Where's the Worst Place You've Ever Spent the Night?

[ProudLib72]

Mine: In a covered picnic shelter at a rest stop outside of Moorcroft, WY on a road trip up to Devil's Tower. Rain was pouring down, an utter deluge. The picnic shelter had a low wall around it to keep out the wind. It also served to keep the water contained within the shelter. By morning, my sleeping bag was soaked, and I was soaked inside it.

Runner up: In a youth hostel in old city Jerusalem. The place was swarming with bed bugs, and my someone riffled through my backpack.

What's yours?

[unblock]

1. port authority bus terminal, manhattan.

missed the last bus of the night and had to wait for the first bus of the morning.

did.not.sleep.a.wink.

did get someone arrested for, um, being a bit too vigorous at the urinal....

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. I remember at Scout Camp once I slept on a tarp under a stack of branches.

Not even a sleeping bag or a sleeping pad.

A tarp.

It was for a Wilderness Survival badge.

My "tent" mate talked all night which kept me up, but I doubt I would have gotten much sleep anyways.

Freshman year of college I took a Greyhound bus which spanned all night. Don't think I got very much sleep if any and had to change buses at 4 am in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[petronius]

123. Funny, I was thinking about my own wilderness survival 'shelter' a few days ago - if it hadn't

been a summer night in CA, I would have been a dead popsicle 30 years ago...

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. In front of my TV, election night, November 8, 2016

Top that.

[dewsgirl]

6. You were not alone.

[LAS14]

12. You're right. We all share THE WORST NIGHT EVER!!!!

[ProudLib72]

13. And every night thereafter

[Freedomofspeech]

38. Yep...

Worst nightmare of my life.

[badhair77]

65. That was a horrible night. I tried to sleep but then I'd get up

and check the tv and computer again and again, thinking it had to be a huge mistake.

A friend and I were texting, just trying to console each other. It took weeks till I was no longer in the fetal position.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

98. Not me - when they suddenly had trouble calling Pennsylvania, I flashed right back to

2006 and thought - no way Im going to put myself through this. So I turned off Tv, radio, everything, and just went to bed. I just wanted one more night of not knowing and in the morning I just lay there for a long time enjoying my cat and the sun coming in through the window.... and then I finally got up my courage to turn on the radio and everything went downhill after that.

I feel for ya though.... cos my next night was certainly just like yall describe.

[AllaN01Bear]

136. election nite ,2000 and the nite of the supreme ct ruling against gore .

also , 2016 election nite as 3d runner up.

[Codifer]

139. This

"Always remember

The eighth of November

The GoP Treason and Plot"


Seems familiar somehow.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. four way tie!

First - in a tent in Kejimkujic park in Nova Scotia in a tent during the night a remnant of a hurricane came through - water was coming up, it sounded like the forest was about to fall on us. awful. my wife and I were dating at the time....

Second - also on a date - we rented a cabin in NH near a mountain in winter cross country skied in, no wood was cut, deep snow, nearly zero - everything we brought froze and the undersized stove never did work.

Third - showing our daughter colleges in New England we were driving NH to Cape Cod - long day, long drive, all motels were full - we finally found a no tell motel just on the Cape, worst room we ever stayed in - horrifying...until

fourth - Mayflower Motor Inn off 95 in CT, another long drive, with our dogs - even more no tell motel, horrendous (but free explicit porn!) - truck stop motel and place for the down and out to stay, drugs, noise, dirty room....only a few years ago, my wife's sister passed away and we were driving NC to the cape for the service

[RKP5637]

5. In a blizzard in CO stranded at a tiny gas station / convenience store. The interstate was closed and

as many as possible piled into this station. I was coming down with the flu, had horrible runs and had to go into the tiny bathroom in the gas station about every 15 minutes. Damn, it was cold, snow and ice all over the place and could hardly see where I was walking. Fortunately there was no throwing up needed, just horrible runs. The guys on duty were very understanding and said not to worry about it. I looked like some kind of perv going into the bathroom about every 15 minutes. Two others were with me in the car, fortunately not sick. Finally at daylight the runs let up some. Damn it was horrible. We were so lucky to be at this gas station and that they stayed open.

[Liberty Belle]

84. I'd forotten about being stranded in a blizzard, but that happened to me, too.

We were in the mountains of Idaho, moving there from California with all our belongings in two cars. There was a solid foot of ice on the road and it was 10 below zero.

Then the battery went dead in my car, and the other vehicle didn't have enough power left to jump start it. I thought we'd freeze to death, and my cat was with me hanging onto my neck and digging in her claws, yowling.

A trucker finally stopped to help us and got us moving again. It was scary as hell - a thousand foot drop off on icy roads with no guardrails -- and we were two Southern Californians who'd never driven with chains on tires until that night. It's a miracle we made it through alive.

[RKP5637]

89. Those storms are scary, and sometimes they become way more dangerous than predicted. Glad you

made it OK.

[ZZenith]

7. Denver county jail.

Don’t ask.

[ProudLib72]

14. Did you get a carton of milk and some bologna sandwiches at least?

[ZZenith]

32. Far and away the highlight.

[ProudLib72]

40. I had to bail out a friend of mine

He said one of the officers kept trying to feed him cake. Someone had a birthday that day.

That was in Boulder. You should definitely try the Boulder county jail sometime! (Actually, don't. It's not that pleasant.)

[ZZenith]

54. Boulder?!!! Ha!

Luxury!

[ProudLib72]

58. Ok, it is luxury. I admit it

But, but, but, they take your shoes! You enter wearing Gucci loafers and leave wearing Target flip flops.

[ZZenith]

60. But you've gotten a massage and a guided meditation

and all the cake you can eat.

[ProudLib72]

62. LOL!

It's so funny because it's true!

[ZZenith]

63. I know Boulder!

Denver is a little less concerned with your speedy rehabilitation.

[brokephibroke]

117. United 747 flight to Hong Kong.

Pure misery.

[dlk]

8. A Trump Property

[HopeAgain]

9. Place called Club House Beach

In Everglades National Park. Only accessible by boat (canoe for us) or hiking trail. Seemed perfect... right on Florida Bay, breeze off the water. Set up camp started cooking dinner at dusk. Suddenly a black cloud appeared to the Northeast, moving really fast.

Wait! That's not a cloud...well it was, a cloud of mosquitos. Literally so many the buzzing sounded like an engine. No dinner, spent the evening killing the ones that got in before we could zip up. Blood spots all over tent wall. Nothing to eat, dinner half cooked outside...

[lunasun]

47. I loved the Everglades but the person I went with freaked out at all the mosquitos . I mean freaked!

Last edited Fri Feb 22, 2019, 10:50 PM - Edit history (2)

Flamingo FL all the way at the end near the tip

When I left the area it looked like had murdered someone in the car my windows were full of blood splats but I could not regret my time there and all the beauty I experienced and the 15 ft or so alligator that rolled over that I didn’t know was there until it did 😳.
I just wrapped everything up and had slots for eyes and then sprayed myself up and down
My buddy rarely went out until the last day
I do not even know if the campgrounds are still down there
I’ve read the Everglades are changing -erosion , flooding etc

Someone there told me a story about explorers would go out on high water in small row boats and then would get caught in the high mangroves roots when it got low stuck in the swamps overnight and natives claimed they would come out mad (as in insane ) << edit to add clarity >insane from being bitten all night
Sadly not even in my top 10 worst

[ProudLib72]

15. Yours just might be the winner

Any single one of those things would have been enough, but all three?!?!?!

[red dog 1]

23. Hilarious!

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

99. Well yknow.... it does make a great story LOL

[LAS14]

11. There are two that are tied.

1 - When I was a teenager I was a Counselor In Training at a summer camp. A group went on a canoe overnight. There was one male counselor with a female counselor, me and a bunch of girls. The male counselor was supposed to sleep under a canoe and we had to big tents for the rest of us. It started to rain hard and he insisted on being let into a tent. So the female counselor put all of the older girls and me and her in one tent and a few of the younger girls and him in the other tent. I got the spot at the place where the tent wall slanted to the ground. Of course, touching me, it leaked big time. As the girl next to me complained, "you feel like the inside of a canteloupe!"

2 - Hubby was invited to be the resident "teacher" on a floating retreat for Lutheran ministers. We were to traverse the inland waterway in Alaska. Great, we thought. It's our <don't remember> anniversary. What's better than a cruise? Turns out the boat was a converted fishing boat and we slept with ten other people in the bow. My head was in a narrow space at the point of the ship. One of our companions was the loudest snorer I've ever heard.

[ProudLib72]

19. Oh, I hate snoring! Cannot abide it!

One time I was in a youth hostel in County Down, Ireland. Nice place, rather upscale for a youth hostel. The first night was wonderful. The second night, some new people came in. One of them warned me that this guy in their group was a massive snorer. I have never heard anyone that loud! I ended up trying to sleep on the couch in the lobby.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. Between the rail cars, on the floor, in front of the men's toilet on a Eurrail train

in the middle of a hot August, going from Bari Palese to Venice. And yes, the waft of urine and excrement every time someone stepped over me and opened the door was unbearable. But there was literally no other place for me on that train.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Winter camping. It's horrible.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

18. Well, mine isn't as bad as ANY of these so far, but it was bad enough...

My husband and I were in Madras, Oregon to see the total solar eclipse in 2017.

We had rented a car and I'd gotten a reservation at a local place that had a huge field for people to park in.

There were porta-potties some distance away. The field was dusty and full of rocks and dead weeds. No lights.

First I had a lot of trouble getting comfortable in the car. I'd thought I could stretch out in the back seat. Nope.

I finally ended up dozing reclined in the back seat. At 3 a.m. I had to use the bathroom. So I got up and my husband insisted on walking with me. He was afraid I would fall.

And I did, after catching my foot in a clump of dead weeds. I pulled him over with me and we both landed in the dust. He lost a lens out of his glasses which we didn't discover till much later.

The rest of the night wasn't too awful. We were covered in dust and must have looked like aliens.

The eclipse was more than worth it, though. But never again will I do a night like that.

[hlthe2b]

20. I too have had some youth hostel tales, but likewise more than one day in car on closed highway

I used to grab every chance I got to go skiing--even for a half day and more than once I ended up on the side of I-25 (usually--sometimes I-70) stuck for a day or more in heavy snow. I was always prepared with "survival gear", but it was pretty miserable nonetheless.

Oh, and then there was the big Halloween Blizzard of 1997 that I spent with many others stranded at DIA, Denver's then-new airport (I'd planned to go to New Orleans for Halloween). We were stuck there and not allowed to leave when at least 120 cars were abandoned along Peña Blvd. as high wind created white-out conditions and large drifts of snow.

I was incredibly pissed as I had snowshoes, a minus 20-degree sleeping bag and an emergency pack/shovel in the car and could at least have hiked out and made it to one of the hotels along the way. But, like everyone else, I got to stay and see the very unhappy babies crying for diaper changes that were never going to happen when all supplies (including food in the food courts) had been exhausted. I was mighty happy to see the Red Cross finally come in and try to bring some supplies.

Oh, well... that's Colorado and if you don't like the weather, wait a minute or two they say.

[ProudLib72]

42. I know plenty of nice spots alongside the highways in our state

but for the life of me, I can't think of a single one along I-70 until you get to GJ.

If you ever get out to Salida, there is an awesome place to camp along the CO Trail below Mt Shavano. That was perhaps my favorite place of all.

[easttexaslefty]

21. In the holding room of a mental health facility

28 hours in a coed room with 50 or so suicidal depressed or schizophrenic roommates all seated in recliners. I think I saw someone die that night.

[JuJuYoshida]

22. Bathtub in a hotel

my friends got the room with double beds and 2 were in each. I had to ask the front desk for as may pillows as they could give me and it was REALLY uncomfortable!

[red dog 1]

24. I have three "Worst Places"

1) I was with a cheapskate stewardess I knew who had me fly up to Seattle from San Francisco to meet her and spend the night on Vashon Island with some people she knew.
We all stayed up pretty late, but she woke me up around 5 AM and told me we had to get the first ferry to Seattle so she could make her 7:30 appointment with a chiropractor there.
I probably got only 3 hours of sleep that night.

2) About 10 hours later, as we drove down from Seattle to the Bay Area, she stopped at a rest stop in southern Oregon so we could get some rest.
I probably got only about 2 hours of sleep there.

3) The crappiest motel I ever stayed at was in Willits, CA.
I forget the name of the dump, but it had a "western theme"
It had an American Automobile Association (AAA) recommendation.

[louis-t]

25. In a cheap hotel in Mitchell's Bay Ontario, Canada.

1977, I was in a band playing in a Paincourt pub, they had rooms for us in Mitchell's Bay. It was about 10 below, the heat barely worked, and the windows were so drafty there was snow piling up on the window ledge and floor. I put on every piece of clothing I had with me and my arctic parka plus a single burner stove I had with me cranked on high and still barely slept. The next night we rented a room at a motel and when we woke up, 3 feet of snow had fallen. Roads were all closed and we were stuck there for 2 days with no food.

Runner up: 1974, just outside Ludington, MI in a campground. We dragged the tent down a sand cliff to the beach. 6 am, the tide came in with a vengeance accompanied by severe winds. I awoke and pulled my foot back inside the tent. It was swollen the size of a football from bug bites. We packed the tent and soon found how hard it is to climb a 30 ft. sand cliff dragging a 80 lb. tent. By the time we made it to the top, the whole area where we had been was underwater.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. Wow, you just brought back a memory, same thing, northwest WA state.

And I have never been to DT and want to go.

[ProudLib72]

43. I have another story about a night spent at DT

I was 17 at the time, and all I did was rock climb. That was my life. Anyway, I had met some German climbers who said they were going up to DT the next week. We didn't make any firm plans on when and where to meet. I just jumped in the car and started up (from Denver). I got to the camp ground, didn't want to pay and didn't want to miss the Germans when they came in, so I stayed in my car. A ranger came along and told me to move. It was about 11pm at this point, and I had no idea where to go, so I drove down a random dirt road a few miles until I spotted a nice, big boulder with a perfectly flat top. I got my sleeping bag out, threw it up on the boulder, and got settled in. Then I noticed there were eyes watching me. At least a hundred eyes, glowing in the dark. Scared the crap out of me until the next morning when I looked out and saw a field full of cattle.

[doc03]

27. Army reception center Frankfurt Germany. Arrived

there like 7am after 8 hour or so flight. They called us out in formation every 2 hours to give asignments. That night had night duty slicing a truck load of potatoes. Next day same thing finally got orders that evening. Got on a train and headed to Amberg by train. Arrived in Amberg nobody was there had to catch a 2 1/2 truck to border camp I don't think I slept for like 3 days.

[Turbineguy]

28. My Wife likes to remind me....

A small motel near Portland OR. Their motto: "Luxury for Less".

I've actually spent the night in worse places, I'm sure. But that one is of legend.

OK. At a hotel at the end of the runway at Newark Airport. I fell asleep at 7 am and got up 15 minutes later.

[dameatball]

29. All I can say is I was in college, she insisted on driving and I should have known better.

In fact, ISHKB should be a common acronym on this website.

[fierywoman]

30. In the aisle of a German sleeper train. I had bought a ticket for a berth but

the German train system didn't realize that it did not exist on the train I was on ... in order to get a refund I would have had to return to the city of origin (... yeah, right ...)

[underpants]

31. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle Grafenwohr Germany. 1 degree. 10 nights

Really I'm just marking this thread so I can read it fully.

Our heater burned out right after we got the BFV off th train. We did have an NBC system with a heating element. The driver took the panel off the Cummins Diesel engine right bedside where he's compartment was. It go so cold one night we dropped the ramp and had a M1 tank back up and blow its exhaust into the vehicle. We shut it up, everything was hot to the touch, it lasted about an hour.

[doc03]

35. I spent a week or two there in a tent with no

heat. It was cold like that we had to zip our mummy bag over our head to keep from getting frost bite.

[underpants]

48. I still get symptoms of frost bite

I'm big on gloves now. When my fingers go white I know it's time to go inside.

[GP6971]

55. 3 winters in Korea

for exercises living in tents. Froze my ass off after 10:00 PM when the pot bellied stoves had to go off.

A couple of years ago I went out an bought heated gloves...pricey and bulky, but well worth it. And I always have at least 2 boxes of hand warmers on hand.

[doc03]

70. Korean war veterans always talk about how cold it was there. I spent two winters in Germany

1968-69 was mild I don't think we had snow. In 1969-70 it was cold and snow on the ground for months.

[PupCamo]

74. a friend of mine had to go to Korea

he was in the Navy but he had to go to Korea for some exercise with the Army, maybe Marines

he said that he froze his ass off-sleeping out in a tent

worse thing he ever experienced

[GP6971]

76. Winters in Korea

can do it do you. On my 2nd deployment we had it down pat...we bought a kerosene heater. Fire it up for instant heat while the pot bellied stove got cherry red. Then everything went off at 10:00 PM. The 2nd deployment we finally had electricity to tents. I had a small 1,000 watt electric heater that I put under my cot. Still froze my ass off though.

[applegrove]

33. I was house sitting once. I had a dog and cat and a house to look after. I went out the side door

for a smoke. Dog was with me. The door locked behind me. I decided I'd wait until morning to get some help. There was a shed at the back. I tried to sleep in it on the wood floor. The dog thought it was all brilliant fun. I was so uncomfortable. I could not sleep. I thought of the garage. My grandmother had a old time detached garage. She kept a key to her house about 5 feet in her garage on the left hand side as you walk in on a nail. I went to the detached garage of the house I was housesitting and felt along the wall on the left side. At 5 feet there was a key on a nail. It opened the side door to the house. Crisis averted. I told the homeowner when she got back of my adventure. She had no idea there was a key in her garage. Thank God I didn't have to sleep in the shed.

[gopiscrap]

34. a "hotel"

in the outskirts of Mumbai: no windows, no sheets, no shower, and a hotel down the hall for a toilet, plus no electricity from 6pm to 7am .... but it was only 3 dollars a night

[redstateblues]

36. Bates Motel

[Delmette2.0]

37. Round trip train rides through North Dakota, not Amtracks fault.

My sons and I were on our way to Minneapolis, our first trip on a train because one son was really afraid of flying. Our trip was almost cancelled because of flooding across all of N.D. all night I could feel every time the train leaned just a little. I thought the tracks were giving way into the mud.

On the way back home, again at night, the train whistle had to be sounded at EVERY road it crossed. I don't remember that many whistle crossings on the way over but fear of derailment probably blotted that out.

[underpants]

49. Took a midnight train to Georgia last Thanksgiving

Brutal. Fully packed. We were in the first car. Trains cross a LOT of roads. I had no idea how frequently.

[Delmette2.0]

56. It seems like as soon as you almost fall asleep the whistle goes off.

[jpak]

39. On the concrete stairway to an underground bathroom in Quebec City during Winter Carnival

Last edited Sat Feb 23, 2019, 12:13 PM - Edit history (1)

A bunch of us from our dorm at U Maine drove up to Quebec for their (Mardi Gras) Winter carnival.

We all had sleeping bags and pads and were prepared to spend the night in the car if we had to (everything is booked up months in advance there).

After a long night of partying, we discovered the driver of the car had taken off with another friend of ours to spend a romantic evening at the very swank Le Château Frontenac.

She locked us out of the car where our sleeping gear was.

It was -20o F and windy.

We had nowhere to go.

We eventually found an underground parking garage that had a bathroom - but there had to be 50 people sleeping on the floor there - including several people that were wrapped around the back of the toilets - that were still "in use".

The only place we could lay down was on the wet stairs leading down to the bathroom - which had a "toaster oven" type heating element above it.

It was OK until some drunk opened the outside door and would not shut it even after several passionate renditions of "Ferme la Porte Goddammit!!!!!!111" were hurled at him.

We survived and spent the next night at the home of the "only woman judge in Canada".

A Tale that was even more memorable - lol

[grumpyduck]

41. I can't touch any of those, but

years go we were on Hwy 80 westbound in Nevada, in a truck towing a trailer with an SUV, and hit this unbelievable headwind as we were going up a hill. The truck would barely go, and I was really afraid it was the transmission. So we took the car off to lighten the load and made it to a TA truck stop.

It was late afternoon, so we figured we'd spend the night locally and wait for the wind to die down. The guy at the stop suggested a motel a few miles away, but we took one glance at it and got outta there. So we had dinner at the truck stop and spent the night in the SUV, in the front seat, sitting up because there was no room to recline the seats. On top of which the only cover we were able to find without unpacking everything was a fitted sheet and we spent the night pulling it back and forth. And it was cold and the wind was shaking the car.

But somehow we managed to get some sleep and felt fine the next morning.

[crazycatlady]

44. My ex's place

He had two young kids at the time (oldest was 3.5) and a 2 BR house. For some reason, he slept in the same room as the kids (no roommate or anything occupying the other bedroom). His bed was a bunkbed that was a twin on top and full on the bottom.

He expected sex when the kids were on the top twin bunk.

ETA he shared custody of the kids with his ex.

[captain queeg]

45. Not counting jail...

Which I would assume sucks everywhere;

A campground near a lake in Minnesota in the summer. Hot and humid but the worst part was hordes of ravenous mosquitos. The worst mosquitos I’ve ever experienced in my life. And I must have made the mistake of drinking liquids late into the evening. I had to leave the tent multiple times to piss. Even zipping the tent shut behind me immediately there were a dozen new bugs inside every time I got back in after being instantly mauled when I got out. I don’t know what kind of mosquitos live in the “land of 10,000 lakes” but they are far and away worse than any I’d ever run into.

[lunasun]

52. What?? You missed the black fly season in MN ? You should have gone back for that experience !

They bite bad and you look like the walking dead from crusty blood bites . Again as I mentioned about Everglades upthread in this post, I tried to cover everything except slits for eyes and soak in bug spray but guess what? The flies don’t care about bug spray not like mosquitos oh no
Again, sadly not even top 10 of my worst

[jrandom421]

46. In a tent in the Sinai Desert over Christmas

Last edited Fri Mar 1, 2019, 07:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Was part of a military exercise called Bright Star. We were a support unit, plunked down between an Israeli armored brigade and an Egyptian mechanized infantry division. We were there to provide electronic support for both sides. Such a situation would have been pretty intense, but this was just 6 years after the Yom Kippur war, where these two units faced off against each other in what was called the Battle of the Chinese Farm (actually a Japanese Agricultural station). Both sides conducted live-fire exercises at night, and during the day, would take turns turning in and picking up their equipment. We were told later that the only reason we were untouched (aside from being American) was the fact that we provided hot food and coffee to all those who stopped by to turn in and pick up their equipment. Still, it was nerve-wracking enough to keep most of us awake at night for the 3 months we were there.

[Freedomofspeech]

50. Most nights with the ex husband.

[Grasswire2]

57. oy.

Can relate to that.

[Freedomofspeech]

61. My two favorite letters...

e and x.

[bitterross]

51. My family home

While my mother begged my father to let her leave or commit suicide between all the shouting.

I was in jr high.

[Rebl2]

69. So sorry

[qazplm135]

53. several options enlisted in the Army

usually involving bugs of some sort whether chiggers on my legs, or mosquitoes the size of 747s trying to get into the tarp I was hiding under from them one night. Or the time when I was one of the few folks to not get frostbite during an exercise in an ice storm.

[Grasswire2]

59. the driver's seat of my brother's 1940 something Ford pickup..

...in the 1980s, with a border collie, an australian cattle dog mix, two cats and my daughter.

Don't ask.

[BHDem53]

64. My home, 11/08/16.

[sakabatou]

66. Probably at some campground when I was much younger

[Rebl2]

67. When I

was a child we stayed in a cheap motel in New Mexico that was right by train tracks. Talk about loud and unnerving. Pretty sure I didn’t sleep that night.

[rickford66]

68. Boot camp

[CaptainTruth]

71. Any night during the months when I was going through my divorce...

... & I was still living with my ex. I couldn't move out because that would have allowed her to make an "abandonment" case with the court & take everything from me.

She was clinically diagnosed bipolar, had become violent, refused to take her meds, had physically attacked several neighbors, had multiple restraining orders against her ... & for months I had to sleep in the same house with her. During that entire time I barely slept more than an hour a night.

Absolutely the worst place I ever spent a night ... I'm truly glad I got out of it alive.

[lunasun]

73. Wow glad you are here to post . Sleeping with both eyes open no doubt

[ProudLib72]

79. And here I thought the night my wife told me she wanted a divorce was the worst

I was able to get the hell out of there the next day. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through!

[lunasun]

72. I also spent a miserable night in rain at a rest stop Good Times ! I thought about my worse

I had a lot that came to mind unfortunately and came back to this thread to say...the winner is Chicago jail!
A jail system process that is known for long waiting times after getting arrested , even if the charges will be dropped, you’ve already “done time” in a sense
Wait times are nightmarish nearly all of which is spent with many others packed into tiny cells as they move you through the process
oh and this of course would be a weekend night it happened , so extra long fun time fun folk so yes even if your charges are dropped it is just going through the process an entire night that is terrible punishment served already and I just thanked ja when seeing morning daylight and got out.
Added factor is that others are getting out from longtime prison areas of the jail in the same area you are!
This was many years ago & I can not imagine now what goes on getting arrested on a weekend in Chicago

I will say this after thought , was worse than any various sorts of infested rooms, even tiny lizard filled ones, airport sleepovers or stuck in a broke down greyhound in snow with a stuffed toilet at night , that creepy place in the tenderloin with a wolfman or something howling all night , Motel 6 in Indiana next room over a guy getting beat up at 2 am for something by other guys saying they would kill him. I woke up from the noise I heard him begging +what they were yelling and was afraid if guns went off it could go through the wall, quietly called the front desk , no one ever came wth ? and it went on for an hour or more and I kept waiting to roll off the bed if shooting started or curled up on a freezing desert floor due to being told oh yeah we didn’t need any thing to spend the night , or something simple like spending a night on a small boat in big waters feeling more than seasick , which are some spent nights I thought of , mostly because of the fear and danger factor with jail, stress of being wrongly accused and I was very young

[erlewyne]

75. In the Grunewald surrounded by wild boars.

With the zipper on my sleeping bag stuck at my chin.

[Doreen]

77. In the back seat of ( I think it was a Plymouth )

somewhere near the top of Capitol Forest. It was not summer either.

[Wolf Frankula]

78. Mount Darwin

I was reporting on the Bush War. I lay outside in the rain and was mortared by the Zaps.

Wolf

[Aristus]

80. The Holiday Inn in Miami. On my honeymoon.

Anyone from Miami here? I'm sorry, but Miami is a pit. A shithole. A festering swamp of feculent nastiness.

My brand new wife and I were there for one night before boarding our honeymoon cruise. The front desk person was jarringly rude to us. The porter pretty-much demanded a tip even though he spent more time watching me carry our bags than carry them for us. The floor they put us on was hosting some kind of pimp convention, with all kinds of outlandish, sinister characters roaming the halls all night. Making noise, yelling, cursing, slamming the walls and the doors. My wife and I huddled together in terror all night, waiting for the morning to come.

When we went downstairs for breakfast (which was terrible) every dining room employee practically intimidated us for tips. Fed up, we called Holiday Inn to complain. When we told them which hotel we were in, they said: "Oh yeah; THAT one! They have so many complaints against them, they're about to lose their franchise license."

That was reassuring.

We had our money refunded, caught a cab to the waterfront to meet our cruise ship, departed Miami in relief, and have never gone back to that hellhole.

Second place: trying to sleep in a third-class British Rail seat on a trip from London to Inverness, Scotland. Sheer torture. I was dead flat broke, or I would have sprung for a sleeper.

[bluecollar2]

92. You summed up Miami perfectly.

I live just south of Miami.

Can't wait to leave this banana republic.

[elleng]

81. Dirty, shabby room in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Italia,

last hope before trying to sleep in our little rented car.

Pretty icky room, but it was our honeymoon so can't complain TOO much. Dinner next door was pretty good (if humble.)

[SeattleVet]

82. A cheap motel somewhere in Eastern Maryland.

Buddy and I had been bowhunting for deer, and decided to spend the night and get out early the next day. Spent a night in a place that more likely than not had hourly rates. Cheap, thin walls, ratty stained carpets with worn spots and holes, nasty beds, bathroom and shower had tons of mold and mildew. Had to wedge a chair by the door to keep it closed. People coming and going all night.

Best part was opening a dresser drawer and finding an obviously used pair of panties that could have been there for months.

Next time we went out we slept in his AMC Pacer, and had a much more comfortable night.

Close second was a motorcycle camping trip in northern NY in May when I was in the Air Force. Got to the place, sat around and waited for a friend that was supposed to show up with his Jeep and the food, tent, sleeping bags, etc. Wound up spending a freezing night with a blue tarp draped across 2 motorcycles, getting up every 15-20 minutes to run one other the other bike for a short time to get some heat. Next morning we woke up to 3" of snow and ice. Managed to get the bikes a few miles down the road to a gas station where they had a phone and called him...his wife said, "He's right here, finishing breakfast." When he got on the line he said he thought we wouldn't be going, since the weather was getting so cold. He eventually came out and met up with us late that afternoon.

[Liberty Belle]

83. Back of a pickup in the rain.

We'd gone camping in Canada but the deluge was too hard to even put up a tent, so we huddled under a small metal camper shell with the rain p pounding overhead. It was very cold, too. That was at Banff National Park. It was also so foggy we couldn't even see the landmarks.

Next day we gave up on Canada, since another week of rain was forecast, and went to Glacier National Park in Montana instead which turned out to be a wonderfully spontaneous decision.

Oh, wait, I remember a worse one. As a kid our family was traveling cross country and stayed at a "cabin" that turned out to be an old sharecropper cabin. The shower was moldy and had just a cement floor.

Another: When my son was born, after 27 hours of labor and a rough delivery, they put me in a room with a woman running a fever who spoke no English. I got up to translate for her. They weren't sure if she was contagious so I asked to be moved to another room before bringing my baby in to nurse. They put me in with a drug addict who spent all night fighting with her boyfriend, and got him to smuggle cigarettes in for her to smoke. I'm allergic. At that point I padded down to the nurse's station at dawn, having gone two full nights without sleep, and got them to call my doctor who demanded they give me a private room.

Honorable mention:

In Alaska we stayed at several B&Bs, mostly great. But one was built by a bush pilot who didn't properly seal the log home so a cold wind came whistling through to the inside. The hot water heater broke when we arrived, so it was a miserably cold night though otherwise the place had some charm.

Scariest night:

We stayed with friends at their family cabin on a lake in Maine when a hurricane hit. The cabin was cozy but when the power went out I was coming down the attic stairs and fell all the way down. I thought I was paralyzed but after a few minutes I could get up, just bruised. We couldn't leave as the storm blew a big tree over the road, blocking us in. Since the kitchen had an attic above it, we stayed up all night playing cards in the kitchen since we were afraid if we went to bed a tree might crash through the roof and kill us. But we did learn how to cut wood for a fire and cook chile over the fireplace.

[Danmel]

85. In a Best Western in Monticello NY in the Catskills

Way past it's prime. Allegedly a non smoking room, filled with horseflies and reeking of tobacco. We went to the Wal-Mart down the road to get air freshener and used it to spray the flies out of the air. It was sweltering and opening the windows only made it worse. Also bought our own sheets and pillows. Grateful I didn't bring home a million hitchhiking bugs. And it cost almost $300

I called best western, who did absolutely nothing to make it better. So I have never darkened the doors of one of their properties since.

[Liberty Belle]

86. And on the lighter side, an acquaintance once told me his tale

Of tripping out on LSD in the 60s in San Francisco. Feeling tired and a bit hallucinogenic he decided to hop a fence in a park.
He saw a fuzzy rock and decided to lie down and use it as a pillow.

In the morning he awoke and discovered the "rock" was actually a sleeping bison! OR so he claimed.

[akraven]

87. Sharing a sleeping bag with a bear. nt

[BigmanPigman]

88. In Rio during Carneval.

There was a flash flood, cars floated down the street, there was over 3' of water in the hotel lobby and then the water receded 20 min later. I went dancing with another girl from my hotel and got drenched. Then we got separated and I wanted to take a bus home. After two hours, cold and wet, a person tried to explain that the buses don't come on that day. I hitched a ride with a truck driver and he almost raped me. By dawn I was finally back but then a day later I got the flu.

[shenmue]

90. A Days Inn in Jacksonville

Bugs on the pillow.

[panader0]

91. So many to choose from.

I once spent the night in the Mexico City train station. My ex and I were headed
for Oaxaca on our way to Belize. I had every dime I owned on me in hopes of
buying land in Belize. My GF was a delicate beauty. I stayed awake all night, bayonet
in my hand, watching the groups of young thugs, and letting her sleep.
But there are many more bad nights--A few in the Cochise County Zoo.
Some miserable wet freezing camping.
But discomfort isn't as bad as fear. With fear you don't sleep at all.

[PufPuf23]

93. Depends on how one defines "worst"

Went on an Outward Bound course age 17 that began north of Yosemite (Twin Lakes) and ended south of Yosemite (Silver Lake). Part of the course was a 4 day 3 night "solo" spent at about 10,000 foot elevation in September. We had the clothes on our back, a pocket knife, a Sierra Club cup, 6 matches, a Hershey bar of which we were to bring back half, and a poncho as it was raining/sleeting. The first thing I did was build a leanto with the poncho against a large granite rock with some over hang and gathered a bunch of wood stacked under the leanto to stay reasonably dry. The wood was wet from the weather and I did not want to risk using my matches and not getting the fire started given the wet. I stayed reasonably dry but it was painfully cold, so much that my joints could barely move the next morning. It took two matches to get the fire started and I kept the fire alive the remainder of the solo.

Age 19 (1972) took a romp around the USA via Greyhound and thumb from California across the south then to DC/NYC/Philly and back west on a northern route to Seattle and then down the coast to home in N CA. Was headed to Mardi Gras but stopped in El Paso and spent the next day in Juarez. Got a hotel room on arrival in El Paso. The hotel was very near the foot border crossing into Juarez. The cost was $1.75 and one went up a rickety elevator with an operator that was the same guy at the hotel desk. Bathroom down hallway. The bed was old and slumped almost to the floor so soft. When the lights were turned out there was clicky sounds that became more intense but stopped when the lights were turned back on. I figured out it was cockroaches, huge cockroaches and I had actually never seen a cockroach prior in my life. yuck.

[shadowmayor]

94. Abu Ghraib Prison

During OIF3 for an entire year.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

96. ughhhh.... the stuff of nightmares I would imagine....

[mahina]

111. OK, you win.

Yikes.

May we earn a government worthy of the name again.

[Faygo Kid]

95. Jail, 1991

I will never forget.

[happybird]

101. Yep.

Jail is awful. I was in full on opiate withdrawls while there. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even the orange shitgibbon.

[arthurgoodwin]

100. Overnighting in a Snow Cave after Greyhound Bus broke down in middle of Nowhere

Overnighting in a snow cave after Greyhound bus broke down in middle of nowhere (western Colorado) during a blizzard sometime in mid-1980s. Driver left interstate when problems started with bus, then bus just died outside of a very small town. Driver had everyone leave bus, then locked it. Most people got rooms in motel about 2 miles away, but I had no money so had to dig a trench in snowbank and cover with jacket. Very cold and miserable night.

[bobbieinok]

102. A pension in Heidelberg summer 1970. Filthy, didn't take shoes off, lay on clothes over bedding

[tymorial]

103. This absolutely disgusting hotel in Kissimmee

About 10 years ago I was working as a consultant and was working in Jacksonville for about a few weeks. I decided to stay one weekend rather than come home so I went down to Orlando to spend the weekend at Disney as I hadn't been there in many years. There was this hotel/motel that my exwife and I had stayed at the last time. It was near the westgate entrance but it was a hole. There were insects everywhere inside and the whole place stank like bleach and mold. I slept one night and went to disney for the day. I was going to spend another day at disney on Sunday but I just couldn't make it through the night because it was so horrible.

[TexasBushwhacker]

104. A motel 6 on a mattress full of straw

I swear, the mattress CRUNCHED when I rolled over. It was in Laredo, TX in the late 70s.

[lastlib]

105. Other than November 8-9, 2016 -- Motel 6, Manhattan, KS.

So small, the cockroaches were round-shouldered. And there WERE cockroaches. So poorly lit, the bedbugs had to carry glow-sticks.

[japple]

106. I think it was in Lafayette, LA. The hotel was nice enough, prob. a Super 8

or Holiday Inn. It was clean and comfortable. We had been driving all day and were ready to rest our eyes. About 1:00 a.m., the smoke detector starts beeping. If you are familiar with these units, you will know that they always beep just as you are getting back to sleep. We tried sleeping with the pillows over our heads. We tried stuffing our ears with toilet paper. We called the front desk, but they informed us that no maintenance employees were on duty and advised us to "unplug" the detector. Both of us are at 5'4" & under. We tried standing on the bed and grabbing the thing, but were still a few inches short. Finally, my sister piled up several things--pillows, blankets, clothes, etc. and was able to reach the smoke detector which she pulled down from the ceiling. She put it outside the door (we thought about throwing it in the pool.) It was still there the next morning...beeping away.

[hunter]

116. That happened to us once, traveling with my wife and kids.

I called the front desk, nothing, no answer... whoever was doing the night shift had made themselves unavailable.

Behind the motel was a supermarket. I took the fire alarm off the ceiling, stepped out onto the balcony, and flung it onto the roof of the supermarket.

Immediately afterwards I felt so bad about that I still couldn't sleep, but not bad enough to tell anyone how the fire alarm had gone missing... until now.

[bottomofthehill]

107. Back seat of a car on 12 st NE DC

After a few tooo many drinks at an after hour party that was shut down by Metropolitan police. It was a mile plus walk back to my apartment at 4am. It started raining, I was cold and wet and started checking car doors, found an open one and crawled in for the night. Next morning, older African American woman woke me up telling ( yelling at me deservedly so) to get out of her car so she could go to church. Cold wet and drunken teenager making a bad choice.

[Recursion]

109. The Tijuana holding jail

Not a good night

[Honeycombe8]

112. Did someone say Tijuana jail?

So here we are
in the Tijuana jail
Ain't got no friends
To go our bail
So here we stay
Cause we can't pay
Just send our mail
To the Tijuana jail

[Lithos]

110. Two places

Atlanta Airport - work decided to be cheap on me and book me on "standby" on the last flight of a day which had seen many flights delayed for a front dropping several inches of rain.

New York City - a Hotel next to Grand Central Station - Should have been non-smoking, but the room I had reeked. I had no alternative for the night but to gag my way thru things.

L-

[3catwoman3]

113. A few tales to relate.

Worst worst - having either motion sickness (to which I am not prone) or gastroenteritis, or maybe both, on a night train from Tokyo up to Sapporo. The train kept swaying from side-to-side, and the facilities were the trench-in-the-floor variety that require a very deep squat to use. I was thankful that there were hand rails. An added challenge in that deep squat position is trying to keep your clothes from getting peed on, or worse. Not easy when you are of the female design.

A tie for second, both in Germany. We had been there for about a week. We were scheduled to fly back to the US out of the Frankfort airport. A neighbor, who had traveled there extensively, recommended a little bed and breakfast not far outside the city, in a little town by the name of Assmannhausen. The inn, he told us, used to be a train station and was quite charming. It was, however, he neglected to mention that, while the inn itself was no longer in use by the rail system, THE TRAINS STILL RAN RIGHT BY IT EVERY 20 MINUTES ALL NIGHT LONG! We got no sleep. As soon as you would doze off, the next train would rumble by, shaking the building like an earthquake. It felt like my teeth were going to rattle out of their sockets.

We spent all day at the airport, trying to get out on standby (my husband was flying for United at the time). Didn’t get out. That next night, we took a room in a small hotel just off the airport grounds. It was late summer, pretty hot, and no air conditioning, so we opened the windows. There was some sort of very loud party going on until about 2 AM. Once it ended, it became obvious that there was another party still going full swing, which finally wound down about 4 AM. It was either really hot, with slightly muffled noise, or ever-so-slightly less hot and deafening noise. We had to get up at 6 to head back to the airport.

Another full day at the airport, standing by trying to get standby. Didn’t get out. That 3rd night, we treated ourselves to an expensive room at the Marriott connected to the airport. It was worth every penny.

[Marthe48]

114. Worst nights Reinersville Oh trade days

We would go and set up for the weekend, sell some antiques, collectibles, drink, buy some stuff. Unfortunately, it rained that year. Like torrential. My husband and his brother-in-law had come off midnights, and the beer hit them pretty hard. They set up tents while my sister-in-law and I set up out display. It was hilly. They guys set our tent up so the flap was uphill. There was a big tent, but we found out during the afternoon that it leaked. My husband and I crawled into our little pup tent, in our jeans and tee shirts. I woke up about 2 am, utterly soaked. I muttered tearfully to my husband, "we have to get out of this or we'll die!" So we went to our '74 Duster and crawled in there. Unfortunately, our nephew was sleeping in the back seat. So we dozed sitting up in the front seat. Woke up the next day with several starving teens. Some of us took them to the cafeteria building and got a hot meal. I went into the restroom, which was a latrine, with about a foot of water on the floor. It was horrible. We went back to our set-up. While we were gone, our brother-in-law had started charging people $10 to haul their vehicles out of the mud. Then he got his Blazer hung up and he had to pay $10 to get hauled out. It was so muddy and wet,we decided to pack up and go home 2 days early. Best idea ever.

[CCExile]

115. In a truck

cab, 30 degrees, on an island in Galveston Bay, after a grueling work-over on an oil well, while coming down with the flu. I was hungry, too. Aah, to be young again.

[MissB]

118. Some hotel in NW Washington

Dh and I traveled up to see my mom with our two kids (toddler and infant at the time). Since mom is a hoarder, we found the nearest hotel. Nice place, small and cozy with a breakfast room.

The clerk put us in a large family room- and it was huge. Plenty of room for about 4 king beds if you wanted to cram that many in there. But just one bed, a crib and a rocking chair.

At some point well after dark - maybe around 10 pm or so- I heard a steady thump thump thump below us. It just went on and on, and finally dh went down to find out what the heck was going on. It sounded like someone was tearing up a room. Or murdering and dismembering someone.

They put us in two smaller rooms. Turns out their handyman was tearing up the kitchen floor. In the middle of the night. Or maybe he was murdering and dismembering someone.

[hunter]

119. I don't tell my most sordid PTSD stories here, but I know why my kids hate camping.

We were in New Mexico and the evening went well enough, dinner, campfire, everything wonderful about camping.

A little past midnight the wind started to blow and it just kept getting worse, probably 60mph and more with greater gusts. Everyone in the campground had their stuff blown all across the desert and their tents flattened. I was on the upwind side of our tent, my wife on the downwind side, our children between us. Sometime during the night one of the tent posts had snapped, so the tent was right on top of us.

But that wasn't the worst. The campground had a very basic cinder block restroom, no doors, just a men's side and a women's side, dimly lit with yellow bug lights. During the storm it seemed every desert creepy-crawly from miles around had decided to take refuge there, giant insects drowning in the toilets, giant spiders in the sink, and scorpions scurrying across the floor...

Where to pee? How?

Even the people in motor homes and trailers looked a little shell-shocked that morning, I'm sure they spent the night in terror of their vehicles being be flipped over.

We'd been planning to camp for all of our trip but we stayed in motels for the rest of it.

[Heartstrings]

120. LA County jail...

A full wknd of hell....won’t give details but will state I was innocent and cleared of all “charges”....

[The Wizard]

121. War Zone D in Vietnam

Gassed by our own guys and under machine gun fire. August, 1967.

[LibDemAlways]

122. On my family room sofa the night of

the day I broke my ankle. It was a compound fracture. My foot was dangling and every time it moved even slightly the pain was unbearable. I should have been in the hospital, but my insurance wouldn't pay for hospitalization the night before surgery. I did not sleep a wink. Getting up to use the bathroom was agony. Have no idea how I made it to and from the car without passing out. Not only the worst night but easily the worst experience of my life.

[petronius]

124. Probably one of those high-rise multi-hostel buildings in Hong Kong - comfortable in its way,

and cleaner than some roach motels I've stayed in in the US, but I would have had zero chance of locating a fire exit in case of need...

[jmowreader]

125. On the Griffiss AFB flightline in January 1984

I was in the 101st Airborne at the time, and we went to Fort Drum (before the 10th Mountain was there) for a training exercise. We had spent the entire day putting our vehicles and equipment on a train. At about 7 pm we got on these ancient Army buses without heaters to drive the 70 miles to Rome, NY. We got there at 10 pm. We couldn't get chow, and hadn't eaten since lunchtime. We had no C-rats; they had been shipped back on the train. The Air Force wouldn't open their chow hall for us. We had to sleep - without blankets or sleeping bags, because all our personal equipment had been palletized - in a hangar with no heat. (Very few of us did; the rest of us were on hypothermia detail.) The plane wasn't there. Comes 4 am and we heard a C-141 show up. "Nope, not for you guys, you're in a different chalk." They opened the big rolling door on the hangar to take something out and load it on this plane. Finally the plane we were going on shows up at 6:30 am. We go across to get on. The riggers decided to airdrop something or another, and rigged a radar we'd brought with us. It went on the plane in the back. Unfortunately for us, the asshole riggers and the GSR platoon sergeant screwed up and they set the opening weight much higher than the radar actually was...when we got back to Campbell and dropped the radar, the parachute didn't open.

When we got back to Campbell, the only bus there at the airfield refused to go to where our barracks was. "No, we can only drop you off at your motor pool." Which made sense for most units, but my unit had the barracks and the motor pool several miles apart. Since we had weapons we had to wait in our motor pool office (which had heat, fortunately) for someone to dispatch a truck and take us home.

[TEB]

128. Dam Air Force

[TEB]

126. A hotel in Maine

It was built in the 1950’s one level It just had a don’t know bad feeling dark oppressive I couldn’t sleep . I told dispatch and told em that place is messed up as in bad vibe,I always went to a different hotel motel on that run after that I refused to sleep there. Later in talking to a woman at local restaurant she told me that a murder took place years ago in motel maybe I had that room.

[SharonClark]

127. A grungy hotel near Victoria Station, London

My first trip to London and on my own. I sat in a kitchen-type chair all night because the place was so grungy. Left the next morning as soon as I could and found new lodgings.

[TalenaGor]

129. lived in a car a couple times....lived in a camper shell in someone's yard once...

That's all I can think of at the moment but there's probably others..... Certainly a few seedy hotel rooms...

[sprinkleeninow]

130. In the rafters at a ski lodge in Vermont after dancing with a

rubber fish to disco inferno all girl line dance, and revolving disco ball in the rathskellar of a high class restaurant. 🙃 This was a church people related trip. 😇

[fNord]

131. My parents' "posada" at there Florida island retirement dream home......

My Dad is hardline red....and worse, he drank all the tea party koolaid, and jumped on tRump’s bandwagon the second he won the primary.....

My current life partner....and soon to be husband( 🥰 ).....spent a week there last summer....my mom I guess convinced my Dad to be “tolerant “.....we were experiencing major turbulence long before the plane left the ground....and that was the best part of the trip.....total horror show.....




Ps, I’ve crashed in hostel in Bucharest.....

[rickyhall]

132. 26 hours in Johnson County Jail (Texas)

One blanket on cold concrete ledge.

[erlewyne]

133. I was joking about the Grunewald (Post #75)

The Grunewald is a park around Berlin Germany and I was
training in the infantry ... a 'cruit. Me and pvt. Marsh (a
hippie from L.A.) were guarding a tree (just to give us
something to do). It was not that cold, about 50F and my sleeping
bag was zipped all the way as I lounged against that tree.
Marsh was sleeping. If our squad leader sneaked past us
we would get K.P. so we were alert. We were warned about
the ferocious pigs and were showed pictures taken from up
that tree with the boars below. Well I encountered the some pigs
and I was stuck in the bag with my rifle (I had blank ammo)
next to me. I yelled at Marsh and he grabbed his rifle and shooed
the pigs away. We were scared (It was dark).
We later learned the joke was on us. The pigs were tame
and owned by the zoo and left to roam the park at night. They
were well fed and always returned to their pens.
Me and Marsh were trained for Nam and were sent to Germany.
The next year (1968) was the deadliest year of the war and we
did our duty in Berlin.

[zanana1]

134. In a burned out car in England.

In January. There were rats. I was never so happy to see the morning.

[IrishEyes]

135. Sharing a very small tent with two other people while camping in the woods.

I absolutely hated one of the people. I like camping but this trip was awful.

[VOX]

137. At my parents' house in L.A. the night my dad died.

My parents had been on the road, returning from a trade organization national meeting in Sacramento, where my dad addressed the group with his farewell/retirement speech. On the return trip south, my dad pulled off the road in Palmdale, drove to a gas station, got out of the car, and was dropped by a massive heart attack. He was taken by paramedics to a local hospital where he died.

Some family friends informed me of the situation, and were able to pick up my mom and the car. I met them at the family house. My mom was in complete shock, and I was in no great shape myself.

It fell upon me to call my older brother and talk him through his immediate reaction. I opened the hospital bag containing my dad’s things: clothes that were stained with blood (still a mystery to me), a mechanical Swiss watch that was still ticking (that was a tough personal moment), and shoes that my dad had gotten re-soled just that morning.

Everything was completely surreal that night, sleeping in the same house where I was conceived and raised, but now absent a father at age 31, and filled with blind grief. You cry so much that your tears go literally dry, leaving just the sobbing.

Sudden deaths of loved ones are incredibly hard on the living. Lingering deaths take their toll, to be sure, but at least there is time to process the sad outcome. But the gone-in-a-flash departures will really flatten you.

I’m now two years older than my dad was when he died. Long ago, I made a deal with the spirit of my father: for every year that I surpass your lifespan, you can experience the world through my senses. Silly and childish, I know, but that idea remains a source of comfort.

[lillypaddle]

138. In a tent on a beach outside Houston

with a 'type A' dominant man who was OCD, and the wet sand we slept on was full of sand fleas. I cried all night and he thought it was hilarious.

[SKKY]

140. A bus station in Madrid, Spain.

It was so, so, so very cold.

[lanlady]

141. Drunk and locked out of my hotel in Ireland

Got back to my small hotel in Glendalough, Ire. after a droonken evening only to find it was locked for the night and I didn’t have a key. I spent a miserable night alternating between throwing up outside and trying to stay warm in my crappy little rental. But in the morning I was treated to the most beautiful site of the sun rising over the mist-covered stone ruins of ancient Glendalough. It was breathtaking. All was right with the world again.

[DallasNE]

142. Camp Carson, Colorado

National Guard summer camp. Pup tents in an area infested with rattle snakes. 100 degree days so hot nights. Our training was curtailed after about 4 snake bites. Night training one night slept on bridge decking on top of one of our 5 ton bridge trucks. Don't know who's bright idea it was to bring pontoon bridges to a semi-desert area but that is what passed as training that summer. They did have field showers set up so you could shower under the stars. Two miserable weeks to say the least.