Responded to a fiery plane crash in St. Thomas, VI in 1976. 37 people killed.
Experienced a 9.2 earthquake in Anchorage, AK.
Responded with a team to a catastrophic earthquake in Guatemala in 1976 (same year as the plane crash).
Was charged by elephants while on safari in Africa. Also charged by a hippo while on a boat tour on the Nile River (got good photos of that one).
On vacation in Prague in 1989, the family and I emerged from the subway stop into the middle of a huge demonstration in Wenceslas Square. It was part of the so-called Velvet Revolution (see Google images for an idea of what we ran into). We had no idea that it was peaceful, but I was well-aware that we were traveling with diplomatic passports and probably shouldn’t be anywhere near it. We fought our way back down the stairs and put some distance between us and the action.
Was followed by the KGB in Moscow and its equivalent in Warsaw, Prague, Bulgaria, East Berlin and Romania.
I went arrowhead hunting with a coworker and a couple of his buddies–way out in back-of-beyond territory in the middle of Nevada. I was in my 4Runner, a very capable 4WD vehicle…however, I wasn’t the most capable 4WD driver.
We got to a stretch of what they called “side hlll”, which means the jeep trial followed the contour of the hillside and had a significant slant. I lost a little traction and the rear wheels slipped in the direction of a pretty deep canyon. One of the other guys shouted for me to stop and ran back to talk to me.
“You cannot get on the gas here. You have to go at a steady pace. Otherwise you’re gonna roll down that hill and then we’re fucked.” I took his instructions to heart and made it out okay.
That was plenty enough adventure for me that summer.
Been in the home when it was invaded by an armed crazy guy.
Many years of riding motorcycles.
Trying to learn the art of ‘Bull dogging’ way back in 1959 & 1960
One time while getting my PADI SCUBA ticket, the instructor put the only tank without a pressure gauge on my back & I was the biggest person & was not very good at breath control. It was our second night dive. I ran out of air at about 80 feet.
I lived so I learned all kinds of things that night. That instructor went out of business soon after that.
Been on the wrong end of weapons doing surveying many times… It always surprises me for some reason.
Some folks really do not like you on their property.
I was supposed to be doing a short yacht delivery. The captain shows up at my home the morning yelling to get in to his car, we’re picking up the pilot. I didn’t think we’d need the port pilot to get this little boat out of the harbour. Turns out the boat had broken its moorings during the night and disappeared. We grabbed the pilot, jumped into a tiny plane, I remember the door closed with a piece of leather which reminded me of a picnic hamper fastening and headed out to sea.
The captain spotted the boat, a cheer went up and we started heading back - having forgotten to note the coordinates.
My adventure began with a phone call. A buddy scored five tickets to the Indy 500. He called up four of us to pile into his vehicle and head west. It was equal parts comedy/adventure/horror/gonzo porn.
Almost drowned in the Gulf of Mexico – was missing from my friends for a few hours.
Was attacked (alone) by three teenage muggers in Honduras and successfully fought them off in hand-to-hand combat.
Served in the US Navy on a submarine. Did some cool stuff, and also was onboard for a collision in the Persian Gulf in which we were run over by a 50K ton Turkish freighter.
I’ve been in very rough seas, 10 metre waves, in a small boat.
I’ve narrowly escaped a house fire.
I’ve been in a minor car accident.
Most other dangerous things I’ve been involved in were quite mundane, and even more common than the above (e.g. chased by a ram; stuck on a cliffside for half an hour; etc).
Let’s see… I’m pretty sure I’ve done a couple of things that could be considered “adventures”; kinda comes easily when your life motto is “Don’t take chances, take risks”.
-hung off the rear ladder on a conversion van traveling over 60 mph for more than 2 miles in my barefeet
-snowboarded off a 30 foot cliff accidently
-been in a couple of car chases
-been in multiple fights in bars, alleys and parking lots
-rescued my girlfriend when her kayak capsized in a flooding 40º Green River
-survived some of the biggest hurricanes of the late 20th century while living in Florida
-thru hiked the Ocala Nat’l Forest, bushwhacking thru the swamps at times because the unused trail was overgrown (machetes are your friends)
-summitted over 2 dozen 13,000’+ peaks solo
Frequently. After all, the classic definition of an adventure is something that while you’re having it, you wish you weren’t. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, sold it at a garage sale.
Hm, I slept through one - my grandfather’s sailboat got blown from Rochester to Kingston in the tail end of a hurricane system that trailed out over Lake Ontario.
Then there was the Natural Disaster tour mrAru and I went on back in 1989 that started by skipping out of Virginia in the tail end of a pretty nasty fall storm on the second of October leaving the house without power thanks to some fairly nasty downed trees, meandering across the US and hitting Wyoming in time for 2 fairly nasty multicar accidents, one happening as we were approaching [thank goodness for carrying a crash bag that was freshly topped up before we left Virginia] segueing to deciding to bypass San Francisco just in time to miss the Loma Prieta shindig. Originally we were planning on hooking up with a friend of ours living in SF at the time, spending the evening snarfing down some quality sushi at Ebisu and leaving in the morning to finish that leg of the trip in Fresno with his Mom for his sister’s wedding. We were at the go/no go point and decided we really didn’t want to be driving in SF at the 4-6 rush hour. Then as we were leaving and heading off over the grapevine, we ran through several areas of wild fires to get to his Dad in Yucaipa. Then, we wandered into New Orleans and had to scrounge a hotel because the campgrounds we had planned at crashing at were under 8 and 10 inches of water respectively. It was a very moist fall, apparently.
Only element we missed was plasma, we had the earth, air, fire, water and metal covered =)
