I just felt like running

(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 8:52, 1 reply)

This is going to turn into 'Car Journies' isn't it?
because realistically, there are very few journies you can make in the UK worthy of the name 'Road Trip'.

I drove from Crawley to Brighton once, but I guess I could just change the names to New York and LA.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 8:52, 14 replies)

Midnight sun
I've done my own fair share of epic road trips; Russia, via Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Niagara Falls. Twice. The worst was probably the insane week spent driving up and back from the Roskilde festival with Bob Slayer (who as I write is on another mad trip with Snoop Dogg - I wish I was making this up).

But my favourite story is of Jan and John who woke up one morning in London and decided to go see the midnight sun. No planning. No packing. Just got up, had some toast, jumped in Jan's car and set off for Dover. Half way up Sweden, on a long straight road, Jan leans across from the passenger seat to look at the speedo and points out to John that being caught doing more than 100mph in Sweden would result in his licence being taken away.

John rolls off the accelerator, brings it back down to about 70, then stamps back on the accelerator and with the explanation "I don't have a driving licence", returns to his 100mph cruising speed...
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 8:36, 2 replies)

I'd taken a train from Portsmouth to Blackpool to buy a van
and 30 minutes after buying it, I'd rolled it on a motorway slip road outside Preston. A teary, bleary night being interviewed by the plod (no tax, no insurance, fake MOT) led to me standing outside Charnock Richards motorway services, penniless, hungry, a bit shaken and hundreds of miles from home.

I borrowed a biro and scrawled "SOUTH" onto a bit of old cardboard, and stood in the drizzle hoping for some sympathy, which came in the glorious shape of a Fire Engine. A BRAND NEW fire engine, with the plastic still on the sheets. It was being delivered from Lancashire to Birmingham by a surly old bloke who endlessly chewed toffees while telling me how stupid I'd been with my van. After the bollocking, he told me war stories; he'd been in Suez when the "fuzzy wuzzies" all kicked up.

He dropped me off the other side of Birmingham, having used the blues-and-twos to get through the traffic, where a luxury coach driver picked me up. Inviting me to help myself to the champagne and salmon sandwiches he still had left over from the tour, I reclined next to him and gorged myself while he regaled me with tales of Northern Ireland during the troubles; he'd been based out there and lost all his mates when their Land Rover was ambushed. Seems all long-distance drivers are ex military.

We parted ways at a service station in Oxford, and I re-drew my sign to say "Portsmouth". A trucker offered me a route to Southampton, so I hauled my way up into his cab and listened to his stories of Bosnia, and his time over there cleaning up the bodies and finding mass graves.

He left me at a petrol station, 30 miles from home, where I stood huddled and freezing, lashed by the Solent rain, until a middle-aged woman offered me a ride in her tiny Peugeot. She asked me where I was heading, and it turned out we were almost neighbours; she lived two streets away from me.

As I buckled up, I asked "I'm not being funny, but you're not ex-military, are you?"

She snorted with laughter. "Of course not."

"..."

"but my Daddy was a Major, I grew up on an air base in West Germany."
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 6:43, 4 replies)

Old-bloke's weekend
Ahh... when I were I lad, we'd go down to the shore with stick with garden string tied to one end, dangling a mangled worm we picked out of the compost heap. Nowadays it's a great palaver with fancy rods with high tensile polymer fibres, big ice-boxes and gas guzzling SUVs to get us up the treacherous dirt road to the canal. Still, it's a good way to spend the afternoon with the chaps and some beer.

One weekend in early April (pike breeding season) a few years back, it was expected to be unusually good weather so we thought we'd make a bit of a thing of it and took our camping gear along as well so we could spend a good day and a half by the bank. The once-in-a-blue-moon tents came out, along with the thermal sleeping bags, firestarters, etc, and we headed off. The journey there was fine, and a good weekend was had by all, up until the Sunday afternoon when it unexpectedly started pissing down. I had caught a pretty good haul over the weekend and I was having a bit of trouble getting all of them in to my not-inconsiderably sized ice-box. In the inevitable scrappy packing that comes with rain, I just chucked everything hastily in the boot and headed off home.

About half-way home, I stopped at a motorway services for a meal and a coffee, and since the sun had come back out I thought I would let myself soak up a bit more cancer. When I got back to the car, I could actually smell it from a good few feet away and I knew something had gone wrong. I opened up the boot and a smell that would knock Satan's personal arse-licker unconscious billowed out at me. I pulled my gear away from the box and saw a strange dark reddish, lumpy soup layering the area around the box. After closer inspection, in between bouts of sever gagging, it turned out to be fish eggs from the masses of females that I had caught, which had evidently spilled their wombs due to the crush, and I hadn't closed the lid quite firmly enough.

Needless to say, the journey home was not one of the most pleasant roe drips I have experienced.
( clockworkrat has nice pants, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 3:43, 2 replies)

I once drove from Camden to Penrith
Then a fat man tried to rape me.
(McChinaman banned, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 3:10, 2 replies)

buffalo buffalo BUFFALO
**First post to the boards, apologies for length, I've been drinking red wine and this topic sent me into a reverie**

When I was 18 I was lucky enough to win a scholarship for a year to a university in the States, the home of the road trip. Cheap gas, abundant (cheap) motels and endless highways. There's a saying that in America, 100 years is a long time, and in the UK, 100 miles is a long way. I got to understand what that meant over the course of the year: with a 24 hour drive to Colorado for Christmas, an 18 hour drive to New York at Thanksgiving, an 8 hour drive to Chicago on a weekend and in the spring a 13 hour round trip to Graceland where we spent... 2 hours. I thought then - and still think now - how little I visit my grandparents, only 90 minutes away.

But the road trip was part of the fun - if not the whole fun itself. Driving to Graceland listening to tapes of Elvis, telling jokes, smoking. I thought *I* was the King.

After the academic year came to an end I was due to return to Blighty. But first, a 3 week grand tour: the plan was to go from Detroit (my friend's home town) across the midwest to Yellowstone, north to Glacier National Park, west to Seattle, down the west coast to San Francisco and back across the south through Arizona and past the Grand Canyon... About 7,000 miles in total.

We packed the car with a tent and tapes and books, stocked up our cool box with iced tea, bread and cheese slices, bought a few cartons of cigarettes and hit the road. Most days were just spent driving, which should have been quite wearing, but it wasn't. We took turns at the wheel, listened to music, talked, read books aloud to each other, sat in silence and admired the view. I appreciated at the time how lucky I was to be with someone in whose company I was so comfortable. No awkward silences, no desperate attempts to communicate. Perfect for such a long trip. And we stopped when we wanted, drove where we wanted, did what we liked - perhaps for the first and only time in my life.

Cal was 4 years older than me, a graduate, enjoying her last hurrah before entering the real world. I was young and foolish and still with a full 3 years of Uni ahead of me back at home. We made a perfect team.

Two events stand out for me, in addition to the massive strides taken during that time in my sexual education. The first occurred as early as day two of the trip. We left Detroit and headed around Lake Michigan into Wisconsin to stay for a night with our friend Klos - camp, eccentric, and dazzling in my impressionable young eyes. We stopped en route to phone ahead, let him know our ETA that evening. Cal left a message on the machine - "...we're so excited to see you". At this point, bouncing like a 7 year old after too many sweeties, I shriek "I've got an erection!" Hilarious.

So hilarious, in fact, that Klos decided not to delete the message from his home machine. Cal and I arrived at the house, his mother greeted us at the door with a look of disapproval. Klos let us know that he'd saved the message for his parent's enjoyment. I was appalled. Polite, sweet, unassuming - the last thing I want is to be embarrassed like this in front of my friend's parents - especially ones I haven't met before. I'm normally excellent at this sort of thing, I love charming the oldies, and the Yanks are so easy! But he's fucked that right up.

So I was standing in the kitchen feeling like things just couldn't get any worse when his dad came through the door, carrying a broom. "Where's that young fella with the erection? I've got something to beat it down with."

That evening we rented "Reservoir Dogs" and I was blown away by Tarantino for the first time.

After that we headed west, through the dusty plains, stopping off here and there at random or unexpected places, as the signs and the maps presented their wares. A mystical, magical house in the woods where a ball rolled uphill. Mount Rushmore. Little Bighorn (General Custer - what a cunt.) We slept in cheap motels, all the more romantic and evocative for their filth and disposability. We camped in car parks and made love by torchlight.

Eventually we came to Yellowstone National Park. Stopped at the warden's gate, paid our entrance fee, got our map and a leaflet about the buffalo. ("WARNING - Many visitors have been gored by buffalo. They weigh up to 2000 pounds and can sprint at 30mph, three times faster than you can run") Wow, I think, buffalo! I'd love to see one of those.

We drive south and stop at the large visitor centre, with exhibits about the wildlife and panels explaining the geology and the crazy volcanic scenery. At one point, I was standing in a doorway, when Cal pointed above my head, laughing. I looked up and nearly shat myself when I saw the hugest buffalo head right on top of me. I ducked and probably screamed a little, before realising it was just a good ol' hunter's trophy, stuffed and mounted. But, fuck, that thing was big.

We drive on, and on. Stop here and there to look at various bubbling sulphurous lakes. Drive a bit more. (Yellowstone is about 100 miles from top to bottom.) After a while I get grumpy that we've not seen any buffalo, I'd been promised damn buffalo and so where are they. We drive more. Then we see some cars stopped by the side of the road, but no indication why. We overtake slowly, I have my face pressed against the window, desperately trying to see over and beyond the car... FUCK! A buffalo stood right in the road in front of the car and hidden by it until we passed. Face to face with another beast, only this time it's alive.

Late afternoon we reached Old Faithful - the famous geyser that shoots up about 30m at regular intervals. I took photos, we laughed at a miserable old man who looked like Matlock, a US TV detective. It's late, we're tired - we've driven miles. We need to head out, back to a town for somewhere to stay for the night, and thence to the north, to Glacier National Park on the Canadian border.

Cal's driving, it's getting dusky, that terrible half light when your eyes haven't quite shifted yet to night vision. The picture flickers from colour to black & white like a TV on the fritz. Things merge and fade; shadows wink. Not a good time to be driving, especially on unfamiliar roads when you're tired.

We are on a straight, it's a long road ahead, slightly dipping - and as we crest a small rise the headlights flash from high to low over the road ahead. I'm sure I saw something, a shadow - a bulk - at the bottom of the dip that we're driving into. But the headlights now point down at the road as we descend, and while there's ambient light, it's blue-grey, hazy, the headlights ruin my night vision, I can't see what's ahead. But, there was something, wasn't there? Cal drives on, and on, and I can't believe she hasn't seen, like I did, but perhaps I was mistaken, it's right here, why doesn't she slow down, the hooves appear in the downward beam of the headlights and I look left at her, why isn't she braking....

BANG. My first car accident. Part of me giggles inside, like the time I broke my arm and I lay there in pain wishing "I hope it's broken". Then the smell hits me. Molten plastic - which, when I open my eyes, I realise is the shattered windscreen, and the weird polymer they use to keep all the pieces glued together so they don't spray in your already concussed face. The music's still playing, the engine's still running - hell, even the headlights are still shining... And in the dim light stands a very confused buffalo, shaking its head from side to side, like a cartoon missing the speech bubble: "What the fuck was THAT?!!"

I look over again at Cal, still with her head down, unprepared, even more shocked, her door window shattered and gone, the pieces of which I find sprayed all down her back as I put my hand there in an attempt to comfort and she flinches away.

A car coming the other way has seen the impact, stops. The driver is out and encouraging us to leave, waking us from our dream. As I look to my right for the door handle to get out, it's not there. The whole inside of the door has softened and disappeared, just humps and small mounds giving the suggestion of previous articles. It's like snow has fallen and hidden the handle, the lock, the armrest, as it would a bicycle, a ball, a hedge in the back garden. Only when I dig my fingers into the warmth and pull the handle do I realise that this snow is buffalo shit. And I thought I was scared.

In the morning when we returned to the wrecker's yard and reviewed the damage, we realised how lucky we had been. The buffalo was sideways on; we were going at a reasonable speed, and downhill: we had merely clipped his ankles and flipped him, full weight, onto the bonnet, whereupon his head had whiplashed sideways into Cal's side - one horn smashing her window, the other scarring the bottom of her door - and his arse had skidded right up and through my side of the windscreeen, shitting all the while, until it was right inside the car and spraying all over the door. Moments later, as the energy dissipated, we stopped, he slid off and regained his feet, and we all sat/stood around, shaking our heads, wondering what the fuck happened.

If he was head on, it could have been one horn each, right through our foreheads.

The car was written off: the engine and headlights were fine, but the roof over my head was totally busted. Cal's own car, now fucked, another debt to add to her $40,000 college fees.

Unfortunately it was Labor Day weekend - one of the few 'Bank Holidays' in the States, so everything closed for 4 days, which we spent holed up in Bozeman, Montana, where there was nothing to do but go to the movies. After 2 days we'd seen everything that was on so we went out and rented a video player and a stack of tapes.

Eventually we rented a car, adjusted our plans and went via Salt Lake City to San Francisco and the Grand Canyon, and then spent the final two days driving non-stop through Texas and all the way back to Detroit.

More amazing times, great sights, amazing memories... but something had changed. I don't imagine either of us were the same after the buffalo - I doubt he was, either. It was an intense moment, a bonding experience, a unique story. Poetic. But prosaic. How quickly things change, or something like that. Looking back, it seems to make me sadder than it did at the time. I see in it more of a fatefulness than perhaps I did then.

Things change. Time goes on. You never know how lucky you are.

All great road trips are cliches, though, aren't they?
(billy_pudcock is considering coming out of hiding, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 2:15, 18 replies)

warning: this traveling story contains MASSIVE DRUGS
Once, I made a trip with my mate in his HQ ute from Melbourne to the goldfields of Kalgoorlie, where we hoped we could find work. The ute had a couple of issues. First, it would overheat every couple of hundred K's during the heat of the day, where we'd stop and wait for the radiator to cool. Secondly, it would get stuck in top gear (there were only 3), requiring one of us to pop the hood and whack it until it disengaged. The ute had a threeway car-fridge, which could run off the car battery. We stopped in Adelaide to buy supplies, and some grass and LSD from a mate, a fair investment as they were quite expensive in the 90's Australia. After Port Augusta, the majestic Nullabor plain stretches out in what most be some of the most boring scenery on the planet. It was like driving in an 80's video game, dead-straight road stretching across a brown, totally treeless billiard-table flat plain for 1000s of kilometres. We had planned to drop the acid at Eucla, a place where the cliffs of the Bight shift inland and an empty coastal strip of sand dunes march along the shore to the horizon. We only had one cassette, Pearl Jam's Ten, which even today I can no longer stand to listen to, such was it repeatedly played. Somewhere on our westward journey the fridge failed. We bought some ice from a truckstop to keep the food cold, but it was never going to endure the heat of the December sun. A few more hundred k's and some connection clicked in my head.
"Fuck. The acid!"
I had put the foil with the acid tabs in the fridge to keep it fresh. We found it floating in a couple of litres of warm water, mixed with the blood of some less-than-fresh mince meat and kangaroo steaks. When we got to Eucla we took a decision to divide the water and drink it, blood and all. It worked, though my decision a couple of hours later to eat the kangaroo steaks raw wasn't quite as clever. I don't recommend it.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 1:22, 3 replies)

The Dunwich Dynamo runs again this weekend
The destination is a pebbly beach with an OK-ish cafe (which to their credit does open at 4am specially).
But the journey... that's what it's all about. A 120 mile cycle ride in the dark. Each time I've done it, I've come away with memories including:

* The candles in jars that mark the route - your heart leaps every time you spot one. Mostly with relief that you took the right turning.

* The endless stream of blinking red lights ahead of you.

* The gentle sound of whirring tyres and muffled conversations coming out of the dark behind you as yet another bunch of couriers bomb past. Bastards.

* A guy wearing nothing but some floaty linen trousers and flip-flops with a bike-pump on a bit of string over his shoulder overtaking me without even breaking a sweat. Bastard.

* The topless lady in Sudbury who waved her norks at us at 2am from her bedroom window.

* A stretch limo parked up in a field, gently rocking with an increasingly frenetic rhythym.

* Almost wiping out on a (gentle) descent after mistaking a patch of moonlight for the edge of the road.

* Cramping out both legs, lying on the grass in agony and being offered something to help that turned out to be vodka jelly. My generous patron was fuelling his entire ride with just vodka jellies.

* Swearing never to do it again, and yet, somehow...

Nope. I'm not going this year. Honest.
Edit: The guy who always organised coaches back died last month. Barry Mason was a genuinely lovely bloke. RIP Barry.
( chthonic, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 1:20, 4 replies)

A walking trip
consisting of an average of 20 miles a day, for 15 days.

It went: left, right, left, right, quite a lot.

But worth it: changed my feeling of distance for ever.

Gives a sense of perspective.
(roysin, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 0:25, 5 replies)

24 hours from Glasto
1984, I get into a friends car for the 7-8 hour trip from North Yorkshire to Glastonbury Festival.
Half an hour later on the A1 I realise that I've left my tent behind so back we turn.
But there is no-one home, I havn't got a key and as this was before mobile phones all we can do is wait a couple of hours.
Eventually tent is picked up and off we go again.
An hour or so along, steam starts to pour out of the car radiator so we pull over and driver pours in water and we wait for it to cool down.
This becomes a regular event until finally all the water we have is gone.
Limping into an old style service station, my friend asks if they have any water containers as its obvious by now we need to have a lot of water on hand to continue our journey and things were getting hysterical
The woman says "All we have are these 5 gallon containers"
When my friend asked 'How much do they hold?" I was helpless with laughter while he just didnt get it.
After the second time the police pulled up while we sitting on the hard shoulder cooling down, we learned not to say we were heading to Glastonbury Festival , but to say we were going camping in a village called Pilton, saves time having the entire contents of your vehicle pulled out and thoroughly searched :|
We eventually arrived at the festival 24 hours after we set off, 24 bloody hours!
But I'll never forget the first time I saw Glastonbury Tor it was just as dawn was breaking and Roxy Music's Avalon came on the radio. Total serendipity. We pulled over and savoured the moment.
I've lost touch with that friend and if by any chance he's a b3tan, I hope he reads this and gets in touch
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Fri 15 Jul 2011, 0:15, Reply)

36 hours in 2 coaches in 48 hours in Mexico
The 1st coach wasn't bad, an overnighter and my mate and I were quite tired so slept most of it. When we arrived in the morning we spent the day at this lovely beach and duely spent it drinking, swimming and enjoying the ladies. When it was time to leave we got on the 24 hour coach and discovered we had a case of sunburn.

Do you know what it's like to take a 24 hour coach ride, on those bristly haired seats, with sunburn? Not all Mexican roads are smooth.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:52, 2 replies)

Pearost! Again!
No ticket.

After road tripping the US and Canada for a while, I decided that it was time to go back to Blighty. Thing was, I’d lost my Virgin Atlantic ticket from JFK to London. Both me and my folks at home spent many a long a weary hour on the phone trying to organise a replacement ticket from both ends of the Atlantic. No dice say bransons’ lot - I’d have to buy a new ticket, and get a refund for the old one. Fair enough, but I didn’t have the £1000 to get a new ticket.

Next best thing, get a cheap flight using a cheaper airline. Cheapest available? Pakistani international airlines.

By the time this lot get organised my visa has run out, so I’m now overstaying my welcome in the US. (If US immigration are reading, I’m making this part up) So, 2 weeks after my visa has run out, I turn up at JFK to board my PIA flight, this time to Manchester. I’m ok with that, I happen to live in Manchester with my girlfriend, so its all good. This ticket was bought online, an ‘e-ticket’ if you will, something flyers with easy jet are familiar with. During queuing, and feeling the whitest I’ve felt in my life, a little Pakistani lady comes up to me asking me to carry several items onto the plane for her. That’ll be a no then. She looks like I’ve slapped her in the face. So I get to the desk, the man asks for my ticket. “I’ve got an e-ticket!” say I. “I don’t know no e-ticket”. Bollocks.
Can you look me up? No. Piss off. You don’t have a ticket. Desk closes, plane takes off. Pishflaps.


So, I’m in New York, with approx. $4.00 in my trousers and no way to get home, and in the country illegally. Goody! With nothing much else to do I decide to lag all my kit over to the virgin desk in another terminal to see if I can blag it.


I find it and talk to a girl called Lisa (I’ll never forget her, I swear) who after hearing my story looks at me and hand writes me a ticket (hand writes!) a ticket to London for me. And the fee? “It leaves in 30 minutes, run”


Honestly, I had tears in my eyes. I told her I loved her very loudly and ran.


The man at the checking didn’t look at my visa date, and I found my seat – the last empty one, right at the back – and flew to London.


I’d had 4 hours sleep in the past 3 days by this stage (good old road trips) so I was a little messed up. To get home I had to spend 8 hours in a national express coach to Manchester. I wasn’t feeling any better. My girlfriend meets me at the station, and I hug her, almost in tears. Then she informs me she wants to break up.

Good trip.
(menashem, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:48, 6 replies)

This may be my first pea.
Cars and blow jobs.....
....don't have their own section in the highway code. If they did it may say "If you are overtaken by a 4WD glorified landrover while having said lewd act performed on you, you may get a hoot of appreciation and a round of applause, 'cos from their elevated angle they can see right in."
(joe is troubled Got all married and teh stuffs, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:39, 3 replies)

Drove from Chattanooga to Alaska
I planned on driving to Barrow as it was summer, but Alaska was so boring I turned around.








Fuck Alaska.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:30, Reply)

Pea-roasted with extra gravy.
Few years ago I was showing a young English bloke around our lovely state.
Paul was his name. (If he's on here you may hear him have a chuckle @ the following story.)
I decided to take him down to a friends house in Busso on the coast for some sun-soaked days of hard drinking and smoking ourselves silly. I had the time off work, some readdies, a big bag-o-green and my trusty baby-poo yellow "fastback" Corolla to get us there.
Off we go waving goodbye to the missus. A couple of minutes after getting on the freeway headed south there is an almighty bang from under the bonnet. Over I pull, pop the hood and there is oil everywhere and no more "pop in cap" on the rocker cover. Fuck.
Paul seems a bit dismayed and appears to be think that we'll be limping home. Bugger that!
Now undue pressure in the rocker cover ain't good - even I know that. But I would not be dettered. Here's the bodge - I got some towel, soaked it in oil and fastened it to the rocker cover with an o-ring. My theory being that the oil on the rag would form a seal due to surface tension. Paul watched on a little nervously as I said "Nah, she'll be right" and gunned the engine. Tada - it worked. No oil and I think the engine even breathed a bit better!
When we got to Busselton (a good couple of hours drive away) I found another rocker cover @ a wreckers (with a screw on cap) for $20, swapped them over, fixed the problem - the breather tube from the airfilter to the rocker cover was as blocked as my arteries. Then Paul & I got stuck into a week of inebriated and stoned hedonism - drank every pub dry and glutted ourselves at many restaurants. From memory we even ate @ MickeyDs!
Loved that Corolla and apart from a battery change that was the only grief I had from it - not bad for a car that was older than me!
EDITed for little bit of clarity.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:17, 3 replies)

When I used to drive HGVs
As you're probably aware, driving a big truck is a pretty lonely job most of the time - but there was this one time I remember a few years ago when that sort of changed for a while.

I'm not even sure what triggered it, though there had been what seemed to be an inordinate number of traffic plod and VOSA inspectors around on this particular morning, which was winding everyone up and leading to altercations on weigh-bridges and over tachograph records etc.

Anyway, a few of us decided to ignore the polite requests to pull into lay-bys for another metaphorical ass-reaming by 'The Man' and started looking for alternative routes away from the inspections. At the time, there weren't mobile phones so use of CB radios was fairly prevalent, and when one driver spotted a checkpoint, he'd contact others, who would contact others out of range of the original message and so on.

The overall effect was to funnel lots of lorries onto fewer roads, so we ended up bunched up together, much to the annoyance of car drivers who were stuck behind us, who tried to leapfrog their way past the ever-growing column of HGVs. If we were feeling charitable, we might let the odd one in - if it was a pretty girl driving or, in one case a hand-painted VW camper full of crusties.

With the radios in our cabs, we took the opportunity to indulge in some all-too-rare banter about the traffic and one-another, which further bonded our little group. Unfortunately, as the day progressed, the wagons on these alternative routes were too numerous for the police to ignore so they started trying to divert us back to the trunk routes. This led to more antagonism from some of the hard-liners (no, that's not the opposite of a curtain-sider) who decided they weren't going to be told where they could and couldn't drive and started kicking off.

The upshot was that it all ended badly, with arrests and all sorts. Although it took place a good many years ago, you may have heard about it. It all started under the dark of the moon on the 6th of June.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:17, 6 replies)

On a train from Kracow to Prague September 1997
Me and my pal are off interrailing round Europe, since this is some kind of tradition once you finished uni (or it was in the days when you didn't leave in thousands of pounds worth of debt).

Being stingey we were taking trains overnight and sleeping there instead of paying for hostels. A lot of our time was also spent in Eastern Europe as it was still dirt cheap in those days.

This led us to be on a train at about midnight in Krakow. Not too bad to start with. It has nice little compartments and we've been on these trains so often we've made ourselves quite at home within minutes.

After an hour or so we stop at a station and a man in a hat shouts at us until we get off the train and onto another. We're not sure why, because we don't speak Polish.

As this train approaches the next station,we start to hear a noise like the sea, but as the train gets closer to the station it gets louder and louder.

Then the train gets to the station and mayhem erupts. Hundreds and hundreds of very drunk and leery football fans invade the train.

As the train pulls off the hoards turn into a little riot - curtains are torn down, the luggage of someone in the next compartment is kicked across the corridor and a compartment door is ripped off its hinges and forced out of the moving train's window.

We try and pretend it's not happening.

As the fans start to tire, two of them decide to join our compartment (which, fortunately, has so far been ignored). It's been some time, now, and our nerves are frayed and this is not looking like a good development.

I sit there frozen to the spot as a football hooligan falls asleep on my shoulder.

Prague was nice.
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:14, Reply)

I once crossed the Atlantic ocean in a boat made of lysergic acid diethylamide that I propelled with oars
that's one rowed trip I won't forget in a hurry.
( broadsword now that's fresh, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:11, 1 reply)

ninth?
400 miles in a car bought for a bottle of whisky - the excitement being whether the car would burst into flames. it didnt. sorry.
(imallamallama looking forward to llamageddon on, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:04, Reply)

England to Portugal
A few years ago, a few friends and I decided it would be in our best interest to drive to Portugal for the Boom festival.

The most interesting points of the journey include:

* Being woken up by armed French police as we'd been unable to find a campsite, so decided to sleep in our tents on the beach. They were very angry, until they realised we were English then they just swore at us and basically told us to fucking move it.

* Asking for directions to a campsite, being waved in by all the lovely French people (who were staring at our lady friends). The morning after, I clambered drunkenly out of my tent to be greeted by lots of men with their balls and cocks out. Little did we know it was a nudist camp. No wonder they were so friendly.

* Driving into yet another French campsite, which was seemingly deserted of all members of staff. We did try and pay, but there was nobody around. The tuck shop was open, but there was nobody there either. So we just drove away without paying.

* Witnessing three people parachuting out of a hot air balloon. The first two guys were fine, but the third guy got his line tangled and span all the way down, only finally opening his chute precariously close to the ground, luckily he landed in a lake.

* Forgetting we had stashed some weed in our car (in a tent in the roofbox) and being stopped by Portugese border authorities who then attempted to search our car. We decided to let them continue, whilst we sat on the pavement and played guitar. They gave up after realising that we had literally tons of crap in the car, although they did get very hostile at discovering a plastic bag of cigarette filters. They left us alone, when they realised it was far too much of a hassle to go through every bag, rucksack, tent, cooking appliance etc and let us move on. Although they kept the cig filters for some reason.

Guess you had to be there.

/soz for shitness.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:55, 1 reply)

When youngerhapless car
five of us lads squashed into a 97 Corsa and took a road trip of Ireland. After a day of long monotonous roads I made the call to spice things up and take the journey onto the back roads.

This adventurous move was at first cheered, but, as the roads became increasingly grassy and broken some began to cry danger. On a sheer adrenaline buzz barreling down the broken straight I failed to notice that the grassy middle was becoming larger and larger and, critically, higher.

After spending around an hour trying to unwedge the car a friendly farmer came and towed it to safety.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:50, 4 replies)

I once travelled the all the way up the A61 from Derby to Thirsk!
That was in the eighties of course. They were crazy times.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:48, Reply)

Convoluted journey
I once got stuck at an airport and ended up taking a crazy train ride and roadtrip with a fat bloke. No wait, that was a film I saw. Can't remember the title of it though.
(badgermonkey007, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:41, 4 replies)

5?

(kitescreech still here, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:39, 1 reply)

Hahaha, sneaky bastards.
That's fantastic.
In b3ta the website trolls you.
( Maffers I flow kinda strange like Spina Bifida footprints, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:35, 5 replies)

4th

(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:34, Reply)

2nd by god and the power of stalking
my road trip ? fell over the speed humps when i was pissed
curses AB you beat me to it by a bell end
( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:33, 1 reply)

I just fell over the kerb.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:33, 5 replies)

never managed this before, sorry.
First!
(badgermonkey007, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 22:31, 4 replies)