Places you'll never ever ever go back to...

Not in a million years... Under no circumstances whatsoever.

Just to name a few:

Daytona Beach :eyes:

the youth hostel in Key West :crazy:
a 3 hit LSD trip :scared:
the Grand Prix in the middle of downtown Miami :wtf:

Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus :cry:

Blacks Beach in San Diego :evilgrin: (I lied... I could go back there)

awful?

sometime circa 1995. I blocked most of it out.

Somalia

Guantanamo bay, Cuba(well, I MIGHT go back there...) :eyes:

What, and waste another year?

...aka Redneck Riviera

I stayed there too long in the first place, the people there are strangers, even people I have grown up with. The few I did grow up with are not the same folks I remember.

After that, ohhhh...FayetteNam? ;-)

Dallas Texas
Most of Kansas
Dominican Republic
Galveston County Jail
Orlando Fl
This over rated fruit stand some where in Northern Ca.

Staying over night in Port Authority Bus Station in NYC

a Jeff Beck Concert in Austin Texas

a labor gang for oil field roustabouts in Morgan City La.

Bowie Texas

USN Base in Charleston SC
USN Base in Guantanamo Cuba
USN Base in Mayport Florida ( NOT EVEN IF YOU PAID ME )
USN Base in Key West FL

Richardson Texas

One place I'll never go back to is Madison, Connecticut

I went to boarding sk00l there and I would never go back

Met people I only thought existed in Rod Serling's imagineation.
I had a similar experince over night on x mass eve in
Dallas. Three guys, one wearing a foot ball helmet, wearing an
Army surplus dress tunic and carryinig a bible, another bearded person who seemed very spaced out and a seedy smaller guy likie the Ratso Rizzo character from Midnight Cowboy wanted me to sell back my ticket and go with them - they would DRIVE me to Albuquerque that night. - again this was in Dallas. but I met strange folk in NYC too.

In the '90s, a buddy of mine used to rent a cottage in nearby Westbrook for two weeks every summer. Nice (albeit WASPish) little town, but certainly noplace I'd want to live!

Damn it sucked!!! By HS I had contacts and the braces had come off. It was kinda cool to see 95% of my tormenters now 'beneath me' in the HS pecking order. And, yes, I know how bad that sounds. But it was REALLY BAD!

:puke:

Old people driving slo-o-o-owly, white supermacist graffiti on men's room walls, cowboy hats, "Back Off!" mud flaps, right-wing vitriol infesting the letters page of the local paper, endless Dole/Kemp rallies....

Christ, no wonder Florida is shaped like a limp dick! :hurts:

do you not miss the warmth ???-

connecticut can get so much snow - it is difficult to drive

although I did like when I lived in W haven and could drive up for a quick afternoon at Powder Ridge for skiing -

thanks for your insights

And since I drive for a living, I'm even more used to the white stuff.
I actually have a harder time with humidity than I do with cold and snow!

Yes I really went there, by choice even! Pyramid Lake Nevada and anyplace else in Nevada except maybe Tahoe and Vegas. The solution to the I/P crisis is to simply tell them if they don't behave, they have to move to Nevada.

New Jersey.

My experience in NJ has been that beyond 20 miles west of the Hudson NJ has some of the most beatiful residential/farm land I've come across.

Yes, it's beautiful. Drive through, don't stop. That's my motto. I lived in rural NJ for a year and a half. I had more "I-think-my-queer-ass-is-going-to-get-bashed" moments there than I wish to relive. Give me NYC!

Currently, I live 25 miles west of NYC in Madison. It's rich, suburban, and Republican. Mostly just Republican because it's rich though, it's socially liberal. I, however, am a poor Democrat. Just got a ridiculously good deal on a nice apt. though and it's close to my job and easy access to NYC.

No rides or nothin... damn burgesses :boring:

and I thought they did a great job restoring it.

Some aspects of being a 20-year-old in a wide-open city were appealing, the magnitude of poverty and degradation were ultimately depressing. BTW, I'm in this photo: on the right, about midway back, looking at the camera, my head looming over the head of the Filipino girl looking across the table.

Sorry sailor, try again... ;)

It was 30 years ago, but I don't remember any Filipino males anywhere in that bar.

I think I sat at that same table. :hi:

I think the Kitty Hawk was in port at that time. Some of the guys are from the Shitty Kitty, to the best of my recollection, some from my ship. On edit: see my edited response above. As I said, it was almost 30 years ago, but I don't remember any Filipino males anywhere in that bar...except BEHIND the bar.

the stories i could tell....

I wouldn't even know where to begin...and I COULDN'T begin on DU. The threads would get locked before they got out the starting gate!

I was there on my navy ship (westpac) ha..my stories were even more "interesting" since I am gay and was actively gay(but "undercover") back then. I STILL have stories though... :P

of a thriving gay scene in Subic Bay. Seems nobody leaves that place unsated.

but I STILL had an interesting time. The only reason I knew about the "benny boy" scene was because there was quite a huge gay population on my carrier and many of them told me what went on. That whole foreign port pick up thing was never for me. but u are so right about "nobody leaves that place unsated."

Freshman year of college ...

two of the worst years of my life

I had a horrible time -- even found a cockroach in my room. It was awful. I checked out early, jumped on the train, and headed for Florence where I talked my way into a deluxe suite and soaked my cares away in a decadent bath.

I also have no fondness for Miami. But I lost a true love there, so maybe someday I will go back and see what I missed during the heartbreak.

In my "fun with psychedelics" phase, EIGHT was my usual number(I miss those days...)

eyes with teardrops on it... I guess I should have heeded the warning

Kennett Square, PA
St. Joseph, MO
Columbus, SC
Roscoe, NY
Bloomingdale, NJ
El Paso, TX
Eureka, KS
West Lafayette, IN
Columbia, MO

What is wrong with Columbia? I've enjoyed my visits there.

and perhaps unfair to the town. I was applying to professional school there (MU) and had a horrid interview with the dean who pretty much told me that as a woman, I could forget about getting into that particular school. He asked me several questions which I now understand to be illegal (about marital status, boyfriends' future plans, etc.) and told me that my Ivy League education was inadequate and that I would have to take some "remedial" courses before I could even consider going to school there. (That's the Reader's Digest version -let me also note that this all took place about 20 yr ago and that I would never have let that pass unremarked had I known then what I know now.) Left an extremely bad taste in my mouth and I high-tailed it out of there and never looked back. Got into a much better school and got on with my life.

My brother went to Mizzou and loved it, thats why I asked. It always seemed like a nice college town.

Did I ever tell the story of how about 40 some years ago, my sister and I snuck out of school and took the "59 Pontiac to Blacks to go surfing? At that time, it was only known to the Surfers, and all that land belonged to UCSD. Anyway, we got busted by the Campus police and put on restriction. Then there was the time about 30 years ago we took our MOM to Blacks, and she just freaked out because this man came over and started talking to us, and of course he was just all there in the buff. One time we surfed naked on a dare. Gawd, we did crazy things.

Okay, I'd never go back to:

Bombay Beach Hot springs on the Salton Sea. What a dive.

Mike says Gary, Indiana

Puerto Penasco, what a rip off and a freakin drive !

Alabama

Anything in Southern California during the summer.

Here's Blacks:

great waves. I went several times when I was staying in SD.

I would sit up on the cliffs, :smoke:, then hike down to the beach at daybreak.

I was once body surfing & two dolphins were playing in the same curl, almost next to me. That was an electric moment.

bitchen waves, excellent body whompin !

No offense towards red state liberals.

That's all I can think of at the moment!

what it was like. He talked me into going to Bristol and camping. It was awful.

It smelled like gas and rubber, it was loud, and every where I looked was a sea of shirtless beer bellies.

The Great Salt Lake, Utah.

My GOD that sucked so hard, we contemplated asking for our $8 per carload charge back as we left.

The lake was WAY down, so we had to cross a long way on the HOTTEST fucking sand EVER. I had sandals on, but the sand, of course, still got in my shoes. The sand was that really loose, deep sand, so at times you were up to your ankles in it. My skin was literally starting to blister and I would just have to stop every now and then and curse and scream a bit as the bottoms of my toes fried. My friend poured bottled water on our feet occasionally.

Then we got to the water. There were SO MANY fucking gnats, every step you took, thousands of them took flight. They were everywhere. The water was bathwater warm and stung our skin. We walked out 100 steps and it was still only up to just under our knees.

We looked around, said "Screw this" and made our way back through the gnat infested water, through the million degree sand (more burning) to hose ourselves off at the outdoor showers and leave, cursing the place the whole time.

Oh did I mention the smell? All you could smell were rotting carcasses of SOMETHING. The smell lingered for MILES.

Ug. The national parks in Utah were cool, but I'll probably never go there again. It's a one-time kinda thing for me. And Salt Lake City freaked us out with the big missionary billboards everywhere.

So you were smart and didn't stop, eh? Wish we had known. The ONLY thing good about it is that I can SAY I have been in the Great Salt Lake. But it truly sucked.

75 mph straight through

Dirtiest, smelliest town on earth.
2. White Beach, Okinawa
There's nothing there, not even the Air Force base is 'there'.
3. Pohang, South Korea
Dirty little port town with too many sailors and marines one weekend a year.
4. Jidah, Saudi Arabia... or Saudi Arabia in general.
They hate us, not because of what we did, but because we're breathing thier air. (Memories are from the 1980's, before there was any real American presense. I understand that we have suceeded in giving them a reason to hate us.)

during the first Gulf War. He thought it was "okay" but has no desire to go to any Middle Eastern country ever again (he was also on the Sinai Peninsula in the 80s).

Said goodbye to the negative and deliberately unhappy kid a long time ago....

Never again. too much hassle for me for what it's worth.

where do people go to the bathroom - if I am out in the cold - it seems to turn on the waterworks quicker - so I need to be able to get some where to relieve myself

ahhh, never have a fist fight on the bleachers of a gym!



This guy I fought later became one of my best friends.

Met some friends to spend a weekend in a cabin in the mountains, which was fine. But the town itself---Ugh! All cheesy touristy stores selling redneck teeshirts with sayings like "I Love To Fart".

That cracks me up! I actually would like to have a t-shirt that says "I love to fart"! But going to a redneck town to get one is too high a price to pay!

or anywhere else in Texas for that matter. The humidity - and just about everything else about it - really sucks.

Philadelphia (it was closed the last time).

Cleveland (old, dirty and depressing).

Baltimore (old, dirty and depressing).

Bakersfield, CA (redneck city).

OTOH, since everyone's been talking about Black's Beach here in San Diego lately and I haven't been there in 31 years but now live just a few miles away, I just might check it out next summer.

we should have baby stepped our way to Texas, maybe i wouldn't have hated it so much.

here again.

On edit: Or here.

The Arco arena in sacramento to see a kings game-too damn loud.
Las Vegas-just not the place for me, once was plenty, took plenty of pictures, i did enjoy the Hoover Damn though.
The California State fair-4 years in a row will last me a lifetime plus i can't think of any more food i want to eat deep fried on a stick.

The infamous tourist trap for T-shirts and cheap souvenirs, with all of the signage leading to it for about a hundred miles in both directions through the south.

I second The Great Salt Lake sucked. Antelope Island wasn't bad, though, as there was a herd of buffalo. But I can't make fun of the lake without mentioning my wonderful memories at Uintah National Forest, Escalante River, Zion National Park, Arches, Calf Creek Falls, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Snowbird, Alta, Park City, Moab... gettin' high, 1972-1980.

and Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. All that come to mind at the moment.

Sorry Arkansa Duers that state may have produced a great President but I saw so many rednecks and to top it off we were in a dry county no liquor to numb the pain.

I will not even drive thru that damn state again! I-40 is a joke! I have never seen so many torn up roads, then you get the "Enjoy the new road provided by DoT!" sign! The "new road" only lasts a mile then it is more one lane driving on ripped up asphalt for another 20 miles until the next "enjoy" sign! bleech!

of seeing <FAG> spray painted all over the fishing docks & two skinheads in a nearby store talking about <sand-ni***ers> & hate & such.

These things left a less-than-endearing impression on me. Welkome to Amerika.

I stayed a total of 2 hours. I rolled into town & those were the first two things I saw. I won't go back.

armpit of New Jersey

Looking at your watch a third time waiting in the station for a bus
Going to a place that’s far, so far away and if that’s not enough
Going where nobody says hello, they don’t talk to anybody they don’t know
You’ll wind up in some factory that’s full time filth and nowhere left to go
Walk home to an empty house, sit around all by yourself
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You’ll be coming back before too long

Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
And waste another year

At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend
I don’t care if you’re not here with me
‘Cause it’s so much easier to handle
All my problems if I’m too far out to sea
But something better happen soon
Or it’s gonna be too late to bring you back

Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
And waste another year

It’s not as though I really need you
If you were here I’d only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants to bring you down and
That’s not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You’ll be coming back before too long

Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
And waste another year

Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
Don’t go back to Rockville
And waste another year

(I actually, don't live in Rockville, but I'm close to one. I just like older, more obscure REM songs. :P)

The armpit of the armpit of the world.

And it's hot, too.

There are a lot of reasons nobody lives there:

1) Venicians are the biggest jerks on the Italian peninsula.
2) Stinkiest city in the world, bar none.
3) Sinkiest city in the world, bar none.
4) It's nothing but a tourist trap.

It was the only place I visited on my Europe trip that I didn't adore. My reaction to Venice was quite the opposite, really :puke:

Daytona, etc.,many Florida areas are so seedy