Wildest ride you've ever taken

Holy shit, dude. You gotta tell us that story.

 

You got about all I can tell you. I'd just gotten off watch, ordered breakfast and sat down. The mess attendant put my plate down, there was a bang, a shudder, the plate went sliding off the table, the captain, who wasn't prone to such things, cussed and ran toward control. I ran aft because of the angle the boat took and looked for flooding. Nobody was hurt, but some careers were damaged along with the boat.

A couple hours later, when things were calmed down a bit, I leaned against the wall and it hit me how close to being fish food we were.

 

Behold the Vomit Comet:

http://www.gozerog.com/

27 people on our training flight, 24 threw up. 'Course, most had been drinking all day, which made sure the flight did not end well.

 

New Year's Eve 2000. I covered the Independence Bowl between Mississippi State and Texas A&M. College football fans might remember it as "The Snow Bowl."
Wasn't supposed to go, but our other sports writer's car broke down two days before and he couldn't get it fixed in time. So, the drive over takes the normal 2 hours or so. Then, right around kickoff it starts snowing. Doesn't let up, either. Between the bowl game, the late night (didn't leave the stadium until about midnight, and only then did I realize how bad the storm was), it being New Year's Eve, and an ice storm in Arkansas the week before, there's no hotel rooms to be found in Shreveport. So I set out on the way back home.
Three inches or so of snow isn't much when you're up north, but it is when you're driving across 200 miles of unplowed Louisiana interstate at 3 a.m. I must've seen 50 cars in the ditch between Shreveport and the Mississippi line. At one point, I was following a van that was going 10 mph. I pulled into the left lane to pass, and another car behind me did the same. All I saw was his headlights cutting a sharp left into the median. Fortunately, the guy was OK and I gave him a ride home.
Every 50 miles or so, I'd have to stop at a gas station and use the squeegee to bang the ice out of the wheel wells. It would get kicked up from the road and collect to the point that there were about six inches of ice between the fender and the tire.
The two or three times I tried to push my luck and go more than 20 mph, I'd hit a patch of ice or snow and start to slide. Once I accepted the fact that it was going to be an eight-hour trip instead of two, it was a lot easier to deal with. The closest I came to wrecking was actually when I tried to turn into my apartment complex. I hit the brakes a little too hard and started to skid, almost going down a hill into someone's front yard. Fortunately, I stopped in time, made the turn, and let out a loud whoop when I finally got the car parked.

 

Mine isn't as bad as the Caped Crusader's, but it is snow-related.

I was covering the Division II men's basketball regional in Brookings, SD. I knew trouble was on the way when it started snowing as I pulled into town. After the evening session's games finished, it was much worse. As I had just $40 to my name and the paper was too cheap to spring for a hotel room, I drove back to Omaha in what was nearly a white-out. It wasn't what I would call exciting, but I guarantee you my knuckles matched the color of the countryside.

The dumbest ride I've ever taken was driving from Fort Worth to Casper, WY, after a full day of classes. I still fondly remember the orange traffic cones that gave their lives so that my dumb ass might live.

 

My wife's uncle gave me a ride in his Ford GT (0-60 in 3.3). We pulled up to a T-intersection in the country, he pulled out and floored it. My head banged off the back of the seat when he went from second to third gear and, before long, he had to hit the brakes pretty good to slow down for a 50-mph turn.

 

Kindgda Ka. That's one of the more sane ones I have taken.

 

On the back of my best friend's Honda 350 chasing a couple of girls down the boulevard at 80 mph. Hit a dip we weren't prepared for. Fortunately, I was holding his belt at the time (I hated holding the back of the bike). We landed, pulled over to the side of the road and said to hell with the girls.

 

Skiiing at night on acid.

 

I'd like to hear your Azores story, TBF.

Did your plane plunge off the mountain while attempting to land (I lived there for 2 1/2 years in the 1960s)? Wouldn't have been the first one.

 

Did a ten lap ride-along at Texas Motor Speedway. Not exactly wild as the guy driving was one of the instructor's at the race driving school. He said we averaged somewhere in the ballpark of 165mph topping out somewhere in the 180s.

When I was a kid there was this amusement park outside the Fort Worth Zoo that had a ride called The Mousetrap. That thing was freaky. The car was wider than the tracks and it gave the illusion that the car would fall off the track at any moment.

 

I was on a Southwest flight from Midway to St. Louis in a freaking blizzard and kissed the ground when I got off the plane.

I also did a ride-along with a city police department when I worked in news way back when, 12:30 a.m. on a Friday. Usual fare, chasing drunk drivers (you would be surprised how many people don't yield to a cop car going 70 mph down 40 mph roads with lights and sirens going) a domestic where a guy threw a TV through his mom's window. A false burglar alarm at a bank.

Then there was a disturbance call for a guy that had thrown another guy through a ground-floor window at a housing project (and no it wasn't Charles Barkley). Guy was high on something other than life, seeing as he was frothing at the mouth, stumbling around and it took three or four cops and a bunch of pepper spray to take him down.

Makes me glad I push a pencil for a living.