900th post GAW - Will you tell me a story?

tjswarbrick

tjswarbrick

Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
3,006
Okay. I thought I'd have 1,000 posts by now, but I've been busy. Kids and work and such. I've been reading through the threads, but not responding so much.
Regardless, even though I haven't won a darn thing here yet, it's such an awesome place that I thought it time to give a little back.

The fam is home from school for the summer, and we're taking a little vacation soon.
I'll need some stories to read to my 8yo daughter.

So, tell me about the best vacation you've ever been on.
I'm not going to limit the # of words or anything - short or long, just make it compelling.
Keep it PG, since I'll be reading 'em to my kid (or kids - the 7yo doesn't always listen so well.)
Open to all, but see below.

I have 3 sets of goodies to give away:

a) Full-size black zytel Becker scales; yellow .060 G10 liners, stainless hardware, and stock BK7 sheath:


b) Stippled black Becker tweener scales, with yellow .060 G10 liners and stainless hardware:


Kershaw Shallot. This is an XXXX Blem - though I could never tell what was wrong with it when new. It was my EDC for a few months, and my beater for a few more. It's been to hell and back, and sharpened to hair shaving on the Worksharp (was my original practice knife):


Best vacation ever, as selected by my 8yo daughter, gets first pick.

Random Beckerhead, with story, gets pick of what remains.

Random post, with story, gets whatever's left.

I'll start now, run it over Independence day, ending July 6. Items s/b in the mail by 7/8, provided everything goes smoothly.

Good luck, and let the vacation stories start rolling.
 
Tahiti was the best vacation but it was also our honeymoon... Not PG. Back when my seven year old was 2 and the second child but a glimmer in my eye,we decided to take a trip northeast for the fall. Although I had been to different northeastern cities I had never really traveled around the northeast. When visiting cities we often went by plane which is fast but you don't get to see as much along the way.
So we have an old VW bus, a westfalia (pop top camper). It's a 75 with a rebuilt '76 engine. The body is in very poor shape. I have to tape different areas with hundred mile an hour tape to keep things from flapping. I decided this should be our mode of transport. Both my family and my wife's family said we were crazy, that the bus would not make it. They agreed it would be one thing by ourselves but with a two year old - just not a good idea.
We really wanted to go to Vermont. There is a little village there that we love to visit. And then maybe head into southern Maine for some cheap lobster. Off we went, bus loaded with camping gear and two year old. We made it to New York the first day. The second day we drove a while, stopped for gas and then it happened. Just like everyone had warned us. Even my wife, in typical fashion, turned on me. "We should have listened to them!", "We should have driven the 4runner." I crawled under the bus, searching for the problem. It took me longer to find it than to fix it. I instructed the wife to try to start the vehicle while I tapped with my knuckles. The VW roared back to life (okay "roared back to life" may be an exaggeration as the VW has never, and probably will never, roar but...) we were off.
Before long we arrived in Vermont, did some camping at qheechee, after a few days went over to Maine. In Maine we got a cheap hotel room on the beach. I feasted for a few nights on lobster and Shipyard beer. We also ended up in a classic car show accidentally while trying to get back to the hotel. There were all these wonderfully restored muscle cars and classics and then our rusty, old, VW. The locals loved the VW. Due to longer winters and salt used on the roads they hadn't seen a westy like ours in a while. The drive home was uneventful other than having to tap on the starter one more time. I replaced the starter when we got back. My older child, now seven, still recalls and talks about that trip. Thanks for the chance!
 
Last edited:
Well i guess i have 2, for different reasons, theres the best and most fun....

Most fun vacation;
I was 18 or so and a friend of mine was ran over on his motorcycle by a drunk women in a Mercedes, He was very lucky but will still walk with a limp for the rest of his life, He was awarded a large settlement, i don't know how much he got, he never mentioned it. Anyway he grabbed me and another guy, bought a brand new jeep and we hit the road for 2 weeks traveling all over the east coast from florida to ohio, no expense was spared, we ate steak shrimp and lobster for breakfast, we stayed in hotel rooms that where 400+ a single night, we hit all the best clubs and paid 100 a piece to skip every line... We all came up never knowing "money" but for those 2 weeks we were kings.

My best vacation....
I was overseas in the army when daughter was born here in the states, My commander sent me home for a week and I went and held my daughter for the first time. I had never felt so much "feelings" in my entire life. That single day made every other day in my life seem pointless.
 
Great stuff, guys.

Odog - you brought a couple of mine:
Around '76 my parents got a bright orange '73 Bus (not Westfalia.) I helped (okay, watched) Dad pull a dent, respray the damage, and replace a headlight.
Driving out to Mammoth Lakes (~200 miles) the tranny overheated and we had to stop for 3 hours before it would get out of 2nd gear. We stopped at a "dry" (read really, REALLY muddy) lakebed. The 3 oldest boys lost our shoes in that gooey, sticky mud, my sister got hit in the head when we were all throwing rocks into the mud (the "splash" would stay put - why she was downstream of the littlest brother, I'll never understand...) We built a fire to roast hot dogs. After dinner, said littlest brother was walking around the perimeter and tripped. He caught himself by putting a hand in the coals! There went the kool-aid. Luckily, after that, the Van worked and we found a clinic to wrap him up and came home.

My parents didn't learn. 2 years later, we took the darn thing to Michigan. From California. In the summer. Somewhere outside Omaha the tranny went out again. We stayed 3 nights at a Holiday Inn. With 6 kids at home, we had never been to a hotel with a pool before. I learned to swim, and we had DQ every night. Got it fixed, visited the family (climbed a pear tree, got covered in soot, played with discarded car batteries, learned about the skeletons in my Dad's basement, saw my Grandpa's Army sword, experienced my first tornado warning, saw my first firefly. Good times!) We drove home non-stop in a brand new, completely stripped 2-seat Dodge Tradesman 100 panel van. We had a couple bean bags, a couple sleeping bags, and pillows and blankets. We could see the ground through the drain holes in the sheetmetal, and I had welts on my legs from that corrugated floor. My dad has sworn off European cars since.

I do have fond memories of riding between the shifter and the seats in that old bus, but I couldn't imagine taking one on a family vacation in this century. I still see 'em on the road occasionally out here in California, though.
 
Last edited:
We use ours mostly in state for concerts and car camping with our boys. As they get older and can hike further we'll probably use it less. I do keep trying to talk the wife into one more long trip, South Carolina or back to northeast. So far she's not buying in.
 
Every year Dad, mom, and my brother would load up in the family Chevy Blazer and take off for a vacation. One year we went from San antonio to Houston, went to Johnson Space Center and to the Alabama-Coushatta Indian reservation and took a tour of the "Big Thicket" From there we drove to west Texas and spent a week in the Davis mountains, while staying there we hiked to Ft. Davis and got to see the restoration of the cavalry barracks. We went to Midland TX and then back down to Marfa and Amistad Reservoir.. It was 2 weeks and some of the best memories of my childhood and the best family vacation I ever took.

In the mid 90's I took a month and a half and drove from San Antonio all over the western states, up into Canada and then into Alaska. We made it all the way to the Arctic Circle before turning around. It was one of the greatest vacations ever because we had no plan other that what we decided on day to day. I got to see some of the most amazing places on earth.. All in all it was like 12,000 miles over almost 7 weeks..
 
I'm calling my trip with my freinds in Boy Scouts to the USS Alabama a vacation;) so here it goes!

We had to be at the local church by 5 AM sharp, or face the wrath of a grumpy scout master. all 14 of us rode in one big van (except for two kids who rode with their parents) needless to say it was a fun eight hour ride! Many jokes were told and memories made!

At around one in the afternoon we went to a aviation museum and ate lunch me and my freind teamed up and got nachos and soda, we got to sit in the cockpits of fighter planes, and see quite a few other planes!

When we finally got to the USS Alabama at around 2 or 3 we went down into the hull of the ship and found where we would be sleeping (very uncomfortable bunk beds by the way haha) I made sure to get a bunk next to the cooling vent!

after we got settled in me and a freind went and explored the hole ship. one of my favorite parts of the ship was an old bedroom, just one bunk, an old typewriter, toilet, books, a chair. And a Plaque on the gentlemen who used to live there...very interesting story! After awhile we climbed to he highest part of the ship, about 30 sets of stairs...it took awhile:)

After that we had pizza dilivered, and here's where it gets funny, my freind decided to start feeding the seagulls. I wanted him to stop, but NO he kept going and guess what? One of those birds busted a grumpy on my shirt:grumpy: the worst part? My troop leader said I had to put it back on for the troop picture....so yeah, my freinds made fun of me for awhile after that one...

Later on my freind was messing with a Cub Scout, before I continue I would like to mention that my 13 year old freind at he time was about four feet five inches, in other words the size of a Cub Scout and the fact we were on he ship with a little over 100 cub scout. A few minutes after I walk away I hear a slam and I run back to see what happened. Apparently the Cub Scout used a judo throw on my bud...we all laughed pretty hard!

Finally at around 1 AM the scout leader made us go to bed...what can I say? We like to party!!!!! read this yourself before you read it to your kids, I don't know if you'll find it reasonable, but it's part of my story so I don't want to leave it out! me and a few friends started playing poker and various other cards games for about a half hour by flashlight....fun times and I had some good luck! I won the bragging rights that night!

The only downside to the hole trip was my choice of beds, if you remember I chose the bed right next to the cooling vent, the hole day it had been 90 plus degrees, but at night it was in the low 60s...I know what your thinking, it's not that bad you had your sleeping bag right? Ah yeah, no. In the middle if the night I heard my friend shivering...so yeah, that was a cold night for me..

After that we woke up, ate breakfast and relaxed for a couple hours when it was finally time to leave we all piled up in to are cars/van and took the 8 hour drive back...it was a fund trip! Sadly enough I had to leave Boy Scouts two weeks afterwards...but I won't get into that, thank you for the chance and I'm sorry if I was a little long winded haha. I had to leave a good bit out so it would be PG...

Do I even qualify? I don't even have a BK 15/16/17 lolz...

thanks for the chance! I'm getting a little sentimental now so I'll stop:D

-Kirby
 
WW - thanks for sharing. Those would definitely stand out for me. I traveled 1/2 way across the world to meet each of my daughters. It does change you. Not sure I'd classify either trip as vacation, but the HSR in Taiwan was pretty cool.

cOLD, that's one heck of a road trip. Is that where you got your name? I've driven to Canada, Oregon, Colorado, and Arizona - but not all in the same trip!

Awesome, Kirby.
When I was a scout, we visited a sub and a Carrier. We were supposed to get to stay overnight on the sub, but the scoutmaster forgot to organize it or something. So after building it up for months, it didn't happen. Not that they're terribly comfortable... I figure it would've gone pretty much as you describe.
Gotta get yourself a tweener.

Keep 'em coming...
- Tom
 
My best vacation/trip happens every year around the middle of November. I have a friend that lives for fishing and every year he grabs me and takes me to his Uncle's house where we usually stay for Friday night. On that Friday night we get all of the fishing gear prepared for the next two days which are usually the most fun. Before we get to far ahead, lets talk about Friday first. My friend's Uncle lives near a high-way that about a mile away there's a decent sized lake that holds some pretty big fish. We've never caught anything in that lake until this trip. We casted a couple poles out into the water to let sit out over the night and hopefully we would have something the next morning and we would have enough time to actually check the poles before we left for the highlight of the trip. Well, we decided to only leave the poles in the water for a couple hours so we didn't have to walk back through the woods and to the lake in the morning. To our surprise, it felt like something was on the line, so we reeled in and there happened to be a big sucker type looking fish on the line. We obviously couldn't eat it, but we looked at that fish as a nice way to start out an awesome trip.

Now to the awesomeness. The highlight and main place we would be fishing for the weekend was on the Manistee River for Steelhead. We would be camping on the river Saturday night and fish for most of the day Sunday. The camping in its self was awesome because the scenery was beautiful and the days were nice and crisp. The little "honey hole" we would be fishing was about a mile away from where we parked the car, so that mean't A LOT of traveling to and from the "honey hole". The hardest part about the whole trip was this giant hill that thankfully made it easy to take stuff to the river, but going back up the hill was painstackingly slow and taking the camping gear from the river to the car while heading home was even worse. Finally, after getting set-up and settled in and with the waiters on, we waded into the river a little ways and fished. On the first cast of the trip, my friend's Uncle caught a nice sized Steelhead. Everything was looking up for us and we were excited. Fast forward to the middle of the night and we still haven't caught anything else except that first Steelhead. After getting much rest Saturday night, we had two people fishing and two people packing stuff up and hauling it back to the car. Ever since that first cast, nothing was caught. We were disappointed, but we also had the time of our lives. From the "little" things like catching that sucker fish and bringing fishing gear up that hill, our trip was more than awesome! It made us realize that even though your trip didn't come out as expected, you can still have an awesome time! The End! :)
 
Thanks for all the great stories, guys.
Odog27, my daughter liked yours the best. PM me your address, and whether you want the:
a) bk7 (full size) scales, liners and sheath;
b) BK16 (tweener) scales and liners; or
c) user Kershaw Shallot.

cOld, the Random Number Generator picked your BH#. PM me your addy and your top two picks. You'll get your first choice, unless Odog27 already chose it.

9Blades: the RNG selected your Post (#9, incidentally). PM me your address, and whatever is left after Odog and cOLD make their selections will be headed out to you.

Thanks again. It was smaller than I had hoped, but still a lot of fun.

Regards,
- Tom
 
Odog27 and cOLD, the Shallot and Tweener scales & liners are, respectively, out the door and on their way to you.
Since they're not pricey items, and it's my giveaway, I sent 'em slow boat with no tracking. But I expect you'll see 'em within a week.

9blades, if you'd like the full size scales and liners, and BK7 sheath, please drop me a PM. If you are unable to, just let me know in a post here and I'll figure something out.

Thanks guys. Enjoy.

Regards,
Tom
 
Last edited:
Turns out 9blades has no use for a set of full-size Becker scales at this time, so he gave the go-ahead to pick a Runner Up.
Random # Generator selected #12.
KnottyEagle, if you PM me your addy, I'll get 'em out tomorrow.
Thanks for playing, everyone.

Regards,
Tom
 
Turns out KnottyEagle doesn't need the full-size scales, either.

worldwood? bigghoss? Either of you want a set of .060 yellow G10 liners for your 9 (or other full-size Becker)? (Or the whole shebang - scales, 7 sheath, and stainless hardware.) First to post "yes" takes it. A 2-item random number generator is just flipping a coin, and I'm getting worn out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top