We got taped into our rooms on trips. Only we opened the door (just a crack, I swear!) to see if we were taped in yet and if it really worked. We were. It did. So we had to call the sponsors all panicky to tape us in again so we didn't get in trouble.

On the other side of it, I spent most of my time doing camps patrolling to make sure my kids didn't sneak out of their rooms at night. Only I was just trying to keep them from sleeping with each other. There wasn't anywhere they could go to get booze as far out as we were. But sex and fighting were definite possibilities. So far as I know, I succeeded, although I'm pretty sure there's at least one Traveling Music School baby, who was conceived outside of the youth center while the couple was waiting for their recording mix to get done. In retrospect we should have let them wait inside with us.

I never really traveled without my parents until I was old enough that I could do what I want. I would bemoan the missed opportunities, but knowing who I was back then, it's not like I would have gone out drinking OR having sex.

Well, the first time I traveled without my parents was when I was about 7 (flew to go visit my best friend after we had moved and I"d had a miserable year full of bullying at the new school--nowadays they wouldn't let a 7 year old fly alone, much less change planes, would they?) Sadly, I remember that as my first migraine.

Later I went to the Dominican Republic to stay with family friends for a summer when I was 15. There were four other teenaged girls in the house (three family friends of theirs, one daughter), and while there were definitely things that happened that weren't parentally-approved, it was not so much that I planned or wanted to do them! Also, I was terribly square. Senior year of high school I went down to visit my best friend at college, but she was also very square, so I don't recall any drinking or partying.

Now that I think of it, there was tons of sex going on at the Renn Faire, but I wasn't part of it so it's easy for me to forget it was going on.

Oh good grief. I have OKcupid set up to show newest people first, since I usually feel like I've seen everyone who's already on. And just opened it up and the first person? Someone I hooked up with like, twice, after meeting at a friends party and then she was an ass via text. The third person is someone I'm always crushing over on the rare occasions she comes to dancing (but im pretty damn positive ahes not into me at all sadly) It is too small of a lesbian world. (also, now I clicked on both their profiles before I realized, so they'll both see I looked at them. Argh.)

I got in so much trouble all the time, and all my travel was church sponsored! My favorite one was when I and my two girlfriends had snuck off during a main session at a convention to clandestinely meet up with our boyfriends. We then went to McDonalds, as one does on your clandestine outings when you're thirteen. And...at the McDonalds were our sponsors. Who had snuck off from the main session since we were putatively under other supervision at the time.

Ha! We both agreed to just drop the matter and we all had a nice lunch together.

When I snuck off from camp (I was supposed to be helping to *lead* the camp at this point, obviously still not to that level of maturity yet) in the jungle in Venezuela, I was the one who got us all caught. There were four of us who were coupled up, although we weren't allowed to date on the trip. But seriously, people, hot Venezuelan guys taught us how to merengue. We were powerless against it!

Anyway, one of the girls stayed back, because she was smart, and never got in trouble. Two of the girls had already made it to the meetup spot, where there was lots of booze (again, legal for the kids that age there, but not for us.) and dancing and general fun. I had left and rendezvoused with my boy, but he was more straight-laced than the other kids and was arguing with me to go back to camp. I was going with or without him. But apparently I can't argue in Spanish without raising my voice and we all got caught. I got in the least trouble of the girls who went, but I was still pretty busted.

So.

When it was my turn to sponsor, my kids were so screwed. They didn't have a chance, because I knew all their tricks.

I had never heard of this taping thing.

I was part of the ski team in school and all our meets were coed. We were good friends with the guys and so all our overnight meets meant sleeping in each others rooms and watching scary movies. I know some were having sex but I never saw alcohol or drugs. Maybe because we were such serious athletes?

My mother attended a boarding school in Sydney run by nuns. She and a group of her friends got in trouble once for climbing down a cliff by the school to go and pick lemons (which apparently grew at the base of the cliff). They didn't get in any trouble for the risks they took climbing the clifff; the nuns thought they were off meeting boys.

I have never heard of taping the doors, either. Of course, my one school trip (to London) was chaperoned by a teacher we called Wild Bill, so my experience definitely varies.

The only non-family overnight trips I took before college were to church camps, where we all slept in bunkhouse type things, with a monitor/matron/supervisor/guard sleeping in with us. It was a co-ed camp, but I have no idea if anyone slipped out. I wasn't invited, in any case, and it would never have occurred to me. I probably would have said "Why?" if someone had suggested sneaking out.