Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / EP330 | Gary and Monika Wescott on their Return to South America

Transcript

EP330 | Gary and Monika Wescott on their Return to South America · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:09
Speaker 1: Ashley Giordano. And as Overland Journal approaches its 20-year anniversary,
0:14
Speaker 1: we're catching up with some of the people who have
0:16
Speaker 1: helped shape this community, sharing the stories, lessons, and adventures
0:20
Speaker 1: that brought us here. With that said, today my guests
0:23
Speaker 1: are Monica and Gary Westcott. Welcome back to the podcast,
0:27
Speaker 1: you two.
0:28
Speaker 2: Thank you.
0:28
Speaker 3: Thank you.
0:30
Speaker 2: So you can find.
0:31
Speaker 1: The previous episode in the show notes will include that
0:34
Speaker 1: below because you guys, this isn't your first rodeo. You've
0:37
Speaker 1: been on the podcast before and talked all about your travels.
0:41
Speaker 1: But what's your elevator pitch for the folks who aren't
0:45
Speaker 1: familiar with your story?
0:46
Speaker 3: Well, if people haven't heard of us or followed us,
0:48
Speaker 3: we've been traveling. We're photojournalists. We've been traveling around the
0:52
Speaker 3: world for 50 years now, driving specially built custom expedition campers,
0:58
Speaker 3: sometimes even a car with a rooftop tent. sometimes a
1:01
Speaker 3: Land Rover, and sometimes a car with a tent. And
1:04
Speaker 3: so it's a combination of skills and ideas evolved from
1:11
Speaker 3: many different countries and thousands of miles of driving and
1:15
Speaker 3: figuring out what works.
1:18
Speaker 4: And a special thanks to Honcook Tire for supporting this
1:21
Speaker 4: week's podcast. What's it like when over 20,000 Jeeps and
1:25
Speaker 4: more than 50,000 people get together in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee?
1:30
Speaker 4: We joined Honcook Dynapro Tire to capture the awesome energy
1:34
Speaker 4: of the 2026 14th annual Jeep Invasion. Keep an eye
1:38
Speaker 4: on ExpeditionPortal.com for our upcoming event recap and get inspired.
1:45
Speaker 4: Thanks again, Honcook.
1:46
Speaker 2: And since, well, Gary started in 1972. I joined him
1:50
Speaker 2: in 1977. Since then, the vehicles have evolved from a
1:55
Speaker 2: 109 Land Rover to a Chevy with a half, a
2:01
Speaker 2: little pop-up camper. Then do Fords F350s. We call them Turtles,
2:06
Speaker 2: Turtle 3 and Turtle 4. There were 350s with four-wheel
2:10
Speaker 2: pop-up campers. And with this Turtle 4, we drove across the...
2:15
Speaker 2: Russia and Siberia in 96, where temperatures fell down to
2:19
Speaker 2: minus 80. We came to Europe and we decided we
2:23
Speaker 2: wanted something a little more comfortable for all four seasons.
2:26
Speaker 2: And that was the idea behind the Turtle 5, which
2:30
Speaker 2: we still have today. It's 26 years old. We just
2:33
Speaker 2: came back from South America. We were there for 21 months.
2:36
Speaker 1: So you were doing this before it was cool.
2:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Overland Journal one time... Carla wrote an article
2:44
Speaker 2: called Living Legends, and so I guess we kind of
2:47
Speaker 2: fall in that category.
2:49
Speaker 3: In case people wonder where the name turtle came from,
2:51
Speaker 3: our first vehicle was a Land Rover, and it was
2:54
Speaker 3: very slow with the original six-cylinder engine. And it was blue.
2:58
Speaker 3: We called it the Blue Turtle. And so people would
3:01
Speaker 3: ask us, they'd see the tire on the hood, but
3:03
Speaker 3: the Land Rover with the tire on the hood, it
3:04
Speaker 3: looks like it's going someplace. So we said, where are
3:06
Speaker 3: you going? We would say, South America. This was in
3:10
Speaker 3: South Lake Tahoe. A lot of people didn't know where
3:12
Speaker 3: South America was. So we said, oh, really? And then
3:17
Speaker 3: they would say, well, how long are you going to
3:18
Speaker 3: be gone? And they were expecting a week, two. And
3:21
Speaker 3: we would say three to five years. And their mouths
3:24
Speaker 3: would open.
3:25
Speaker 2: Really?
3:25
Speaker 3: And so we had to have a name. So we
3:27
Speaker 3: called it the Turtle Expedition because we travel very slowly,
3:30
Speaker 3: like a turtle, with a house on our back.
3:32
Speaker 2: And the name stopped.
3:33
Speaker 1: And traveling slowly, it lends itself really well to writing
3:39
Speaker 1: and writing. learning new things, and all that overlanding entails.
3:43
Speaker 1: And so if you're traveling really quickly, it's hard to
3:47
Speaker 1: balance all those things. So you're both journalists. I want
3:50
Speaker 1: to dive a little bit into your writing history and
3:54
Speaker 1: some of the most memorable stories that you've written.
3:57
Speaker 2: So, yeah.
3:58
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, when an article goes to print, not
4:02
Speaker 1: everything can be included due to word count, relevance, etc.
4:07
Speaker 1: Which of your published articles articles involved a memorable story
4:11
Speaker 1: behind the story.
4:13
Speaker 2: There would be many. One of our favorite ones is
4:17
Speaker 2: when we were traveling across Russia after the winter. So
4:20
Speaker 2: it was by August. We were in a Central Asian
4:24
Speaker 2: part of Russia in a semi-terminus republic called Tuva. They
4:31
Speaker 2: have their Buddhist by religion. They're Buryat, so they speak,
4:36
Speaker 2: I believe, a Turkic language. And we wanted to follow
4:40
Speaker 2: a route to the next republic, which is called Altai.
4:43
Speaker 2: That's the Switzerland of Central Asia, or Russia. But we
4:48
Speaker 2: didn't really want to drive the long way around, which
4:50
Speaker 2: was going north and then coming back south again. So
4:53
Speaker 2: we were looking for another road that was closer in
4:56
Speaker 2: the south. Well, it turned out to be a road
4:59
Speaker 2: that was very close to the Mongolian border. And we
5:02
Speaker 2: got In trouble. They knew we were there, but then
5:05
Speaker 2: they eventually let us go continue on after we ended
5:09
Speaker 2: up at the police station in the only little town
5:13
Speaker 2: on that road. And they said, well, there are two roads.
5:16
Speaker 2: One goes to the left and one goes to the right.
5:19
Speaker 2: So we said, okay, we'll go to the one to
5:20
Speaker 2: the right. On the way, we stopped for lunch and
5:24
Speaker 2: there was a beautiful mountain called Mount Montungaiga. And in
5:28
Speaker 2: front was this huge meadow. I mean, it sort of
5:30
Speaker 2: looked like Switzerland with the Alps. And there were yurts
5:34
Speaker 2: on the other side of the river. And we said, oh,
5:35
Speaker 2: we wish we could go there. It's so beautiful. Well,
5:38
Speaker 2: here come two horses galloping, three people. They came to
5:43
Speaker 2: visit and they invited us to go to have chai
5:47
Speaker 2: tea at the yurt. So we went, ended up spending
5:51
Speaker 2: three days there, which was a great experience because the
5:55
Speaker 2: lady we stayed with, she had two teenagers. Her first
5:59
Speaker 2: language wasn't Russian either. And our Russian was very rudimentary,
6:04
Speaker 2: like two-year-olds putting words together. But because she also, Russian
6:10
Speaker 2: was her second language, she knew how to use a
6:13
Speaker 2: dictionary and the conversations we had and learn about each
6:16
Speaker 2: other lives was just unbelievable. We introduced them to popcorn
6:21
Speaker 2: and hot chocolate pudding. And they prepared some of their
6:26
Speaker 2: regular meals. Eventually, after three days, we moved on, on
6:30
Speaker 2: this road. And it was August, early August, and it
6:33
Speaker 2: started snowing.
6:35
Speaker 3: Back to this business with this woman. Chai in that
6:38
Speaker 3: part of the world is not just a cup of tea.
6:41
Speaker 3: Chai involves coming in and sitting down for a full meal.
6:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all of Russia was like that. Anyway, so
6:47
Speaker 2: we were driving up, and then there was a fork
6:50
Speaker 2: in the road, and Gary decided to go the left-hand side,
6:55
Speaker 2: and we ended up in a bog, and we sank
6:58
Speaker 2: down all the way down to the axles. We had
7:01
Speaker 2: our travel trailer behind us, our support trailer behind us,
7:04
Speaker 2: so we were stuck. I mean, stuck to the point
7:07
Speaker 2: where you could turn the key off and walk away,
7:09
Speaker 2: and nobody came.
7:11
Speaker 3: I did a story for Overland Journal. It was called,
7:14
Speaker 3: Are You Stuck or Just Temporarily Detained? If you're stuck,
7:18
Speaker 3: you just leave the keys in the ignition and walk
7:20
Speaker 3: away because no one's going to steal the vehicle. If
7:22
Speaker 3: you're temporarily detained, there is a way out.
7:25
Speaker 5: Right.
7:25
Speaker 2: But we obviously had to get out of there because
7:28
Speaker 2: it was snowing. And eventually we were able to, we
7:32
Speaker 2: had found some rocks and we used the sand ladders,
7:35
Speaker 2: the high lift jocks. We had two of them locally.
7:38
Speaker 2: So we were able to turn the trailer around and
7:41
Speaker 2: eventually the truck. But thanks to three people, We called
7:44
Speaker 2: them yak boys. They were cowboys, but they were herding rack.
7:47
Speaker 2: So thanks to three yak boys who came to our assistance,
7:51
Speaker 2: who had spotted us way in the distance, we finally
7:54
Speaker 2: made it by about 10 o'clock at night to turn around.
7:57
Speaker 2: I mean, I was holding the flashlight and pointing at
8:02
Speaker 2: all the holes that were in this bog so Gary
8:04
Speaker 2: wouldn't sink down again with one of the wheels. And
8:07
Speaker 2: we made it, and we invited them for dinner, and
8:10
Speaker 2: I made a quick soup. And so the five of
8:13
Speaker 2: us sat in there in a camper, warm camper. We
8:16
Speaker 2: had the heater on. And they wanted to hear some music. So, too,
8:21
Speaker 2: while being famous for their throat singing, we put on
8:27
Speaker 2: this new CD that we had. And they said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
8:30
Speaker 2: They wanted to hear American music. So he pulled out
8:34
Speaker 2: a Whitney Houston.
8:35
Speaker 3: Whitney Houston.
8:36
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston. And they just absolutely loved it. So every
8:39
Speaker 2: time we hear Whitney Houston, we remember that scene with
8:43
Speaker 2: the three jackboys.
8:44
Speaker 3: Back to getting unstuck. Remember, we did have a trailer
8:47
Speaker 3: with 100 gallons of jet fuel in it. That was
8:49
Speaker 3: our winter diesel supply for driving this route because you
8:52
Speaker 3: had to have this really cold weather diesel. If it
8:56
Speaker 3: was warm, if it was summer diesel, it would clog
8:58
Speaker 3: up the filters. So we did have a winch on
9:00
Speaker 3: the back of the truck, an 8,000-pound worn winch. We
9:03
Speaker 3: put a pull pal in the back, which is something
9:05
Speaker 3: that was available then. It was a big ground anchor.
9:08
Speaker 3: We put that on the other side of the trailer,
9:10
Speaker 3: on the back of the trailer, dropped the big wheel
9:12
Speaker 3: down on the trailer's hitch, and put our winch on
9:15
Speaker 3: the pull pal.
9:17
Speaker 1: I'm going to use that from now on.
9:19
Speaker 2: Well, the Yak boys told us that that was the
9:22
Speaker 2: end of travel season. There are no more vehicles until
9:25
Speaker 2: next summer. So we knew we had to get out
9:27
Speaker 2: of there.
9:28
Speaker 1: Wow. Thanks for sharing that.
9:31
Speaker 3: We still had about, I'd say, about a 2,000-foot climb
9:35
Speaker 3: still to get over the summit and down to the
9:38
Speaker 3: other side of the valley.
9:39
Speaker 2: Well, we returned back to that town and took the
9:42
Speaker 2: other road. And that in itself was a big, another
9:45
Speaker 2: big adventure.
9:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:45
Speaker 2: But we made it.
9:48
Speaker 3: Yeah. Awesome. What? We took the lessons that finding that
9:53
Speaker 3: road was difficult because there was no markers, just, a
9:56
Speaker 3: sand track here and there and a water crossing here
9:58
Speaker 3: and there. And I had learned something on the Australian
10:02
Speaker 3: Camel Trophy. We had to follow a route. And we
10:06
Speaker 3: did something that nobody had really thought of. We just
10:09
Speaker 3: found the telephone poles. Telephone companies have to make a
10:12
Speaker 3: road to put the telephone poles out. So we just
10:14
Speaker 3: followed the telephone poles and we found the next village.
10:18
Speaker 2: Anyway. That is a hot tip.
10:22
Speaker 3: We finally did get over the top. Monica's going to
10:24
Speaker 3: get to this too. When we were climbing, we were
10:26
Speaker 3: yelling at the kid, climb, climb, climb, because we knew
10:28
Speaker 3: if we didn't get out of there, we'd be there
10:30
Speaker 3: for spring. It'd be over. So we finally got over
10:33
Speaker 3: the top, ended up on the other side, and the
10:35
Speaker 3: town we were going to is Cochagach. If you look
10:37
Speaker 3: up Cochagach in the South American handbook, it means the
10:41
Speaker 3: middle of nowhere. That's the town. So we made it
10:43
Speaker 3: over the top, got down to the bottom, stopped.
10:46
Speaker 2: We made it. But a lot of adrenaline, for sure. Yeah.
10:52
Speaker 1: Need a little bit of relaxation after that.
10:55
Speaker 3: A little bit, yeah. A shot of vodka helped.
10:59
Speaker 2: Yes. So that's a great story.
11:03
Speaker 1: What is your favorite story, or do you have a
11:06
Speaker 1: favorite story that you've written, or another memorable one?
11:10
Speaker 3: Well, just going back to that first story, one of
11:12
Speaker 3: the things that was happening is I was driving up
11:15
Speaker 3: the final little, maybe 100 yards. to get over the top.
11:18
Speaker 3: So we knew we had made it to the top.
11:21
Speaker 3: And there was snowing. It was like two feet of
11:23
Speaker 3: snow on one side and holes on the other side.
11:26
Speaker 3: And Monica was running ahead, checking to see where the
11:29
Speaker 3: holes were. Because if I stopped anywhere, I'd really be stuck.
11:33
Speaker 3: And I'd already backed in one time. I backed up
11:35
Speaker 3: once again. The mud flaps caught the tires and tore
11:37
Speaker 3: them off. So we just put them in the back.
11:39
Speaker 3: And I'm still pulling a trailer full of, with 100
11:41
Speaker 3: gallons of jet fuel.
11:42
Speaker 2: Okay.
11:43
Speaker 3: So, Finally, we got to the top, and we realized,
11:46
Speaker 3: got to the top, and it was, both of us,
11:47
Speaker 3: we just realized, wow, that's what teamwork's about.
11:51
Speaker 1: True.
11:51
Speaker 2: What is a favorite story? You have a favorite story.
11:55
Speaker 3: Oh, so many stories.
11:56
Speaker 2: The girl in Palmyra Mountains.
11:57
Speaker 3: Oh, Palmyra Mountains. Okay, so we're, on our separate trip,
12:00
Speaker 3: we're driving the Silk Road. The goal was to drive
12:04
Speaker 3: Marco Polo's legendary Silk Road from the most, we wanted
12:08
Speaker 3: to start on the most western point of the Eurasian landmass,
12:12
Speaker 3: which turned out to be a place called Cabo de Roca.
12:14
Speaker 3: Cabo de Roca in Portugal. And one of the goals
12:17
Speaker 3: was to drive the Silk Road and also just for
12:19
Speaker 3: fun to drive ocean to ocean wheels on the ground
12:21
Speaker 3: from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And we started across
12:25
Speaker 3: and it was fine. Everything was running perfectly. And we
12:29
Speaker 3: were going through a lot of the countries that we
12:31
Speaker 3: had heard about, read about. Italy, Greece, Turkey. Georgia. Georgia.
12:37
Speaker 3: And then we started to get into the Stans. No
12:38
Speaker 3: problem getting across borders or anything.
12:41
Speaker 2: So we.
12:42
Speaker 3: What about the mountains?
12:43
Speaker 2: Well, we were in the Palmier Mountains and it was
12:46
Speaker 2: actually a section that Marco Polo had traveled. And we
12:51
Speaker 2: stopped at a river with a little creek because we
12:54
Speaker 2: wanted to wash off the dust of the truck.
12:57
Speaker 3: These are the second highest mountains in the world. We
12:58
Speaker 3: camped at 16,000 feet that night.
13:01
Speaker 2: Anyway, so these three girls came across the bridge carrying
13:06
Speaker 2: windows because their father was building a little garage on
13:10
Speaker 2: the other side of the highway. And one of them stopped,
13:14
Speaker 2: and we were washing the truck, and she actually took
13:18
Speaker 2: the brush out of Gary's and started helping us clean
13:22
Speaker 2: the truck.
13:22
Speaker 3: She just walked out into the water?
13:24
Speaker 2: She was 11 years old. Eventually, the father came, and
13:28
Speaker 2: we all looked at the map, and he was explaining
13:30
Speaker 2: to them where they were, and we said where we were.
13:34
Speaker 2: And eventually, the father invited us for chai, and we
13:37
Speaker 2: walked back to their house, which was about 10 minutes away.
13:42
Speaker 2: And this one girl was 11 years old. There were
13:45
Speaker 2: six siblings named Mashura. And she just had this sparkle
13:50
Speaker 2: in her eye and she was so curious about everything.
13:54
Speaker 2: She was the only one that would sit in the
13:56
Speaker 2: truck in the front, had the seatbelts on, looked really cool.
13:59
Speaker 2: And we took pictures of the whole family. And then
14:02
Speaker 2: later we were able to print them the pictures as
14:06
Speaker 2: a souvenir, which is something we like to do. Now
14:10
Speaker 2: people have phones, but before they didn't have a phone.
14:14
Speaker 2: So this girl just sparked our interest, and we really
14:18
Speaker 2: wanted to help her get a good education.
14:22
Speaker 3: She had a look in her eye and her smile
14:25
Speaker 3: that said, clearly, she didn't speak a word of English,
14:29
Speaker 3: but her face said, I don't know who you are.
14:31
Speaker 3: I don't know where you came from. I'm helping. She did.
14:38
Speaker 2: And they were... You know, they were farmers. They had
14:41
Speaker 2: goats and they had a cow. The school was really bad.
14:45
Speaker 2: They didn't have a math teacher for two years. We
14:47
Speaker 2: learned later. But I just, I wrote, I had the
14:52
Speaker 2: mother write down the address. Just, I don't know. We
14:57
Speaker 2: just felt that in the future we needed to do something.
15:00
Speaker 3: The name of the village is all we had.
15:01
Speaker 2: It was actually the second time this happened to us.
15:05
Speaker 2: One time in 1988 in Peru, high up in the mountains,
15:08
Speaker 2: we met this. Cute little girl who was also, her
15:11
Speaker 2: sister was teaching, learning English and wanting to be a teacher.
15:14
Speaker 2: And we felt that we really needed to help her.
15:19
Speaker 2: But the parents never contacted us because she was there
15:22
Speaker 2: with her grandfather. Once we got back to the States
15:27
Speaker 2: in 2016, we were looking for a way to contact her.
15:31
Speaker 2: And there was a place in town called Khorouk.
15:35
Speaker 3: Two hours away.
15:36
Speaker 2: On the Afghan border. that had what they called the
15:41
Speaker 2: American Corner. And it was an effort by the U.S.
15:45
Speaker 2: consulate to establish these centers for people to learn English
15:49
Speaker 2: and maybe learn more about the European culture because Russia's
15:53
Speaker 2: influence was very big. The director of that, he volunteered
15:57
Speaker 2: to drive up to that village. He was 26 years old,
16:00
Speaker 2: named Sheroz. He went to the village and gave the
16:05
Speaker 2: father and Mashura, mother was not there, the information that
16:09
Speaker 2: we would like to help her get a better education.
16:12
Speaker 2: And they are accepted. So Sheroz was instrumental in helping
16:16
Speaker 2: us with Mashura. He found eventually a place for her
16:19
Speaker 2: to stay, first at his father's house, and then at
16:23
Speaker 2: his sister's house, who had two girls, and Mashura lived
16:26
Speaker 2: there for four years until she graduated from high school.
16:30
Speaker 2: So that was the start of a whole new project,
16:33
Speaker 2: because they eventually... Through our Donut Box program, we actually
16:39
Speaker 2: were able to, we are helping five other girls to
16:43
Speaker 2: follow their dreams and get an education.
16:46
Speaker 1: Wow.
16:47
Speaker 3: When this first happened, when Shiraz first went up and
16:50
Speaker 3: explained to Mashura and her father that we wanted to
16:55
Speaker 3: give her a high school education in this private school
16:59
Speaker 3: in town, she was crying. And he called the next
17:03
Speaker 3: day in disbelief, saying, is this really going to happen?
17:07
Speaker 3: Schwarz says, yes, it's going to happen.
17:10
Speaker 5: Yeah.
17:11
Speaker 3: So she moved.
17:12
Speaker 2: So she graduated from high school and eventually she had
17:16
Speaker 2: applied to university in Poland. And she just graduated with
17:22
Speaker 2: a bachelor's in international management. So in December, and that's
17:27
Speaker 2: part of our next trip, which I'm maybe taking early
17:30
Speaker 2: on now, she will be, I have the festivities of
17:33
Speaker 2: graduation will be in December. And we are flying to
17:36
Speaker 2: Poland to be there. She, in the meantime, just started
17:42
Speaker 2: today in a hotel management school in Spain. And she
17:47
Speaker 2: will be getting her master's in two years.
17:50
Speaker 3: Learning Spanish.
17:51
Speaker 2: And she already started learning Spanish. So she not only
17:54
Speaker 2: speaks five languages now, she's going to learn, she speaks
17:57
Speaker 2: six languages.
17:59
Speaker 4: Wow.
17:59
Speaker 2: No English at all.
18:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:03
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
18:04
Speaker 1: So you're in regular contact, obviously, with her and with
18:07
Speaker 1: her family.
18:08
Speaker 2: Three times a week.
18:10
Speaker 1: That's so incredible.
18:11
Speaker 2: We are our other parents.
18:12
Speaker 3: For us to watch this young girl grow and experience education,
18:22
Speaker 3: it was like watching a flower bloom. It's amazing.
18:25
Speaker 2: You know, the problem with steroid, I'm not saying that derogatorily,
18:32
Speaker 2: certain countries, that people are very intelligent. The parents really
18:37
Speaker 2: want their children to get an education. What's lacking is finances.
18:41
Speaker 2: And so we are really happy that we can help
18:44
Speaker 2: all these girls, and we can talk about the other
18:47
Speaker 2: ones later, to follow their dreams, get an education, to
18:51
Speaker 2: eventually support themselves, their families, and their communities. So they
18:56
Speaker 2: are well-taught about paying it forward. We all expect them
19:01
Speaker 2: to do something similar down the future when they can,
19:04
Speaker 2: be it financially or being just good deeds. And they
19:08
Speaker 2: have responsibilities because nothing is for free. So we can
19:12
Speaker 2: talk about that later on.
19:16
Speaker 1: I love this so much because it's like you guys wrote,
19:19
Speaker 1: you had this experience and then you wrote the article,
19:22
Speaker 1: but it goes so much further than that one article.
19:26
Speaker 1: Like you're still in 2026 now. Oh, yeah.
19:27
Speaker 3: It's not even close.
19:29
Speaker 2: It's still happening.
19:32
Speaker 3: Some of the girls that we are sponsoring, one is amazing.
19:35
Speaker 3: She was a good friend of Mishura's in high school.
19:39
Speaker 3: And that's how she met us. And we had learned
19:42
Speaker 3: from her that one of her dreams from childhood almost
19:46
Speaker 3: was she wanted to be a dentist. I have no idea.
19:50
Speaker 3: where she got the idea, but for her, she and
19:51
Speaker 3: her mother decided she was going to be a dentist.
19:54
Speaker 2: She was in that private school because her parents, the
20:01
Speaker 2: traditions in that area is that the youngest child or
20:06
Speaker 2: the youngest boy, he gets where she gets the house,
20:11
Speaker 2: the farm, and taking care of the parents. The older ones,
20:16
Speaker 2: the oldest ones, usually they want them to have the
20:20
Speaker 2: best education they can get. So Mashura is the older
20:23
Speaker 2: of two, no, I'm sorry, Manisha, the friend, is the
20:27
Speaker 2: older of two girls. Her grandmother was a teacher, and
20:32
Speaker 2: she used her retirement funds to pay for that school. Well,
20:37
Speaker 2: that school was probably $ 600 a year. So her grandma died,
20:44
Speaker 2: and she had two more years left to go to
20:47
Speaker 2: that school. So without help, she would have had to
20:51
Speaker 2: go to the regular public school. And her parents would
20:54
Speaker 2: raise a cow every year, I mean a calf, every
20:57
Speaker 2: year and sell it and were able to pay part
21:00
Speaker 2: of it. So that's why she asked us if we
21:03
Speaker 2: possibly could help her. And we have a very good
21:06
Speaker 2: Mexican rancher friend who is a bachelor and had lots
21:10
Speaker 2: of nieces, and he was willing to take over the
21:13
Speaker 2: payments for this girl. She graduated with honors, and she
21:18
Speaker 2: started in a dentistry university. And she just now, after
21:23
Speaker 2: four years, graduated as the top of her class. And
21:27
Speaker 2: so we're extremely proud of her.
21:29
Speaker 3: With a bachelor's degree? Yeah. And now she's still working.
21:34
Speaker 2: No, she's going into residency.
21:37
Speaker 3: Going into residency and also working on her master's degree.
21:41
Speaker 2: Well, that's part of the residency program. The other girl
21:44
Speaker 2: named Dabla T, she was the older girl of the
21:49
Speaker 2: family that Mashura was staying with for four years. She's
21:52
Speaker 2: also a brilliant student. She received a full scholarship at
21:57
Speaker 2: an American-style university in Kazakhstan. in Almaty, and she also
22:03
Speaker 2: just graduated as a public relations and something else with
22:07
Speaker 2: a minor. She was a valid, no, she was a
22:10
Speaker 2: made the dean's list, so she too was very successful.
22:16
Speaker 2: Then we helped Mashua's older sister who wanted to be
22:19
Speaker 2: a teacher, and we helped her a little bit with
22:22
Speaker 2: mostly support for monthly supports to pay for food and
22:26
Speaker 2: electricity and whatever. She graduated last year and was extremely
22:32
Speaker 2: proud that she now earns $ 300 a month, which is
22:37
Speaker 2: about three times more than the regular worker does. So
22:41
Speaker 2: she is happy with that. Then the younger sister, Yasmina,
22:46
Speaker 2: she wanted to go to a school in a university
22:49
Speaker 2: in a different part of the country. She's staying with
22:53
Speaker 2: Korean Christians. She's staying with them. She pays only a
22:57
Speaker 2: little bit electricity, and they give her a safe place
23:00
Speaker 2: to stay. She will be graduating next year. She has
23:04
Speaker 2: been learning Korean, has been helping a Korean teacher teach Korean,
23:09
Speaker 2: is also top of her class. And so after she graduated,
23:13
Speaker 2: I said, so what are you going to do now?
23:15
Speaker 2: And she said, well, I think I should go to work.
23:17
Speaker 2: And I said, no, I think you should continue your studies.
23:21
Speaker 2: So it was not even in her concept that she
23:24
Speaker 2: actually could continue. proceed to get a master's. But now
23:28
Speaker 2: she does, and she wants to study languages, English and Korean.
23:33
Speaker 2: So that'd be next year. Then the other girl is
23:36
Speaker 2: a dentist, Manisha, her younger sister is also a brilliant student.
23:41
Speaker 2: She's just, she's now in her second year in a
23:44
Speaker 2: language program. She speaks, I communicate German with her, in
23:48
Speaker 2: German with her. She speaks excellent German. She speaks excellent English.
23:52
Speaker 2: And it's just, and the parents, because we asked them,
23:56
Speaker 2: They are able to pay half of her tuition because
24:00
Speaker 2: I would not want to intrude. If they can afford
24:04
Speaker 2: it and they feel it's okay, I want them to
24:08
Speaker 2: be able to be proud of being able to help
24:11
Speaker 2: their daughter. So we're just pitching in whatever they can afford.
24:15
Speaker 3: It was really an amazing experience for us because we
24:18
Speaker 3: would speak to this girl. I think Manisha was a
24:20
Speaker 3: good example. We were reading to her out of a book.
24:24
Speaker 3: She had the same book. So she'd come across words
24:27
Speaker 3: like a bed. She did not know what a bed was.
24:31
Speaker 3: We had to go on the internet, find a picture
24:34
Speaker 3: of the bed, and show it to her. This is
24:36
Speaker 3: a bed.
24:36
Speaker 2: Well, what Gary's talking about is actually Mashur's little sister,
24:41
Speaker 2: who lived in the village at that time, and it
24:43
Speaker 2: was during COVID. So I spent three hours a week
24:46
Speaker 2: with her reading this book. And at first, it was
24:49
Speaker 2: extremely slow, and she got kind of frustrated. And I said,
24:52
Speaker 2: just hold on. I had to use the translator very
24:56
Speaker 2: often because our English wasn't that good yet. But if
25:00
Speaker 2: you grew up in a village, in a Pomeranian traditional village,
25:04
Speaker 2: they have a main room that's square. There is a
25:07
Speaker 2: stove in the center. There's a platform all the way around.
25:11
Speaker 2: That's where the people live during the day. They don't
25:14
Speaker 2: have chairs. They sit on mats. At night, they fold
25:18
Speaker 2: out on their mats, and that's where they sleep. So,
25:21
Speaker 2: there was no running water in the house. There was
25:23
Speaker 2: an outhouse.
25:24
Speaker 3: All the cooking done is down on that wooden stove
25:26
Speaker 3: in the center. Yeah.
25:29
Speaker 2: Or outside. And the running water was a ditch in
25:32
Speaker 2: front of their house. So, for her, I mean, we
25:36
Speaker 2: were talking about, it was called the Penderson girls or something.
25:40
Speaker 2: There were like four girls and their father, the mother
25:43
Speaker 2: had passed away or they were on vacation. And they
25:46
Speaker 2: rented a cottage next to a big mansion. So, I mean,
25:50
Speaker 2: what is a mansion? What is a hedge? What is
25:52
Speaker 2: a staircase? What is a big, huge table with bear claw.
25:59
Speaker 3: Feet?
26:00
Speaker 2: So all these things, you know, I had to explain
26:02
Speaker 2: each and every item. So it was obviously slow. But
26:06
Speaker 2: she loved that book. We actually sent her two more
26:09
Speaker 2: editions of follow-up stories. And now when they're in English,
26:14
Speaker 2: it's good.
26:16
Speaker 1: This is an incredible example of how, as travelers and overlanders,
26:21
Speaker 1: you can give back and make a difference.
26:24
Speaker 2: Positively.
26:25
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing all that.
26:26
Speaker 2: It's fun to share. Incredible. Yeah, fun to see.
26:30
Speaker 1: And for you, I'm sure it's so just heartwarming and
26:34
Speaker 1: seeing all the updates and the changes that have occurred.
26:37
Speaker 2: We know we don't have any kids, so Gary doesn't
26:40
Speaker 2: really have family. My family is in Switzerland. They're all
26:44
Speaker 2: well-educated and well-off.
26:45
Speaker 3: I have a daughter.
26:46
Speaker 2: Well, how else could we use our money instead of
26:50
Speaker 2: just having relatives inherit it? So this is a very
26:54
Speaker 2: good way of giving back to the people in the
26:59
Speaker 2: world as overlanders. Because we've had many wonderful experiences and
27:04
Speaker 2: great invitations. And this is just why we can help
27:08
Speaker 2: a little bit.
27:09
Speaker 4: And a special thanks to Midland Radio for supporting this
27:13
Speaker 4: week's podcast. When the trail takes you farther, clear communication
27:18
Speaker 4: keeps your crew connected. Meet the new Midland MXT295 Pro
27:26
Speaker 4: micromobile GMRS two-way radio. With a reliable 15 watts of power,
27:33
Speaker 4: hideaway base unit, and Midland's first ever fully integrated wireless
27:39
Speaker 4: Bluetooth microphone, essential controls are right in your hand and cable-free.
27:45
Speaker 4: giving you the freedom to communicate on the move. Compact, capable,
27:50
Speaker 4: and ready for your next adventure, the MXT295 Pro keeps
27:56
Speaker 4: communication close wherever the route takes you. Stay connected. Go farther.
28:03
Speaker 5: Midland.
28:04
Speaker 4: Thanks again, Midland.
28:06
Speaker 2: And so I was talking about responsibilities and that nothing
28:11
Speaker 2: is free. And what we established is that twice a year,
28:16
Speaker 2: These girls have to send a report about what they've
28:19
Speaker 2: been doing. They have to send their grades and they
28:23
Speaker 2: have to send photos. So everybody who has been helping
28:27
Speaker 2: us over the years, family and friends, they get the
28:31
Speaker 2: report of all these girls so they can see that
28:34
Speaker 2: every dollar they are giving, donating to this project are
28:39
Speaker 2: actually going to the kids.
28:41
Speaker 1: Monica, you speak five languages. Which ones are they, and
28:45
Speaker 1: how has this taken your travel experience to the next level?
28:49
Speaker 2: You know, coming from Switzerland, where most people speak at
28:54
Speaker 2: least two or three languages, it always strikes me a
28:57
Speaker 2: little funny that Americans make such a big deal about
29:00
Speaker 2: speaking languages. But I understand. So I speak Swiss German,
29:04
Speaker 2: which is my native tongue. Then in school, we learn German, French, English.
29:09
Speaker 2: I had one year Italian. I don't speak it, but
29:12
Speaker 2: I speak Spanish. Then in Russia, I learned a little Russian,
29:15
Speaker 2: and in Brazil, we learned some Portuguese. So I've always
29:19
Speaker 2: loved languages. I think it's fun to be able to
29:22
Speaker 2: communicate with people. I think it's fun to see the
29:25
Speaker 2: interconnections of the languages, like English and German or Spanish, French,
29:30
Speaker 2: and Italian. I was an elementary school teacher in Switzerland,
29:34
Speaker 2: and I had some kids from Italy whose parents did
29:37
Speaker 2: not speak German. So either the kids had to come
29:40
Speaker 2: and translate, which in third graders I really didn't want
29:44
Speaker 2: to involve them much. So I would speak Spanish and
29:47
Speaker 2: they would speak Italian and we understood each other. I
29:50
Speaker 2: was never afraid, it never even crossed my mind to
29:54
Speaker 2: be afraid to go to a country where I don't
29:56
Speaker 2: speak the language. because there's always a way, either with
30:00
Speaker 2: a few words you learn in that language, or under now,
30:03
Speaker 2: you know, it used to be a dictionary, and now
30:05
Speaker 2: it's a translator, which makes it much easier. But even
30:09
Speaker 2: if you don't use that, you can act things out.
30:12
Speaker 2: You can, you know, you can draw pictures. You make
30:17
Speaker 2: a fool out of yourself acting it out, like we
30:20
Speaker 2: were trying to have a lady cook an egg in Myanmar,
30:24
Speaker 2: and she was so flabbergasted, I think because we were
30:26
Speaker 2: the first foreigners she'd ever seen. She did not understand
30:30
Speaker 2: that I wanted the egg, a raw egg in her
30:32
Speaker 2: soup and stir it. She wanted to fry the eggs
30:34
Speaker 2: and said, no, I want it stirred.
30:36
Speaker 3: So finally- I was trying to demonstrate how an egg
30:40
Speaker 3: would be. And I think I almost laid one.
30:43
Speaker 2: But she didn't get it, so finally we went to
30:44
Speaker 2: the market and bought our eggs and threw it in
30:46
Speaker 2: the soup and stirred it, and we were done with it.
30:48
Speaker 2: Or do you have another story about Afghanistan?
30:52
Speaker 3: My first big trip alone, traveling, overlanding with a backpack,
30:59
Speaker 3: I wanted to get a train ticket because there were
31:02
Speaker 3: no more cars. So I wanted to get a train
31:04
Speaker 3: ticket to go to Istanbul. So I went to the
31:06
Speaker 3: desk where they were sold tickets, and I said, she said,
31:09
Speaker 3: you know, in Russian probably, okay. whatever language she spoke,
31:13
Speaker 3: can I help you? And I said, I need a
31:15
Speaker 3: ticket to Istanbul. No answer. What's Istanbul? Constantinople?
31:21
Speaker 5: No, nothing.
31:24
Speaker 3: There's another word for Byzantina. I finally got my map.
31:28
Speaker 3: I just pointed to a place I wanted to go.
31:29
Speaker 3: And she said, ticket office right over there. And the
31:32
Speaker 3: same kind of thing happened again. I was actually in Tehran,
31:35
Speaker 3: and I wanted to get a train to Afghanistan. And
31:39
Speaker 3: so I asked this guy, where is the train station?
31:41
Speaker 3: He looked at me. I didn't speak Farsi. He didn't
31:43
Speaker 3: speak English. He looked at me with a blank look
31:45
Speaker 3: on his face. I finally, I took my finger and
31:47
Speaker 3: drew a picture on his desk of what I thought
31:49
Speaker 3: maybe a train would look like. And I went, choo, choo, choo, choo, woo, woo.
31:53
Speaker 3: He pointed right over there.
31:54
Speaker 2: It's the most fun thing.
31:56
Speaker 1: I love when you've learned just a couple words, maybe
32:00
Speaker 1: before you've gone into the country, and you're like, this
32:02
Speaker 1: is just a concept. And then you get in and
32:05
Speaker 1: you hear the word or you say the word. And
32:08
Speaker 1: then the reaction from the receiving end is the best.
32:12
Speaker 2: And people love it if you know a few words
32:17
Speaker 2: in their language. I mean, the Latins are famous for that.
32:20
Speaker 2: They finish up the sentence for you. You don't have
32:23
Speaker 2: to speak Spanish. And also, I mean, I think in
32:28
Speaker 2: the beginning, I remember going to Greece when I was
32:31
Speaker 2: a university student. We learned how to count to 10,
32:35
Speaker 2: and we learned hello, goodbye, where's the bathroom, where's the
32:40
Speaker 2: train station, all those words. And you don't have to
32:42
Speaker 2: say a whole sentence. All you need to throw out
32:45
Speaker 2: is a few nouns, and they figure out what you
32:47
Speaker 2: want to say.
32:48
Speaker 3: With a smile.
32:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.
32:49
Speaker 1: Yes, with a smile.
32:51
Speaker 2: That's important.
32:52
Speaker 3: Smile is an important part of communication, for sure.
32:54
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. Because the From Georgia on, the older
33:00
Speaker 2: people were still speaking Russian. So, I mean, with my
33:04
Speaker 2: poor Russian, I was sometimes able to ask questions. Or
33:08
Speaker 2: then the younger people, they were all learning English. So,
33:11
Speaker 2: I mean, today, even without the translators, it's gotten more
33:17
Speaker 2: easier because more people speak more than one language. Yeah, absolutely.
33:22
Speaker 3: You make up a few things and then you get
33:24
Speaker 3: a few words from them and you put them together.
33:26
Speaker 3: I would be opening the hood in our truck, and
33:29
Speaker 3: I would be checking the oil.
33:30
Speaker 2: In Russia.
33:31
Speaker 3: In Russia. And they had never seen an eight-cylinder diesel
33:33
Speaker 3: engine before. So they were purring over it, and they
33:37
Speaker 3: were just wowing and oohing and aahing. And one guy
33:40
Speaker 3: would say.
33:40
Speaker 2: Skolka cylindro.
33:42
Speaker 3: Skolka cylindro. Well, I should have heard it right away.
33:45
Speaker 3: But while he said Skolka cylindro, he was counting the injectors.
33:50
Speaker 3: He said, Vosum, Vosum, eight, cylinder. Okay, cylindro, cylinder. Vosum, eight.
33:55
Speaker 3: I got that number already.
33:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
33:57
Speaker 3: So, the next time somebody came, oh, and then he said, turbo?
34:00
Speaker 3: And I said, da? Da-da. And then he said, horosho machining.
34:05
Speaker 3: Great machine. Horosho.
34:07
Speaker 2: Yes. Mosheena.
34:09
Speaker 3: Mosheena. So, from then on, when anybody opened the hood
34:13
Speaker 3: and came over, I said, vosamsalim turbo. Ah, turbo. Ah, horosho.
34:20
Speaker 3: I spoke Russian.
34:21
Speaker 2: That was in 96.
34:22
Speaker 1: Speaking of mosheenas, Let's talk about the Turtle V. I
34:28
Speaker 1: have questions about it. The V, yeah.
34:31
Speaker 2: Turtle 5.
34:32
Speaker 1: What knowledge did you take from decades of overland travel
34:35
Speaker 1: and apply to this build? And tell us about what
34:39
Speaker 1: the build is.
34:41
Speaker 3: The build is an F-550 Super Duty with a totally
34:46
Speaker 3: custom camper on the back and all custom suspension. Done
34:51
Speaker 3: by research and by very good sponsors that we had.
34:54
Speaker 3: supplying products. One of the interesting things about any kind
34:57
Speaker 3: of vehicle, Ford especially, or Toyota, or any of those,
35:00
Speaker 3: there are thousands of Fords out there, which means that
35:04
Speaker 3: there are hundreds and hundreds of companies that are making
35:07
Speaker 3: products just a little bit better than what comes from
35:10
Speaker 3: the factory. And so when you find those products and
35:13
Speaker 3: start changing them, the truck gets measurably more reliable and stronger.
35:19
Speaker 3: People ask us quite often, you know, how do you
35:22
Speaker 3: build a truck like this? Okay, there are Four things
35:25
Speaker 3: you have to consider. It's simple. First, you have to
35:30
Speaker 3: have a bed for two people. And then you have
35:32
Speaker 3: to have some way to cook because you have to
35:34
Speaker 3: have your health. If you don't have your health, you
35:36
Speaker 3: might as well go home. You're going to get sick.
35:39
Speaker 3: And number three, you have to stay clean somehow. I
35:42
Speaker 3: remember in Siberia with temperatures outside of minus 78 degrees,
35:48
Speaker 3: we took sponge baths inside the truck with a bucket.
35:51
Speaker 3: That was the only way we could feel clean. So sleeping,
35:56
Speaker 3: cooking for health, staying clean. And finally, the last thing
36:00
Speaker 3: I tell people, and it's very important, before you leave
36:04
Speaker 3: your driveway on any kind of trip, you're going anywhere,
36:07
Speaker 3: somewhere along the way, whether it's in the middle of
36:09
Speaker 3: Guadalajara or some small town in the middle of Bogota
36:13
Speaker 3: or who knows where, you are going to have to
36:15
Speaker 3: go to the bathroom. Figure out how you're going to
36:19
Speaker 3: do that before you leave, because if you don't, you're
36:21
Speaker 3: in trouble. So you figure that out, whether it's a
36:23
Speaker 3: porta potty or whether it's a portable toilet seat in
36:26
Speaker 3: a plastic bag or whatever it is, figure out how
36:28
Speaker 3: you're going to do it. And as far as getting clean, too,
36:33
Speaker 3: you know you have to have water. And not only water,
36:36
Speaker 3: very important, I didn't mention that, purified water is incredibly important.
36:40
Speaker 3: Just because it comes out of a tap in a
36:42
Speaker 3: campground does not mean it's pure. It's got viruses in
36:45
Speaker 3: it and bacterium. So you have to have some way
36:47
Speaker 3: to get purified water or you're going to get sick
36:49
Speaker 3: and firefighters can kill you. So we figured out how
36:52
Speaker 3: to purify the water with a special filter that the
36:55
Speaker 3: ones that the airplanes use for their flight attendants.
37:00
Speaker 2: So I think starting with the Land Rover where we
37:03
Speaker 2: got a lot of camping experiences because it's basically a
37:07
Speaker 2: vehicle for the outside. I became more difficult when the
37:11
Speaker 2: weather was bad, rainy. like in Mexico and Central America.
37:15
Speaker 2: So every vehicle that we had was a little, not
37:18
Speaker 2: only newer technology, but also a little more comfort for us.
37:24
Speaker 2: So the Turtle 3 and the Turtle 4, they were
37:27
Speaker 2: both the same, as we said, they have 350s with
37:30
Speaker 2: four-wheel pop-up campers. But after our Siberian experience, which is
37:34
Speaker 2: probably the most difficult expedition we've ever had, But it
37:39
Speaker 2: was exciting. And we were safe in Russia. People were
37:42
Speaker 2: extremely friendly and helpful. They were equally surprised that Americans
37:46
Speaker 2: can be nice like we were with them. And we
37:50
Speaker 2: had many conversations with them. So we arrived in Europe.
37:53
Speaker 2: We went in Switzerland at my mom's house. And we
37:56
Speaker 2: parked a trailer. And we went to Germany to the
38:01
Speaker 2: Africa Fest and the Safari Club meetings and something like
38:04
Speaker 2: the Zima show and outdoor show in Munich. very famous,
38:09
Speaker 2: and we were checking out all these European-built campers. There
38:13
Speaker 2: were a lot of homemade vehicles. People took their ideas.
38:16
Speaker 2: I mean, they were mostly traveling to the Sahara at
38:19
Speaker 2: the time, so oftentimes they were extremely big, and you
38:22
Speaker 2: can see them now in South America still. So we
38:24
Speaker 2: just gathered ideas, and we actually met the people the
38:29
Speaker 2: people from the factories of three different companies to see
38:33
Speaker 2: if they would build us a camper on top of
38:36
Speaker 2: an F-550. But in the end, we decided to do
38:39
Speaker 2: it in the States because it was a problem with
38:44
Speaker 2: a 220 volt and 110. And so we had it built,
38:48
Speaker 2: started in Canada, and then brought it back to the States.
38:52
Speaker 2: The ideas, we copied three main ideas from German's. We
38:57
Speaker 2: knew we wanted to have the entrance on the side
39:00
Speaker 2: and not like the four-wheel camper on the back because
39:02
Speaker 2: every time you went through a mud hole and you
39:04
Speaker 2: were in a dusty situation, you first had to clean
39:07
Speaker 2: the back off with a hose. And so we wanted
39:11
Speaker 2: it on the side. We wanted the one thing we
39:14
Speaker 2: did do to To gain space, we had a half
39:18
Speaker 2: bed during the day in the back, side to side.
39:21
Speaker 2: And at night, we were able to flip it over.
39:23
Speaker 2: We have two sinks, and at night, we still had
39:25
Speaker 2: the one. The entrance, which is always there. Why not?
39:30
Speaker 2: make this the shower? Because you come in with 30
39:33
Speaker 2: feet anyway. And so there's a gray water tank underneath.
39:37
Speaker 2: We have a curtain that goes around. We've hot water
39:40
Speaker 2: faucets there. They're hidden when we're not using them. And
39:45
Speaker 2: on the right-hand side behind the cab is the seating area.
39:49
Speaker 2: So under the seat right next to the entrance, we
39:53
Speaker 2: can pull out our porta potty. And the porta potty
39:56
Speaker 2: can be moved. Either it stays in the entrance or
39:59
Speaker 2: we can move it wherever we want to. So for
40:03
Speaker 2: a lot of Americans, it's basically inconceivable that you don't
40:06
Speaker 2: have an actual little cubbyhole for your bathroom. But we
40:11
Speaker 2: decided that was not important to us and we really
40:14
Speaker 2: needed the space to live more comfortably when not using
40:18
Speaker 2: the bathroom.
40:19
Speaker 5: And a special thanks to Hankook Dynapro Tire for supporting
40:23
Speaker 5: this week's Overland Journal podcast. Be sure to visit expeditionportal.com
40:30
Speaker 5: to see our features on the recent Hankook experience at
40:34
Speaker 5: the fourth annual Bronco Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We
40:40
Speaker 5: took a look at the full line of DynaPro tires
40:43
Speaker 5: and some great Ford Broncos from all over the country
40:47
Speaker 5: as they gathered at this community event of enthusiasts and
40:50
Speaker 5: top brands. Thanks again, Han Cook.
40:54
Speaker 1: Are there any changes you would make to the truck
40:56
Speaker 1: and camper setup? After coming, you guys just came back
41:00
Speaker 1: semi-recently from South America. Yeah.
41:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
41:05
Speaker 2: What did you learn? We stayed 21 months in the camper.
41:09
Speaker 2: Only a couple of times at the carnival in Oruro,
41:13
Speaker 2: we stayed in an apartment and one other time. There's very,
41:18
Speaker 2: very little we would change. The one problem that we
41:22
Speaker 2: have that's kind of a hassle if we need it
41:25
Speaker 2: is a water pump is in a very obscure location.
41:28
Speaker 2: We have to pull out all the batteries and then
41:31
Speaker 2: connect it on our tummies to try and change the
41:35
Speaker 2: Water pump, which has gone out a couple times. That
41:38
Speaker 2: probably would be a change. And then what else? Before
41:42
Speaker 2: we left, we upgraded our ancient solar panels from 26
41:48
Speaker 2: years ago. And the old, what's the battery called?
41:52
Speaker 3: We went from AGM batteries to lithium batteries. Yeah.
41:56
Speaker 2: And got new solar panels too. That was a big
41:58
Speaker 2: improvement because today you need so much more power to
42:02
Speaker 2: charge all your computers and phones and cameras and flashlights.
42:06
Speaker 3: Toothbrush.
42:06
Speaker 2: Who knows what? Toothbrush.
42:09
Speaker 3: And it was important for us too about staying clean.
42:15
Speaker 3: We had water. We had a 40-gallon water tank. And
42:19
Speaker 3: by the way, hot water is more important even. And
42:23
Speaker 3: we had discovered... By talking with people at the shows
42:27
Speaker 3: in Europe and here, there's a company in Germany called Ebenspacher.
42:31
Speaker 3: They made a special heater that heats coolant to 160 degrees,
42:38
Speaker 3: and it transfers it all the way to the engine
42:40
Speaker 3: and circulates. It's mainly designed to heat the engine because
42:45
Speaker 3: you cannot start an engine, the diesel engine, at those
42:48
Speaker 3: low temperatures. The oil is so thick, it won't pump
42:50
Speaker 3: up and open the injectors. So anyway, so they did that.
42:52
Speaker 3: But that same coolant heater can be cycled that hot
42:57
Speaker 3: coolant to what's called a flat plate. And it's a
43:00
Speaker 3: heat transfer box. It takes that coolant and runs it,
43:04
Speaker 3: hot coolant, and runs it through probably like veins, like
43:08
Speaker 3: a radiator. And your cold water comes through and comes
43:11
Speaker 3: out at the other side at 120 degrees. Too hot
43:16
Speaker 3: to even take a shower. We have 40 gallons of water.
43:19
Speaker 3: So we could basically have a 40 gallons of 120
43:21
Speaker 3: degree water. And it happens within four or five minutes
43:26
Speaker 3: once you push the button. So that is really an
43:30
Speaker 3: amazing feature that instead of having a big tank that
43:33
Speaker 3: takes up room or using propane or 110 to heat
43:36
Speaker 3: that water, this is almost instantaneous. Push the button, wait
43:40
Speaker 3: three minutes, hot water comes out of the sink.
43:41
Speaker 2: Well, that was actually an improvement, a change, because we
43:45
Speaker 2: had a hot water tank for A long time, and
43:50
Speaker 2: it started leaking, so we had to take the whole
43:53
Speaker 2: cabinet apart and take it out. And it was Sportsmobile
43:57
Speaker 2: that started using these flat plates, and that's how we
44:00
Speaker 2: got the idea. So that was a big improvement, and
44:03
Speaker 2: we gave us more storage. And the problem with a
44:06
Speaker 2: hot water tank is that you always have five or
44:08
Speaker 2: six gallons of water in there.
44:10
Speaker 3: You can't use them.
44:10
Speaker 2: You can't use it because it's always in there. So
44:13
Speaker 2: whenever you take a hot one out, a new one
44:15
Speaker 2: goes in.
44:17
Speaker 3: And back in the days of Land Rover, we didn't
44:18
Speaker 3: have a 40-gallon water tank. We had a 12-gallon water tank.
44:21
Speaker 3: We would just go to an ice plant or a
44:23
Speaker 3: Coca-Cola plant, and they had a hose on the outside,
44:26
Speaker 3: and they said purify.
44:28
Speaker 2: Another item that I just thought of when you were
44:31
Speaker 2: talking about it, you know, there are certain things you
44:34
Speaker 2: need to test at home. One of them is how
44:38
Speaker 2: are you going to fill the water tank if you
44:40
Speaker 2: don't have a hose and a faucet? Because sometimes it's
44:44
Speaker 2: just a river or a creek or a fountain in
44:49
Speaker 2: the middle of the village. And you have to be
44:52
Speaker 2: able to figure out how do you get water.
44:54
Speaker 3: And filter it and purify it.
44:57
Speaker 2: Well, the purification is one thing. We use, I don't
45:00
Speaker 2: know what other people use, but we used to use iodine.
45:02
Speaker 2: But many years now we've been using two drops of
45:05
Speaker 2: chlorine per liter. And I just have a little syringe
45:08
Speaker 2: and it's marked for 40 gallons. We counted the drops
45:11
Speaker 2: at one time. And I just squirt it in and
45:14
Speaker 2: be done with it. And then the water is purified,
45:16
Speaker 2: but it doesn't taste very good because it's more like
45:19
Speaker 2: a Los Angeles swimming pool. So we have a separate
45:24
Speaker 2: filter that takes out the chlorine, and that's what we
45:27
Speaker 2: use for drinking.
45:28
Speaker 3: And it kills the viruses.
45:30
Speaker 2: It kills everything. And the other water is good. It's safe,
45:35
Speaker 2: but we use it for dishes and brushing our teeth
45:38
Speaker 2: and showers and So that's very important. And then the other,
45:43
Speaker 2: the way... Back.
45:45
Speaker 3: To your question, we have a big funnel. We can
45:47
Speaker 3: stick in the hole where the water goes into with
45:49
Speaker 3: a piece of mesh to catch big stuff like leaves
45:53
Speaker 3: and grass. And we just take a bucket and pour
45:55
Speaker 3: it in.
45:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have two water cans.
46:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, five gallon water cans.
46:01
Speaker 2: Five gallon water cans.
46:03
Speaker 3: Mostly for emergency.
46:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's how we fill the water sometimes.
46:08
Speaker 1: Nice. So you were alluding to the Land Rover and
46:12
Speaker 1: the small tank. You guys have been doing this since
46:16
Speaker 1: the 70s. Much has changed, but some things have stayed
46:19
Speaker 1: the same. What surprises or fascinates you about overland travel
46:24
Speaker 1: in 2026?
46:25
Speaker 3: We camped at a lot of campgrounds in Argentina and
46:28
Speaker 3: where else?
46:29
Speaker 2: Campgrounds?
46:30
Speaker 3: Where? Parking lots.
46:32
Speaker 2: Parking lots, not campgrounds.
46:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, parking lots. And we saw a lot of other people.
46:35
Speaker 3: We saw the million-dollar Mayans from Germany. And then we
46:40
Speaker 3: saw a lot of F-350s or F-150s with campers on them.
46:44
Speaker 2: Or vans.
46:44
Speaker 3: Or vans. And what we noticed was, it's kind of
46:48
Speaker 3: sad because these people had left home with big dreams
46:51
Speaker 3: about where they wanted to go. The big million-dollar motorhomes,
46:55
Speaker 3: they would not have been able to follow us into Baja, California,
46:58
Speaker 3: let alone some of the roads we drove in. Fugo, though.
47:01
Speaker 3: Very slowly, I guess. And then the other vehicle, the
47:04
Speaker 3: smaller one, the F-150s, they were so overloaded that they
47:08
Speaker 3: were still standing here in space. And they had no winch,
47:12
Speaker 3: and they had no decent bumper system. They had no
47:14
Speaker 3: way to jack the vehicle up to even change a tire.
47:17
Speaker 3: And they had dreams, but they didn't have the proper
47:22
Speaker 3: equipment to do it. Safely and comfortably.
47:25
Speaker 2: But it was their adventure.
47:26
Speaker 3: It was their adventure.
47:27
Speaker 2: They learned just like we did.
47:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were probably like learning what I started off with.
47:30
Speaker 2: Just because we have done it so long, we have
47:32
Speaker 2: a little bit more experience of what works for us.
47:35
Speaker 2: It may not work for somebody else, but it works
47:37
Speaker 2: for us.
47:38
Speaker 3: And we've had the advantage of going to these big
47:42
Speaker 3: RV shows in Germany and Switzerland where we saw what
47:45
Speaker 3: they've been building. They've been building expedition campers for years.
47:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of that doesn't work either.
47:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, one of the things that we learned from them,
47:52
Speaker 3: very important, And we had our four-wheel campers were great.
47:56
Speaker 3: We loved them. But they were a box. And you
48:00
Speaker 3: cannot twist a box. It would break.
48:03
Speaker 2: When we traveled in the olden days, you know, with
48:06
Speaker 2: our cameras and slide film, we always had a Polaroid camera.
48:13
Speaker 2: And when we asked people if we could take their pictures,
48:18
Speaker 2: they would come and they would pose. Sometimes the whole family,
48:21
Speaker 2: you know, the hair of the kids were slicked down
48:24
Speaker 2: and they had their best clothes on. And we took
48:26
Speaker 2: this family portrait. And so I usually had the Polaroid
48:31
Speaker 2: camera and I would take a picture. And they were,
48:34
Speaker 2: even in very remote areas, they somehow knew that this
48:38
Speaker 2: click that the Polaroid did, like when the picture spits out.
48:42
Speaker 2: So they would stand there thinking. straight face, and Gary
48:46
Speaker 2: had the other camera. So as soon as that came out,
48:49
Speaker 2: they were all smiling and laughing. And that's when Gary
48:52
Speaker 2: took the pictures. So these are the pictures, what we
48:54
Speaker 2: took for us, but they had their souvenir picture. And
48:58
Speaker 2: I think that in 1996 in Russia, the people were
49:04
Speaker 2: still very camera shy. I think it was just because
49:08
Speaker 2: of all the politics and all the dictatorships they have
49:13
Speaker 2: gone through. They were extremely cautious if somebody took a picture.
49:16
Speaker 2: So we would always ask and sometimes they let us
49:19
Speaker 2: take one and sometimes they didn't, and that was fine.
49:21
Speaker 2: But we actually did bring Polaroid film with us. What
49:26
Speaker 2: we didn't realize, we knew that regular slide film, you
49:30
Speaker 2: could freeze, and that was fine. But we didn't realize
49:32
Speaker 2: that you cannot freeze Polaroid. So the first time we
49:35
Speaker 2: wanted to take a picture of a family, There was
49:39
Speaker 2: just smeared colors. So we had like $ 300 worth of
49:42
Speaker 2: Polaroid film that we just had to throw away because
49:44
Speaker 2: it didn't work. So when we returned in 2013-14 to
49:50
Speaker 2: the stands, ex-Russia, all of a sudden people were totally
49:55
Speaker 2: relaxed us taking pictures. And then we realized, well, they
49:59
Speaker 2: all have phones now with cameras, which they didn't have before.
50:03
Speaker 2: Nobody had phones. And they would take pictures of us.
50:07
Speaker 2: So it was an exchange of pictures.
50:09
Speaker 3: I would take a picture of a woman giving Monica
50:13
Speaker 3: a nice tomato. And I would show it to her.
50:16
Speaker 3: And she'd smile. And she'd call her friend over. Look,
50:19
Speaker 3: they'd get together. I'd get a picture of the two
50:21
Speaker 3: of them. And then the next thing, they'd get their
50:23
Speaker 3: cameras down and take pictures of us.
50:26
Speaker 2: Selfie? And that's the same in South America too. People
50:31
Speaker 2: were much more relaxed with having pictures taken. Not everybody,
50:35
Speaker 2: but that's fine. Yeah.
50:37
Speaker 1: It's kind of neat now, isn't it? With people asking you, selfie?
50:42
Speaker 1: Or like they want to take a picture of you
50:44
Speaker 1: with their phone or all of you together with their
50:47
Speaker 1: phone too.
50:48
Speaker 2: Sometimes when they were selling like handicrafts, they didn't want
50:53
Speaker 2: their picture taken. But if you bought something from them,
50:58
Speaker 2: then you get their picture taken, which is fair. I mean,
51:01
Speaker 2: in some other places they want money, which understandable. It
51:06
Speaker 2: just makes it a little bit of a, you know,
51:09
Speaker 2: if one person pays them something, then they want something
51:12
Speaker 2: from everybody. So you kind of have to judge with
51:16
Speaker 2: what you do there.
51:17
Speaker 3: Totally. And the technology of photography has advanced so incredibly
51:21
Speaker 3: much with digital that, I mean, I have to laugh.
51:25
Speaker 3: I've I just bought a new Sony that I used
51:29
Speaker 3: in South America, and it was stolen on the ship.
51:33
Speaker 3: But I remember doing a whole story for Off-Road Magazine
51:38
Speaker 3: with one roll of Kodachrome, 36 pictures, and maybe a
51:43
Speaker 3: couple of pictures with a 120 with black and white
51:45
Speaker 3: because they wanted a bigger frame. And then what else?
51:48
Speaker 2: Well, black and white.
51:49
Speaker 3: Black and white, yeah. So 36 pictures for a whole story.
51:56
Speaker 3: in Off-Road Magazine.
51:57
Speaker 2: Now you take 40 and throw most of them away.
52:00
Speaker 2: We developed our own black and white film so Gary
52:04
Speaker 2: could write the stories and the captions. And we remember
52:07
Speaker 2: we were in Belize and it was so hot. We
52:10
Speaker 2: had to get up at four in the morning to
52:12
Speaker 2: develop this film. And then we couldn't make proof sheets.
52:18
Speaker 2: But they had what they called sun paper. So you
52:20
Speaker 2: could put the negative onto that piece of paper. And
52:24
Speaker 2: through the sun, you could see the photos. You took
52:28
Speaker 2: them off and you had to write captions quickly because
52:30
Speaker 2: eventually it turned black. And we would send in those.
52:35
Speaker 3: We'd send the rolls.
52:36
Speaker 2: So Gary could write the captions for the story.
52:38
Speaker 3: And I would just send a roll of film in.
52:39
Speaker 3: They would fill it.
52:40
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
52:43
Speaker 3: There was no place to get Kodachrome developed in Mexico
52:45
Speaker 3: at that time. Mexico City, maybe.
52:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it.
52:48
Speaker 3: That was it, yeah.
52:49
Speaker 2: So what's next? Well, we came back on March 31st,
52:54
Speaker 2: May 31st, excuse me, after being gone for 21 and
52:57
Speaker 2: a half months. So there has been a lot of
53:00
Speaker 2: catch up to do. You know, it's not only the
53:04
Speaker 2: unpacking was the quickest thing, but if you are on
53:07
Speaker 2: vacation for a week or two, you come back, you
53:10
Speaker 2: empty your suitcase, you wash your clothes, in fact, you
53:12
Speaker 2: can plug back in. If it's 21 months, it's a
53:15
Speaker 2: whole different ballgame. I just finished my taxes and they are,
53:19
Speaker 2: you know, there's these, if you have doctor's appointments, you
53:22
Speaker 2: have them throughout the year. Everything is just paddled up
53:24
Speaker 2: together right now. But finally, I can see the end
53:28
Speaker 2: of the tunnel here and I can start. working in
53:31
Speaker 2: my garden, which is what I really want to do
53:33
Speaker 2: right now. There's planting season. I'm planting a California cottage garden.
53:37
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for the fountain to show up. So we're
53:40
Speaker 2: just enjoying home right now, reconnecting with friends around the area.
53:44
Speaker 2: And it's just, it's good right now.
53:48
Speaker 3: And still, thanks to WhatsApp, we're still watching remotely all
53:51
Speaker 3: the girls.
53:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.
53:54
Speaker 2: And then we decided instead of driving the truck to
53:57
Speaker 2: another place for right now, we want to go and
54:01
Speaker 2: fly somewhere like safari in Africa or maybe back to
54:06
Speaker 2: Southeast Asia. Just do stuff that most people do.
54:11
Speaker 3: The difficulty and the expense of shipping a vehicle from
54:16
Speaker 3: United States to South America or to Europe or to
54:19
Speaker 3: Africa or anywhere else, it's incredibly complicated in the end.
54:23
Speaker 3: Very expensive in the end. Sometimes terrible because things get stolen.
54:29
Speaker 3: And my feeling now, having done that, driven around South
54:32
Speaker 3: America for 21 months, there are many things we wanted
54:35
Speaker 3: to see. But the expense and the comfort, it probably
54:40
Speaker 3: would have been better to fly there, stay in a
54:44
Speaker 3: nice hotel, rent a car and get a guide.
54:47
Speaker 2: Maybe we're getting old.
54:48
Speaker 3: Maybe so. No, I'm getting practical.
54:51
Speaker 2: Well, we have done that. You know, we did go
54:55
Speaker 2: to Egypt and Jordan and we had private guides. We,
54:59
Speaker 2: in December 23, one of my big birthday wishes to
55:02
Speaker 2: go and visit Antarctica. We have gone up. I have
55:07
Speaker 2: these big birthday wishes.
55:08
Speaker 3: Always different. Something different. I get one too.
55:11
Speaker 2: And so we, one wish was to see the polar
55:14
Speaker 2: bears live in Churchill. So we have traveled mostly on
55:21
Speaker 2: our own, but sometimes within the ship to Antarctica on
55:27
Speaker 2: another tour on Gary's birthday this year to go and
55:30
Speaker 2: see the San Rafael glacier in Chile, southern Chile. So
55:36
Speaker 2: we know that part too. They both have advantages and disadvantages.
55:41
Speaker 2: But overall, I like the slowness and the slower pace
55:47
Speaker 2: of traveling in my own vehicle, preparing my own meals,
55:52
Speaker 2: and just experience what you can. We had some goals
55:55
Speaker 2: set in South America. We wanted to see the carnival
55:59
Speaker 2: in Oruro in Bolivia. We've been to the one in Rio,
56:03
Speaker 2: which was very different. We wanted to see the Sala
56:07
Speaker 2: de Juni, the largest salt flat in the world. I
56:10
Speaker 2: wanted to see where one of my uncles was born
56:13
Speaker 2: in the jungle in Bolivia. We did that. So those
56:17
Speaker 2: were just points that we made, that we wanted to do,
56:21
Speaker 2: and whatever happened in between, happened in between. It's like
56:25
Speaker 2: Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck. Don't take the trip,
56:30
Speaker 2: let the take you. That's sort of our motto has
56:33
Speaker 2: been forever.
56:34
Speaker 3: And also Henry Ford's famous saying, whether you think you
56:39
Speaker 3: can or you think you can't, you're probably right.
56:42
Speaker 2: I like that one, too.
56:46
Speaker 3: Good quotes. That follows through something that I learned quite accidentally.
56:50
Speaker 3: I mean, from when I was in high school, I
56:53
Speaker 3: got my first car. I got a dog. I had
56:56
Speaker 3: great times. I went camping. I went two trips into
56:59
Speaker 3: the Sierras with the Boy Scouts. So many things now
57:02
Speaker 3: I realize how did I... And then when I started
57:05
Speaker 3: traveling again and I found my Land Rover and started
57:09
Speaker 3: heading for South America again, really, seriously, I realized I
57:15
Speaker 3: realized how had I been accomplishing these things. It turns out,
57:21
Speaker 3: funny little thing, there's a little program, maybe you've heard
57:24
Speaker 3: of it, it's called The Secret.
57:26
Speaker 2: Well, there's a book.
57:27
Speaker 3: There's a book and there's a CD. It's about positive thinking.
57:31
Speaker 3: And I didn't realize I'd been using it all along,
57:33
Speaker 3: but it works, basically.
57:35
Speaker 2: Nice. People, we've always kind of questioned a little bit.
57:40
Speaker 2: about what our purpose in life is. I mean, we
57:43
Speaker 2: traveled around, we wrote about it, we had enjoyed lots
57:47
Speaker 2: of experiences. And it was not until the first Overland
57:50
Speaker 2: Expo in Prescott that a man, a motorcycle man, a
57:56
Speaker 2: retired man, came up to us and he put this
58:00
Speaker 2: binder on the table and we looked at it and
58:04
Speaker 2: he had saved all our South American stories in Offroad Magazine.
58:08
Speaker 2: Or was it Four Wheeler?
58:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
58:10
Speaker 2: One of the two. And he said he followed our
58:15
Speaker 2: whole route that we traveled in South America with his motorcycle.
58:21
Speaker 2: And he sort of hit us and said, wow. And
58:25
Speaker 2: we came to the conclusion that our purpose in life
58:28
Speaker 2: is to inspire people to follow their own dreams.
58:32
Speaker 3: You take that famous saying that I had, turn it
58:36
Speaker 3: sideways a little bit. To see the past, push on
58:41
Speaker 3: a rock. To see the present, push on a flower.
58:45
Speaker 3: To see the future, help someone envision and live their dreams.
58:52
Speaker 3: And we feel like we've been doing that now. After
58:55
Speaker 3: talking with hundreds of people at the Overland Expo.
59:00
Speaker 2: Over the years, we've got hundreds and hundreds of letters
59:03
Speaker 2: and later e-mails from Our people come up and talk
59:07
Speaker 2: to us and say that we were their inspiration. to
59:10
Speaker 2: follow their own dreams, whatever it is. It doesn't have
59:14
Speaker 2: to be a four-wheel drive vehicle.
59:15
Speaker 3: Or a million-dollar vehicle.
59:16
Speaker 2: It can be anything. A hiking trip into the Sierras
59:21
Speaker 2: or hiring a boat and go somewhere or whatever. But
59:25
Speaker 2: I think it's wonderful that people... Ignore all the naysayers
59:30
Speaker 2: around them and just do what they really have in
59:32
Speaker 2: their heart to do. Because eventually they will regret that
59:37
Speaker 2: they didn't do it when they could have done it.
59:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
59:41
Speaker 3: It's a little special thing to come up after, you know,
59:44
Speaker 3: we took this cruise in Antarctica. And we went up
59:48
Speaker 3: and saw the glaciers and everything. And we were kayaking
59:51
Speaker 3: through big chunks of ice that were floating around, breaking
59:54
Speaker 3: off glaciers, trying to go around them because you didn't
59:57
Speaker 3: want to damage the kayak. And then knowing that if
1:00:00
Speaker 3: we would flip or something, there was a Zodiac waiting
1:00:03
Speaker 3: to come pick us up if we had a problem.
1:00:04
Speaker 3: So we got back to the boat. Wonderful. What a trip.
1:00:07
Speaker 3: We saw hundreds and hundreds of penguins and other animals
1:00:11
Speaker 3: and whales and seabirds. And then we got back to
1:00:15
Speaker 3: the boat and sat down in the big luxury lounge. Okay.
1:00:20
Speaker 3: Ordered something to drink. I had a little glass of
1:00:23
Speaker 3: rum with a piece of ice that I had chipped
1:00:26
Speaker 3: off one of the ice chests. What was it? kayaked by.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: It didn't taste any different, but it was a feeling. Wow.
1:00:32
Speaker 3: Those are the things you get to do when you
1:00:34
Speaker 3: immerse yourselves in a situation. The guide we had in
1:00:39
Speaker 3: Egypt was an amazing guide. But we were on a cruise. Well,
1:00:44
Speaker 3: we were on a ship going down the Nile. And
1:00:49
Speaker 3: this guy had been a professor. He spoke and understood.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: He was an Egyptologist.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Well, I know that you two have inspired the team
1:00:59
Speaker 1: at Overland Journal, and of course, a ton of readers
1:01:02
Speaker 1: through all the different publications that you've written for and
1:01:06
Speaker 1: all the stories that you've shared. So thank you on
1:01:09
Speaker 1: behalf of the team at Overland Journal for taking the
1:01:12
Speaker 1: time to chat with me today and for the continued
1:01:15
Speaker 1: inspiration since the 1970s you've provided. It's a great honor.
1:01:20
Speaker 2: Thank you for having us.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: Thank you.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And Where can we find you online?
1:01:25
Speaker 2: Well, we do have a website, turtlexpedition.com. I haven't been
1:01:29
Speaker 2: updating it much. I did some updates on Facebook on
1:01:33
Speaker 2: the Turtle Expedition, Monica Westcott, Gary Westcott. We do have
1:01:38
Speaker 2: an Instagram account, but I have to admit I haven't
1:01:40
Speaker 2: been there for a long time. There's just only so
1:01:43
Speaker 2: much we can do. Even once we got Starlink, which
1:01:47
Speaker 2: helped a lot with communication before it was very difficult,
1:01:50
Speaker 2: which is one of the things we certainly would recommend.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: having in other countries makes it easier. So that's probably it.
1:02:00
Speaker 3: Right.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: Write to us.
1:02:02
Speaker 3: If someone has a question about one of the things
1:02:04
Speaker 3: that we use, like our Evans Park or our High
1:02:07
Speaker 3: Lift Jack or anything like that, take a write to
1:02:11
Speaker 3: us and we'll answer them.
1:02:12
Speaker 2: The best is to go on the website and send
1:02:14
Speaker 2: us an email.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: Great. Well, I'm very excited because a lot of the
1:02:19
Speaker 1: heritage content includes Your articles. So listeners can head to
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Expedition Portal for that and Overland Journal's anniversary issue. So
1:02:28
Speaker 1: to explain that a little bit more, to honor the
1:02:30
Speaker 1: 20-year anniversary of Overland Journal, we're revisiting special heritage content
1:02:35
Speaker 1: in the upcoming 100th issue of the magazine.
1:02:38
Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, to stay in the loop, sign up for
1:02:41
Speaker 1: the new Overland Journal newsletter, which we'll put the link.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: in the show notes and head to expeditionportal.com for more
1:02:48
Speaker 1: bonus heritage content, including some of the articles that Monica
1:02:53
Speaker 1: and Gary referenced today, such as Magic Girl of the Pamirs.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: Thank you again, you two, for being here today. And
1:03:00
Speaker 1: I hope that the Overland Journal podcast listeners had a
1:03:03
Speaker 1: great time too.
1:03:04
Speaker 2: I sure did myself. We'll catch you next time.