What is the strangest place you have spent the night?

In a church sanctuary, and outside in summer, when I was locked out.

On the Champs de Mars, the grounds around the Eiffel Tower, in a sleeping bag. I was much, much younger.

I was gonna lie and say: On Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York around 1969 at a little festival you may have heard of called Woodstock! But I’m not that old and nothing that exotic.
More like in a sleeping bag inside a pup-tent outside of a CQ office in Ft. Stewart Ga.

June or July. 1977. On the sidewalk of the Charleston, WV Civic Center. My best friends’ mom begged me to stand in line to get Elvis Presley tickets. I eventually got the tickets, but he unfortunately died in August and there was no concert here.
My best friend still has those unused tickets.

Lapwai, Idaho jail. I was hitch-hiking through one night when I was 16. The town cop took me in and did a runaway check on me, then locked me in a cell for the night. I was let out the next morning to continue my trek.
The cop fed me peanut butter sandwiches and coffee.
In the cell, I had a chance to hang my clothes on the upper bunk because they were damp from a rain.
I never knew wool blankets could be so warm and comforting! I slept like a rock!

On a portaledge 2000 foot up a rock face.

I was on a student trip in Italy. We were the only group in this hotel which was odd in the middle of summer. There was a dining hall and they made supper for us. Very early in the morning we discovered the staff had gone home to sleep and locked us in. Our bus driver who slept elsewhere basically had to break us out. It was shady, and a serious fire hazard.

In a hotel next to an ancient stone circle somewhere in Southern England. It was haunted, and I got little sleep.

When we were kids our best friends’ family owned a cabin on the river. I spent my summers with them. There were bunk beds on the screened porch and my best friend and I always “called” the porch beds. It was scary because of the animal sounds but it was a special kind of wonderful too. I never enjoyed camping as much as this. Maybe not strange, but as a little kid it was adventurous.

Hmmm..probably passed out on the lakefront in a lounge chair, or sleeping one off in a car somewhere. Once I passed out at the fair from Jack Daniels.

I did sleep in my VW Bug at Woodstock, sitting in driver’s seat, with seat reclined. .

Spent the night at a college professors haunted house. We had class there one evening and some of us stayed the night to write about the bizarre happenings.
Pass it around!

Probably in my Jeep a block from my friend’s parents’ house because I got lost when I left. This predated cell phones and personal GPS, and it was a new and confusing development where they lived. I knew I had to go North to leave, but it was dark and overcast. In the morning, the sun came up in the East, so I could find my way out.

Celestial navigation at its most basic.

I spent the night at Moundsville State Prison on a ghost hunt. We were there from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Of course it was closed at the time. It’s said to be one of the bloodiest prisons in the US. It was spooky as heck.

In a parked car with three girlfriends outside the US/Mexico border near San Diego. It was a spring break trip gone bad.

In a sleeping bag on the orange-brown shag carpeted floor of an empty hotel with no furniture in Ranchester, WY. That time, population: 721.

It belonged to my ex-husband’s grandfather, who lived in one of the rooms, but being 89, had stopped trying to run the hotel for decades. We went to visit, and he said, “Pick a room.” Shudder. Considering where we were, other choices were slim.

My daughter was 4 and still remembers that trip vividly. It was her who reminded me the carpet was orange-brown shag.

Gosh I forgot about the night I spent in jail because I didn’t give up the name of a person I was with. She had kidnapped her own kid (complicated story) but the cops already knew who she was so why get me involved? So I was detained overnight, handcuffed and told I was under arrest. Never read my Miranda rights. Go figure.

Crashed on the couch of the head of port authority.

My sister threatened to kill me. (Long story.) The pilot of our flight overheard as he walked by. That got us kicked off the flight. Then my sister disappeared. Spent hours riding around with Port Authority looking for her. The head of Port Authority kindly offered their couch for me to crash on. Found my sister the next morning.

They were super sweet. And even emailed me years later to see how we were all doing.

Jail…..
Maybe it wasn’t SO strange. Given how it’s set up, and the circumstances that led to most inhabitants being there.

That’s a huge reason why I tried so hard not to arrest people, when I was a LEO.

I spent a few nights in a ICU room (I have spent MANY nights in ICUs, but this time was really bad ,) that was designed for comatose, or unconscious people. It was crazy. There were pipes, and electrical wiring less than a foot above my head, and no TV, or phone, or anything to distract me from all the IV catheters, and one IAC, in me. I had to lay on my back with my head upside down for three nights, so they could keep a couple catheters in my neck. I was soaked in blood, and bloody fluid, the whole time. I was capable of moving, but my 6’5 body was squeezed into the little area. I was later moved to an actual ICU bed, after I was declared, just critical… Then I spent a couple weeks there, going into kidney failure, on top of my liver failure. As my endocrine system began failing as well, things weren’t going so well. Because of the pandemic, I was not allowed any visitors. It was in those few weeks, I think I pretty much lost my sanity…
When I was essentially broken, I suddenly decided to make a conscious effort to get better. Modern medicine, was just slowing my death. I entered a deep state of meditation. Somewhere between being awake, or asleep. It took meticulous concentration. I combined lucid dreaming techniques, with meditation, and I can’t really explain my experience. But. My body began fighting back. I defeated staggering odds, and pulled out of it. (I still have an adrenal insufficiency, but it beats a life insufficiency.)And about 14 months later(, as some of you know, ) I spent another strange night, getting a dead man’s liver, switched in, for my old one. As of this post, I am still plaguing the Pond, and giving the Mansion some new stains, odors, and noise pollution ;)

^^ I hope the pond will keep me around long enough to contribute some of my own stains, lord knows I’ve made plenty of noise pollution already! lol! Hey @MrGrimm888 Have you ever stayed awake for 144 hours straight (6 days) because of pain, before?

^Not exactly. I feel it is pertinent to state that although most experiences with long stays in inpatient were certainly painful, the physical pain was greatly outweighed by the psychological effects… I’ll PM you. So as not to further disturb the thread…

In the back of a station wagon that was stuck in a muddy ditch somewhere out in southeast Iowa’s vast cornfields. In the morning my two college classmates and I hiked to the nearest farmhouse, and the farmer pulled us out.

I think that was the strangest, but maybe not. It was strange, anyway.

Hitchhiking on a southbound freeway, somewhere in Rhode Island.

Below the flight deck of DLG17, on the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and again on the Atlantic.

My dad took us on a road trip to N Thailand. When we got to Chiang Rai, the hotel was closed for the night. We had to spend the night in the local police chief’s home compound, sleeping in our car. At one point my dad said he saw a guy sitting on a bench watching over us. When he got out to go pee, the guy poofed away! My dad quickly drove us out of there shortly after that.