What is a courageous or adventurous thing that you have done?

[IrishEyes]

I went backpacking alone across Europe for three months when I was 22. I had never left the USA before that trip and didn't speak any languages. I only brought a backpack with me and one travel guide to Europe. I had no set itinerary and just traveled around. I had a wonderful time.

I also once ate sushi from a gas station in Arizona. It was okay, I didn't get sick.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Went to Antarctica at age 69. Once drove a rental car across a stream

on a 4 wheel-drive only road in the Arizona Navajo reservation.

[IrishEyes]

6. Wow, traveling to antarctica sounds interesting.

Why did you decide to go?

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Wanted to see it and the penguins. Also the 7th. Continent.

[IrishEyes]

11. That is even better. Doing something at 69 just because you want to.

[Beringia]

27. There is a webcam of penguins in Antarctica

http://www.martingrund.de/pinguine/pinguincam2.htm#2

They had babies recently.

[sinkingfeeling]

29. Gentoos.

[DFW]

2. One of two things. Take your pick

I drove a rented car from Bologna to Siena to Firenze and back to Bologna. Miraculously, I lived to tell the tale, although I was emergency delivered into a cardiac clinic within a few days of returning. Never again!

So much for adventure. I visited Cuba in the 1980s, but that was at the invitation of the Cuban government, so not a lot of courage was required for that, although it was an adventure of sorts.

The most courageous thing I think I did was speak to a woman so beautiful, she took my breath away when we were first introduced. Nerd that I was, I was always brushed off (and not kindly or gently) after merely trying to say hi to women like that in college and high school, so cruel rejection was the norm for me. Surprise, surprise, this one didn't tell me to fuck off because I wasn't cool enough or not dressed the "right" way. Up to that moment, I had thought guys like me NEVER ended up with women like that, but it dawned upon me that if I stuck with that attitude, I never would, either. So I ditched my inhibitions, and gained a girlfriend, who became my wife.

[IrishEyes]

3. That was sweet.

I read somewhere that beautiful women sometimes are not approached a lot. I'm happy for you and your wife.

[DFW]

7. It was a happy coincidence

In the States, where I had gone to school all my life, my refusal to conform to the norms of "cool" was a big disqualifier. With her, she was considered "too tall" in the rural area where she grew up, and then the victim of prevailing prejudices as to what was expected of women from Northern Europe when she started studying in the "big city." I was somewhat exotic to her (she never had met an American who spoke her language well), and not aware that she was used to being jumped by most city guys she met. I didn't know that my somewhat laid back attitude was hugely refreshing to her. We just clicked.

She thought it was a nice summer fling, and that she would never see me again. We were both 22, and it was the summer of 1974. She was unprepared for my persistence, but we will have now been together for 45 years this July. Now it's our daughters (who got her looks) who get chased around, but they were patient, and finally landed themselves mature, sensible, intelligent partners who appreciate them, and allow them their freedom.

[zipplewrath]

4. Wainwrights Walk

I walked across England on Wainwrights Coast to Coast walk. Went from the west to the east coast, about 200 miles and it took 12 days (with a day of rest in the middle). I picked up a rock in St. Bees on the coast and dropped it in the water in Robin Hood's Bay.

[IrishEyes]

5. You must have seen some pretty views.

I had never heard of Wainwrights Walk before. It sounds like an interesting experience.

[zipplewrath]

12. Self Guided Walking Tours

Yes, I saw some beautiful sites. I did this walk, and about 15 more over the years. They are called Self Guided Walking Tours. You purchase the trips from tour companies that plan and support them. They give you maps and route notes, book your accommodations, and move your luggage each day, you just carry a day pack with food, water, and personal gear. No guides, just myself and my spouse. You often don't see anyone during the day.

The most common theme was that you often were walking THROUGH beautiful views. You'd come over a hill or something and you look out over miles of a beautiful valley, or a river valley, or maybe a hilly area in Tuscany or something. It would look like a painting. And then you'd walk through the "painting". In some of these views you could see for miles and you wouldn't see another person. Some times there weren't even paths, you'd just be walking through field or meadow or something. Often there were no roads in these places.

I have a few photos of views. Most people look at them. I look and remember being IN them.

[mickswalkabout41]

8. Ex cop

Former volunteers fireman too. Military service, opened my own business. Own my own business, still. Live in a blue s city surrounded by red hard core white supremests.

[IrishEyes]

9. My grandfather and great grandfather were both cops.

My brother is now a detective. He is also a former military person in the Army. I have always lived in very blue places. I rarely meet trump voters.

[mitch96]

13. I loved cross country motorcycle touring...

For my retirement from work I jumped on my motorcycle and rode from Key west to Prudhoe bay Alaska...... and back!! Coast to coast the hard way.
Been all over the US and Canada on my bike.. My motorcycles have more miles on them then my auto's
Glider pilot, scuba diver, sail boat racer, and a bunch of things that are TOTALLY illegal so I won't mention them.. I should have been dead numerous times........ but it was FUN!!
m

[IrishEyes]

15. That sounds like my uncle. He has been riding motorcycles since he was 16.

He was an executive who worked hard and saved a lot for retirement. He and my aunt both retired a decade ago when they were in their sixties. Now, they ride their motorcycles all over the USA.

[mitch96]

23. As the saying goes...

You don't stop riding because you get old, you get old when you stop riding!!!
or so "they" tell me. Just carrying on an old family tradition.. My Father rode Indian M/C back in the 20's and 30's... He also brought in one of the first Honda motorcycles into the country back in the '50's...
And so it goes...
m

[lark]

14. I once stood up to an office full of bullies, it was very scary but ....

A new young woman had started at my job the week before and got paid more than most of us. She also had a college degree where most of us were not. She was missing about half the hair on one side of her head, usually wore bandanas & hiking boots so was different than most. She was also prickly and standoffish, which didn't help. One of the people made a poster about Barbara basically telling us how much Barbara made and making fun of this freak getting paid more than us. It was passed around and signed and finally landed on my desk. I was the last one in the office to see this. It made me sick, it was so inappropriate and mean. I was screaming inside, had to wait for an hour to calm down. Finally I got my pm break, I took the paper to the initiator and told her I wouldn't sign it and that it was the meanest thing I had ever seen. I started crying and told her she needed to destroy this and apologize deeply. I didn't threaten to go to management, didn't think of it at the young age of 20, was just shaking with the outrage and with fear of being rejected for not going along with the entire office, but I just couldn't. The crazy part is it worked, the initiator actually saw the truth of what I said, tore up the flyer and made another one which she copied to everyone who had signed the first hateful missive saying how this was wrong and she was ashamed of spreading the hate for no reason other than jealousy of the $$ and because Barbara was different than us.

[IrishEyes]

21. Good for you for standing up for whats right.

Hopefully, the initiator learned from this experience and became a little better of a person in the future.

[Aristus]

16. Every once in a while, I have to stare down patients who are getting violent for one reason

or another.

Patients with mental illness, or more usually, narcos who get upset when I won't prescribe them their favorite recreational pharmaceutical.

Most of them bounce when I threaten to call the cops. But occasionally, they'll stick around until the badges show up.

I don't think it's courage as much as not wanting them to hurt any of my other patients or someone on my staff.

[IrishEyes]

19. That must be difficult. I'm glad that you are there to do it.

[Aristus]

20. Sometimes I have to go back to my desk afterwards and regroup a little.

I'll be shaking so bad.

I hate confrontations...

[bif]

17. Similar story.

Took off a year of school when I was 20 and spent 6 months hitchhiking around Europe. I had 2 books, "A Hitchhikers Guide to Europe" and a Berlitz book that had phrases that let you speak to 90% of the people in the world. Best thing I've ever done. Only regret was not going overland to India via the Magic Bus Company. It was one of the few times in history when all those countries were not at war with each other=Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That would have been an adventure!

[IrishEyes]

18. Yeah, I regret not spending enough time in eastern Europe.

I concentrated too much on western Europe. I never made it to Greece, Prague and Budapest which are all places I wanted to visit. I guess that means I will have to go back some day. My friend and I are talking about taking a vacation to Japan in a few years.

[bif]

36. I went as far as Turkey

But I also visited Bulgaria and Yugoslavia when they were still communist. I'm glad I did. I've also been to Ukraine and Cuba. Both very interesting and worthwhile.

[Trailrider1951]

22. Two things come to mind

#1: Hiked into the Grand Canyon with other Geology grad students and my then 9 year old daughter. It took all day to get down to the Colorado River, where we camped for the night. It was easily 20 degrees warmer down there than up on the south rim. Day two was spent hiking back out. We made it about a third of the way out when we camped for the night. Day three, more hiking up the trail as a storm front developed to our west (this was in April). After setting up camp and dinner, we were treated to pouring rain and howling winds, so we retreated to our tents to ride out the storm. It was hard to sleep with the wind pushing the wet tent into my face from time to time. By morning, we were all soaked and all we wanted was to finish the hike and go find a warm and dry motel somewhere. We were back on the south rim by late afternoon. What an adventure!

#2: A few years later, when I was working for Core Laboratories, I was sent out with a big diesel pickup truck and the mission to retrieve a 60 foot core from a wellsite in the middle of nowhere up in the northern Texas panhandle. I got there about 2 am, with a massive electrical storm moving in. Big claps of thunder and bright flashes of lightning, with tornado warnings for surrounding counties. I walked onto the derrick floor, the only woman for miles around, with my Core Lab hard hat and coveralls on, and some of the men there looked at me like I had two heads. No one gave me any problems, good thing, as I was prepared to plant a steel-toed boot in the ass of anyone who would harass me. I was there to do my job, just like they were.

When the drillers pull the drill pipe out of the hole, to change drill bits or bring up a core, they pull up 90 feet of drill pipe at a time. They break the connection at the derrick floor (about 20 feet above ground level) and maneuver the pipe off to the side, where it is chained off up at the top of the derrick (about 120 feet above ground level) by a worker up in what's called the crow's nest. I sure felt sorry for the guy up there, as that is one rough job in good conditions. But that night, there was wind and driving rain and lightning flashing all around. The formation they cored was a prolific producer of natural gas, at about 7800 feet down. Had that well "kicked" (produced a bubble of gas) as the pipe was removed from the hole, we would have been in big trouble. With all that lightning, we could have been toast, literally. That was probably the most frightening thing I faced on that or any job. Anyway, we got the core cut up into manageable sections and loaded into the truck by about 6 am. I made it back to my motel for a few hours sleep before I had to drive back to Houston. THAT job was sometimes an adventure!

[Duppers]

30. My hats off to you.

[Major Nikon]

24. Ate street food in Beijing

[hunter]

25. Quitting high school, graduating from college, getting married, having children.

Many other "courageous or adventurous" things I've done are possibly symptoms of mental illness. I take meds for that, have been hospitalized, have had interesting interactions with law enforcement (good and bad), lived in my car, etc., especially when I was a teen and young adult. I really put my parents through hell, even though they rarely heard the worst of it.

Going back to university a third time after being "asked" to leave twice took a lot of courage. I was really good at burning bridges and didn't have many friends left. Out of school I'd occasionally tag along with a geologist, generally making myself useful in field work, and he wrote a nice letter of recommendation and convinced a colleague at the university to keep an eye on me, which was enough to get me back into school.

It was really awkward, however. The dean who signed off on my readmission had been my professor when I got kicked out of school the first time, partly for fighting with one of his teaching assistants. He told me in no uncertain terms that if there was ANY friction between me and any teaching assistant, or if he heard I'd made any trouble to warrant the attention of the campus police, I'd be banned from the campus forever. I walked out of that meeting feeling like I'd been ripped open and all my faults exposed to the world.

[Beringia]

26. I went to a Department of Natural Resources meeting

where there were all hunters voting on animal hunting issues, they all wanted to just hunt more and easier. I was surrounded by them, kind of menacing. I was ready to call out for help from the wardens there if needed. I was in a park at night with my boyfriend and heard a girl yelling. I ran to help her, but she was alright, just playing. But I did immediately go into action.

Once I was stalked by a pervert at a small beach near Madison Wisconsin. It really took me by surprise and I left and he followed me. I wish I would have confronted him somehow. It just happened so fast.

[Mister Ed]

28. 53 skydives. n/t

[Duppers]

31. Once was enough for me.

Really bad landing.
But I loved the ride down.

Hot air ballooning was safer for me, so I did that a few times.

[The Figment]

32. Oh geez,

Where do I start! Let's see...

Rode a 10 year old Mt bike from Cambridge Mass. to Naples Fla. ( a GT Aggressor )

Rode a better Mt bike from Cambridge Mass. to Witcha Ks. ( a Myata Ridgerunner )

Spent 18 months touring the US and Canada on a ' 81 Kawasaki 550 Ltd motorcycle

Hitchhiked across the U.S 4 times, New York to San Francisco, San Francisco to Key West, Key West to San Diego, L.A to Grand Rapids Mi.

Lived on and drove a 71 Ford B-600 72 passenger school bus all over hell and half of Georgia for 3 years following the Grateful Dead.

Spent 26 days sailing around the Penobscot Bay Maine on a Outward Bound course in 1974.

Hiked up Longs Peak in Colorado and Mt Washington in New Hampshire ( Tuckermans Ravine is a trip! )

Paddled a canoe for 175 miles on the Rackett River canoe route in up state N.Y. three times.

Rode the Katy Trail in Missouri, the Little Miami River Trail in Ohio and the Erie Canal Trail in N.Y. on Mt bikes.

I chose memorys over money in life...money buys you stuff but memories last a lifetime!

[TexasBushwhacker]

34. Had my bipolar dad picked up by the county

He had become psychotic and paranoid and was putting together an arsenal of weapons. I had to lie to him to get him away from his house and guns. It broke my heart, but I really didn't feal like I had a choice.

[JCMach1]

35. Drove warp speed on the autobon, ran for state office,

Trekked in the Himalayas, flagellated myself undercover at a Shia Ashura ceremony in the Middle East.

Traveled in the Bekaa valley a few days before the last Israeli wAr in Lebanon.

Never thought of myself as a risk taker

[akraven]

37. Took a little motorcycle ride from Fairbanks, AK to Merritt Island, FL.

Only one motel stay - during a hurricane. All the rest was camping!

[lastlib]

38. Walking up to within five feet of a mountain goat....

...in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico. That critter could've knocked me into Arizona if he had taken a shine to, and crushed every bone in my body. But in the end, he just turned and walked away. I didn't push my luck with him, either. It was a cool experience getting that close, though.