what a start.

So five hours of driving and we get there. We spend forever trying to find a decent hotel, we stay at the first one that didn't think we were a lesbian couple, but offered us two twins rather than one queen... (it was a refreshing change.) The place was such a dive, but it was cheap and we didn't care.....until....

We woke up the next morning. Both of us have mild allergies...did you hear that mild! We woke up slammed with allergy issues! If you had bad allergies and were staying in that place I was sure you would have ended up in the hospital! Since neither of us had even considered bringing anything our first stop was the 'gouge you' store for some allergy meds. Course the only thing they have is Benadryl (sp?). Do know what happens when you take 'extra strength' (and we felt like we needed it beside it being all they had). You guessed it, we were zoombies all day long! We wondered aroung Vegas doing all the little freebies things and dying at how expensive all the 'good' things were.

By dinner we were so exhausted I went to bed at 6pm and slept until 6am!! We woke up the next morning and drove back to Utah.

It was THE WEIRDEST trip I have ever been on!

By the way, don't bother with Vegas unless you have a couple thousand to blow. I'm sure it would be fun to see all the shows, but it takes money!

My friend and I were 18 and took a bus to visit my cousin in Berkeley for a few days and then took a bus to LA because we were going to go to the beach and look around, LA - we were just going to wing it. We had our sleeping bags with us cause my cousin didn't have enough beds and we slept on the floor there.

So we caught the first city bus that passed by the bus station and thought we would get off at the first motel we saw. I think we were driving up Wilshire Blvd and driving and driving - finally we saw a hotel. We got off the bus and crossed the street. Apparently we were in Beverly Hills at this point, and apparently there was no room at the inn, for 2 girls wearing jeans and carrying sleeping bags, who had spent all night on the Greyhound bus (that was probably very fortunate for us).

So we thought - go find a phone book (we didn't really want to ask at that hotel), and we walked and walked and finally found one - and looked up motels and saw one on La Cienaga - a street we had passed. We called them - finally thinking, and they had a room so we started walking back to La Cienaga.

We get to La Cienaga and start walking up the street - we apparently are walking in the right direction - the numbers are going up. But suddenly the numbers start going down again. We start walking back and forth - what the H#ll is going on.

Finally, some man comes out of his gallery, invites us in to tell our story, calls a motel that he has had some artists stay at (of the starving variety), and drives us there, closing down his gallery and everything to do that. So we spent the night near the Sunset strip and the next day somehow got ourselves to Anaheim - where we knew our way around and did the Disneyland thing.

[Broken Arrow]

taking charge:

1. I didn't know you are female.

2. You're right, that's a pretty wacky trip.

[jodi]

Wow, fun post.

I was just thinking that I didn't have any interesting stories to tell, but then I thought of one. In college, I drove my roommate home to visit her parents (Syracuse, NY to Cuba, NY). On the way back, about ten minutes into a 3 hour trip, my gas tank fell off. Yup, fell off. We had to pull over on the highway. Someone came by to help and offered us a ride, but being the good, naive girl I was, I would not get in the car with a stranger. My roomie took the ride while I walked into town. We had to leave the car there to be fixed and borrow her parents car to get home. I had to take another trip to get the car bck - a few months later, the rigged-up gas tank fell off again. Then I decided I needed a new car

I didn't know a gas tank could fall off. How far was the walk?

[Snoopy2645]

Only one of mine is I live in IA & my whole family when I was 16 flew to new york for 2 days & 1 night that was it & it was all payed for thats why it was so fast we went to be on tv because of my great grandma she was famous & we were looking for her & hadnt seen her in like 40ys & dont know what happened to her so that was interesting we got to ride around in a limo I felt like a movie start LOL!!

[jodi]

Not too far, maybe a mile or two at most. We heard a scraping sound while we were driving, but being the car-dummies that we were, kept on driving. A mile or two later, it got worse and we pulled over. The person who stopped to help us told us that it was the gas tank we saw hanging down and that if it started scraping on the ground, it could explode. Talk about a scare. (by the way, the second time I heard the scraping, I pulled over IMMEDIATELY!)

[Thrifty Ray]

I am LOVING these stories!! JodiM, I laughed out loud when I read yours!! Ive never heard of a gas tank falling off a car....lol

All of these stories are great!! Keep em coming!!!

[jodi]

Glad to amuse although I certainly wasn't laughing at the time!

[rusty@saving]

LOL!!!!
ok...here goes. when i was in the Navy stationed in Pearl Harbor, my Grandpa passed away. i got leave to fly home for the funeral. now, a lot of things happened on this trip(it makes "planes, trains, and automobiles" look like a cakewalk), so it would take me WAY to long to write everything, but i will tell you this....i was delayed 4 times, awake for 4 straight days, had no $(forgot ATM card) , was in my dress whites uniform(with a coke spilled on it from turbulence), had not shaved, no extra clothes(i had clothes in my room at home, so why carry a bag), and missed to bus by 5 minutes at Ohare and had to stay awake all night long for the next bus at 10am because i was not sleeping in ohare. then when the bus driver came finally, i was sooo tired that he thought i was drunk and would not let me on. it all came to a close though, but it is just the beginning of the story.....(i can laugh about it now)

[vsjhoc]

I went by myself to a tiny island off a Central American country to go scuba diving and just chill. The first night, I ran into a group of locals (mainly expat Americans) who were celebrating an upcoming wedding. I started partying with them, hooked up with the best man, and the next thing I knew, I was invited to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.

The best man's job was to organize the bachelor party, and he asked if I wanted to go with him to hire a stripper. I surely can't remember another time when I've gone on a date with someone where our objective was to hire a stripper. Anyway, the day before the wedding, I was hanging out with Mr. Best Man on the boat, and one of the guys came on board and asked if I was the stripper. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted.

Had an awesome time at the reception and for the rest of the week, and never saw my new friends again.

[boefixepa]

Now that sounds like s story NOT to tell your kids until they are older and can you imagine the look on their faces!! MOM YOU DID WHAT!

[vsjhoc]

Then there was the time I ..... nah, forget it.

Wackiest business trip: I flew from Washington DC to San Francisco just to have lunch. Did some biz in the afternoon, met a blind date for dinner, and took the Red Eye back to Washington ... arrived 6 am and went straight to work for the day. I had one very messed up body clock. Luckily I had not been drinking heavily ...

[kealina]

both my trips to vietnam had wacky moments... like when we went to my relatives farm, and then it rained for three days straight so we couldn't go anywhere. and this "farm" was a straw and wood shack without power, running water, and a real bathroom... then when the rain stopped we found out the bridge, bassically this metal grated stuff that went from one bank to the other, had washed away... finally to get out, me and mom (and our luggage) got carried across the river by her cousins and had to climb the trail up the side of the hill to get to the main road and catch the bus to our next destination... lol.. and that was the first week of our 6 weeks there...

[pyotr]

I once took a trip down memory lane. Boy, was that wacky, AND HOW.

[lynclarke]

I remember a trip my mother, my brother and I took when I was a kid - maybe 10. We lived in MA and decided to go to the Amish Fair in PA. We had no money which was nothing new. My mother packed bread and lunch meat. Along the way, she bought a peck of tomatoes at a fruit stand and a shoefly pie. Everyday, every meal we had a choice of a tomato sandwich or tomato and bread, and of course, shoefly pie. I don't remember that part bothering any of us. We did get to the fair and my brother brought over a Amish boy about his age (11) who was presenting some animal at the fair. We all learned that kids are the same regardless how they dress or if their language sounds different. This has been a good lesson my entire life. lynclarke