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[Flint1979]

Probably both my trips to Iowa in 2008. I got sick the first time I was there for some reason and the second time I was there I got sick on the way there and was sicker than the first time. These trips were about a month apart too.

[milbfan]

Two immediately come to mind for me.

Traveling I-81 from Wise County, VA to Harrisonburg, VA.  I'd never made that trip before, and managed to mess it up by trying to get up there at night, which turned into late night.  And having to deal with the traffic on I-81 on a Friday night.  Hated it.  I've traveled 81 at other times, en route to the RDU area, and can't say I've ever had a decent go.  The last two times I went up to Charlottesville, I took 460 over to 29.  Don't care if it took longer, but it was an infinitely easier drive.

The other one - I had spent the night in Ruston, LA, on my way back to Tuscaloosa.  Had my first (and last) encounter with Raising Cane's.  I got food poisoning, so I was up almost all night.  Had little energy to get going that day, and in hindsight, should've tried to stay put.  I drove I-20, not feeling well, then managed to get caught in a back-up just east of Vicksburg, where traffic didn't move for an hour.  Fortunately, I had my 3DS on me, complete with car charger, so I just put my car in park until things started moving an hour later.  Went from feeling dog-tired from Brandon to Meridian, to somehow getting a second wind for the last 90 miles that evening.

[ZLoth]

Traveling along Kooteney Lake as part of a day trip while staying in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Though, not for the reasons you expected.

In 2016, I thought I would something different. For my September birthday, I thought I would take a personal road trip that included a short stay up in Idaho. Why not? I haven't been to Idaho. One of the things on my changeable agenda was to take a day trip up to Canada. It was going to be the scenic route, so I was taking US-95 to Canada 95, then head west to Creston, then north to Katooney Bay ferry, then back south again home.

The morning started out right. Had an early start. But, then, I hit the border at Eastport, Idaho/Kingsgate, BC. Due to a 2016 New Jersey/New York bombings that had occurred the previous weekend, the border guards were on high alert. And, I am a super-suspicious character in that I am traveling alone, in the shoulder season, no suitcases, with a laptop. They had dogs sniffing through my car, searched my laptop, and could not believe that I was taking the scenic route to Creston. (I swear, Canada border guards are hired on the basis on how Canada nice they aren't). Sigh.

Anyways, after doing the mandatory Tim Horton's stop, I'm driving along Katooney Bay (nice, scenic route worth taping) when I get a call about the Lowe's card that I had applied for the previous Thursday. My response: What Lowe's card that I applied for? Since they were originating the call, I'm not about to provide any personal information. And, the side of the road of Highway 3A is not the best place to take care of serious business. I get over to the Kuskanook Harbour and Boat Launch, and call back asap, as this is suspicious. Sure enough, someone had applied for a credit card in my name, and it was promptly cancelled. I was also given the Fraud division so that I could followup when I am able to.

Of course, what does this PEBCAK do? During the call, he had the car door open, which meant the lights were on, which meant the battery was drained. Thus a call to CAA. They had to send a truck from Creston which is 45 minutes away just to start my car. The drivers gets there, and says, "You know, if you were here last month, you wouldn't have had a problem getting a jump start." By the time I got to the ferry, it was early evening. So much for a pleasant day trip.

The next morning, instead of driving to Montana, I was in my hotel room dealing with a fraud issue and setting up a credit card freeze. I did make it to Montana in the late afternoon... but only as far as the 50,000 Silver Dollar Inn.

[kwellada]

Hmm...mostly my road trips are pretty excellent, so I had to do a little thinking about some of the bad ones:

March 2016 - I had just gotten a brand new Nissan Versa Note and took it on a week long roadtrip through Oregon/Idaho/Nevada/Utah/Colorado/New Mexico/Arizona and back to Seattle trip.   To be honest, it was an absolutely great trip up to a point.  I had taken many two lane roads, seen fantastic scenery in the desert states, found a bunch of abandoned buildings to photograph (which is often what I like to do on my trips), and so on.  So towards the end of the trip, I had a great day starting out in Page, AZ, drove 89A across Marble Canyon and the beautiful land north of the Grand Canyon.  Eventually I made my way to US50 across Nevada.  It had snowed a couple days beforehand, so the landscape still had a ton of snow on it, but the roads were perfectly dry.  I stopped in Fallon, NV, for the night, grabbed Sonic for something to eat...and woke up at 3 am having food poisoning exiting my body via both escape routes.  I puked for about 3 hours, then crashed for maybe 3 more.  Eventually I was able to keep some water down so I made the decision to start making my way on home.  I drove for about six hours, stopped in Bend, OR, for the night and slept 12 hours for my body to recover.  So one of my best road trips turned into a really bad one at the end.

Sept 1995 - I was living in Colorado, but wanted to visit friends in Flagstaff AZ.  The plan was to go there, then off to Vegas to have a little fun for my friend's birthday.  I was waiting tables at the time, so I had collected a lot of change for the slot machines.  I had an old Nissan Stanza and somewhere in the reservation in Arizona it was making weird grinding noises in the front left tire area.  I managed to get to Flagstaff, but upon taking it to a mechanic, they said something bad was going on and it was going to cost $300 to fix...on labor day weekend...meaning I had no car for continuing to Vegas.  I stayed in Flagstaff, managed to have what fun I could, but it was basically an aborted trip. 

I'm currently on another roadtrip so here's hoping it will not make this list!

[HTM Duke]

I've got a few that I remember well...

Back in 2013, I took a "shoulder season" trip to the Outer Banks.  After taking NC-12 south and the ferry back to US-70 (I also planned to spend some time in Durham), the overdrive light began flashing.  So here I am, a few hundred miles from home, with a transmission that went into safety mode.  To make the story short, I did complete my trip, though I was nursing the car at no more than 50 mph, while staying off freeways as much as possible.  As a bit of a coda, I was also rear-ended just south of Fredericksburg, when the driver behind me jumped the gun on the light turning green.  There was no visible damage, and with a car with 16 years/160,000+ miles and no plans to repair the transmission, I told the other driver not to worry about it.  (Another coda: this whole affair led me to unintentionally clinch US-1 in Virginia, so there was that.)

But perhaps the biggest misadventure I had was back in 2009, when I headed down to Durham to see my alma mater (JMU) play Duke.  (Cameron Indoor had been on my bucket list of basketball arenas to visit.)  Problem was, this coincided with the first "Snowpocalypse" storm.  Post game, conditions were obviously bad and getting worse.  Surmising that Interstate travel would be ill-advised (especially I-81), the plan was to to take US-501 to US-29 to US-250 to US-11 back to Harrisonburg.  It was slow-going, particularly when I got stuck behind a plow (and its never-ending, blinking, yellow rear strobe) for ~25 miles, but I did manage to make it to the Lynchburg Bypass.

The bypass itself was slow-going, with snowdrifts galore.  One of these drifts was rather high, and then the battery light on the instrument panel turned on.  A bit further up the road, around Amherst, I got stuck in a traffic jam, and the battery died out while waiting for traffic to clear.  After getting a tow up to the nearest gas station / convenience store, I spent the day there, and prepared to spend a very cold night in the car when the store closed.  I was spotted by a couple of locals, who called in an officer.  He then proceeded to take me down to the station to spend the night, when he was contacted that a friend of the owner of the local B&B had opened it up due to the storm, and was subsequently driven there.

I learned the next morning that US-29 was closed between Amherst and Charlottesville, and so spent the next two days at the B&B.  When conditions had improved enough, the friend mentioned above drove me back to my car, jumped it, and led me to a service station down the road.  After having a serpentine belt replaced, the car was back to normal, and it was back to Harrisonburg for me. 

[Nanis]

Somewhere around 2013/2014:
I had went on a trip to the Dunkirk area.  It was not very fun going TO Dunkirk, but it was not the worst. Three days at a lakeside resort and one religious conference I did not care for (please don't ask what religion), and a trip to Niagara falls later, I had to go back home. Unfortunately, it decided to rain. When i say this next part, remember that I am telling the truth with this.


The rain was so bad everything turned white

My dad had to drive through this for 7 hours before we got there. It took 14 to get back home.

[TheHighwayMan394]

Two that stand out that involve the same place, a music festival in Hillsdale, New York.

2006. My mom and my brother also went on this trip. The weather was brutally hot all week with a car that had no air conditioning. My mom's friend from Chicago and her stepdaughter drove along with us. They had planned part of the trip which included a number of boring attractions in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I slept in a cheap tent that wasn't waterproof enough to prevent me from ending up with a ruined phone and was like waking up in an oven. Many of our belongings ended up soaked due to heavy rain and eventually a group of three irritated and smelly people headed back west. Mom's friend from earlier and her husband (who traveled separately and met them at camp) bickered endlessly all weekend and it overwhelmed me listening to them fighting. They also brought an ungodly amount of gear to camp. So much unnecessary shit. We had to both help bring it to camp and then help bring it back to their home in Chicago (while they and the daughter had continued from camp to Delaware or something to visit relatives). So we stopped at their house and set off their alarm system trying to drop their shit.

2008. By this time the daughter from the previous story and I had become pretty close friends. To be honest this time period was also about the lowest point of my battle with depression over the years. My friend and I were excited about hanging out during the trip. The day before our families were going to leave she accidentally fractured her wrist in a fall and had to drop out of the trip, which sent me into a pit of misery the entire week. On the final night of camp a severe thunderstorm struck the area, which included some kind of downburst event that decimated the campsite. This was also the first trip where I was ever pulled over, by the Wisconsin state patrol (it wasn't my fault; our taillights were obscured because my mom didn't tie down the tarp over the back of the truck tightly enough).

[bandit957]

I think I know of a serious contender for the least favorite. There was one in which - upon arrival - I was forced to listen to a bunch of hate speech from someone ranting against the demographic groups he hated. He said he heard it on cable, so it must be true.

For many minutes on end - possibly longer - he ranted about this topic, and how a certain celebrity didn't share his views on it. It was a celebrity nobody had thought about in 5 years, so why the hell was I supposed to care?

[Mike_OH]

My least favorite is one that I have planned to take several times in the past year plus, but have been unable to.  I've been wanting to take a trip back to where I went to college at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH.  The first time I was going to go, I had car trouble just a few days before and couldn't go.  The second time I had already pretty much changed my mind about going when again I had car trouble.  I am once again planning on taking that trip.  Right now, it's really not in my April budget, so maybe sometime this summer.

[hbelkins]

My least favorite is one that I have planned to take several times in the past year plus, but have been unable to.  I've been wanting to take a trip back to where I went to college at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH.  The first time I was going to go, I had car trouble just a few days before and couldn't go.  The second time I had already pretty much changed my mind about going when again I had car trouble.  I am once again planning on taking that trip.  Right now, it's really not in my April budget, so maybe sometime this summer.

I want to host a road meet that would focus on the Portsmouth bypass project. Details will be posted on the meets board once I get a date selected. Probably late May or early to mid June.

[ce929wax]

My least favorite trip was in January of 2012 when I decided to go to Michigan from Tennessee.  My grandmother had called and suggested that I come in April or May because they were expecting a bad lake effect snowstorm.  I had already booked the time off from work, so for better or worse I went.  The drive up was glorious and I managed to clinch several counties in Ohio and Michigan.  I got to my grandparents house around 7 that night with no mishaps.  I made it through the snow storm and left Michigan that Monday morning to head back to Tennessee, and that is where my problems began. 

I had stopped to get gas in some town in Ohio (I forget where, I believe it was on OH 66, and I know for sure it was a Sunoco station) and unbeknownst to me, the station had authorized my card for $125 for what was a roughly $20 tank of gas (this will come into play later), I make it to my cousins house in Cincinnati while clinching some counties on US 68 and going through Xenia.  The next morning I started out intending to take US 42/127 and clinch several counties in Kentucky and I made it just outside of Florence when I ran over a pebble and my tire blew out in the pouring rain.  Luckily there was a nice lady who let me come in out of the rain and call for help.  Help came a couple of hours later and got my tired changed, and when I went to pay the guy, my card declined.  I thought it was odd and asked him to try again, but it was still declined.  I then called my bank to find out what was going on and that is when I found out that the Sunoco station in Ohio had ran my card for $125, leaving me with about $10 or so dollars in that account (the tire repair was $35 or so).  I used my main bank card to pay the tire repairman and then requested that my bank transfer money onto the card I was using.  The bank refused to do so, because it was against their policy to do a transfer over the phone.  The lady whose house I was in was nice enough to give me $20 to get the rest of the way home.  I didn't use my main bank card, because there was only $50 or so on it ($15 after I paid the tire guy) and my trip money had been on this secondary card.

I managed to find a place to get a new tire off Exit 57 on I-71 and my stepdad was nice enough to put it on his credit card until I could get home and pay him back.  I still managed to clinch many counties on US 127 and a few in Tennessee as well.  I made it home about 9 that night.  I sent the lady back her 20 dollars with a note that if she was ever in the Knoxville area that I would happily take her and her husband out to dinner. 

[hbelkins]

^^^

Never, ever, use your debit card to pay at the pump at a gas station. Either use a credit card at the pump, or prepay inside with the debit card.

I've noticed that many (most) gas stations tend to overauthorize debit cards at the pump, but will underauthorize credit cards.

[kphoger]

^^^

Never, ever, use your debit card to pay at the pump at a gas station. Either use a credit card at the pump, or prepay inside with the debit card.

I've noticed that many (most) gas stations tend to overauthorize debit cards at the pump, but will underauthorize credit cards.

The pump always asks me if my card is debit or credit.  I always just hit the button for credit.

[jakeroot]

Never, ever, use your debit card to pay at the pump at a gas station. Either use a credit card at the pump, or prepay inside with the debit card.

I've never personally had an issue, and I pretty-much universally use my debit card at the pump. After filling up, the only thing on my statement is what I paid, no sign of an authorization or (god-forbid) over-draft. I would have guessed that ce929wax's story was a bit unusual, unless you've had a similar experience?

[TheHighwayMan394]

MN and WI are two of the last places where paying inside after fueling is a widespread option, which I always opt for when possible. It irks me that I can’t do that in most of the country.

[1995hoo]

A lot of gas stations will place a “hold” on your card for some amount and then release the hold after the final charge posts. For example, if I go to the Liberty station near my house and use American Express, a $100 pending charge will show up for a few hours until the final gas purchase (typically $35 to $40, depending on the price of 93 octane) shows up, at which time that charge posts and the $100 charge is removed. This is pretty standard. Unfortunately, when gas prices spiked after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 a lot of stations increased the hold amounts, which causes problems with debit cards. (I don’t use debit cards at all except at the ATM to get cash or deposit checks.)

[Flint1979]

I can think of another one in addition to my post made in January. Probably about 20-25 years ago we were taking a trip up the east coast of Lake Huron and ended up in this little resort town called Grand Bend and without looking at a map I can remember going through another town called Forest. It's just that other than the beach there really wasn't much else to do. I remember walking down a street towards the lake and getting to the lake then thinking oh this is interesting and then turning around and walking back down the street. We decided to go to Niagara Falls instead and had a little bit better time there, re-entered the U.S. through New York and went down to Buffalo for awhile which was a bore. I believe we ended up in Toronto at some point as well so the trip got better as it went along. I don't know if it's my least favorite trip of all time but some of my trips to Canada other than Toronto have been extremely boring and I've had to make my own fun. The drive from Sarnia to London has to be up there as one of the most boring stretches of highway anywhere. Talk about scenery that just repeats itself for 60 miles and that scenery is pretty boring to be honest. The drive gets a little more interesting after you get to London and approaching Toronto.

I think maybe a boring trip would be my least favorite. I remember back in 2003 I went to Kentucky and ended up going through Mammoth Cave, then not realizing how far of a drive it was from Louisville to St. Louis decided to head to St. Louis to go to a Cardinals baseball game since the Cardinals were playing the Marlins that night. I thought the drive along I-64 especially through Indiana and most of Illinois was very boring, it just went through a forest and there wasn't much else around and low traffic counts.

Regardless of the boring times I make fun out of it somehow and get by. I just don't like the same scenery over and over and over for miles. The Seney Stretch in the U.P. of Michigan is one of my least favorite stretches of highway anywhere, I try to avoid it if I can when I'm up in that area.

[ce929wax]

Yeah, I learned that after this experience.  Now I go into the gas station and tell them how much I want to put in my tank.  If I don't quite fill up, that is ok.

[Flint1979]

MN and WI are two of the last places where paying inside after fueling is a widespread option, which I always opt for when possible. It irks me that I can’t do that in most of the country.

There's a BP station about a mile from my house and the two pumps closest to the doors you can pay inside after fueling, only place in Michigan I know of that you can do that at.

[cabiness42]

^^^

Never, ever, use your debit card to pay at the pump at a gas station. Either use a credit card at the pump, or prepay inside with the debit card.

I've noticed that many (most) gas stations tend to overauthorize debit cards at the pump, but will underauthorize credit cards.

I have a Shell credit card that is only good at Shell stations that I use for gas.  Eliminates that problem.

[webny99]

Never, ever, use your debit card to pay at the pump at a gas station. Either use a credit card at the pump, or prepay inside with the debit card.

I've never personally had an issue, and I pretty-much universally use my debit card at the pump. After filling up, the only thing on my statement is what I paid, no sign of an authorization or (god-forbid) over-draft. I would have guessed that ce929wax's story was a bit unusual, unless you've had a similar experience?

Yeah, I'm with jakeroot. I use my debit card all the time - almost always - and have never had any problems.

[Flint1979]

I've never had any problem using my debit card at a gas pump. I mainly try to frequent the gas stations like Speedway, Kroger, Meijer. Kroger has a fuel center at about 80% of their Michigan locations and I never have had a problem with them.

[kphoger]

For those who report not having had any issues using a debit card at the gas pump:  Have you ever tried using your debit card just shortly after having spent almost all your money on gas with it?  Say, for example, you have $120 in your bank account, spend $45 in gas, and then try to spend another $30 shortly after that at the grocery store.  Because, unless you've dropped your card balance low enough to actually make this come into play, then of course you won't have an issue.

I'll also point out that not all gas stations over-authorize debit cards, just some of them.

[inkyatari]

After having the stupid "hold" thing on my debit card after paying at the pump, combined with the uptick on skimming devices found at pumps, I just go inside these days.

[jakeroot]

For those who report not having had any issues using a debit card at the gas pump:  Have you ever tried using your debit card just shortly after having spent almost all your money on gas with it?  Say, for example, you have $120 in your bank account, spend $45 in gas, and then try to spend another $30 shortly after that at the grocery store.  Because, unless you've dropped your card balance low enough to actually make this come into play, then of course you won't have an issue.

I know that I've been authorized for $125 at Safeway when I've had less than that on my account. But that was a very unusual circumstance and I don't usually get that low. I've checked my bank statement within a few minutes after filling up and I don't see anything besides what I paid. Maybe my bank is just quicker.

That said, I may start paying with the attendent from now on, to avoid future issues. Possible that I've just gotten lucky.