If there’s one thing I really enjoy doing it’s sitting around a campfire shooting the breeze with a few good friends. As the evening progresses, and the beer stash gets lower and lower, stories of bravado, stupidity, conquests, expeditions, dreams, failures, ghosts and every other angle under the sun start taking on a life of their own.
A few of these stories will stay with me for as long as I’m still kicking around. Some of them have even inspired me to pursue a new destination.
So it might be fun to have our own virtual campfire or sorts here today. Tell me all about the good times you’ve had outdoors, or on the road, or overseas—everything is fair game! We might not end up smelling like a burnt piece of toast afterwards, but the stories will be entertaining nonetheless.
I’ll go grab matches and a bottle opener.
A little fire we had one fine summer evening. Plenty of stories told around this one.
eric murtaugh 
Camping in Sweden and eating different kinds of smoked salmon! No alcohol though, since it’s wy too expensive!
I just had smoked salmon for breakfast! Alcohol is that expensive in Sweden, huh? Never knew. How expensive are we talking?
12$ for a small bottle of beer.
Ouch! And I thought my taste in beer was expensive! Jeeze! Don’t think I’d be doing much beer drinking in Sweden, either.
Eric, the post I wrote about Fort Lovrijenac on my blog http://www.essenceofdubrovnik.com. It is far too long to post here, but you can repost it if you see the humor. A true story!
Zip lines and diving off Fort Lovrijenac?! What will they think of next?
Sorry wrong title, it is called “Fortress for many, holding place for a couple.”
Still, zip lines and dives off the fort sound kind of crazy. I’ll go check out the other entry now!
Now that’s pretty funny! I’d love to hear Ivo tell that one!
You might want to take a crash course in Croatian, the
“tail” isn’t as funny in English.
Medium bon-fire. Lake. Late. The guys are pretty drunk…someone jokes about jumping the bon-fire (too much testerone)…crazy guy friend barrels outta the woods and leaps the bon-fire. Makes the jump with no problem BUT – has on cut-off jean shorts with fraying strings…catches ass on fire…keeps right on running and screaming – down the hill and into the lake to put himself “out”. All girls dying laughing – time to put guys to bed.
Oh man, you had me laughing with this one! Classic story! Too much testosterone, plus fire, plus booze usually ends in something crazy happening. I remember sitting around a fire once with a bunch of buddies, when one particularly “brave” buddy said he could walk on fire, no problem. Did we let him? Of course. Let’s just say his feet were a little sore the day after.
hahahahaha
It’s like a circus sitting around the fire sometimes. Gotta love it.
At the end of an 8-day sea kayaking trip off the coast of Maine, my group and I decided to sleep under the stars. I was a trip leader and this was an adventure camp group of teenagers. After 8 days of paddling on the ocean with the sun beating on my head, I had developed quite the burn over the part in my hair, which had been pulled back in a tight double French braid.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to the sound of something sniffing (effect is much greater when told in person with sound), and something touching the roof of my head.
What the … ?
I jumped up in time to see a skunk waddling away in a hurry. To my right sat Tyler, wide-eyed, sleeping bag pulled up to his chin. With the shake of excitement in his voice he said, “I was afraid to wake you. He had been sniffing around you for the past ten minutes!”
My scalp was so burnt and raw and crusted with salt water that I was attracting rodents!!
It was certainly a memory that will stay with me forever. I put on my winter beanie and fell back asleep, though I’m sure my dreams were filled with wonderful images of being rummaged through by rats and verments like a pile of old trash .. Tee Hee.
Ah, the glories of a great outdoors adventure! Normally one might call pest control to remove all rodents in sight, those blasted skunks included. But after 8 splendid days floating the open ocean, one simply puts her winter beanie on under such circumstances and returns to a calm state of slumber, skunks be damned!
I don;t have a story but I can make s’mores and banana boats for everyone.
You got my vote. I could subsist on s’mores and banana boats alone.
Oh, when my youngest was in cub scouts I also brought some sugar to toss in the fire to make it flash with sparkles when someone told a story……we can imagine that too LOL
Now that is something I’ve never heard of! Talk about a cool exclamation point at the end of someone’s story! Sugar sparkle flash!
The joy of watching an annoying fellow camper that had stolen some of my food (from supplies, not off my plate), but refused to admit it being stung by a small scorpion on a camping trip in the Okavango Delta in Botswana 😉
Karma is real, you say? Shall you be dealt a painful scorpion sting for your severe misdeeds!
Oh Eric, I love this post! What a cool idea! I LOVE CAMPFIRES, the smell, the sound, the warmth. Awesome. I remember breaking away from the campfire to go pee only to wake up the next morning with a nice poison ivy rash! haha! The moral of the story is, it’s always better to take a flash light with you when using the outdoor facilities — if you’re a girl. : )
As somebody who always seems to run into poison ivy, I hear ya!
You know you have a fire when you have to crawl as low as possible, using a chair for a shield to get close enough to roast a hot dog on the end of a 10 ft pole. Scariest 15 seconds of my life, that brat cooked pretty quickly. My beer started boiling right in the bottle.
That is crazy.
We were using a tractor to lift pallets onto the fire. It was definitely crazed
Now that’s what I call one helluva good fire!
I absolutely LOVE the smell of a campfire. And the warmth it gives off. Then looking up at the sky full of millions of stars that you can actually see. Ahhhhh…..
Can’t beat it!
The pic looks familar…Flamingo Fest??
You know it!
It was a dark and stormy night. Three guys sitting around the campfire..one said Joe..tell us a story..So Joe starts out…It was a dark and stormy night, three guys sitting around the camp fire one says…. Joe tell us a story… So Joe starts out..three guys….
ad nauseum. add a few bottles of liquor and you’d be surprised how far it could go… or..maybe not 🙂