I think it's time for a bit of light relief. I'm asking
that everyone share their most memorable holiday ... (It can be
memorable for a variety of reasons)...
I'll go first.

The holiday I'll never forget was a few years ago. We were living
in Los Angeles. It was during our winter break that we chose to
holiday in a place filled with soaring cliffs, plunging waterfalls,
gigantic trees, rugged canyons, sheer walls of granite, mountains
and valleys, otherwise known as Yosemite National Park.

We had gone skiing in Badger Pass high above Yosemite Valley.
It was late in the afternoon, on our way down to the valley, the
road had black ice in the shadows. The road was cut into a very
steep mountainside. Our car started to skid on the ice but we
managed to get control.

However at the next steep bend the car started to slide towards
the edge. No amount of steering corrected the drift towards the
precipice. The side wheels hit a mound of snow on the edge of the
road built up by snow ploughs and the car rose up on two wheels
ready to tumble down the near vertical slope to the valley
way down below.

Suddenly the car stopped sliding. The windows were coverd with
snow. I was completely terrified and shaken.

My husband climbed out to help me out.
Lucky for us the car had slid onto a tree stump
at the side of the road. If that tree stump
wouldn't have been there - we would have have been goners.
The back of the car was 6 feet above the slope.

At that moment a car full of skiers came along and with the aid of
our tow cable they managed to drag our car back onto the road.
No damage was done to the car. I can't say the same for us. To this
day I have a morbid fear of mountain roads. Anyway, we continued our
journey back to the safety of our hotel in the valley.

That was one holiday I'll never forget.

What's yours?

Foxy I share your fear of high mountain roads but with far less reason. :)

My most memorable holiday was being pushed back towards the south by army tanks in Sri Lanka after an increase in skirmishes with the Tamil uprisings. That put a dampner on our trip but then we headed off other parts and all was good.

Another bizare experience was being pursued by a Japanese businessman on a plane while on a trip to the US. He could not take No for an answer - he was about 45 and I was 21 and he was a dirty old man in my view. Even in the transit lounge in Los Angeles he stuck to me like glue telling me about his riches and that he could 'keep' me in one of his penthouses. He did not understand how someone could not be enticed by material goods and luxury and thought I was playing hard to get. I was glad when I finally reached my destination. Travelling on a plane as a single woman was not a great idea in hindsight and I would never had done it but was going to start a new job and take a holiday at the same time.

Foxy dear
The next one. Whenever where it is.

Pelican,
So it was you who broke my heart not foxy...just kidding:-)
Ps. Do you know if he has a rich sister? I fancy being a sugared daddy

Dear Pelican,

Gosh, your holiday account brought back some memories...

Back to my days at Uni. I had a total crush on my English
Lit. lecturer. I'd been instantly attracted to this tall,
lanky dark-haired, brown-eyes, desert-booted Adonis,
with the sensuous mouth and crooked smile, whose eyes had
caught mine mesmerized, across the crowded lecture theatre.

When he tapped me on the shoulder after the lecture, and
asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee, I accepted.
Anyway, to make a long story short. That winter he invited me
for a holiday at a friend's ski-lodge. I was very excited at
the prospect, and everything went well - until we got to
the lodge and I noticed his putting his luggage and mine into
the one bedroom. I politely inquired where he was going to sleep?
He slept on the couch, but my holiday ended the next morning,
he took me home. Never asked me out again...

nice one Foxy, mines a toss up between 2.

a week in Broken Hill, seeing both the working mine(over 4oo km of road under the surface) and the 100 yo Daydream mine, desert sculptures and desert peas, picnics in dry river beds and Maidens at a full Menindee Lakes. Red river gums and the beautiful Darling. Eagles everywhere, big reds and parrots. and the pubs.
Then down the Darling and across to Lake Mungo with its ancient layers of green and purple clays laid out like miniature worlds, changing colour before my eyes as the sun set. Huge white dunes perfectly smoothed by the wind with one lone set of emu tracks disappearing in the distance.

or the red centre, particularly Kings Canyon with its majesty and magic. Awe inspiring surrounds, impossibly beautiful waterholes and wildlife. Also the mighty mighty Finke River, dotted with waterholes on its way to the desert. And my search for the Western quoll, who are out there somewhere. The night sky.

Desert holidays are my favorites, shared with the one I love.

Dear palimpsest,

More please, more, more, more...

How beautifully you described it all.
I can just visualize it and it made me
actually drool.

I also love the desert, the colours are
stirring,and the sunsets - magnificent.
A totally different world.

I recently went to the IMAX theatre at the
Melbourne Museum and saw the "Grand Canyon Adventure."
It was awesome.

Ah well, back to the real world.

Exammy...if only I'd known it was you. How our lives would have been different. :D

*I had a total crush on my English
Lit. lecturer....He slept on the couch, but my holiday ended the next morning,
he took me home*

Err Foxy, I guess this explains the difference between male
logic and female logic :)

Dear Yabby,

Please explain?

Foxy, its basic evolution theory. Males have evolved with the
urge to impregnate females. Those who spread their genes
far and wide, leave alot more offspring then those who
don't.

For a male its quite logical that if a female has a crush
and says yes to a holiday, that they eventually will land
up in the same bed. For females that is not the case.
So no impregnation, no holiday...

Dear Yabby,

And here I was thinking he was attracted to my mind...

Just kidding.

I think it was my naivety (more than anything else)
at the time Yabby.
The guy was a perfect gentlemen, and I
think that he simply wasn't prepared
to take advantage of the situation.

Now, if this would happen today... :)

My most memorable holiday was when myself and two kids and a girlfriend and two kids stayed in a old double garage set up at a secluded beach.
Oh the fun.
Oh the laughs from having such a simple existence that week.
Oh the collapse of my stretcher bed and oh hang, sleeping on hard
floor made it all the more funny.
I reckon we'll remember that trip for life where life was simple,
a bath was called a 'bucket wash' as that is all we had, and when
we all sat in a line down the side of our double garage 'camping site'
eating our eggs with only the ocean and bush to stare at.
It was heaven.

Foxy,

My favourite holiday is always the last one I took. So....
at the moment I am sitting in a pool of sweat in Bangkok having spent the last month wandering up through Malaysia and Thailand.

So far I have eaten fried grasshoppers and grubs; trekked into the jungle for hours to see the only one of the Biggest Flowers in the World (Its over 3 and a half foot in diameter)that is known to be in flower in Malaysia at present; stayed in a brothel for two nights; shared a guest-house with an entire wall full of bats; got lost in the centre of Thailand; slept on a beach trying to stay unnoticed by the King of Thailand's personal guards;gone into a small village in the mountains where I learned to use a blow-pipe and, incredibly, turned out to be really accurate with it; and ended up in a strange bus station in the middle of a town whose name I didn't know, where no-one spoke the language or had a map and been helped by a monk and a transvestite.

Right now its beginning to dawn on me that its very improbable that I have enough money to get back to China but, what the heck. This is my
favourite holiday - at least for this year!

Dear Cakers,

Your holiday sounds like so much fun.

Family holidays - bring back so many memories,
especially beach ones. As examinator said in
another thread - 'Were we ever that young?'
But those were the days...

Dear Romany,

What a fascinating life you lead.

I must admit I've never been that adventurous.
But I've always been jealous of friends that
were. I've got a sensitive stomach for starters -
so that could explain my reluctance to travel
to exotic places - I'm an 'armchair' traveller.
But, next year - health permitting we're planning
an overseas trip to Russia, and Northern Europe,
hopefully, depending on our finances...

Your holiday sounds incredible!

Foxy

For "adventurous" rather read stupid, unprepared, too laissez-faire and sometimes just plain dumb! (And even though I have a cast-iron digestion the grubs were absolutely sickening).

Dear Romany,

Yeah, but if I had a cast-iron stomach, I'd
trade places with you in a flash. Think of
the stories you'll have to tell your
grandchildren and the memories you'll have
for your old age.

Foxy ,
What in the hell were you thinking about when you went on that holiday with your sexy Uni Lecturer ??

Please don't say you just wanted to view the sights - after all you were doing a bit of a line for him !

Poor bloke, he went home shattered .

Dear kartija jim,

I was so naive in those days. Another lecturer at
uni had described me as "The Girl With The Untouched
Look." I remember it took me a long time to live down
my first memorable experience with a Swedish film,
one movie night at university.

I had never experienced explicit nudity on the screen.
So when a full frontal, erected penis appeared without
any warning, I was totally unprepared and my 'Gasp!'
echoed around the silent screening room amid snickering
of 'Only virgin here!' by the men in the audience.

I'd been brought up on the motto:

'Always be a lady, no matter where you are
For as a lady you'll achieve much, and travel far!'

So what can I say? That's how it was. Even today,
I think that people are basically decent, and I'm
surprised when they behave badly.

Hi Foxy,

Seems he definitely "jumped the gun " a bit early !

One memorable holiday I had was when travelling in north Africa with a female friend we hitched a lift with a Muslim businessman in his flash BMW . Headed for Morroco, we were only a few K's down the road when we hit an icy patch and spun around out of control, ending up pointing the way we had come .

Our new friend decided that Allah had sent him and us a very important message so we went back to town, where he found us a boarding house room for the night [for free] and we set off for a good trip the next day .

Nice, friendly People and interesting country .

Dear katrija jim,

Thanks for sharing your holdiay.

Africa is a place that I've always wanted to visit.

I think it would be amazing.

Perhaps, in a few years, further down the road...

Foxy

Kicked off Gold coast Emergency Telephone Answering and Secretarial Services. It was 24/7 .
A staffer told the police the body was in the clean away truck-there was it was- a dog!
Not being happy with the abuse I got, after their staff was bailed up at gun point looking for the body, I decided to take it out on some outstanding clients.

I’ve got no money, says- the accountant, but tell you what, why don’t you take a break and have a holiday and my holiday retreat on an Island instead.

Just what I needed (I thought). I invited a senior friend from Sydney. Tied a wooden boat on the roof and we were off.

Pam was an actress and very much the lady. Our friendship was through Animals.
We drove onto the barge and she was so excited! There was a problem with the thing which took several hours to fix.

By which time she was getting a little under the weather. (She liked her Scotch.) Finally we were there-

Nothing``. No roads just sand, so you couldn’t even stop. Around and around in circles with the boat slipping and Pam screaming terrified looking for the retreat... Finally we found it. “No power” No generator, stinking hot -sharks

Cheer up I said, look there’s an old Metho fridge at least you can keep your Scotch cold I told her. She hopped out without her shoes and burnt the bottom on her feet. She sat on the front step stunned. So was I TBO. It was a dump!

4 pm the mossies started. Spray made no difference.
The fridge broke down and there was black smoke all through the place...

I brought a candle I told her :) She laughed she cried and finally went to bed kicking her toe in the dark.

Next morning I am woken to screaming- fire fire.
It was a fire all right and we were surrounded. Running out of space but obviously we got out.

Needless to say Pam never holidayed with me again :)

And I put the accountant’s fees up!

Dear PALE&IF,

I can see why you remembered that holiday :)

Still, I bet it made you appreciate all the
ones that came after it.

My brother holidays out at Point Plummer every
year. And even though he says the conditions
there are rather 'primitive' the views make up for it.
The beaches are beautiful - miles of surf and sand.

Maybe I'll join him next summer...