What was the best adventure you ever went on?

Two memorable adventures:

When I was 15, i went on a 185 mile two week backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. We were an independent patrol of a Boy Scout expedition, eight experienced backpackers in the “Elite Patrol”, able to roam and explore over a 500 square mile area and only having to check in after a week.

When I was 29, I went on a two week ski tour of the Rockies, skiing at a number of challenging mountains: Telluride, Taos, Vail, Aspen, Park City, and Snowbird. While in Aspen, I met a young woman at a party and came very close to telling my friends to go on home while I would stay.

When I travel, I prefer to not have too structured an itinerary, but just a start and end date and a general idea of what I want to see. I like the freedom of changing plans at the last minute.

Probably the summer I studied in London and hitchhiked with my friend to various parts of England on the weekends. After the course ended, we went to Paris, camped ot on the Champs de Mars below the Eiffel Tower, stayed in a cheap hotel and then hitchhiked to the Netherlands for 10 days there. Some crazy adventures and I met my future husband in Cornwall that summer.

A spontaneous 10,000 mile road trip with my daughter. Left New England bound for Denver, Aspen, Glenwood Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Antelope, Grand Canyon, Oak Creek, Sedona, Scottsdale, Albuquerque, Taos, Telluride.
Hiking, Jeeping, exploring, fishing, etc. Only 1 Hotel night.

After I got divorced. I lived east of Cleveland Ohio. My ex ended up in Napa California. I had custody through the school year, she had summers. She was supposed to pay for transportation for the children to and from. When my daughter was about 9 and my boys were 6 my ex said she wasn’t going to be able to afford to fly them out. The kids really wanted to go so I decided I could drive them out.

I laid out the plan of driving no more than about 10 hours any given day (about 500 miles) and I pulled out the road atlas (this is before Waze or Google Maps) and figured out about where I should go. I made reservations at Motel 6 in each town I planned to stop in. Except near Yellowstone Nat’l Park. We camped there.

It took us 4–5 days. We saw a lot of stuff along the way. We took the northern route and saw the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Mountain, Wall Drug, Yellowstone…it was a hoot. We stopped when we wanted to, we weren’t in any rush. We got interviewed by the local news at Wall Drug and they took a video of my boys getting a drink at THE fountain. We saw bison, moose and even a yearling grizzly bear in Yellowstone. Seeing Old Faithful was not done…the timing didn’t work. Had a small accident in Idaho but nothing to keep me from moving on. After I dropped them off I started back, taking the central route. I stopped in Reno NV because I needed to get out and walk around a bit. Decided I would visit a casino for the very first time in my life. I figured I had $40 I could stand to lose. I won over $1600 on a dollar slot. Got my free complimentary drink and took off, not daring to tempt fate. I stopped at a truck stop right before I left NV for a couple hours, took a nap in the car. When I woke, I filled up with gas and went inside to get some breakfast. There was a video poker game at all the tables. I played video poker while I ate and won another $50 (paid for gas and breakfast with a little left over). I stopped on the way back and visited the Corn Palace in Iowa.

All in all, it was a great trip.

Definately caving in Mexico. The primitive site meant help would not be readily available plus it was in a jungle with lots of panthers. I loved it!!

Earlier this year I went to Antarctica.

@Caravanfan How’d you like it? My old navy roommate got sent there for a 6 month stint. He was glad he did it but is also unlikely to ever go back. I got a phone call from him from there. It was the weirdest phone call ever. When he said something it took a full 7 seconds for the sound to get to me. I then responded and it took another 7 seconds for it to get back to him. So there was about a 14 second wait time to hear a response.

I have all sorts of mini adventures that come to mind. Local tourist things in each place I have lived.

As far as bigger adventures, probably my Alaskan cruise is way at the top. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I loved my time on the ship and the excursions we picked. We went horseback riding, whale watching, and took a train ride through the mountains.

I remember as a teenage going to Cancun with my dad and I absolutely loved that vacation at the time. I felt free and happy. Now, the same vacation would be fun, but not seem so amazing probably, since I now live where there are palm trees.

Another adventure was with my dad, we had no idea what would happen or where we would go, my dad and I drove down to Dover Airforce Base to see what flight we could catch. When we got there they were taking names to go to Germany. My family was still in the mode of boycotting Germany, a remnant from WWII. I really wanted to go to Spain, and most connections in Europe went through Germany, so we took the flight. The flight was actually full of retirees who had been waiting a week to get any flight out to Europe, so our timing was amazing, but a little unnerving to decide so quickly what to do.

There isn’t good insulation for the noise on the Airforce aircraft, so everyone has to wear earplugs. We missed the Spanish flight by 10 minutes, and my dad only had a week’s vacation, so he decided we would stay in Germany. We walked right out onto base and then into Germany. No customs, no immigration. We were advised to hide our military ID’s, so we tucked them away in our clothing in our luggage.

My dad decided we should go to Bavaria, so we hopped on a train. I remember lying in bed that first night thinking that 45 years ago the Nazis would have shot me dead or put me on a train. It was weird.

Bavaria was absolutely beautiful! We stayed in military accommodations in Garmisch. I actually won a jackpot on the nickel slot machine. LOL. My parents aren’t gamblers, but I told my dad I wanted to play a few times and I won! I think it was like $20. Bunches and bunches of nickels started coming out of the machine. I don’t remember exactly. how many. I wanted to go out dancing for some really good EuroBeat club music, and the night I went out to a club, the place was having American Night and it was almost all hip hop! That was very disappointing, but funny and ironic too.

We went to a small Oktoberfest and a German man standing near me asked me if I was Jewish. He told me I looked by Barbra Streisand. Can you believe it?! He told me to “be careful.” I don’t know if he was Jewish too?

We took a ski lift up a mountain, and my dad decided to walk down, but it started getting very dark. There were goats or cows on the mountain as we followed the road down. I think it was cows. A guy was driving down in a pick-up truck and my dad waved at him and asked if he could drive us down the mountain. He let us climb in back and took us to the bottom. I don’t know if he went out of his way, but thank goodness he took us, because it probably would have been pitch black. He probably was thinking idiot Americans.

As I think back on the trip, if my mom had been with us, she probably would have been angry at my dad a lot.

There are more stories from that trip, but I told you most of them.

Well, you see, there was this girl…

In 1984, I took a 16 day trip through China. It was incredible.

China may be my best adventure also. In 2016 I flew to Chongqing and sailed down the Yangtze River with the woman who later became my wife.

@seawulf575 I didn’t work there for 7 months like your friend. That’s hard core. I just went on a G Adventures trip on a small expedition ship for 10 days.

@Caravanfan Some of his stories were pretty wild. One time a storm was coming in and they pulled everyone from the outbuildings where they stayed/worked to gather in the main building. When the storm passed, they dug themselves out and he put on snow shoes and went out to see how his building fared. At first he couldn’t find it until he realized it was under his feet, buried in snow. I grew up in the snow belt of NE Ohio, but NEVER saw that kind of snow.

@seawulf575 He saw the “real” Antarctica. I just saw ice sheets, icebergs, penguins and other birds, and marine mammals. It was very cool, but every night I went back into the ship, had a gourmet meal and some drinks and went to bed. Not quite the same experience. :-)

I do recommend G Adventures, though.

@Caravanfan Good to know. I’m looking at doing some things now that I’m retired and seeing Antarctica would be cool. I’ll check them out to see what other interesting destinations they hit.

@seawulf575 Lots of places.
https://www.gadventures.com/