The strangest place you've been

[lazygood4nothinbum]

martha, i wound up having a group dinner one night about 25 years ago with a professor friend of mine and sarah weddington (who my friend had invited to lecture the school). haven't spoken to her since but we got along really well and talked to each other for most of the evening. she was such a nice lady and smart smart smart. i recall i liked her very much.

as to the strangest places, ok, well, there was the, hmmm, too strange. ok, then there was that time at, damn, still too strange. i'm gonna have to go with south miami right after andrew. almost made me puke so i guess that was strange enough.

[Dude]

The first thing that popped into my mind.....

The bottom of Fantastic Pit in Ellison's Cave in Georgia, after repelling all 586 feet straight down

Cave Exploration Pictures, Cave Photos, Photo Gallery, Picture Gallery, Desktop Wallpaper – National Geographic

[Caroline]

Colorado City, Utah. It's a Mormon polygamist town in Arizona, north of the Grand Canyon.

Four of us (women in our 30s and 40s) stopped for gas on the way to a backpacking trip and drove through the town. It was full of HUGE houses, all with HUGE vans in the driveways, and with LONG clotheslines in the back yard full of identical rows of jeans and work shirts for the boys and identical gingham dresses for the girls. The boys all had short haircuts, the girls all wore braids.

It was very eerie and we felt VERY out of place.

[Martha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum martha, i wound up having a group dinner one night about 25 years ago with a professor friend of mine and sarah weddington (who my friend had invited to lecture the school). haven't spoken to her since but we got along really well and talked to each other for most of the evening. she was such a nice lady and smart smart smart. i recall i liked her very much.

I'm so jealous! She likely was the youngest lawyer to ever have a Supreme Court case and I think it was her first contested case.

[FinanceDude]

Bayonne, New Jersey...............

Don't ask...........

[ladelfina]

didn't you tell a story about that.. a hellish drug motel? Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude Bayonne, New Jersey............... Don't ask...........

Where the sky was orange and the water black.......

Not me with the drug infested motel........

[M Paquette]

A water cistern under Istanbul, Turkey, called the Basilica Cistern. Coolest place in town during August.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude Where the sky was orange and the water black.......

Thats the case in all of New Jersey, and a fair percentage of New York.

[Moemg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khan Northern New Jersey, June 1972. My first job out of college at Picatinny Arsenal. All the disadvantages of a a small town and a large city, and none of the advantages of either. No public transportation (I arrived via bus and had to have my parents wire money so I could buy a car).

So funny ! I used to live not far from Picatinny Arsenal so I know what you mean.

[ladelfina]

M Paquette.. that's amazing.. to think they commissioned all that carving on the columns in a place hardly anyone would see.. This looks like it was done under Roman direction, just by the look of it and the fact they were big on public works and managing water (not nearly so impressive or efficient nowadays, mind you..) and that was probably part of their Empire at the time.

[BigMoneyJim]

New Orleans, March 2006, about 7 months after Katrina and shortly after Mardis-Gras. I think I wrote about it here somewhere, but the short version is I wheeled in around evening rush hour on a very busy I-10, saw lots of pedestrian traffic and at least half of the businesses boarded up but several open as I drove through the French Quarter to Harrah's. I played there until after sunset--but well before midnight--and came back outside to a blacked-out ghost town. It was incredibly creepy as some places were clean and lit but obviously closed (I'm guessing they were either open or simply cleaned for Mardi-Gras and then re-abandoned) and others were pitch-black with debris still piled and/or scattered. The hotels that weren't closed were all over-full with construction and utility crews, and I gave up looking about 5 hours North and slept in my car at a truck pullover off I-59. (Apparently there was a military deployment in progress from a base in Mississippi which caused their hotels to be filled with military families.)

I had originally planned on staying in New Orleans for a night and a day and then touring the areas East of New Orleans, but once I realized how desolate and unavailable it was I beelined North looking for lodging and services.

[Moemg]

I would have to vote for shark feeding in Bora Bora . They tie a rope between two small boats and then they start throwing cut up meat into the water . The tourists hold onto the rope as the sharks start a feeding frenzy and cirlcle close to the tourists . Apparently the sharks do not have good eyesight so they see the tourists as a wall and turn around .I had a shark come within five inches of my face before he backed off . It was a one time adventure !

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigMoneyJim The hotels that weren't closed were all over-full with construction and utility crews, and I gave up looking about 5 hours North and slept in my car at a truck pullover off I-59. (Apparently there was a military deployment in progress from a base in Mississippi which caused their hotels to be filled with military families.)

Reminds me of the time I was driving across the country on rte 80 and just staying wherever I was when the urge to stop driving hit me. Until I got into Nebraska and ran into a Garth Brooks concert, the Polish American Festival (turns out there are a lot of Polish americans in Nebraska) and the state roller skating championship. All the hotels in the eastern half of the state were slammed.

Then the fuel pump started leaking.

To this day, I still curse Garth Brooks.

[Moemg]

Another strange place I've visited is the soap box thread they make shark feeding look like fun !

[2soon2tell]

Olongapo City, RP next to the former Subic Bay Naval Base, any time but especially after dark. "hey sailor what ship you on" How about some monkey meat on a stick or a balout (fertilized duck eggs)

[Khan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2soon2tell Olongapo City, RP next to the former Subic Bay Naval Base, any time but especially after dark. "hey sailor what ship you on" How about some monkey meat on a stick or a balout (fertilized duck eggs)

"Sailor, you come up here I give you something you never had before."

'Christ, she's got leprosy.'

[dex]

Strangest place?

Inside my head.

[calmloki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2soon2tell Olongapo City, RP next to the former Subic Bay Naval Base, any time but especially after dark. "hey sailor what ship you on" How about some monkey meat on a stick or a balout (fertilized duck eggs)

Good ol' Subic! Where a peaceful country boy got to see a fellow sailor clonked on the head with a bottle. Didn't break the bottle. Odd sound. Different time the same guy saw a merchant marine get cut by a shore based sailor, which led to his first look at the mouth of a 12 gauge in the hands of the bar bouncer - bouncer came over and leveled his shotgun on the table, which made it real peaceful real quick. Wearing trashbags with three holes in them as impromptu raincoats and wading into bars to drink - business as usual. Floating bloated livestock bumping up against the ships. Having a friendship with a lass that was expected to be no longer than the boat was in port, coming back, going to a different bar to make a new friend, and having the first friend find said sailor and make it known that the ahh - friendship was expected to continue. Other strange things were seen..

[clifp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire@40 Nobody mentioned the Blue Grotto yet?

Beautiful place, I remember it well even though its been more than 20 years.

Quote:

A water cistern under Istanbul, Turkey, called the Basilica Cistern. Coolest place in town during August.

My favorite location in one of my favorite cities.

I'd add to these the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, China 100,000 life like figure in a tomb for one emperor and the very weird space city outside of Moscow.

But hands done the strangest place I've been in the world
is
The Peoples Republic of Bezerkley, CA,
Crazy politicians, naked people, naked marches, Marine recruiters, people who live in trees to prevent stadiums from being built, free joints distributed on campus, moon men, and Nobel laureates all co-existing (more less) in one place.