Tell me your funniest or worst travel tale. By plane, train, automobile, bus, etc., we travel across this great country.
I will begin. I haven't had much luck on trains. They get me there and back, but not always in one piece. When I was a kid, we traveled from Indiana to California to visit my grandparents. On that trip there, my dad gave up our seats to military men and we girls and my mom sat in a bathroom on the train, while stinky baby diapers were being changed. Also, the train was stopped 12 hours outside Vegas due to a train wreck in front of us. The adults drank and played cards, the kids ran wild.
On a trip back to Indiana about 20 years ago, our train from Indy to Chicago hit a farmer pulling weedkiller in a giant tank. The farmer was killed and our train engine was so damaged, another one had to be brought down from Chicago.
On a trip from the west to east coast a couple years ago, the ride was soooo rough that you were constantly thrown against walls and having people fall on you while you were dining in the dining car. Once, I was thrown against a wall, nearly breaking a finger.
I take the train because I don't like flying, and have had several bad experiences there too.
This past Christmas I was flying in a little puddle jumper from Erie to Cleveland. There was a 3 year old boy seated behind me with his mother. The wind was really bad and we started to hit turbulence. The turbulence was bad enough that you could read a little panic in the steward's face. However, during all of this the three year old was laughing like this was the best thing ever!! :biggrin: I think it helped all of us a little because we all started to giggle. I really give mom credit for not showing her panic to her child and letting him enjoy the ride.
Okay, I'm not sure who this was a bad experience for, but it was definitely funny :biggrin:
When I was in college and I visited my dad in Arkansas (no, I'm not from there, but he had moved there about the time I was a senior in High School. I stayed in WV) and he liked to try to fix me up w/random farmer's sons in the community. I had NO interest at that time in being married or living the lifestyle of a homemaker and definitely not out in the middle of nowhere amongst the soy bean fields (or whatever they grew). I'd meet these guys and it was always very uncomfortable because we had absolutely nothing in common.
Anyway, I was flying home and we stopped in St Louis to pick up more passengers. A woman got on and sat next to me was...I'm guessing mid 40's, but looking older because her makeup was plastered on and her lipstick was the ugliest shade of red that I'd ever seen. She reeked of cheap perfume, but I could smell the alcohol over the perfume. She insisted on talking. She was from Little Rock, but was visiting family in St. Louis and was on her way some place to visit with her "male friend" and then heading back to Little Rock. I didn't want to sit next to her, much less talk to her. After every third word she "hic"ed and a booze vapor would waft out with her breath and I honestly thought I'd need the little white back tucked in the pocket in front of me. LOL She was three sheets to the wind. After a while, in hell, a brilliant thought hit me. "She's going back to Little Rock", so I started to talk about my dad and what a WONDERFUL man he was. "Of course he's single" I said, "and it's a shame because he likes to cook and pamper people". I was ROTTEN!!! Anyway, I gave her his number. :sneaky:
About a week later, he called and my sweet mild mannered daddy was very upset. :biggrin: :biggrin: She phone stalked him for the longest time, trying to get him to take her to dinner. :biggrin: To this day, I LMAO because he asked for it which I pointed out to him when he called. Oddly enough he didn't try to fix me up after that.
Mom and I took a Greyhound bus to Detroit to visit my aunt and uncle one year. I was pretty young, so this was a great adventure for me. All along the way, we would stop to drop off and pick up other passengers. During one of these stops, I decided it would be a good time to use the restroom in the back of the bus.
I was sitting there, taking care of business, happy as ever, when the damn bus started off again. From my position, it felt as if the restroom was trying to fall off the moving bus. There was much hollering and screaming from me, but mom made it to the back and saved me from my impending doom. All the passengers had a good laugh at my expense, and I never used a mobile bathroom again.
Runny out of gas (in the car ;)) on the night we got married.
whooz her: That happened to Ma & me on OUR wedding nite, too! Whatever can go wrong....
Welcome to the Zone! ;D
Well, you're not exactly thinking of filling the tank on your wedding night.........uh............
One year we went to Florida with my mom, our two kids and my niece and nephew - in a little six passenger station wagon. We had a mattress in the back because someone always had to ride in the back and a big cartop carrier on top. When we all piled out of the car, people counted us, we looked like a pack of clowns getting out of a car at the circus.
LOL, Anne!
My friend went on a 40 day trip cross country in an old VW bus with her mom and three boys, the oldest being about 15 at the time. The bus broke down in every state, including Tennessee for several days. In the meantime, her oldest started listening to country music, started speaking with a southern accent and started wearing a baseball cap. She thought she'd never get him out of the state.
The youngest kid actually fell out of one of the bus windows and broke his arm. The whole trip was pretty much a catastrophe, something my friend was known for.
We were somewhere in southeastern Tennessee, driving along a busy two lane highway with a roaring river on one side, and a solid wall of rock on the other. Suddenly the wife yells out, "Pull over, Mike's gonna puke!" :eek:
I yelled back, "I can't, there's no place to pullover!" And knowing that when Mike said he was gonna blow chunks, you damn well better believe him, and quickly react. Fortunately we were in a full size van, and we kept a small waste basket behind the driver's seat. I reached around and grabbed it, shoving it toward the wife and said "here, use this." She contered with something about ruining it, and I came back with use it anyway.
It was wicker with a plastic liner, so after Mike was done we pitched the liner, and saved the basket. I really didn't see a better option, use the basket or let him barf all over the inside of the van. A $2 basket or soil the inside of the van $$$$? By the time he was done, I had found a parking area and pulled off, and disposed of the liner.
ALl went back to normal afterwards, but for a moment I thought it was gonna be a long, smelly ride home.
If that had happened to me I would have just had to stop anyway 'cause I would have barfed too.
I am not kidding. I can just hear somebody barfing in the next room (I don't even have to see it or smell it) and I will heave cookies myself.
speaking of throwing up...
on a family trip to the beach one year, my little brother got sick, dad pulled over, but the child safety locks were engaged, so lil bro couldnt open the door. By the time stepmom got out to open it, it was too late...
Luckily, I was in my own car traveling behind them....because they still had six hours to spend in there.
Note to self - stop reading this thread
Okay, you GOT to check this out!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvKmKHTK51A)
I am afraid to click that Henry...someone else can be the brave one.
Quote from: Henry Hawk on May 13, 2009, 01:15:53 PM
Okay, you GOT to check this out!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvKmKHTK51A)
it's is funny....you GOT to see it!!
Quote from: Henry Hawk on May 13, 2009, 03:44:05 PM
it's is funny....you GOT to see it!!
LMAO!! ok, cartoon puke I can handle.
It was funny, stupid, but really funny. :)
My mom and dad took me, my sisters and our half brothers fishing. My mom was casting and threw the rod back to pitch the line into the lake, when all of a sudden, my one brother started screaming. Somehow, he'd reached up to grab the line and the large hook went all the way into and through his thumb and came out the other side. I think I mentally blacked out after that, because I can't remember if my parents got the hook out themselves or we took him to the doc.