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The Real Indiana Jones - Bryon Bass, PhD · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: your host Scott Brady, and my co host Matt. Scott
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: is not with us today because he's bouncing around somewhere
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: in Africa.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I think Namibia right now.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: In Land rovers good for him, which means that it
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: is just me and a very good friend of mine,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Brian Bass. Thanks for being on the show. Brian, glad
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to be here. And Brian is, in my mind the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: true Indiana Jones. He is an archaeologist, doctor Brian Bass,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: PhD from Edinburgh University and a storied past and a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: lot of interesting experiences in his life that I think
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: directly translate to our passions for travel and our passions
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: for overlanding.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: So I think we'll learn a lot from Brian.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: There'll be a lot of fun topics to discuss, everything
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: from knives to sportsmobile vans to watches. But he learned
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a lot in his life from the people that he's
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: been around, including his father, who was Army Special Force.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And tell me a little bit about your dad.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well he actually even before that, he was a
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: wrestler and then he joined the eighty second Airborne and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: then re upped and back then it was called the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: seventy seventh Special Forces Group. Later on it became the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: seventh Special Forces Group, so he was in in the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: military at that capacity. He got out and actually went
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: to the twelve Special Forces Reserves, which is or was
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: down in San Pedro area in California, and shortly after
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: that transitioned to the movie business and became a professional stuntman.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Which is such a cool story. And Brian was able
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to experience a lot of that and experience that early
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Hollywood stuntman scene and what came from that is that
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a funny little fact, but Bo Derek is actually Brian's stepsister,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So that's correct.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: My father's second wife is Bo's mother. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So there's these little anecdotes that you're all going to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: pick up during the podcast that I think make it
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: really fun. It's made it such a joy to have
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Brian as a friend because we never run out of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: stuff to talk about. We spent weeks driving around Uganda
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and Kenya and we never once had a quiet moment
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in the car because it was always so much to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: chat about, other than if we were just taking in
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a beautiful view. But tell us a little bit about
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: your early education. What made you choose to go to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Edinburgh for your PhD.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Well before that, I was at San Diego State University
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and I did my undergraduate there in anthropology, got a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: BA and anthropology there, and I started graduate school at
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: San Diego State University, and there were a series of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: events that occurred where it was announced by the head
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: of the department that if at that time, if we
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: were not finishing our master's degree in a certain amount
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of time semesters, really that we should think about moving
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: on or transferring to some other location. And at the time,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I was focused almost exclusively on on coastal marine history,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and I was doing some archaeology just off the coast
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: and La Joya and Laoya in the reserve that's that's
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: off Lahoya Shores, and my supervisor suggested that it would
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: be good for me to possibly explore different avenues around
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the Mediterranean in something similar insular and coastal prehistory. And
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: this was when Yugoslavia was still together, and so he
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: had worked in ex Yugoslavia. It wasn't x at the time,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and he basically hooked me up with a professor that
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: he had worked with over there, and through a series
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of just kind of happenstance. Really, I was over visiting
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: my brother, who at the time was at the London
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: School of ECON, and went to visit some friends that
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I had met working in Jordan. The stories are starting
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to go down the rabit. So they were up at
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the University of Edinburgh and jumped on the train went
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: up there, and I was explaining to them my woes
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: of what am I going to do. I'm not really
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: through grad school yet, but I've been told I got
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: to move on. And then one of them suggested that
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I could possibly transfer over and just go right into
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: a PhD program. They have different different parameters in the
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: UK than we do in the US as far as
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: teaching requirements and things along the way. So I borrowed
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a coat from somebody and interviewed with the head of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the department at the University of Edinburgh. That individual turned
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: out to be my supervisor when I did finally come
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: on there. But I also interviewed at Reading and in Glasgow,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and so in the end it was just a choice
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: of It'll sound odd, but I kind of went with
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the city that I liked the best. They all have
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: just great departments of archaeology, so that really wasn't and
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: nobody was working in ex Yugoslavia because by that time
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yugoslavia had started to come apart, and so I along
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: the way did choose to pursue some fieldwork on an
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: island off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: that ended up being the focal point of my PhD.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Some of the highlights that you experienced not only as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: an archaeologist, but as a traveler. I think I remember
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: some of your stories of writing an early BMW back
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and forth between between the school and the field locations. Yeah,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it took on epic proportions, for sure. I had It
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: was a Dell three eighty six laptop that was just
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the coolest thing ever. I mean now, it's just primitive
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: by our standards as far as capacity and capability. But
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: at the starting of every summer, I'd load up the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: R one hundred gs with all of my field research equipment, laptop,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: close pretty much everything for the next three months, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I would ride from Edinburgh down to Newcastle, jump on
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a ferry, go over to Hamburg, and then from Hamburg, well,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: usually I'd spend some time with some friends who live
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: in Hamburg, and then from there right on down through Switzerland,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: stop and visit some friends at the University of Zurich,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and then go from there down to Rieka and get
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: an overnight ferry from there down to the island. Once
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: or twice I rode all the way down the coast.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It was there was a little bit of a time thing,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you know, sure, especially getting starting the summer research. I
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: always wanted to get down there as soon as possible
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and get my feet on the ground and start the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: work at the end of the summers. Then I started
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to take my time.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: When I think summer, it took like two and a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: half weeks to get back up to Edinburgh, and of
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: my supervisor, you know, asked me about.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: That, what's going on? And is that when you first
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: started to pick up the German language? Was that time
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that was before that? Maybe I could say now in
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: hindsight it's fortunate. I can't say that I really liked
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it at the time. But my mother sent me.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: To private school for twelve years down in the la Area,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: and so back then there were foreign language requirements, so
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: we had Spanish. I had Spanish for six years and
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: then had German for three years, and just so happened
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: that when I took German, that was from tenth twelfth grade,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: we only had about five people in the class, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: they're all boys. And it was one hour a day,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: five days a week, and the teacher was a twenty
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: something woman who was quite strict with us, and by
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the end of the second week she didn't allow any
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: English in the class anymore. Okay, yeah, one hundred percent
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and a lot of play acting. And then by the
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: end of the first year we were conversationally fluent. And
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: then by the end of the third year she had us.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: We had exams where we would read a murder mystery
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: story and then we had to answer thirty questions what
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: was the color of the hat on the guy by
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: the window in the train? And so you had to
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: have not just an ability to read it, but to
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: retain the yeah and so. And if you looked at
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: my German grades back then, you'd see a C plus
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, very middle of the road. It was hard, yeah, sure,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: and it is a difficult language to learn, is it is? Yeah?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: There are some cases that English doesn't really have anymore, like,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: for example, genitive. I mean, we really don't use it
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: that much, and just the vocabulary and reflection of plural,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: singular and feminine, masculine, things like that. That English. That's
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: why I think English is at a basic level, is
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: so easy to learn.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And that turned out to be fortuitous because your partner,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: she speaks German as well, she's.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: From the Black Forest, and it's amazed we actually met
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: in the German language in a supermarket. That's so great. Yeah,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: that is so great.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So then you started spending time in X Yugoslavia, which
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I would suspect was ripe for discovery as an archaeologist.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the situation there before Yugoslavia broke up, there were
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: definitely people working from the outside, a lot of British
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: teams working, I should say a few British teams working
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: on some of the islands and immediately adjacent coast, and
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: then also of course Yugoslav archaeologists. But at that time,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: unlike places let's say like Reese or Turkey, I hate
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: to use the term, but it was it just wasn't
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: picked over sure. So so on any given day, if you,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: for example, on the island where I did my PhD,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many sites we ended up recording
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: but it was well into the hundreds. And that's just
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: on this one island. And these were unrecorded sites.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: And how big is this island? How long is it?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Why is it a mount tip to tail?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: It's about fifty kilometers long, including some little islets, so
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it's it's that cortulas and yeah, that island.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the time I think that some properties
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: started to become available.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: So you made a very early hedge and.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: The are yeah, and you get you pick up some
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: some houses there was it was a little bit later on,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I put out the word, you know, if
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: anyone knows anything, and I just kind of discovered that
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: location looks beautiful.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It is. It's a beautiful part of the world. It
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: was a riviera long ago. Man, it's a crossroads. It
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: was a crossroads in antiquity. It was a crossroads between
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Venice and the Autumn and Empire. I mean, it's just
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the food, the culture, and I'm specifically referring to the islands.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: It's just it's just great. Yeah, that sounds fascinatings are familiar,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: but not exactly like it is back home. And I
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: don't mean just back home California, but even northern Europeans
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: come there and it's familiar. But at the same time,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you know, within two minutes you can be in some
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: village where other than the paved road, it's time is
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: still standing still, or it's maybe three hundred years ago. Oh,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: that's amazing.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And then did you find that the archaeology is what
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: inspired you to travel or was it your love for
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: travel that then dovetailed in the archaeological work.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. I'd have to backtrack on my
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: answer and give some background. I hadn't really traveled that
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: much now. I'm excluding like when I was I think
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: about two, my parents worked on a project. My dad
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: worked on a project in London, but I don't really
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: remember anything back that far. And when I was still
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: at San Diego State University there they had a semester
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: in London that you could sign up for, and I
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: just assumed that I got a flyer for it. I
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: threw in the trash and at the time, I still
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: had my grades and other mail sent to my mom's
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: house up in la mainly because I had moved a
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: bunch of apartments and it just seemed easier to just
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: have it all funnel into one location and so she
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: called me on the phone. This is all pre mobile phones,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: of course, called me on the landline and said, hey,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: did you see this thing about the semester in London?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, you know, I mean, we don't
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: have that kind of money, you know, for me to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: go do something like that. And she said, did you
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: see the part about sort of a scholarship and money
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: that the cal state system will provide every month or week?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. The thing was weekly. We got forty
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: British pounds a week as a stipend. Back then, a
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: pint of beer was ninety pence. I wasn't twenty one yet.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: So I said, well, I don't know, mom, I mean,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: you know, it's the flight and everything. She said, oh,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: I'll pay for that, and then maybe when you're done,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I can even get you like a urrail pass. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I hadn't even pondered any of this right ever, she
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: encouraged you to. And then and then that was it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: After that semester in London, she picked up for me
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a two month urrail pass. And then I had a
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: backpack early low pack. Sure you know that that I
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: had packed to the gills with stuff, you know, because
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I started in before April, traveling or around April, I guess,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And so it was already it was cold, still up
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: in northern Europe, and I wanted to get down to
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: the southern climbs. And and so after that two months
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: of just traveling with this urrail pass and sleeping rough
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: and having like a very fixed budget. Sure, I mean,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I had a I got an American Express card at
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: the San Diego State University. It was a student bookstore,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: had a five hundred dollars limit, and I had maybe
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: bought a pair of shoes or something back home, and
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: then paid it off and was really stoked, and it
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: was like a pair of Chuck Taylors thirty eight bucks.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And that was the only time I'd ever used it.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Back then, I know, people and myself included traveled with
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: travelers checks and sure combination of cash. But this was
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: you know, pre European Union. Borders were still up, and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: that would.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Have been such an amazing time to see Europe. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I was traveling there about the same time that. In fact,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: my early travel inspiration is a similar story. I was
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in the military though, and I got assigned to southern
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Italy and this was still you still got the Lira.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: This was still very much close borders. But once you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: start to experience a place like Italy, which you've experienced
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: a lot in your life, it completely opens your eyes.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Because in the United States we don't have we have
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of prehistory. There's a lot of history in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the United States, but there isn't a lot of the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: history that we find directly familiar, like the Roman history
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and the things that we learn in school. We don't
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: learn a lot about the history of the North American
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: American conton. And I remember being there and walking the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: streets of Rome, or seeing the coliseum and being wide eyed,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: absolutely amazed, shocked at how cool the world was. And
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I remember when I left Italy, the only thing I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: could think of is how do I make this a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: part of my life one hundred percent?
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: And that's what happened to me. As a matter of fact,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: before I even did the two months ur rail. When
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I was still at school in London. One of the professors,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: he was actually a professor from San Diego State and
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: at that point I had been studying political science, I
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: was international relations. Sure, I wasn't studying archaeology completely yet,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: but the courses that transferred back to San Diego State
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: were mostly anthropology and archaeology classes that one of the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: professors from San Diego State was teaching there, and at
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the end of the semester he.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Said, Bass, you're a good kid. You seem to get
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: really good grades in my class. Why don't you come
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: and work with me in Jordan next summer? And I
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: probably said sure, okay, but I hadn't traveled around Europe yet.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: That was just like three days before I jumped on
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: the hovercraft and went across to the continent. And then
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: after the two months of backpacking around Europe, all I
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: could think about was what's going to happen next summer
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: during to Jordan, And.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: That was it. I had like I had brain juice
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: coming out of my ear canal. It just was blown
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: away by traveling and that was it.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Hook was in and you and I we both grew
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: up in Southern California, which is relatively multicultural for the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: United States, and there's a lot of crossroads of language
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and cultures that you experienced in Southern California. But I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: remember being completely shocked by how different it was and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: how much I loved the fact that it was different.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, without a doubt that. Yeah.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Now, I would think with your specialty being prehistory and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: being coastal, the sea levels have changed significantly throughout human existence.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So did you have to do dieting to explore sites
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: or was that not part of it?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Of course I made it part as often as I could.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: At that time, when Croatia became independent, there weren't dive
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: shops around the island. People had compressors, people had scuba gear.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: But oddly enough, a few times that I did dive
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: during my PhD research, it was old school twin tank,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: twin steel tanks, single tank, no buoyancy equipment at all,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: just weight belt, jet fins, and you just had to
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: be a good swimmer. I mean, looking back on it,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I mean it surely violates most of what you learn
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: for a safety as a basic sport diver. I had
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: also become a scuba diving instructor back at San Diego
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: State University, so you felt comfortable pushing those limits a
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: little bit. Yeah, there was obviously certain things that I
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: needed to make sure, like, Okay, does his tank have
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: air and he's actually compressed air and part of the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: exhaust yeah whatever, Yeah, sure, so I did some some
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: marine archaeology. Most of it was actually with just math,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: mask snorkel and fins. Oh interesting, because anytime that you
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: would find on land, say like a Roman villa or
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: the remains of a Roman villa or some Greco Roman artifacts,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: guaranteed if you went off shore you'd find more. You'd
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: find more. Oh interesting. And because sport diving hadn't really
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: taken off at that time this is in the mid nineties,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: didn't have tour operators or anything going out, so it
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: was it was definitely possible to identify, for example, amphora
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: fragments on the on the seafloor. And yeah, I mean,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: obviously it just goes in conjunction with you find what
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to find on the land. But I tried to do
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: it as often as possible back then though there wasn't
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: the active marine archaeology that's occurring now.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds fascinating with how much that would correlate
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to what your specialty was. Yeah, and it makes me
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: think too, when you and I were traveling through you
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Gonda and Kenya, we you know, we had plenty of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: adventure on that trip. And those that are listening you
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: can find the story in overland journal or you can
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: find it on Expedition Portal and we'll put a link
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in the show show notes. But we ended up doing
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: essentially an illegal border crossing into Kenya because what it
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: showed that it was a border crossing on the map,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: but by the time we got there was very clear
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't. So then the local local militia found
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: us and sent us off to the police station. There's
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more to that story. But we ended
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: up going down to Lake Turkana, which is this very
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: ancient place in Kenya and it's a natural occurring lake.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: There's there is some water management now, but there would
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: have been a lot of early human that were that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: we're traveling in that area or living in that area,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and we pull off down this dirt road and we
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: find this little spot to camp and and we start
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: setting up camp. I'm putting up the rough tent and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Brian's walking around and tell me, tell me what you
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: found just walking around where we were camped.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably I couldn't say the highlight of my
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: career because I wasn't physically doing archaeology there in a
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: professional capacity, but as a prehistorian, finding an Ashuelian hand
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: acts in the actual setting is that's beyond the Holy Grail.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And the other thing is I guess my specialty is
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: early and eolithics sort at the onset of humans domesticating
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: animals and crops, and this, this is way before that.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: This is I mean, this is probably Homo habilists left it,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: so it's not even the same species of Homo. Yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: and just finding it there, I mean it was just
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: like I had studied about Lewis Leaky and Richard Leaky
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: and everyone else working in Old Devi and in the
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: greater Lake Tracana area where that's the cradle of civilization,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: that's where humans learned and developed and first became aware
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: of their environment, and specifically that that hand axe. It's
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: not just that there's a continuity of sorts from from
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: then until now, as far as as an edged tool
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: or a chopping tool. But it's very clear that unlike
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: let's say something like a higher primates where they'll use
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: an expedient tool a stick or something to get to
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: get some termites, humans not only would prepare the tool
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: ahead of time, then use it, then keep it or
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: curate it, and then use it later on, but they
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: also had an awareness of the materials sure that were better,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that would last longer, the more optimal materials, And this
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: was back then too. Now, the unfortunate part is that
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: we don't have usually we don't have from that period
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: surviving things that are artifacts that are made out of
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: wood or bone. They tend not to survive the archaeological record.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So we're obviously, I'm assuming that we're skipping out, we're
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: missing out on a whole another part of the toolkit
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: from back then. But nevertheless, finding that that hand axe
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: was and you guys were cracking beers I think, and
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: they were working was they were wrenching on one of
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the g wagons they were which which to me was
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: was also I was still blown away. Probably didn't hear
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: too many words from me at that moment, because I
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: saw Stanley and France open up the toolbox and they're
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: these spanners and screwdrivers, and then I'm looking at this
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: tool this is what started it all. And then here
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: we are with these guys wrenching on an emotor. Yeah,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: and there's the procession right there of humans and ingenuity
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: and materials and tools and usage of tools.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And I remember when I because once you started to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: describe to me, because you didn't just find the axe,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you found maybe a scraper as well. Yeah, yeah, and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: some small flint pieces that may have been used for
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: spears or something like that. And it was all around
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the area. And I look at you and I say, Brian,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: how in the world is all of this here? And
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I remember what you told me, is Scott, the same
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: reason why you picked this campsite is the same reason
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they would have picked the campsite. It was protected from
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the wind, and it had the stone wall, kind of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: these natural stone barriers on each side. You could see
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that there would have been water flowing in this one
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: area right next to where we were camped. And you said,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the same reason that I picked it and we picked
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it is the same reason however many years ago, Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and GLENNI ago they would have picked it. You have obviously,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: time is moving in one direction. You have geomorphology, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you have vegetation changing and climate changing, and I don't
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: mean from the recent type of climate change, but I
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: mean just over time. But at the same time, when
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you look at that landscape where we were, you can
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: see that there was kind of an upgradient area that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: was kind of out of the low setting and guarantee
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: that was why various people probably found that little encampment,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: including us. And about how long ago do you think
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: they would have been there?
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: It's hard to say because that that was been totally
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: out of context. But let's say one point seven one
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: point five million years. I mean, this is this is
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: going way back, way back. That's amazing, and that that
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: tool did that tool did. It was used sure up
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: and closer until closer to modern times. I don't mean
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: modern times. I mean let's say like going to one
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand years ago plus something similar, but what was used,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: But it was very clear obviously to a student of
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: archaeology and somebody who studied it and had it hammered
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: in my head and had courses on it. That and
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: you're at ground zero for finding that, right, that's where
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the material is supposed to be from.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Which obviously leads to an important thing for us to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: talk about in this podcast is that as travelers, we
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: do interact with ancient cultures, and we interact with these
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: archaeological finds in our own mind. And I think about
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the time, many many times in my travels that I've
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: come across something ancient. Just give the listeners some good
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: pointers on making sure that we aren't doing any damage
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that we're leaving it. Obviously there's something as simple as
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: take only photographs or memories and leave only footprints. But
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: what are some things that we can do to make
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: sure that we're not damaging these sites, that we're not
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: creating an impact that will affect future digs or future
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: assessments of an area.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: That's definitely a good question, and it's something that I
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: get asked frequently, and if I had to qualify it
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: before any kind of explanation, I would say that people
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: need to be aware that there are international, national and
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: local level laws, ordinances, regulations that protect those resources. And
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: there's a reason for it. It's not to stop future
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Indiana Jones and Venturous from going out that they are
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: fine resources. So once they are removed or gone or
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: destroyed or taken out of their context before they've been studied,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: well that that's it. It's over. And there aren't that
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: many resources that we come across on a regular basis
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: that are similar. I mean, obviously you can say mining
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: or or something like that, it's at least on our planet,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: those are also finite too. But you can also recycle things.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: But you can't recycle or make an artifact once it's
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: been removed from its setting, And so people need to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: bear that in mind right off the bat. So if
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you think that that that stone tool that you found
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: is going to be it's so small I can fit
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: in my bag. I'm gonna take it back home. Just
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: remember that we're, right off the bat, transporting some antiquities
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: across country borders. You're in trouble getting got with that
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: in country, you're in trouble. You don't have a permit
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: to be there, You're in trouble. I mean it just
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: this goes on and all ethically too.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Once we disturb something like that, you've stolen that, in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a way from the locals that would like to know
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the history of their people and maybe a local tribe
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: for example, or the archaeologists that work in that area,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: that that could have been a key piece of information
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that would have helped them tell a larger story. So
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: for those listening, we do interact with antiquity in our travels,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: let's make sure that we respect it in the utmost
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and leave things where we find it, even avoid picking
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: things up unless you're trained in how to do that.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I just leave things exactly as I find them. There
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: are some good resources and guides around this subject, which
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: we could link in the show notes, but let's just
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: remember that it is such a gift for us to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: experience those places. Think about the next traveler that's going
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to come along. You want them to be able to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: experience it in the same way that you did. I
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: remember just going into Anasazi ruins and the mats are
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: still on the ground, the corn cobs are in the corner,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and the pots are still in one piece, and I
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: remember my breath being taken away to see that it
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: looked like they had left ten minutes before, and I
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: just enjoy I took it in and I didn't even
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: go inside because I didn't want to disturb it. And
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: it was purely by happened chance that I was hiking
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: down that canyon. And we just have to remember to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: leave things as good or better than we find them.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And the other thing to keep in mind,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I think is that it's easy to have the view that, well,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to take this one piece of pottery.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: It's really small, and it's going to be like my
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: momento of visiting this archaeological site. And when you put
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: it in a greater context and take a satellite view
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: of that, let's say a thousand people did the same thing. Sure,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: and then there's no pottery there anymore. So now you've
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: removed not just out of context, but it's not like
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: you took a thousand pieces of pottery and put them
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: all together and removed them. They've all gone. At somebody's
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: mantlepiece falling on the floor, the dog eating it. It's
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: not just out of context. It doesn't mean anything to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: the greater human kind. And I think that that's also
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: important to bear in mind, which is our common history.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And so it's it's it's not just that the locals
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: might want to know more about about their past or
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: where where they've come from and helping them out to understand,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: you know, where they're going, But but it's it's it's
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: collective past, all of us. Yeah, I mean that's why
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: for example, that that that hand acts right, that that
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: we found in Kenya, I mean, that's it's so poignant
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: because that that is the beginning of all of it. Yeah,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: for everybody. For for a pocket knife, I haven't in
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: my trousers right now to a pocket knife that somebody has, Uh,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: who's who's in Kenya? Now, there's somebody in Russia, somebody
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: in in Asia. You know the knife that they have
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: in their pocket is is it's that's the heritage, right,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: it's it's collective and there's no there's no other way
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: to put it. At some point, you need to do
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: the right thing. And a lot of times doing the
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: right thing, you know, especially when nobody is looking, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: that does happen a lot when you find especially when
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: you're yep and you find things, there's nothing wrong with
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: photographing it checking it out. These days with the internet,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: let's say we found something remote. I can get on
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: the internet and type in on a Sazi specialist sure
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: or Southwest prehistorian and come up with probably more than
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: a dozen professors and grad students that specialize at and say, hey,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: look we found this site. You know it was it's
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: you know, a mile from the known one, but it
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: was just kind of there's the coordinates, yeah, and you know,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: go check it out.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And which leads me to a little bit more of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: an overland topic, which is you call your sportsmobile. Like
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the archaeologists backpack, and I think that that'd be fun
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about you have. You have
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a sportsmobile, and you have a Tacoma that you had
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: a long time, and then you just recently acquired a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: land Rover LR four. But tell us about your sports mobile.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: It is definitely one of the more unique ban builds
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen done, and it reflects a lot of
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: your experience. And I'm in the field and there is
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: an article on that as well, which will link in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the show notes. But tell us a little bit about
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: your van. What year is it? What motor?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it started out I think even before that, just
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: wanting to identify a platform that could be used also
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: as an office, like a field office in a true
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: sense of the word, where you could sit down type
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: you know, your laptop, you didn't have to start the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: motor necessarily to or drive around in order to recharge
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: your the batteries in your laptop or other equipment that
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: you have out in the field, so you can sustain yourself.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And oddly enough, about half of the time I'm using this,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: it's parked outside of the archive. It's not out in
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: the dust. Literally, I have it parked in the two
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: hour zone, and so I'm sitting in there making sure
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that I've taken all of the copies of maps or
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: coordinates or things like that for surveys that I'm working on.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: And it's a comfortable spot. I have a fridge in there.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: But I kind of I hunted around for something that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: would be comfortable more I didn't have to necessarily get
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: out of the vehicle as well, not that I'm doing
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: like commando research in the middle of some city somewhere,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: some village, but it just appealed to me that I
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: could kind of spin myself around, go into the back
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: and do some work. So the platform that came to
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: mind for working in the Americas anyway, was the ford
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: E three point fifty. At that time, there were some
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: different conversions that were out there, but being in California
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and having seen a bunch of the more well thought
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: out four wheel drive conversions that Sportsmobile had done, I
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: went with their conversion. But at the time they did
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: the conversion, they put on their penthouse top and the
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: aluminous bumpers front and rear, their Trojan bumpers, and then
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: that was it. It was it just had two front
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: seats and the whole thing was empty. I drove it
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: around for a while. My mom joked around that she
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: got in it one time. She's like, this is like
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: the bakery delivery or something. And so we drove it
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: for well over a year year and a half, maybe
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: nothing in it. When skiing took it everywhere and all
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: along the way, I started drying out a painter's tape,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: blue tape where things could be, how I can have
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: seating and storage and other stuff, and also staying cognizant
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: of gross vehicle weight rating and what you could really
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: do with it, because that for me is paramounts no
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: matter what the all I'm using.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem very minimalist, and you can also
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: tell how much time you've traveled off a motorcycle because
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: it isn't it isn't overdone. It's very One of the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: things that I think is most clever about your van
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: is the is the cots that you integrated into the panels.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe touch on that a little bit. Yeah, they're new
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: old stock Huey helicopter seats and they weigh I mean
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: almost nothing. I mean they're obviously they're they're made there
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: and there I would say fire retardant. The material so
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: they don't add a lot of weight to the vehicle.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: It's it's completely negligible. Actually the frames that at Overland
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: made that was actual weight. It really got a sure.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: But the advantage is that they can fold down and
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I can sleep on them, take a nap, whatever, or
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I can just fold down one and have a bench
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: to sit on, do some work on my laptop, whatever,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: or just keep it as a spot to another ledge
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: to put gear.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm in a location and then it looks like
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of netting and lashing points all
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: along the walls, so you can kind of configure the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: van to whatever you're doing. If you're going skin it's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: one thing. If you're out in the field doing archaeology work,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: it's another thing. If you're if you're out traveling doing overlanding,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: it's another configuration.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's correct. I won't say we went crazy
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: with the l track, but we definitely put it in
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: all the location conceivable locations where not just where you'd
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: want to have a tie down or lash point, but
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: what would be in the van, because not everything is
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: really strapped to the floor. It might be something taller
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: where you have to go from side to side, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: as you know in a van more so then a vehicle.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Then let's say something like a forerunner or something like this.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: But when you put on the brake, if it's coming
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: your way, it's it's coming forward definitely. And uh, even
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: even something you know is innocuous is like like a
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: sleeping bag or a pillow or something, it's flying forward.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And so so I really focused on that, having the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: ability to lash down different items of weight or bulk
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: as necessary and then remove all that stuff, not obviously
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the L track, but and then the other thing we
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: focused on was where the L track is bolted in
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: because you can, and where the screws actually went because
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: you can of course put L track like a strip
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: of L track and it could be let's say a
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: meter long, and you only put a bolt at one
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: end and the other end. And if your if your
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: tie down point is in the middle, sure you're going
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: to have some issues if if weight starts to work
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: against you. So we focused on that as well.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And it looked like you could even roll a motorcycle
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: up in the back if you can figure it the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: right way, if you took the right stuff out.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then and if the bike didn't have some
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: killer suspension or.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Anything, if it wasn't too tall, Yeah, definitely. So that
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Paris took that PD one hundred that you had in Europe.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Is that the same one you have today?
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I still have it. Actually, it's had a very
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: interesting trajectory. It started out as a California spec R
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: one hundred gs that they called it the Bumblebee. I
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: know that collectors are going to, you know, be pretty
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: angry with me after they hear what what what happened
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: with the bike? But I had it for maybe a
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: half a year, put it in a crate at Marty's BMW,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: which I think is no longer there. It was down
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: and down the South Bay in California and area, and
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: shipped it to Edinburgh, literally shipped it, like I don't know.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Three months later, there was just a knock at my
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: flat and there's this crate, you know, and I had
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: a guy had a crowbar cracked it open and then
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: then it gave me some paperwork and then took off
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: and that was it. There's this California registered motorcycle. So
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the first the first summer that I was heading down
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: in Croatia, like I said, I went down to Newcastle,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: took the ferry across to Hamburg and one of my
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: buddies there. Of course he's a BMW freak as well,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: airhead freak. Well, that that was the bike. Then they're
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: there they were airheads. Yeah, that was the bike. Yeah,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And we got over. I got over to his house
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: and he said, what's what's all this stuff here? And
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: it was he was referring to some of the the
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: emissions stuff that's on the bike. And so I said, well,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: you know, I got it in California and it had
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: smaller carburetors and all sorts of other stuff. And he said, man,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: we got get in the car. So we drove down
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: to the main Beamer dealership in Hamburg and literally, with
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: the microfiche and working with the parts guy, we got
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: all the parts that should be on it for the PD.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: So at that time, it wasn't like you had to
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: get on eBay or you know, know a guy who
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: knew a guy. You buy it at the dealership. Buy
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: the dealership. The tank was, it was unpainted, it was gray,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: you know, just primered, all the little faring parts, air box,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: you name it. Then it came to the smog stuff,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: which was of course perplexing, just like any kind of
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: vacuum system, you know, like on some old FJ forty
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: or something like this. You know something's leaking and this
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: is going to run terribly, and we couldn't figure out
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the best approach. It wasn't running that well when we
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: started snipping things on our own, so we made a
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: few phone calls and talk with the mechanic down at
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the BMW factory. You can't make this up down in Munich,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and he explained to us. He said, Okay, somewhere under
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: the seat I think is the sticker that has all
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: of the spaghetti that we add on for the California model,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: and also the Swiss model had that emission stuff too.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: He said, you see everything there, Remove it all. Remove
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: all of it. Yeah, remove all of it. Don't try
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and like, you know, connect this with that and think
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: it's going to bypass this. So we spent I don't know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: it must have been like four or five days working
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: on this bike, and then it just it was transformed
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: into the R one hundred PD, although it didn't start
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: out life as that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: But it's so cool that you still have it and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: recently you bought another airhead, right, Yeah.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Picked up a It is a PD, although I did
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: some research on its original title and it didn't start
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: out life as a PD either. It started out life
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: as just an R one or GS. Sure, somebody picked
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: up the PD parts. It still has some smog stuff
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: on it, so, yeah, we're making that a project bike
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: for the Journal. So it's gonna we're going to do
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: some interesting stuff to it. Yeah that sounds fun. Yeah,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: it's a very understressed motor, sure, and so although I'd
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: like to leave things original, but you can do stuff
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to that motor to get better performance out of it,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: higher horsepower, and still keep it super reliable.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: And in North America that actually becomes a consideration. Obviously,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: when you're riding a motorcycle like that in Slovenia or
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: if you're riding it around Guatemala, you don't really need
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the extra horsepower. But North American roads, I mean, we're
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: dealing with seventy five plus mill in our highway speed
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: limits and crazy drivers driving at high speed, so it
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: does really help to have something that moves down.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: People don't think they are like some of my European friends,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: you know that well, you know they get on the
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: autumn and scoot around. But if you're just kind of
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: you know, zipping down a Spain for two weeks or something,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: things might be quite proximal. And then here, you know,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: sometimes you're on the road for two days before you
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: get to the at seventy five miles an hour before
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: you get to the spot where you're going three miles
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: an hour or less for the next week and a
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: half on your on your GS adventure kind of ride.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And it's definitely something that you know, we take into
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: account here that maybe people don't overseas. That's right, depending
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: on the application.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And in all your time with riding motorcycles, what are
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: some of the key takeaways that you've you've experienced from
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: riding motorcycles.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the things I think is that you
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: have to have an open mind. Now, this is with
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: a carbure rated, air cooled bike. Now maybe it's different
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: with more modern bikes where you can pull into a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: dealership and they can just fix it, or you know,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: they have more creature comforts. But I appre siate the
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: fact that with the original manual and the Haines manual,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: as long as you have the right tools, you just
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: followed directions and you could do anything. I mean, really,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I ripped that thing apart. I wouldn't say that I'm
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: super mechanical. I'm not tearing apart the you know FJA
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: forty motor in my driveway. But with that bike, I've
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: pretty much done most of the repairs. Speaking of Slovenia,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: by the way, one time I was visiting there and
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I was tinkering with the carburetors because I thought I
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: could optimize it. I was riding in the Alps that yeah,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and I found okay, I could tinker with it. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: didn't rejet it or anything, but I would just kind
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: of tinker with it and and I couldn't get it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: They were synced, but it just wasn't really running optimally.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And I was in Lubliana in Slovenia, and colleague of mine,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: he's now the head of the Department of archaeology at
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: the university there. He said, hey, well, you know that
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: we have a similar model. It was the RS that
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: our police force uses for patrol. And I know somebody
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: over at the motor pool. So I rode the go
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: over with all the gear on it and everything. I
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: wrote it over to this motor pool and one of
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: the one of the police mechanics dialed it back in.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Of course, he had the little carb Sinc. Tool and
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I was just using my ear he dialed it back in.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: But I think the other back to your point of
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: of things that I've learned riding a motorcycle, it forces
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: you to be minimalists. You interrogate every item that you're
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Oh maybe at first you don't. You just kind of
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: load things on and you know you have you realize that, yeah, yeah,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: and you learn your lesson like okay, wait a second,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: I had like three pairs of shoes, and you know,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I got my boots, and then I want to you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: maybe something's going to be upscale, so I want to
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: have those shoes and that pair of tennis shoes or whatever.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that you shouldn't bring another pair
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: of shoes with you, but you really interrogate the bulk,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: the necessity, the weight. And it definitely that parlays into
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: your thinking with four wheels as well, or more wheels,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: I should say. And and I think that it also
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: so helps you with your understanding when you travel about Okay,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: what do I really need? Obviously, you want to be warm,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: you want to be fed reasonably well, you want to hydrate,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: you want to be safe from the elements. But then
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: after that, do you need like three different colored beanies?
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: All right? And it's amazing the stuff that we bring along.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I think about now. I mean, I'm ready to leave
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: for Africa in a few days and I'm going to
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: ride a Triumph down to Swaziland, and the boots that
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use to get on the plane are
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the same boots that I'm going to use to ride
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the bike.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: And how I deal with.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Some protection is I have these D three to zero
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: knee pads and shint guards that I use to augment
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the same boots that I get to wear every day
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: otherwise or drive a vehicle otherwise. And then I have
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: these with all of these new barefoot style shoes. Now
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: these aren't the ones that have the individual little toes,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: but they're very simple barefoot style shoes that you could
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: used to take to the gym. You can have in
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a hotel or airbnb or in the campground that make
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: it a lot more comfortable to get out of your
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: motorcycle boots and have a second pair of shoes. But
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: they pack down to nothing because the top, you know,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the top of the shoe itself has very little structure,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: so it's really just the footbed that you've got to
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: compress down. And I have a strap that I compress
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: them all down with, and it ends up being very
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: minimalist that way, Whereas I've done trips in the past
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: where I've brought the big, heavy motorcycle boots and then
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out where am I going to
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: put these things? How do I even get them on
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: the plane with all my other gear. So wearing the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: same boat, wearing the same boots, and I know lowest
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: price and others that are that do a lot of
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: long distance international overland travel, they just wear heavy duty
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: boots every day. They don't wear motorcycle boots because then
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: they can walk in them, they can hike in them,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: they can walk through town without looking like a stormtrooper.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah, my favorite in that regard, I mean
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I stopped using motorcycle boots other than just going on
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: a ride where that was it like for the day
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: out back, you know, on the same location. My favorites
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: are are danners. Yeah, those are great because you can
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: hike in them. I mean maybe I just I'm not
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: a fatal list or anything like that, but I always think, okay,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: wait a second, what if the bike broke down and
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I had to walk somewhere, But I want to walk
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: in these sort of motocross esque ad V boots more
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: than a mile or two or five miles. I've had
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: to do that. Even a mile would be rough. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: And I've had to do that, and then learn the
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: lesson like, hey, that sucked, you know, I mean I
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: have blisters and sure, it's just uncomfortable. And then and
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: then of course the space and when you just have
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the one and only pair or if you have, like
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: you said, you know, a pair of collapse tennis sneaks
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: or something, sure, and not looking like a storm trooper,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: and it says, you know, part of it is not
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: so much the look like oh fashion, No, it's blending
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: in with the locals, you know, with locals. And then
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: and just having having equipment that's that's multifunctional, that just
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't serve one. One function of your helmet is pretty unifunctional.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: And of course even jackets and pants, you know, there's
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: stuff now that really if you're hard pressed to tell
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: that it's actually made for motorcycle travel. Yeah, no question.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: And they're getting more and more mindful of the fact that, oh,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you can separate the armor from the jacket itself, and
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: then you end up being able to wear the jacket
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: as a hard shell when you're off the bike. And
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that heavy duty ADV style boots aren't
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: appropriate in certain scenarios. We're not suggesting that people be unsafe.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: But I just find that the more that the motorcycle
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: trip is related to travel, the more I want to
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: wear boots that allow me to hike back into that waterfall,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: or I can walk around a colonial village and experience
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the history of it without damaging my feet trying to
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: walk around in those adv boots. But if I'm doing
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: the transit, you know, the Trans America Trail, or if
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going across southern Utah in technical train, absolutely I've
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: got gnarly heavy duty motocross style boots because you're trying
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to protect yourself from the inevitable drops that happen on
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the dirt. But it is I think it is so
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: important to consider, even if you don't ride a motorcycle,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: how minimal can you go.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: When you pack your vehicle.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Even if you have a sportsmobile that has a ton
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: of payload, how minimal can you travel Because then the
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: sportsmobile even performs better, It does better off road, it
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: gets better gas knowledge, there's less stuff to distract you.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: If the vehicle gets stolen, you've lost less stuff then
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: if you just pack everything to the gills.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And that all comes from from from my
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: respective traveling on a motorcycle.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: And I love how disarming motorcycles are. I think it's
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: because it's so relatable to everybody in the world. It's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: usually the first vehicle that they see, even in very
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: remote parts of the world. Motorcycles and a motorcyclist are
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: very disarming. They don't they don't come across as something
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: official or tactical or whatever.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, and most people have not only just
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: seen one, any people have been on them, or they
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: know that that that person riding that bike. It requires skill, Yeah,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: it requires that they pay attention to what they're doing.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: And wow, he has a backpack and and one little
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: pennier filled with something. WHOA, that's that's crazy too and
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: very cool, and so it's immediately engaging. I think and
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you don't have to be in some remote location. You
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: could just be in some other town in your own state. Yeah,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: and there's there's a connection there, Yeah, there certainly is.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And it leads me to another thing that I know
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that you're you're passionate about, which is edge tools. And
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that's obviously comes from our story earlier about finding the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: hand acts. But what knife do you typically carry every day?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: What knife do you typically carry when you travel? What
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: should someone be looking for in an edge tool like
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: that as a traveler.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Personally, I mean, there are a couple of aspects that
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: you need to take into account. One, you can't always
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: you can't always travel with it, or you're not allowed to, right,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: you got to put in your check and they're obviously
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: there are different aspects of that too. Sure it's just
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: illegal or that you know you can't show it or
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: and there are plenty of people definitely more well versed
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: than than I am that that talk about that topic.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: And you can always pick up something, for example, once
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: you get to your location, and it doesn't have to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: bet uber cool Uber cool knife with the clip on
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: it or anything like that. You go in any hardware
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: store or even some vendors of fruit, and you can
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: pick up a knife that depending on what you're needing
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: it for. I mean, if it's for you know, it
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: could be everything. Really, it doesn't have to be just
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: for self protection. But if you're just looking for a
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: camp knife, you know, like a pairing knife that you get,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: you know, under under five bucks, maybe even less. You
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: know that's used by all the locals that you pick
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: up at the local supermarket and everyone has one and
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: that's what they use to cut their fruit or prepare
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: their meals, and you're good to go. And the other
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: thing is that also is what everyone else has, So
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: it doesn't if you get to some checkpoint and they say, hey,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: you know, take out the contents of your pocket, and
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: there you have the same knife that they have and
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: their parents have and the kids have back at home. Well,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: you know you're you're fitting in with that too. I
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: think there's a lot of validity to that.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I remember when when you and I were trying to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: deal with the police after we got caught by the
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: milk militia. That was excitement in h in Kenya. But
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: you know, they dump out the contents of one of
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the bags and there was a lot of like more
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: tactical looking components. And this guy was convinced that you
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and I were spooks and we were supposed to disclose
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: remember it. Yeah, yeah, he kept saying, you got to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: disclose your your mission and I.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, there was there was a titanium sport, Yeah, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: all these some PARACHORDA was in like a non standard
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: just kind of a fun color. And uh, I can't
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: remember some one one two three battery. What else was
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: in there? Maybe my little shortwave radio there was he
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: was in a bag that shaped like a football. But yeah,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: they went through that and and that just happened.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: To be the one that they picked, was the one
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: with with all the pair accord and the spork. Yeah,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I know it was really it's really funny, but it
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: is important to to think about how, you know, oftentimes
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: we have access to these very cool, tactical minded pieces
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: of equipment, but if we travel with those things, how
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: is that going to look to someone that happens to
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: go through our stuff? And is it going to create
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: an uncomfortable conversation where you're going to have to justify
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. I mean, just you and I being
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: military aged males in that part of Kenya already raises
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: suspicion and the.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: And the the the the matt Khaki colored help.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: It didn't help it all. Yeah, three of them in
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a line. Yeah, definitely look like a convoy. And they
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: were not convinced of our intentions, although they finally did
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: let us go, but it was a that Yeah, what's
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: your what's your favorite folder right now that you carry?
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I would say it's it's a new knife maker. It's
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: a friend of mine. He just retired from the Navy
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Seals and the name of his company that he started
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: for his knife making is called a Gooseworks and it's
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: very small production cool. And he has been putting some
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: time in with noted makers like Ernie Emerson and Robert
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Tuzula and others Bill Harsey, people like that where they
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: have both a folder and a fixed blade aspect to
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: what they do. And he spent some time in those
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: trenches just kind of helping out and sweeping their shops
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: and looking what they do and getting tips and tricks
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: and things that didn't work early on. And I really
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: liked where he's coming from with his with the design
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: and also just the materials, minimalist kind of approach that
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: he has, and the fact that he puts a razor
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: sharp edges on the nights before he mails them out.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: He spent a lot of time. I was up there
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: in his workshop and he was showing me how he
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: sharpens everything. And I'm sure that if you look at
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: like the labor costs, which he's not doing it because
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: of that, but he spends so much time sharpening each
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: knife and getting getting things right so that when you
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: use it, it's doing what you need it to do.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: It's a tool that's ready to go. Yeah, I think
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: he's a slice. It's gonna slice. You're not gonna have
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to sit there and saw it back and forth. Yeah.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, you know, I also appreciate
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: old school things like a Swiss army knife, right, it
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: just goes into the pocket. Yeah, Yeah, and they're useful,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: you know, for a myriad of things around around the
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: camp and just what you're doing. And now see one
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: of the things. I almost never travel. It's very rare
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: that I travel without checking something in, right. It kind
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: of depends obviously on whether it's work or play and
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: what kind of work, and so I usually have a
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: check in bag, not always but I usually have a
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: check in bag, and so obviously once you have a
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: check in bag, you can check in plenty of your
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: pocket knives or other kinds of knives that you want
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: to in thing with an edge, and so other than
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: the fact that somebody might go through it and take
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: it right route, then you have your stuff. Yeah, which
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: is not always nice case. I mean, sometimes you do
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: have to once you get there, you know, go track
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: something down, and that's that's that's part of the deal.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: And I do that oftentimes I'll just go get a folder,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: pocket knife or whatever. A mutual friend of ours, Patrick
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: maw from Prometheus Design Works, he sells a little a
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: little folder that looks like a boy scout knife almost
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and it's just very nicely put together. It's very discreete
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: in the pocket, and that's typically the one that I'll
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: toss in my check bag because it is totally unassuming
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and if someone if again, if you if you clear
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: your the contents of your pockets out, it looks like
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: a camp knife, very simple little tool. It's it's very understated,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: but made in the United States and extremely high quality
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: in a very sharp blade, which is.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Which is nice as well. Yeah, it's important to have.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: So they also had to take into account that things
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: might disappear. Yeah, and for sure you might need to
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: give something over. It might be taken before you even
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: get there. You might have that that notification in your
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: bag that says we found this, we found this and
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: then we kept it, or or it's just not things,
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: it's gone and uh. And so I always stress that
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: with people when you know, when they talk about, well,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to be working here or going there,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: and what should I have? And and I always say, well,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: whatever you have, you need to it better not be
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: super sentimental. And that's the one that your dad had
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: or something, or you know, you have to be ready
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: to give it over, lose it, not just mess it
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: up because you know it's like you know, Reshart. You
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: should be able. That's the other point I think is
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: important is you should be able to sharpen a knife,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: because if it's not sharp, well, what's the point unless
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: unless it is the point I wanted, which is you know,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: a different topic too, but but you should have all
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: those those qualities, you know, so you know, be able
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: to get rid of it.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: And when we were when we were in Uganda and Kenya,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I think we had some Winkler knives, yeah, with some
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: fixed blades, right, what should people be looking for around
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: a fixed blade? One thing I really like about a
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: fixed blade is that the immediacy of it and how
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: it can be positioned on the belt, et cetera. You
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: don't need to open anything up. You just grab the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: handle and the knife is ready to do work. Tell
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the listener, like, what do you typically look for in
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a fixed blade?
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean for me, you know, I have my
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: own preferences for items. And those knives that we had
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: there were the Blue Ridge Hunters by Daniel Winkler. He's
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: a master smith. So even though Winkler two Knives is
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: it's more of it's water jet and it's a production style,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: but he put a lot of time and forging and
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: just as a one person show sure to get to
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: where he is now, and so everything the ergonomics and
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: it's you know, I'm obviously talking about those knives that
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: we had in Kenya and Uganda, but I think it
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: pertains to pretty much anything with a fixed blae well
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: with a folder as well. But since we're talking about
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: fixed blades, it should have an ergonomic aspect where it
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: just it feels right now, like what you put in
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: your hand might not be something that works looks for me.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: So it's not just wow, okay, Scott gave it to
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: me and I'm supposed to have this. Maybe it's not
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: going to work for me personally. I always I like
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: to have fixed blades that have multiple capabilities, So I'm
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: not I'm not necessarily into carrying something where it has
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: like it's only defensive sure in nature. When I'm traveling,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: I want to be able to do other things with it,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: and it might be just slice a apple. Yeah, yeah,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: like you know, everyone says, hey, breakfast is serve, you know,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: and then you can slice a piece of butter off
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: of the bar and put it on your one piece
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: of toast that you you're going to have for the day.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't look like Rambo made the thing. I mean,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: those knives that we had, they looked very pedestrian.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and I like that too. As a matter
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: of fact, if you if you if it fell on
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: the ground, it just looks like a simple camp knife
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: that doesn't look necessarily like it's there's some of nefarious,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you know, reason for having it. Having said that, I think,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: you know, depending on your training and background. It it
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: is and it goes way back to free history, having
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: something with an edge and having something with a point,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: and you know, maybe you might have to defend yourself
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: with it doesn't have to be made for that purpose though.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know you can, you can defend yourself.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: You can't defend yourself with a butter knife. Yeah, you'll
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: be fine with it. And that requires a little bit
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: more training. It does. It does. But at the same time,
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: you know it when you have a knife that that
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: can do various things. Sure immediately when you pull it
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: out of the sheath, I prefer that. Yeah.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: I remember, I remember when we were again in that
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: area of Kenya. We had some problems with one of
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the vehicles and there was this crowd that was forming
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: around us, and there was that that one guy that
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: was clearly drunk and non drugs I suspect, eyes completely bloodshot,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and he picked me, I mean, the biggest guy out
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: of the group.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Fortunately.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and I don't know, because I don't know
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: what I would have done with him. I mean you
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: could see from his hands. He said he was a
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: boxer and that he wanted to fight and you could
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: see from the condition of his hands that he did
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: do that on a regular basis. I mean they look
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: like like anvils as opposed to human hands, and those
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: those points of tension and those points of intensity when
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: we're traveling, and unfortunately nothing happened. We were able to
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: just through conversation and mister you know, directing his attention otherwise,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: we were able to resolve the situation. But those things
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: can accelerate very quickly, and it is good to have
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: training and some awareness around that.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And also in improvisation of an edged tool
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: or a point something with a point, it doesn't even
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: have to be that. I mean, you can anything really
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: a pen. Sure you know it's something from your toolkit,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: a you know, screwdriver. Yeah, I mean you know, it's
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: endless really when you think about it. But yeah, years
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: of stuff comes up. Years ago.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: You gave me a pen that I travel with almost exclusively,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and who makes that?
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: That thing is amazing? Oh you know what, I almost
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: didn't give it away, But County Calm they make great,
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: really great pens. I mean they fall into the category
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: I suppose of tactical, although a lot of those it
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't Yeah, and I think I gave you the stainless
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: steel one. Yeah, and it's it's with neuraling and use
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: the Fisher space pen refill.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: So it's really heavy and balanced in the hand, and
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: it writes it's.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Really well and it writes I like you know in
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: the Astronauts, and it can be upside down with it
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: or whatever. But also it writes through like if your
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: if your paper is wet, it'll still write through onto
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: the paper, you know. And this is like sort of
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: field geek, sure, things like who cares about that? But
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: actually I do care about that because you know, if
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: I'm working out in the field and it's foggy or
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: something like that, and I got to write down on
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: my clipboard that I left on the on the hood
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: of the truck overnight, all right, you know that that
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter? Yeah for sure. Yeah, they there. I really
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: like their pens. They're they're fairly understated. Yeah. What a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: neat piece of kit for sure. Yeah.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And speaking of that, what are some what are
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: some other recent additions to your to your kit that
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: you've that you just kind of kind of fallen in
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: love with.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Well, it's gonna yeah, this will sound a little bit bizarre,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: okay maybe ID all right. One of the pieces that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even know who makes it. It's one of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: those cubes that you inflate, all right, and it has
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: a solar small solar panel on one side, and it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: a light and LED light. Yeah, and it has like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: I think three settings maybe, but you know, there's so
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: many people that have copied it or ready and has
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: like three settings of the l ED plus like a
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: flashing like a strobe and it hacks completely flat. I
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: use it on every trip now if it's just like
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: putting it in the bathroom so that you know, in
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: a dark hotel room, you know that's pitch black because
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: I needed a sleep when I landed. Leave it the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: dash or you know somewhere you know, during the day,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: recharge it and it's so simple. Yeah.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I think they're really clever, and I've thought oftentimes about
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: maybe carrying a couple of them with me when I'm traveling,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: because you know, and think about that family that we
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: encountered in Uganda, the woman who spoke some English and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: we helped get her kids to the school and everything.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it have been amazing to give her one of
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: those so that the way those kids could read maybe
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: later into the night, make it make a little bit
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: of a difference in her life, because I was so
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: impressed by her as a human being, And I'd like
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: to have some of those along with me because they
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: are so compact, they'd be really easy to give away
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: in the ways that makes sense after you've established some
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: rapport with somebody, not just just handouts. But that would
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: have been a great I think situation for that too. Yeah,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and recently you and I both got we both got
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: some down jackets from Patrick at Prometheus Design.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: That's like, I think, one of the coolest things. That's
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: a pretty bitch and jacket it is, and all down
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: is not created equal. And the piece that I especially
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: appreciate out of it is on the inside, kind of
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: over your rear hip. There is a carrying case and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: there I didn't at first, I just thought, okay, that's cool.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: You know that it's like a stuff sack when I
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: opened it up, and then I realized that it's a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: stuff sack that's shaped like those neck rolls that you
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: use when you fly on an airplane, and that that's like,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that's thinking outside the box. Because
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: everyone knows those those neck rolls. You go through an
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: airport and you see it. You know, they're all the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: batteries and then the phone chargers, and then they're they're
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: always there, totally ubiquitous. But with this one, you stuff
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: your down jacket in it and and there you go.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: And then you actually showed me that the whole thing
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: can be turned, not that little piece, but the other
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: part into a pillow. Yeah.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: The pocket that the neck pillow is in is reversible,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: and it's also like fleece lined, and you can reverse
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the whole jacket into that and zip it closed, and
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: then you have a camp pillow, which we talk about
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: multi use things. But it's this kind of midweight, slightly
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: heavier than like the typical down calmed down sweaters and
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: stuff that are really popular from Patagonia and North Face
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: of It. It's not like something that you would take
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to the polar it is. It's just the right weight,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: especially if you layer. It's got a great DWR finish
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: on it. I've been out in the rain and I
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: was worried about it because of being down, and it
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: repelled water for definitely for twenty or thirty minutes. When
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I was out in those conditions hiking. It's also hooded,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: which is really nice, and.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: It's a material on the inside of the hood same
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: as pockets. Really comfortable, comfortable, Yeah, and it doesn't make
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of noise. It's one of the things I
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: don't like about those nylon finishes is when your head's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: inside the hoodie or the hood then it makes all
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: this crackling and noise. And it doesn't make any of
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: that noise with that fleece lining, which I really like.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: And then it's got this great chest pocket that I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: can put an iPhone on and you know, listen to
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: music or podcast or whatever, have real quick access to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: to wallets and stuff like that right there at the chest.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: So that's actually a really great jacket. Yeah, Prometheus Design.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Whereas we'll put that in the in the show notes
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: as well. And Patrick's a cool guy, fellow knife watch
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: overland guy and made in the United States. To try
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: to find it's a jacket like that that's made in
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the US, it's very difficult to find small batch company,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: so there may they may or may not be in
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: stock by the time you just got a weight ahead.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: It's it's definitely worth the weight and then another another
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: thing that I got recently is a hostile blod that
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take to to Africa, which I'm excited
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: to shoot.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: And you've been a long time, like a shooter film,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: like a still film, like us. Yeah, I mean, I
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: also shoot DIGI with that Sony alf seven, but I
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: have a nice little adapter, so I can shoot my
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: my light's glass with that, with that sony body, and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's I like it. I like also like
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: the fact that Sony's pretty small body it is and
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's to me having used Thelika as a
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: small mlikas for so long, it just feels, it feels right.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: And you've taken some beautiful images, some of them even
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: have been featured in Overland Journal in black and white.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: And I remember that was one of the other highlights
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of our trip. We were again in Kenya and we
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: had camped down this little wash and this kid.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: And we thought we were in nobody would find, nobody
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: would find. We were in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Thought we were really cool and yeah, right, yeah, and
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: that's when the Corolla comes by, right. But this this
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: little kid, this little kid was was hurting camel and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: up this wash and he sees us with all of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: our g wagons. He's trying to figure out like like
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: we're from outer space. And but he was very curious
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: and very calm, and we had no way to communicate
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: with him other than just through basic human communication hands,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: hand signals and smiles and things like that. But you
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: ended up handing him, handing him the lika and showing
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: him how to advance the film. Yeah, and I think
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: you stopped him down so is his shots would be
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: would be clear. And that was just such a neat moment.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Photos of him taking photos of me, Yeah, with the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: digit and I had the Digiti camera. Yeah, he's shooting
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: the film camera at me, and the framing was fine.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: That would be cool to kind of put together. I think,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: I think that would be need for it. That would
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: be neat to do.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: And I remember I took It's one of my favorite,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: most favorite photos I've ever taken, and I took it
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: with my iPhone. It was of him holding thatleika and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: he has this fantastic smile on his face and I
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: was smiling the same. I felt like we we all
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: felt this real connection with this kid. It's those moments
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: as travelers that are unforgettable, and they're so special, and
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: they remind me of why that is the stuff that's
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: most important, that's the Those are the ingredients of memories.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: We'll long forget the knife that we brought or some
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: gadget that we added to our vehicle, but will never
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: forget those moments because they were so definitive.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: And it's it's it's just it's an interaction with a
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: fellow human, right, somebody who's from a different culture, different language,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: differently place, but it's a fellow human. Yeah, and I
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: think that's that's one of the draws you know, with
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: travel for me anyway.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was just as stoked as we were,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: like he was and thought it was the coolest thing
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: we were there.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: He goes back. Yeah, you know, you guys won't believe
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: I saw these they were camping. I don't know why
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: they had a camp in these tents, you know, rooftop tents. Yeah,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: it's so funny. It was very cool. Yeah, But the interaction,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: you know, with the with somebody else and and just
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: to have a giggle, there was no commonality at all
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: other than that's a fellow human.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe that's the theme of this whole podcast
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: is as we travel, as we travel more and as
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: we consider travel more, that we begin to step beyond
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the stuff. We begin to step beyond the vehicle and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: how we identify with the truck that we drive or
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: the motorcycle that we ride, and we start to become
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: this accumulation of these experiences and these interactions with other
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: human beings around the world. I mean, I think back
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: on that trip, and certainly the g wagons that we
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: were driving were very cool, but it was the time
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: that I spent with you in Stanley and the locals
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: and the people that we interacted with that form the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: memories and the images that I took away and the
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: stories that I told about that experience. It had very
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: little to do with the gadgets. And I really do
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: appreciate your time, Brian on this stuff because it shows
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: how far back humans have been traveling. As soon as
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: we could find a way to bring enough food or
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: a way to move across the land with some support,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: we started to get outside of our very small zone
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: that we occupied and we started to see what was
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: over the next ridge. And that's been for a lot
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: of human history, and that's what we do today as travelers,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: and let's interact with that history. Let's respect the cultures
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: that we encounter. Let's be mindful and minimalist in the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: way that we travel vel so that it doesn't distract
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: us from those experiences. Yeah, those are definitely great lessons,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: don't you think.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Definitely. And also not imposing any of my standards or
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: norms or expectations upon anybody else. Yeah, I mean there's
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: there isn't a reason for it there And on the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: individual level, there's you know, just hang with the locals
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: and if they do something on a Friday or a
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Sunday or whatever, participate in it, experience it.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that pickup game of that pickup game of soccer
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: might be one of the best memories that you'll ever
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: have of your travels. Or handing a kid a soccer
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: ball or whatever. Those those kinds of interactions as humans,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I think are so valuable and so important too. So
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: I really I really appreciate your time. There's there's a
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: thousand other things we could talk about. We didn't even
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: get into watches. We didn't get into your Tacoma we
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: could and everything like that. Yeah, I know, Yeah, for sure. Yeah,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: I mean we Brian and I both have an appreciation
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: for unique watches and one of the reasons for that,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: and I will kind of end it on this, but
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: it's one of the few types of currencies that you
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: can carry with you right on your person. Recognizable watch
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: brand is a way to have a get out of
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: jail free in a sense, or buy a ticket home,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: So they're very portable. And I think maybe we'll schedule
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: another podcast for a year or so from now we'll
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: dig into those other things.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I mean that's we could talk about that.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we certainly on it, and we'll link all of
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: this cool stuff in the show notes. Brian, I'm so
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: grateful for the time that you spent with us this
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: morning and telling us your stories and that amazing life
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: that you've lived at such an inspiration.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the opportunity, Scott and look forward to doing
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: it again very soon.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely well, thanks everybody for listening.