Craziest thing you ever did?

[Guaranteed]

A couple years ago I drove 2,100 miles in 31.5 hours.

My girlfriend, who I'm living with now in Bloomington, Illinois (I'm from California), needed a new car because hers broke down. We'd been expecting that, though, with the plan being that when it had to be junked we were gonna buy this little '91 Nissan Sentra two-door with 22,000 miles on it that my grandfather had gotten ahold of from a little old lady that literally only drove it to church on Sundays.

So, living in Stockton, CA, I got the call from her, and the next day, Thursday, left work during lunch and went and picked up the car from my grandfather. I had gotten the directions on Mapquest- it was basically I-80 the entire way. I gassed up, bought a cooler full of junkfood and left Stockton about 12:30 in the afternoon, Pacific Time.

I basically tried to keep that little car floored as much as I could. I was going to be flying back to California on Sunday, and I wanted to have as much time with my honey as possible.

I passed over the Sierras, through Reno, and through the SHITTIEST goddamned land you'll ever see in central and eastern Nevada. NEVER GO OUT THERE. :)

By about 10PM that night, I was in Salt Lake City. I'd downed about 3 Red Bulls and a couple liters of Coke, though, and eaten lots of salty snacks, so I was still going strong (Edit: I got lost in SLC, too, getting gas- I thought the freeway signs were playing tricks on me, but it could have just been my mind). I made it all the way to the middle of Wyoming, about 80-100 miles short of Cheyenne, before crashing for a couple hour nap around 3AM. I tried to find a motel or hotel for quite awhile, but they were all booked up. Luckily, though, there was a turnoff right off the highway where all kinds of travelers were napping. Apparently, they were having the same problem I was.

So I woke up about 5AM freezing. It was damned cold. But I'd had a serious power-nap. You know those naps where you sleep so deep and dream so hard that it feels like you got a full night's rest when you wake up. The sun wasn't quite coming up- it was about a half-hour before the sky would start even lightening up. But I felt great. So I got back on the road.

NOBODY on the road out there in Wyoming, clear into Cheyenne. It was absolutely beautiful, looking out to the east, over the land as dawn came. I had found the local NPR station, and was really enjoying myself. So quiet, so nice, so little traffic. And I had it cranked up past 90MPH. Easy. Damned near ran out of gas, though, before making it to the capital around 6:30AM. I must have been running on fumes at that point. I thought I was a dead man.

From there it was on to Nebraska. That is the longest damned state you'll ever drive through. Going 90, it took me about seven hours to get through it and into Iowa. Nice folks there in Nebraska, and lotsa corn. Lots and lots of corn. Getting out of Omaha was hellish, though. Their freeways are messed up. A lot more people than you would think live in that city, too. I managed to hit it during the pre-rush hour traffic.

After finally getting out of the traffic jam, I floored it through most of Iowa, even though they have all kinds of speed traps and markings on their freeways to help the cops out. That place made me paranoid.

Then into Illinois, as the sun was going down, finally in the home stretch. It was raining by then, pretty hard. More Red Bulls. More Coke. More Slim Jims.

I made it to Bloomington about 10PM, Central Time. My girlfriend was pretty damned surprised to see me. I was braindead at that point. I figured I'd filled up the tank 11 or 12 times and drank about 10 Red Bulls and a full gallon of soda. I crashed hard.

2100 miles in 31.5 hours. Craziest thing I've ever done.

How about you guys?

On edit: I think part of what led to my brain-deadness at the end of the trip was that I was calculating mileage and the percentage of the trip I'd made the whole way. All that caffeine forced my brain to do math.

[demnan]

1. Craziest thing I ever did

Drank grain alcohol punch at a college party while a freshman. I really don't know how I ended up back in my room.

[Mutley]

2. wow..

you drank Red Bull... that IS crazy!

j/k... anyway... that's FANTASTIC time!

[sinkingfeeling]

3. OK. Done alot of driving straight through stuff, but the craziest or

dumbest thing I've ever done, was to mix bleach and toilet bowl cleaner together in a toilet. I had added the bleach to soak for awhile and forgot it was there when I went back to clean it. The mixture, even in water, created chlorine gas. I started to cough and choke and opened the windows and started up fans. About a half an hour later, I was still coughing so much that tears were running down my cheeks. I went outside in the severe cold for an hour and was still hacking. I called poison control and they said to go to an ER. They had me breathe in some stuff and it finally stopped the coughing and choking! Then they x-rayed my lungs to see if I had done permanent damage!!

[DelawareValleyDem]

5. You're not alone

My sister did something similar. Hey, at least it's not as bad as voting Republican :D

[Mrs_Beastman]

22. I did the same thing this weekend

I read about making a paste out of bleach and baking soda to whiten bathroom tiles....I had the fan on and started to rub on the paste...got a nice big whiff and felt my lungs burn...I felt so stupid. I am ready to receive my Darwin award!

[mark414]

4. driving through nebraska SUCKS

i've done it 4 times on 2 trips to colorado...ugh

as far as driving goes, i drove from boulder to milwaukee with no rests and only stopping for gas...15 hours, not that bad

as for anything else?

don't want to get the thread locked...:evilgrin:

[Guaranteed]

7. Totally.

The roads themselves weren't too bad, and neither was the scenery (although repetitive and boring).

But, man, you start thinking that state is NEVER going to end.

[mark414]

15. there's some really weird stops off that highway too

on the way out there i was driving with a friend of mine (who stayed in colorado) and we stopped for gas at this combination gas station/craft store/dairy queen, at 6 am. there were a bunch of guys sitting around shootin the shit and eating blizzards. weirdest thing i'd ever seen.

and who can forget the football inn, right off exit 420 outside of lincoln? (and the porn shop across the street!)

[NoSheep]

8. I'd lock it too if I told the whole truth and nothing but! Oh well.

[NoSheep]

6. Paint my fingernails while I was sitting on the toilet. Yep.

That's really the stupidest thing I ever did. Craziest thing was get engaged to my former fiance. I must have been out of my mind.

:eyes:

[Guaranteed]

9. LOL

Sounds like you were short on time, too. :)

[LostInAnomie]

10. When I was in High School a group of friends and I stole a D9 bulldozer...

... and got it hung up trying to knock over a tree.

Lets just say in the end we had to pay a big fine.

[mark414]

11. haha i did something like that once

only it was an old warehouse...and a forklift...7th grade

it was a seldom used recycling plant, HUGE pallets of old computer monitors, glass bottles...

we would pick up a pallet, race down a corridor and slam on the brakes, sending everything flying

we also had problems with big fines. and uniformed men coming to my house.

not good.

[Redstone]

12. Used my last (really last) $600.00 to fly a woman I barely knew

from California to come live with me in Connecticut.

That was 15 years ago, and that woman is now Mrs R.

Sometimes, you just gotta put it all on one roll of the dice.

Redstone

[Guaranteed]

Nice.

;)

[xchrom]

13. i don't know how i did it

but i parked my car on top of a boulder.
a big boulder.

to this day...

[Abelman]

14. I did a tuck and roll out of my friends car last winter

Luckily he was only going about ten.

A friend and I took our cars on the High School running track one time before band practice to park them out there.

I once stole a bunch of newspapers. A friend stole a milk crate. We were stopped by a cop whose main concern was the milk crate, we managed to hide the newspapers. I feel bad about it now.

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with this girl who said she'd be "right back." She took off to a friends apartment and was gone for three hours, and she ran back in not saying a word to me. I left without telling her and drove two hours home still a bit drunk. I was pretty mad. It was certainly the dumbest thing I've ever done.

[skygazer]

16. So many crazy things, so little time

I suppose one of the craziest was in the summer of '98 when I decided I really needed to get away. Only problem, I was broke (out of work at the time) and had no car. So I stuck out my thumb and spent the next three weeks hitchhiking, by myself across the country. I started in Vermont, got to Toronto, hitched across Canada and into Michigan, across the Dakotas and Montana and Idaho, into Washington and came out on the Pacific at Seaside.

Then I travelled down Route 1 along the coast (talk about cold, it was fucking freezing at night), through San Francisco and eventually wound up sitting on a beach in Santa Cruz watching the remnants of the Jefferson Starship playing while the roller coaster and other rides were running on the Boardwalk behind me.

I was 37 years old, had enough money to pick up something to snack on now and then, slept outside by the side of the road with my trench coat over me and my head on my backpack and had a GREAT time. Met all kinds of nice people (many of whose addresses I still have), saw some beautiful places and some neat things and came home refreshed.

A year later, I ended up moving to California - I live about 20 minutes from Santa Cruz.

[Guaranteed]

17. Holy crap.

That's amazing. :)

[skygazer]

18. Actually, I'd done the same thing 20 years earlier

I realized it on the later trip so it ended up being kind of an anniversary celebration as well.

I'm a bit... impulsive.

[graywarrior]

19. Married a musician while shit-faced

Don't remember doing it. I was on a week long bender. We stayed married four years.

[Floogeldy]

20. When I was a kid, I made a HUGE firecracker.

I split open a couple 'o hundred Black Cats and put the gunpowder on some newspaper. I tied some fuses together, wrapped the paper up real tight and finished it off with scotch tape.

It was so loud my ears rang for a day. Also, flaming pieces of scotch tape falling from the sky tend to set your hair on fire, in case you didn't know. :o

B-)

[Guaranteed]

21. HAHAHAHA!!

The running around with the hair on fire thing...always good for a laugh.

:P