Pics of places that look like places from the films, or are just nice. [2]

Yes do tell Mrs Figg- were you intoxicated. Was it a rave incident?

no it was a school trip I didnt want to go on. But I was an excellent swimmer in those days.

That is one way out of it- what ferry was it- Mersey or something?

Isle of Man. didnt fancy it. I get sea sick

or it was the man thing. you swam back in protest?

correctomundo

i admire u deeply.

Mrs Figg wrote:no it was a school trip I didnt want to go on. But I was an excellent swimmer in those days.

No doubt because the nuns kept testing to see if you would float!

ha ha *gulp* oh shit! maybe I was pushed.

it wasnt one of those massive big ferries, more big river ferry size I guess. It was freezing and it hurt and the water was dirty. and when I got to land a policeman put me in a blanket in his car and called my folks, my clothes felt like lead and my shoes came off, i swallowed a bucket load of sea water and puked a lot, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasnt. They all thought I was mad. and I probably was a teeny bit mad. I think that saved me from being murdered on the spot by my dad. what japes.

I just remembered they took me to see a shrink. wow I had totally forgotten that.

Well I'm glad you floated Mrs Figg, and that Petty grabbed his tree, and the Halfwise landed his hang glider among furry ponies rather than angry bulls. Forumshire would be a lot less interesting if our guardian angels hadn't been doing their jobs, wouldn't it?

I started to share an epic falling story from my own immortal youth, but it was eaten by the computer halfway through. [Besides I'm supposed to be working on my year-end taxes right now....]

I'll try to get back to it in the next day or two if the topic hasn't moved on too far.

Mrs Figg wrote:ha ha *gulp* oh shit! maybe I was pushed.

it wasnt one of those massive big ferries, more big river ferry size I guess. It was freezing and it hurt and the water was dirty. and when I got to land a policeman put me in a blanket in his car and called my folks, my clothes felt like lead and my shoes came off, i swallowed a bucket load of sea water and puked a lot, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasnt. They all thought I was mad. and I probably was a teeny bit mad. I think that saved me from being murdered on the spot by my dad. what japes.

I just remembered they took me to see a shrink. wow I had totally forgotten that.

You are one of my new heros.

You all seem to have fascinating stories of risking your lives at a young age and I wish I could share one, but my life has been noticeably free of major injury (or the serious risk thereof). I'm very glad you all came through in one piece!

You've still got a couple years to do something stupid, Eldo. To me the test is the flexibility of your bones: squeeze your forearm: if the two bones flex towards each other you can still be stupid. Afterwards you can still be stupid but your survival rate begins to drop precipitously.

I've had my fair share of stupidity, but I've been pretty lucky. My younger brother used to have terrible luck and have to go to the hospital for various injuries, but he was only a little more reckless than me back then.

"only a little more reckless" and "go to the hospital" when put together seems to indicate you actually did have a admirably life threatening childhood that may meet with approval. Surely you crashed your bike?

Oh yes, I crashed my bike many times. What injuries I did have seemed to gravitate towards my knees. I skinned them more times than I can remember. I never broke any bones though.

Hmm...knees are laudatory but somewhat routine. Perhaps you could apply yourself to riding downhill past parked cars? Some occupant can usually be obliged to open a door on you. But that's likely to only score some more skinned knees and maybe a tooth or two.

Have you investigated parkour? Bull tipping?

No pressure Eldo. There's still plenty of time for inexcusable stupidity. As a matter of fact, many of the very stupidest decisions I've made in my life were in my early 20's when women were watching.

OK, if this is to be cautionary, let me rethink this and find a story of my own nearly fatal stupidity with a woman as the instigator. Shouldn't be hard. I'll get back to you soon....

u lot are a some crazy motherfuckers, but i love u all, you're amazing!

Norc:- you took the words right out of my mouth.
Carry on,guys, Im itching to know !

yeah Dave I want to hear your stories.

more I think about it, that shrink I saw was either an incompetent twat or lessons werent learnt. But in those days I dont think they actually believed a kid could suffer from stress and anxiety, they hadnt invented OCD or panic attacks, which I got at the age of 10. but on the other hand if it had been today they would have probably given me drugs, so I dont know whats worse, to be left on your own to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune at a tender age or get neutered and tranquilized with pills.

i think you turned out rather amazingly cool so kinda glad you didn't have to find that out

cheers Nora.

OK, here goes...
Falling Down a Crevasse

The Cascade Mountains have a lot of natural hotsprings in remote places.

My buddy Dan, who you may remember from the Falling-off-a-Freight-Train story, had a new girlfriend and it was decided that we should all backpack into one of these amazing natural saunas for a weekend.

The snow was just starting to melt off for the Spring, and everything was cool until it started to become clear to everybody that Dan's GF was more interested in me than in him...

Tempers were running short and hormones were running off the chart. Without going into details, it became very clear to me that I needed to get the f*** away from those two as quickly as possible, so without even stopping to pick up my jacket I took all my boiling testosterone down the trail to climb a mountain. (This was not entirely stupid)

The trail was old and not much used. It climbed through the woods until it hit a large scree fall (loose jagged rock-slide) where it switchbacked up till it disappeared under the snow. I was moving at almost a run, with only my hat and what I had in my pockets for gear. And I hadn't told anybody where I was going. I didn't even know where I was going myself. (This was triply stupid.)

When I got to the hard icy snowfield, I took the time to whittle two sharp pine stakes, about a foot long, to chop foot steps because I didn't have an ice axe. The slope was a pretty easy climb, about 60 degrees, so I probably scrambled up about 1000 feet, chopping steps when necessary, without even stopping to think about returning. (REALLY stupid.)

Then the slope became steeper. I had to start focusing more, which was good. Then a small rock cliff jutted up and stopped me. I started to climb it, but at the top there were no solid handholds, only little loose dirt and a few scrub bushes sticking out of the snow. "It would be totally crazy to try to climb over that edge without a rope," I thought, "and besides how would I ever get down?"........

"Down..." I thought for the first time and looked over my shoulder.

For some reason it's always steeper looking back. The ice field I was on seemed to go almost vertically down behind me until it ended in the steep scree that went for another 1000 feet before it hit the valley floor. If I fell for any reason I'd be going 100 mph when I hit the rocks and would be instantly buried in an avalanche of snow and rock where nobody would ever find me.

I started to really think for the first time that day. (Not stupid, but a bit late.)

End Part 1

I think this is going to get scarier before it gets better somehow.