I snuck out of the house and hopped a plane to the UK and Germany by myself in the late 80s, and spent two months just bumming around, riding the trains and staying in hostels. I had a huge amount of fun, met wonderful people, and generally had a great time.
(Side note: This would have been even more mundane and just been a school trip, but my mom didn’t let me go to Germany on the trip my school coordinated, because she was afraid there wouldn’t be medical facilities if I had an asthma attack, and that none of the doctors would speak English. :smack: She was *ridiculously *overprotective and kind of a bitch when I was a teenager.)
Being a single fortysomething male and deciding to go into the Disneyworld Princess Fairytale Hall for pictures with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Probably the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve done at any sort of theme park.
A few yards off the shore of Buccaneer State Park in Waveland, Mississippi, is (was?) a length of PVC pipe sticking straight up. A tide gauge, perhaps?
Every time we went to that beach after I noticed that pipe, I tied an inflatable island to its wooden supports and rode the waves.
I have an Orlando timeshare (mostly a result of me trying to force myself to take at least one yearly vacation). One year I traded it for a cruise, and it happened that the day we were eating at the super-fancy suit-and-tie place the same night they had Aurora out for pictures. Since Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney film and I was as close to a prince as I’m likely to ever look, I stopped by and took one–no problems there, small line in the middle of the ship lobby.
So next time I’m at Disney, I thought it’d be cool to try for a tradition of taking a picture with Aurora every time I’m there. But even though I’m pretty used to wandering around Fantasyland and other Disney areas as an adult, there was just something so intimidating about “Princess Fairytale Hall,” that I spent a good chunk of the day making excuses to myself not to go in–“Oh, I don’t want to make kids wait in line any longer just for me” and crap like that.
Finally did it, and of course it wasn’t a big deal, but still I was a little relieved when she got moved out to a new location so they could put in Anna and Elsa in the hall instead.
Probably the first time skydiving. Just a simple static line jump but that meant you had to step out and let go of the Cessna by yourself. Definitely thrilling. Second time, not so much and I was a poor college student so I didn’t take up the hobby.
Also the first time I truly peeled off a rock while climbing. Up until then, it had always been a gradual, I’m slipping, oh crap, with time enough to shout “falling” to give a heads up to the belayer. But this one time, I just slipped and fell fast. My belayer was ready though, but it was plenty scary.
Another time, climbing Mt Rainier via the Kautz route my rope team was crossing a gully when a car sized boulder came tumbling down. It passed between me and my rope mate just 75 feet away. Nothing to do but hold on and hope it doesn’t catch the rope but it was bouncing pretty good so there was little real chance of that.
Thrill rides: I like air time so those big drop towers are my favorite, like the one on top of the Stratosphere in Vegas. Big coasters are fun too. I also love turbulence while flying especially if it has though big drops where you get to feel weightless. I would love to ride in the Vomit Comet.
