So after reading the topic about the "bad things happening in your school," I got thinking about the crazy things in my life and realized all of them occurred outside of school. And thus this topic was born. To get the ball rolling, and to maybe help give you an idea of what type of stories I'm hoping for, I'll share this little experience from my senior year of high school.

Starting the summer prior to my senior year, my closest friends and I started what we called the "Adventure of the Month." Every month without fail, we would go camping at some new place within 50 or so miles from where we lived. (Being in Utah made that pretty easy to do).

For our October trip, most of the guys couldn't make it (surgery, family plans, etc.) So it ended up just being three of us and we decided to go a little farther to a place that I remembered having a pretty cool trail to backpack up. So we drive down several canyons and find that so many trees have fallen on the road it's impossible to go where we had originally planned. So we go down to a nearby lake and just start walking into the woods. I should interject here that this weekend set records for cold temperatures, unexpectedly, as the week prior to this was in the 50/60's f.

Eventually we end up on top of a really large hill overlooking everything and decide due to the amount of good firewood around we would camp here. This was around the warmest part of the day and it was only about 20 degrees. From here on out everything started going wrong.

I realized I forgot to pack my pad, the other kid forgot to bring the tent. So all we had for protection from the elements was a tarp set on top of ice. (everything was frozen solid). Next, I discover that the sleeping bag I borrowed from my parents, while I thought was rated for 0 degrees, was actually for 40 degrees. (Easier mistake to make than you think!).

All of this would make for your pretty average -15 degree night had it not been for those dang elk. About 100 yards away we could hear these elk having some crazy rough six, and they went at it for the ENTIRE night. Every now and then we'd have a few minutes of silence, which I imagined was for them to catch their breath and smoke in the dark, but they went right back to it.

Longest night of my life.


Alright, now you're turn. Humorous, dangerous, etc. Let's hear them all!

This is the story of my most recent vacation disaster:

The year: 2010
Those involved: Me (The Vyper, military aircraft enthusiast) and a friend (Z-Cobra, a flight instructor and also a military aircraft enthusiast)
The setting: Vacation
Our destination: EAA AirVenture Oshkosh

Z-Cobra and I had been planning this trip since 2008. We were going to take his plane from Nashville, Tennessee to Oshkosh, Wisconsin to see the big air show. Planned arrival time was around 2:00 PM. After our first refueling stop in Kentucky, we took off only to have to turn around and land due to bad weather. We waited about three hours for it to pass. We took off again and flew without incident for two more refueling stops. On our fourth refueling stop (in Decatur, Illinois) Mr. Murphy caught up with us again. We didn't even make it off the ground, due to engine problems. The airstrip mechanic (a great guy named Mike) looked over the engine and found the problem: one of the valves was stuck in the "open" position, and it would take a week to fix.

Not to be deterred, we began calling rental car companies. We called literally every agency within a fifty mile radius, only to be told each time that there were no cars available dor our purposes. When Mike heard this, he told us we could use the airstrip's courtesy car (since he owned it). He said we could drive it to Oshkosh, then back home, then back to Decature when Z-Cobra came to pick up his plane. This was good news, but had a downside: the car was 18 years old, had just over 250,000 miles on it, couldn't accelerate well with the AC running and sometimes wouldn't start at all. We took him up on the offer.

The car got us to Oshkosh without incident, but Mr. Murphy was still with us. Despite the fact that our room rental was confirmed and we called to let them know we'd be late (11:20 PM late), somebody dropped the ball and gave our room away. We managed to get another room in the same college dorm (yes, they rent those out for this event), but it had no AC. Keep in mind, this was the end of July when it was still rather hot. We stayed for three days, then began the long drive home. About an hour after we passed through Bowling Green, Kentucky, Mr. Murphy paid us yet another visit. While traveling down the highway at 70 MPH, two of the bolts on our front right tire sheared off. We managed to pull the car over safely, but we couldn't change the tire due to the way the bolts had sheared off.

Fortunately, I had my AAA card with me. As I pulled it out to make the call, I noticed the expiration date: August 1, the very day we needed it. Awesome. So, I called the 1-800 number and told them what was up. They transferred me to the Kentucky branch so I could arrange a tow. There was no answer. I called the 1-800 number again and informed them of this. They then tried getting in touch with the Ky branch themselves, with similar results. They then emailed a few of those who worked there and learned they were having phone troubles. Mr. Murphy had struck again.

Because the Ky branch could not be communicated with, AAA looked up some numbers for me and I had to call and get a tow myself. I would also have to foot the bill, then submit a reimbursemant form to AAA. We got the tow, but it took a little over three hours to reach us. It then took another four to reach Nashville, due to a combination of a bad tow truck and worse traffic.

We finally got home at around 1:45 AM. Unfortunately for me, I would have to get up four hours later for work. Even better, that was the day of a job performance review and I was expected to be refreshed, rested, alert and ready to go after my "vacation".

How's that for a run of bad luck?

I got up one morning and ordered alot of stuff online and cooked pizza rolls....sorry I didn't mean to fly off the handle like that .

J/k I'd say the only thing wacky thing I did was take a five mile hike one time (this was during my trying to enlist in the army time). After I got as far I could go I had to call my father to come pick me up, I was to tired to walk back .

I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee

Honestly, I'm impressed it even took to the third post to get to that joke. But I didn't realize how much I set myself up for that...

Also, Vyper, that is a proper, old-fashioned, unplanned adventure. Nothing like everything going wrong to make it memorable.

True, but for every bit of bad luck we had, there was bit of good luck to go with it. Sure, we had to turn around after our first refueling, but we'd been in the air for less than five minutes. The weather front was moving so fast that the storm would have caught us before we landed if we'd been in the air much longer. Our engine troubles occurred while we were still on the ground (which is the best place for an aircraft to have them). And the valve was stuck in the "open" position. Even though it took a week to fix, the cost was only about $300. If the valve had been stuck "closed", it could have destroyed the entire engine (resulting in a cost of around $12,000, which the insurance wouldn't cover).

And we didn't have to pay for a rental car, which would have been very expensive, given the distance we had to travel and the length of time we'd be using it. Even though our room was mistakenly given away, we were able to get another (a feat which is nigh on impossible at that particular event). And even though two bolts sheered off the tire at 70 MPH, the wheel and tire didn't break off from the resulting strain (which would have resulted in a rather nasty crash right in the middle of nowhere). My AAA card was expiring that very day, but was still good until midnight. Nothing...unfortunate happened to us while we were waiting for the tow truck.

So, while a lot of things went wrong, it could have been much worse. And that wasn't my worst vacation disaster, just the most recent.

That Adventure of the Month thing sounds really cool. I've never done anything as spontaneous as that. Too uncreative and unassertive and indecicive and I'm sure there's a word for "makes too many excuses" too.

I did buy a motor scooter thinking I would have the balls to load it with camping gear and go across the country on it, but eventually intense fear of getting arrested and thrown in jail for 50 years and sentenced to death for sleeping on the side of the road got the better of me.

I once used a public bathroom in Mexico.

I've got one.

Last year around January I think, some buddies called me up and we all decided to go shining. Shining is where you drive around and shine deer in fields with a spotlight, for anyone not from the country. My truck didn't have much gas in it, and my friend has just gotten a new Ford F-150 and wanted me to go with him and his girlfriend, so we all piled up and met everyone out at the corner store. Now let me say, my friend didn't own this truck yet, he was just buying it from his friend's dad, but it was already in his possession and he had put some money towards it.

Anyways, we get out there to the store and everybody is out there, we probably had five or six trucks ready to go. We get way on out there and we had seen a few deer but nothing major. Well, we come up on this peanut field and its got a road dirt road that runs right beside it on one edge, and then another dirt road that runs beside the other edge. We all stop at the intersection and and three trucks take a left onto this other road, and we stay going straight. They all start tearing through this peanut field after a pack of about 30 deer, biggest pack of deer I've ever seen. We're doing about 45 mph down the road and they are chasing all these deer right to us, and there is a green Chevy Z71 in front of us, he clips one deer and a second deer runs straight into his driver side door, and we end up running it over.

When he hits these deer, he slams on brakes. My buddy, paying attention to the deer and not the road, doesn't see him. Now my buddy is driving, his girlfriend is in the passenger seat, and I'm in the back seat between the two seats so I can see, and none of us has our seat belts on. He plows right into the back of the Z71 in front of us, while one guy is hanging out the window looking at the damage no less, and next thing I know it looks like a blizzard cause the air bags went off. Nobody was hurt though, so we all got out and checked out the damage. Bent the frame of the Z71 in three different places, and totaled my friend's F-150 as well.

Well the cops are called of course, fire truck and ambulance comes out since the airbags went off, everybody declines medical treatment and we are now waiting on the tow truck. We happened to be about 30 minutes away from town by the way, so naturally this took about three hours for all of this to happen. Anyways, back to waiting on the tow truck, we waited for another hour and a half, and one guy stayed with us, and finally the tow truck came and my buddy and his girlfriend load up with the tow truck driver and they head off, and I stay around with the guy who stayed cause me, him, and another of our friends were gonna do some more riding around. Well, he had pulled off into the peanut field a little bit, and it was soft as hell so he got stuck and we spent 15 minutes or so digging him out with shovels.

Finally we get unstuck and we picked up the two deer we'd hit and headed on down the road. We spent another 2 hours or so shining, seen plenty of other deer and all, but decided to head back to town around 4am. Well we pulled off into the woods before we made it into town and checked out the deer in the back. One of them was like jello, we figured one of the trucks had run him over and broke all the ribs, so we tossed it out. The other one was alright so we cut the backstrap off and then tossed that deer off into the woods too. We headed back in to town and were getting pretty hungry so we stopped at the Waffle House and decided to eat.

We're in there ordering our food and [censored]ting with the waitresses in there, and one of us mentioned we had some backstrap in the truck and we wanted to know if the cook would cook it for us. Now, this was pretty much a joke, we didn't really think that they would take us up on that offer. Sure enough though, the girl went and asked the cook and he was said something like "Sure bring it in and wash it off," so we brought it in and washed it off and he cooked it right there on the grill and we ate it.

It was actually okay for being a deer we'd hit about 4 hours earlier, even though it was a little gamey. That's my redneck story though, we'll take yall out for a night like that anytime if yall come down here.

Edit.

Ohh I forgot to say. My friend that wrecked his truck that he was in the process of buying but didnt own, somehow his friend's dad who actually owned the truck was able to get money for the truck being totaled from his insurance, even though the police came out and saw that my friend was driving the truck (who definitely wasn't on the insurance) when it was wrecked, so luckily he didn't destroy a truck that wasn't his yet and have to pay for it too.

I'll make it short.....

Was going to Biloxi to do some gambling. Got pulled over for doing "92+" in a construction zone. Colp let me go but impounded my car. Walked to the bus station. Rode to Biloxi. Walked to the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel. Lost all $1000 of my "fun" money at around 2AM. Selpt on the far end of a peer....b/c a roaming homeless guy was on the beach end of the peer. The bum leant me some bug repelant. Woke up. Conned some ppl on the beach into thinking I was homeless and got $50. Got some beer and some food. Sat on the beach until late that night. Joined some college kids bonfire. Slept on the same peer...no homeless guy this time. Woke up. Walked to the bus station. Rode back home. Walked miles in the bad part of town to a guys house where I knew they were playing poker and I could get a ride home. Found a ride home. Crashed when I got there.

I wasn't in my teens or early 20's......I was 29.

Freshman year of high school, me and some guys threw a surprise birthday party for a friend(His name is Beau). We ended up playing football and stuff outside for the first couple hours of the evening.

That's all lame though compared to what we did later.

Everyone agreed that we should go ding-dong-ditch houses, so we starting walking around the neighborhood. This was a group of ten people all scattered over yards and driveways, ringing doorbells and giggling like maniacs. We eventually made our way down to my part of the neighborhood, whilst doing Nazi marches while cars passed. Once we got to my house, the group talked to my parents while I snuck some toilet paper out of the back door. We left my house, and starting heading to another part of the neighborhood, and picked a house. We covered it in toilet paper, but this is where the story gets good. While we were TPing the house, a cop car turned onto the street we were on. It took a couple of seconds for everyone to realize it was a buckin' cop. We promptly freaked out and scattered, myself hiding under a pine tree. It was very dark at this point, and while I could hear my friends, I couldn't see anything. I waited there for about five minutes before getting up and looking around. No one was anywhere to be found, and I couldn't place my location in the neighborhood. So I started walking through backyards, and sprinting through well-lit spots.

I ended up making a complete loop of the neighborhood, before I got back to Beau's house. Now, when I came upon Beau's house, I didn't realize it was his. There were butt-ton of cars out front, so I hid behind this shed across the street. I eventually saw a cop car pull up, and realized it WAS Beau's house, and that some of my friends had been caught. I decided to just wait until everything had settled down, and I sat on this chair behind the shed. I broke the freakin' chair, it was just some old wicker thing, but that's beside the point.

Things settled down around the house, and I noticed a group of guys walking away from it. Some of my friends. I sprinted toward them, and freaked them out good.

Fun night.

Copy/pasta from elsewhere:

Back when I was ~21 I could do some crazy things.

One Friday, when I was living in Phoenix AZ, we were hanging around drinking all day. We had a big party that night, after everyone left we decided we wanted to go to Laughlin, Nevada. That is ~180 miles and a bit over 3 hours of driving. We got to Laughlin about 2-3 AM partied and gambled for about 8 hours and drove back home. I got home just in time to go to work ( I worked dinner shift at a restaurant). At this point I hadn't had more than a few minutes of sleep in 36 hours.

After work I went to the bar for some drinks and ran into a different group of friends. I told them how much fun we had had in Laughlin the night before, and within a few minutes I was on my way back. Another 3+ hour drive each way, and another 7-8 hours of hard drinking and gambling later I got home just in time to go back to work (I did sleep for a short time during each leg of the drive). Now not more than 3 hours of sleep in 60 hours.

After my shift I went back to the bar, had one drink and almost fell asleep on the table. I staggered home and slept for about 15 hours straight. It is still one of the most fun weekends I have had.

**Anyone driving had not been drinking**

I went out one night with friends, who all lived in the outer suburbs, but I lived borderline rural. We went to a city venue, and drank heaps. One guy and myself partied on for a bit after everyone else had gone home. I didn't want this guy to drive me all the way home (80km's or so) so I asked him to drop me a few blocks from his house, and told him I was going to stay at someone else's house. Lie. I had nowhere to go. (40 km's from home)

So I walked for a bit, then laid down in a bus stop for about 30 minutes, but it was too cold. So I went to the closest Police Station, asking if I could sleep in a cell. No, have to commit a crime. Didn't really feel like doing that. I wandered a bit more, before coming to the shopping centre/mall/complex where I worked at the time. I walked around it until I found the room to access the air-con unit. Nice and warm! I sleep for about 2 hours, until the centre opened (6am).

Snuck into the closed off part of the centre, went to the toilets, and slept in a cubicle, until 9am when I started work.

One day I put on my finest outfit, got my walking cane and headed towards the door. I opened it and took a step upon my porch..... I started to walk over towards the lawn, when I was reminded by something..... that the outside world is a dangerous place. I considered grabbing my trusty old rifle, perhaps phoning in some muscle so that I might walk through the streets with the common folk undisturbed, but then I realized I had given much of my finances to the local gentleman's club, thus I couldn't possibly hire anyone until more money came my way. So, I grunted at the 'outside world' and walked back inside.

Ghastly experience, I hope never again to go through its like.

Ah yes, love them. I've never been to Laughlin, but will be passing through it this coming summer. (too bad I won't be 21 for another couple months after though...) Sounds like good times.

Also, Sivartus, I assume you're in the U.S... what state are you from if you don't mind my asking?

Those stories reminded me of another pretty good crazy night. I had planned to go on a hike with my at-the-time girlfriend (I think she was at that point, if not then, I was definitely interested). The trail went up above the highest boulevard on the mountainside I live on. We hike a ways up and then climb on a rock facing the city, about 150 yards above the road. It was a really good view from there, so we decided to hang out for a bit and watch the sun set and all that cutesy stuff or whatever. So somewhere along in the conversation we start talking about classic movies we love and end up on the topic of "Lion King"... And out of nowhere she decides to yell out her favorite line "SOMEBODY!!!... ANYBODY!!!".

I would have thought this was hilarious, had it not been for the man walking towards his car parked on the sidewalk far below who stopped in his tracks and started scouring the mountainside looking for the source of the desperate cries for help. We held completely still, but it didn't help I was wearing a neon green shirt. It was getting darker and darker, so we were unsure if he spotted us, but he finally got in his car and started it. He rolled forward about ten feet and stopped and we saw him get on his phone.

While he was distracted, we decided it was our best time to get out of there. We dashed back up the mountain to where the trail was that would get us down to the parking lot. Once we hit the trail, I use my cell phone to call my friend who lived nearby and told him I needed a favor. I needed him to drive by the parking lot where I was parked to see if it was all clear. He says he'll call me back when he gets there and we start heading down the trail. We get the call and freeze. The man we had seen far below was idling in the parking lot looking at all of the cars parked there. My friend circled around the block and when he returned, told me the man was out of the parking lot, but down the road. With SEVEN police cars.

At this point, I was convinced they'd stop all the cars coming out of the parking lot and search the trunks for the girl they suspected you of just [censored] and murdering and such. However, the cop cars were about a hundred feet down the road looking at the mountainside where we had been previously, and by keeping my lights off until I was out a ways I escaped undetected. Needless to say, that night got my adrenaline pumping quite a bit.

I used to go on long walks in the woods behind my house, and one time I was about 20 minutes from any sort of civilization and a wandering dog attacked me. After I pushed it away once it just left, but it freaked me out there for a second. I didn't want to get a real bite OR injure a dog.

Is Green Sentinel afraid to leave his Stoop?

http://youtu.be/XiUBrytO52k

Haha, sounds fun. Apart from the hiding under a tree/ breaking a chair


Wow, you would have got into loads of trouble if you were caught.

My story is about what happened to me at a music festival I went to. Well, two festivals, in 2009 and then again in 2011. (It was the Download festivals.) In 2009 I must have been punched in the face and not realised (I know this sounds stupid) because I woke up with one eye swollen shut and it was all black. That same year I tripped when a mosh pit opened up during the Slipknot set, and I got stamped on pretty badly- enough to break my shoes and leave me with a permanent scar on the side of my leg. Despite my injuries I still claim it was the best gig I've ever been to.

In 2011 the weekend fell on my birthday. And what a terrible birthday it was. The weather was awful the entire weekend, I couldn't get warm, and I nearly burned my tent down trying to light the candles on my cake, which I then sobbed over. My friend wasn't much help, retreating into his own tent and leaving me to it. The mud by the monday morning was about 6 inches thick, and I ended up getting it all over my last clean clothes on the way back to the car. In the end I had to drive home in my knickers, then give the neighbours an eye-full when I got out

It sounds awful when I put it like this, but the good over-rode the bad. I'd do it all again

I am, I'm in Northwest Florida, just a few minutes from the Alabama line.

Got rained on in a boat in the middle of the night in the middle of a lake. Somehow we found out where our dock was. You have no idea how bad rain can hurt until you're driving around at 40 mph in it. Whats that? No protecting your eyes now, you have to drive.

Me and my friend were testing out a firework underwater except we had no body of water planned out. We threw it into the toilet then realized our mistake once we saw the stream of porcelain littered water moving towards us. We left and went to a state park an hour away.

Almost started a huuuuuge grass fire. Me and my friends were driving around messing with fireworks, and i thought it would be a good idea to light a smoke bomb and throw it out the window. Its in the country so theres not alot of people to care, right? Except I threw it in the tall dry grass on the side of the road. We went to the end of the street, pulled a rad 180 at a stop sign (not without checking for cars first, like good boys) and sped back to the smoke bomb. I ran out of the car as it was moving (thats how bad I did NOT want to go to jail) and grabbed it and threw it in the other direction; onto the other side of the road where more grass was. I promptly ran after it again and carefully placed it in the middle of the road and got the [censored] out of there.

Theres other stories that I may post if I can remember them.

EDIT: How could I forget the rafting story?

So, we had 2 rafts, one that fits 2 people comfortably, and one that fits up to 4 people, VERY uncomfortably. Me and 3 other people decide its a good day to go rafting on the canol close by so we start airing them up. One of them has a hole that after much effort we cannot fix entirely. The boat wouldnt stay completely inflated, but wouldnt completely deflate either. I wanted to call the whole thing off but u my overly optimistic friend said [censored] it, and after a few apathetic 'whatever's from the rest of the group, we head to the canol.

We get there and find out the canol is incredibly low and has no current, but once again a mix of apathy and optimism got the best of us (especially after walking 2 miles out to the secret entry point with all of our heavy stuff). After a while on the water, the raft started deflating, so the two of my friends that were in it hopped into ours and we towed theirs along with a rope.

We underestimated how slow things would go without a current, and ended up rowing under the moonlight on a nasty, smelly, and low (and thusly dangerous for our rafts) canol. There was water in the raft, it was hard to balance with 4 people, there was arguing etc. Finally we reached the exit point which is probably somewhere around 2.5-3.5 miles from our entry point.

I once used one in Turkey.

I can understand why you'd react that way, but that's some pretty [censored] behaviour. Having people try to rescue her, thinking she's in danger, while the two of you run and hide?

I remember one time coming home from school I always go over a railway.

Well the guard rails were coming down and I couldn't slow down fast enough. I hit the pedal to the metal and shot through before they closed down and the train crossed.

One of the few times I felt like risk taking badass.

Good God.