OT: MGoVacation horror stories

Coincidentally, I recently visited Hawaii and a shark bit my foot off.

Worst I've had was an an absolutely horrible case of bedbugs. I had seen bedbug bites my brother got traveling before. They're big and look a lot like mosquito bites. So I'm staying at this cheap hostel in Thailand and I even saw a couple of them. But it's a tropical country. There are bugs everywhere. I even ate bugs there. I didn't know what bedbugs look like and since I was sleeping fine and just had really tiny marks on my skin, I actually didn't worry about it. Now I know what an error that was. I guess everyone reacts differently but I didn't really get itchy and big bites until a few days later. So I had been sleeping there and being torn up by bedbugs every night but didn't realize it til it all hit a couple days later. I was absolutely covered. I had to take cold showers frequently. I felt this constant anxiety and irritation from all of it. I almost couldn't extend my ankle because there were so many bites on my achilles heel. I also still had some brown marks on my arms even a month or so later. I read online that if you get it really bad and/or you're really sensitive to them, they can leave permanent marks. So I thought I'd have liver spots on my arms and legs for the rest of my life. Thankfully they eventually went away.

When I was 20, I took at long weekend with my then-gf from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina. Wine tasting! Mountains! Romance! We had not managed to find a place to stay in advance, because we were young and dumb (although, looking back on it, she was 28 and should have known better). Turns out there was a national hairdresser's convention going on in Mendoza that weekend. We spent hours first calling every hotel whose flyer we could find in the bus stop (pre-smart-phone days). Finally we found a place and reserved the room right away.

It was literally the worst room I've ever stayed in, and I've spent some time in the mountains of northern Afghanistan and eastern Tajikistan: I know from uncomfortable accommodations. The bed was built out of (badly) nailed together 2x4s with a thin foam mattress on top and hole-filled sheets covered in baseball prints. Reminder: We were in Argentina, where baseball is not a thing. God knows how many people had slept on those sheets in how many countries. There was a shower head but no partition or curtain, just a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. The place smelled like mildew.

However, it was a room. So we went out and got some dinner and got hammered. On the way back to the room, gf tripped on the sidewalk and seriously sprained her wrist. She was drunk enough that she didn't know until the next day how badly she was hurt.

In the wee hours of the morning, I started feeling sick. Much vomiting and diarrhea. When we woke up in the morning I was burning hot and very dehydrated, and gf was in serious pain. We decided to get the hell out of that room and try our luck elsewhere. After wandering around for a while, we managed to find a place with a clean, available room. Miracle! I could barely move and was delirious, so my gf went out to get a thermometer, some ibuprofen, and some pepto-bismol. Turns out I had a 104-degree fever. We basically lay in bed the whole day, then dragged ourselves back to the bus station that night and got on the first bus we could back to Santiago.

On the bus we sat next to a woman who was immigrating illegally from Brazil to be some rich family's maid. Highlight: They showed "Heat" on the bus. Great movie. Also my gf had brought some pot, which was fine going into Argentina but not into Chile. She'd thrown it out in Mendoza but we were still worried the dogs would smell it at customs. They did not. Another highlight.

My fever was still cartoonishly high, so when we got back to Santiago, I went straight to the emergency room. 

TLDR: Romantic weekend getaway ended with the worst hotel room I've ever stayed in, mucho vomiting and diarrhea, a trip to the ER for a dangerous fever, and my gf unable to bend her wrist for several weeks.

We were on a plane to San Diego. My daughter was around 3, so she was sitting in her own seat, and slept most of the flight. She woke up just as the plane started its descent, and proceeded to throw up all over the guy sitting next to her. Fortunately, he was very nice about it and said he was the grandfather of 6, and this happened all the time. 

where do you find this thing?

Not exactly a vacation but my worst trip ever -

I live near Grand Rapids and several years ago I won a promotion from the local sports radio station for 4 tickets and a limo ride to a Pistons game.  

On the designated day, me and my friends show up at the meeting point for the limo in the early afternoon so we can get to the game in plenty of time.  We're talking to the limo dirver as we're waiting around for the last of the group to show up and the limo driver tells us that he hates driving.  Not a good sign for someone that we're entrusting with our lives.

The limo driver then asks us for direction to the Palace!  So now we have a driver that doesn't like driving and doesn't know where he's going!  Anyway, we tell him the best way from GR to the Palace is to take I-96 to I-69 to I-75 south.  The driver nods like he agrees and knows how to get there.         

So my friends and I pile in the back of the limo and and start the road trip with a few beers.  After being on the road for a bit the driver is approaching the exit from I-96 to I-69 and asks us if this is the right exit.  We can't see squat out of the back of the limo but we're finally able to make out the road signs and say yes, that this is the correct way to go.   All seems well and at this pace we should arrive to the Palace about an hour before game time.

We resume our beer drinking in the back and our discussion of the upcoming Pistons game.  Its very hard to see anything out of the back of the limo but after a while things out the window don't look quite right.  So we all start looking out the window trying to figure out where we are.  We finally see a sign for St. Johns.  Our stupid driver somehow got off of I-69 and on to US127 heading north.   

We start screaming at the driver that he's going the wrong way.  He pulls off the highway and stops at a gas station to refuel.  After looking at a map we (the passangers) figure the best way to get to the Palace from where we are at is to take M-21 east until it runs into I-75, then head south from there to the Palace.  That was not a good choice.  M-21 is a two lane highway that was very slow moving that day and we ran into a number of stop lights.   At this pace it's going to be tight to catch the start of the game.  

Since it's now obvious that our driver doesn't know what he's doing we're all in the back trying to look out the window to make sure he's going the right way.  A lot less beer drinking going on now and a lot more grumbling about how stupid our driver is.  After way too long, we finally make it to I-75 and get the driver on the right path to the Palace.   The driver says that now he's on I-75 that he can find the Palace.

Releived that we're getting close, we relax and start drinking beer again and the mood lightens with a return to talk of the game.  After a while, when it seems that we should have been to the Palace by now, we look out the window trying to figure out where we are.  It's difficult to see anything but after a while we realize that we are on US-23 approaching Brighton.   Somehow our idiot driver had gotten off of I-75 and onto US-23 and didn't know the difference!

We should have been to the game by now, but instead we're in Brighton with the game starting.  So now everyone is pissed off and in a really bad mood.  We all are trying to look out the crappy little windows in the back and yelling at the driver instructing him on which way to go.  From here we figure we have to take I-96 east to I-696 then north to the Palace.  

Everyone by now is in a really bad mood.  We finally get on to I-696 when there is a loud bang and a rumbling in the car.  Instead of getting off on the right hand shoulder, the driver pulls off on the left hand shoulder - for which there is not really room for a limo.  The driver gets out and looks at the car.  We're yelling out the window at him we asking whats going on when he informs us that we have a flat tire!  

After a few minutes of not much going on, we see a break in the traffic where we quickly get out of the car to see whats going on.   The driver is just standing there.  We ask whats going on and he says that the limo doesn't have a jack and he doesn't know what to do.  We ask him if he has called his boss or a tow truck?  The answer was no.  He thought it best just to stand there and do nothing!  He finally calls his boss, but his boss is just as clueless.  We finally get his boss to call a tow company!  

After spending half an hour in the center of I-696 during rush hour the tow truck finally shows up and gets our tire changed.  We get back on the road, and we all peer out the window giving the dirver directions and making sure he doesn't go the wrong way again. We finally make it to the game and by the time we make it to our seats there is 4 minutes left in the game.  The Pistons lose.     

Worst trip ever.

When I was in my early twenties, my parents decided to have one last family vacation with my two younger sisters who were just a bit younger than me.  We went to Gulf Shores for a week and rented a nice place on the ocean.  My parents said I could take a buddy with me since we had an extra room.

Long story short on the first day of the trip, my buddy and I go play some pick up basketball at a local park and he goes up for a put back dunk, gets his feet taken out from under him and lands on his arm.  We spend the rest of the day in the ER and find out he has a broken arm.  He was miserable for the rest of the week and basically could do nothing.

My sister got sun poisoning on that same day and was in the ER the next day and was a complete jerk to the rest of us, because she was not having fun.  Friday ends up rolling around and decide to head back home, because the week turned out to be awful.

All in all the trip was a great trip.  A drive up Highway one, and San Diego is awesome.

The only hiccup was when I stepped on something squishy and thought a fish had bit me.  I kept swimming because I figured it was all in my head, but when I got out of the water a half hour later I was still bleeding.  Went to the lifeguard station and they said I was stung by a sting ray. I rotated between extremely hot buckets of water and cold buckets to try to get the anti coagulant poision out. Ended up bleeding all over hotel room too and getting charged for some damaged towels. 

Walked out of the beach comber bar in Daytona in 1976 and new truck was gone. Thought we might have just lost it so went in and had a couple more drinks. Nope gone forever.Cops said it was common down there for the crooks to watch out of state plates and truck was probably gone by time we gor our first drink.

Driving to Vegas and car died in Brush Colorado. Bought a 64 Merc with the old power back window for $125.00 and on to Vegas so turned out all right. Had alot of fun when I was young.

Side note learned the Brush Colorado High School teams were called the Beet Diggers. As in the root veggie, Never forget that one.