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Selects: The First Road Trip · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I've chosen our episode on the very First road Trip
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: across America from back in twenty twenty three. The episode
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: was from twenty twenty three. The first road Trip took
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: place way before that, and it's one of those wonderful
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: stories where nothing goes horribly wrong, the people don't turn
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: out to be horrible people. It's just a great story
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: about a couple of guys and a dog taking a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: road trip across America at a time when it was
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: highly unlikely that they were gonna make it all the way.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to present you with this one. Enjoy.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Chuck in. It's just the two of us, but we're
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: gonna make it just fine. We're gonna make it if
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you try. As a like to say, sometimes when it's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: just the two of us and this stuff, you.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Should I'm excited about this episode because this is a really,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: really great story that doesn't have like I kept waiting
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: for something either bad to happen or someone to be
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: exposed as awful and it's just a really fun, feel
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: good story.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I would go so far as to call it a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: hum dinger.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: It's a hum dinger.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And we got to give a huge credit to Ed
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: who helped us with this, and also because he helped Ed,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: who helped us ken Burns. Ken Burns has a great
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: documentary about this topic, which is the first cross country
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: automobile road trip. It's called Horatios Drive. It's wonderful story
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and you can find it on PBS. Hopefully if you're
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: a streamer, you pay for and subscribe to the PBS
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: app because it's a very worthwhile and great channel to
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: subscribe to. Narrated by the great Keith David, one of
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the great great voices.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Just amazing and such a great actor too, great everything
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: from They Live to Men at Work to There's Something
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: about Mary. Yeah, he was in Platoon too. He's like
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: just such a great actor.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Love that guy.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And because our protagonist in this story, who will introduce
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you to in a second, is such an affable, seemingly
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: really good guy, they got none other than Tom Hanks
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to recreate his voice for his diary letters and stuff
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: We should also give a hat tip to Dayton Duncan,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: who's interviewed extensively in that documentary because he wrote a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: book on the drive.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: I would argue the book, yeah, and.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Let's call it that the book on Horatio Nelson Jackson, Right.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's his name, great name.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk a lot more about him later,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: but we really kind of want to like lay the groundwork,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: bring the con text, as flavor flav would put it,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and just kind of give you an idea of what
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the times were like when Horatio Nelson Jackson decided to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: become the first person to travel cross country in a car.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Right, So nineteen oh three, nine to one one was
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: a joke. I like that one.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: That's okay, all right, just a medium okay on that one.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I'll take it. Nineteen oh three is when this happened.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: But to put this in context, like you said, the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: first trans continental railroad was built and completed or not
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: built but completed in eighteen sixty nine, and it was
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy six when you got your first cross country
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: train trip that happened. So this was what like twenty
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: five is years roughly after that, and people were still
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: kind of only traveling by train because cars were pretty knew,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and they were only for richies because I believe in
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: the documentary they said, like the cheapest car you could
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: get would cost more than the average American made in
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: a year. So in the early nineteen hundreds, it was
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: rich people who wanted to buy a super expensive, unique
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: toy that and will hammer this home a lot, but
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: they didn't even know was.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Gonna end up being a real thing.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it could have turned out like the segue totally right.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I mean this is kind of a kin to somebody
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: taking a treck across America on a segue back in
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: like nineteen ninety five.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did not know car Like a lot of
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: people thought, these cars will never amount to anything. You're silly,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It'll always be trains and horses.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Right, So to kind of get across why people thought
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: it was just going to be nothing but trains and horses,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Like that's how the American infrastructure was built. Like, if
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: you went any any kind of lengthy distance, you took
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a train. If you were moving around locally, you took
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a horse, maybe a horse and a buggy or a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: horse and carriage or something like that kind of drive.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sure if you wanted to be super wild west
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: about it. But there were At the time, say around
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, the United States had two point three million
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: miles of roads, pretty impressive. One hundred and fifty miles
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: were paved, and all of those were within big cities. Right,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So the vast, vast, vast majority of roads in the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: United States were rough, rutted, dusty, or muddy or somehow
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: both at the same time, roads that you would not
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: want to walk over really, let alone ride a car over.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were in bad shape.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Generally, about fourteen million horses in the United States to
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: about eight thousand cars.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: And like you said, people traveled low.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I think the average was, like people generally didn't go
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: more than twelve miles from their house. And that even
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: feels like the high end. I don't think that's an average.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I think people probably didn't go within a few miles
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: of their house.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean today, unless I'm traveling.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Right at the time, there were and you still take
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: trains for long distance travel sometimes I try to. At
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the time, also, like you, you didn't really steer away
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from home because it took you so long to go
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: anywhere on horse, right, I think at the time it
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: was still a two day journey basically from New York
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to Philadelphia by horse. So this is like a this
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: is a this is a big deal for somebody to
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: be like, no, I'm going to try this. The other
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: thing was the roads themselves weren't mapped. Yeah, I mean
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: east of the Mississippi. There were maps and guide books
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that you could get pretty good directions from.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Right, and it's it's funny.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: In the documentary they kind of show what that part
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: directions were like, and one of those like turn right
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: at the old Stone horse Trough. Yeah, like those were
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the kind of directions and because that's what a local
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: would tell you to do, so somebody had the bright
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: idea to print those and put them down in a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: book form and transmit that information that way. And it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: still held up because there were no road names, there
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: were no route numbers, there was nothing like that, because
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: there was no reason for anything like that to exist.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And funny enough, that's how I prefer directions now
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: because I'm very directionally challenged and famously so. And I
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: also never know the names of roads, so I always
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: ask people like, tell me, you know, go to that
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: diner that you know and take a left and then
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: go to that car wash and veer right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Then. That's how I prefer to get directions.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I I tend to zone out when people give me
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: directions me too, that I've asked for, and you can
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: just kind of see it on their faces. They can
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: tell I'm going to get lost because it's just not sinking.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: In well, all the fun of that it's gone now
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: because you just punch it into your app or whatever.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: But totally, I'm basically talking about pre GPS stuff.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I remember, I remember, remember that. I am also smart
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: enough to really appreciate ways though too.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You know, do you remember the fun of a road
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: trip of opening that Rand McNally atlas and saying like,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I think we can go this way to get to
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: this town, or it looks like this other road we
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: can go around. That was like and I'm not like, oh,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: things were so much better when it was harder, but
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it was a really had a fun, sort of magical
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: adventuresome quality to it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I spent five weeks in a van
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: driving around the Western United States doing that same thing.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: It was very cool and like the amount of freedom
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is really hard to get across of like, yeah, not
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: having anywhere you had to be at any particular time
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and saying like, oh, that that landmark sounds pretty cool.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go see that. It's pretty neat.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You know what words you don't hear anymore is let's
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: go here instead. It's true, everything seems so locked down,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, I don't know, people don't say,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: oh no, let's just let's decide to go to this
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: town instead of this town.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've entered the disgruntled aged old men
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: or stuff, because it seems like we do this almost
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: every episode.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Dude, Yeah, maybe we're gonna have to pay.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: More attention to that, or else we're gonna lose all
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the youngsters and just attract all the old stirs and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: who cares.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Well, Hey, youngster, I encourage you to set out on
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: a road trip with a map and and enjoy it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, wait to save it. I don't think I saved anything.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: So I think we've.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Gotten across that it would be really hard to drive
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a car, right, Yeah, across the United States at the time.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, hard to drive a car.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: But because cars were becoming a little more popular, they
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: were trying to get a more positive publicity going for
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: their cars and their companies, and so they said, hey,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: what a great way to do this then, like kind
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: of sponsor a cross country car truck trip that'll get
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of press. And so they tried this with
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: John and Louise Davis from the how do you pronounce that?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Cardia? It sounds like something you contract that you'd be
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: really unhappy.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: About, Okay, thedia.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I couldn't quite tell, but yeah, it does sound like
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: a disease of some sort.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Do you r yea?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Derea car company gave them a national or
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, they weren't a car company.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: That was the car. The company was the National Motor
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Carriage Company.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, known today as the NMCC.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Really, I'm just kidding that. I thought you were going
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: to say as Portia.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: No, I would like to think that, but no, I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: don't think so.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think so either. So they sponsored this couple.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: This was an eighteen ninety nine. It did not work out.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: They very famously got beaten to They started from New
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: York and they got beaten to Syracuse by a one
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: armed bicyclist who gave them a ten day head start.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So press it went opposite of how they wanted to.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: That was sort of they lost track or lost interest
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: very early on in this sort of doomed thing. And
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think they even know if they succeeded in
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: getting the San Francisco. Well, I think they know they didn't,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: but they basically didn't really cover the story after that.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: No, they drop off the map after about Chicago.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: They dropped off the GPS apporry.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So no, it's just could it just took me a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: second to for it to sink in.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I thought that was pretty good. I'm trying to get
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: our younger listeners back.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So well, we should make a TikTok of all this then, okay,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: know what people do?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Sure for now US government? So it was wonderful, Yeah,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: thank you.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So it was established though, even though the Davises didn't
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: make it that like, this is actually a really good
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: way to to to promote a car brand is to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: be the first to make it across the country. Then
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: everyone will know that's a good car, because it's just
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous to even think a car could do that.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So a couple of years after the Davises, I guess
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen oh one, a car maker named Alexander Winton who
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: had a Winton car company, handmade cars, beautiful cars. He
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: tried it himself, I believe, with this publicist. Very smartly.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: He and his publicist hit the road. The acid hit
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: them around Barstow. I think, well, that showed up and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: they ended up getting trapped in a dune in Nevada.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you bring up a thing that might be overlooked.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Is they very smartly started from west to east because
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: as we mentioned, the west was untamed land and bad,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: bad bad roads if there weren't he at all. So
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: getting that hard part over first when the car was
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: brand spanking new was really really smart. But what they
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: didn't count on was an and we'll see what Jackson
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: learned was driving through the desert in an old car
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: like that is not good. Sand is not good for
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: getting stuck, or it's great for getting stuck, it's not
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: good for making good time. Sand is not good for
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: getting in carburetors and in oil and gas. And you know,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: these engines weren't these big closed systems like they are today.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: So sand no good.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: But Winton got this press right like he It helped,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I think, still publicize his car company regardless, and again
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that no one had done this, but people
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: were starting to try it. It kept being a thing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: It was going to be a thing until somebody did it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And so a couple of years after Wynton tried, a
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: guy named Horatio Nelson Jackson, who's the star of our story,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: was hanging out at the University Club of San Francisco,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and apparently a couple of fellow club members were saying
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that cars were basically useless and that they would never
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: really go anywhere, and there's no reason for anybody to
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: have Jackson, by this time had really developed a real
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: love of cars, had started collecting them even and I
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: guess to defend cars honor, he slapped down a fifty
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: dollars wager that he could make it across the United
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: States from San Francisco to New York in less than
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: ninety days. Ninety days or less, I'm sorry.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: And that was.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: About fifteen hundred dollars that he threw down on the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: table right then, and the people took it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: They accepted as wager.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And four days later he set out for New York
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: from San Francisco.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: It is madness to think about that he did this
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: with that little planning.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: He didn't have a car to do it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: I mean he had cars, but not one to go
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: across country at the time. Just quickly about Jackson. He
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: was a doctor who got tuberculosis and quit his practice
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: kind of at the same time that he married a
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: very wealthy woman named Bertha Richardson Wells, very wealthy New
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: England family from Vermont.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: She her family made their money in Celery compounds.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I know, it was like a tonic yeah, basically, so
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: he as ed put did rich guy things, capital R,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: capital G. And his wife was super supportive, like everyone
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: was on board. She was like, that's awesome. I'll take
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: a train to Burlington. I'll meet you over there. Honey,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you have my blessing. And it seems like they had
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a really like judging from the letters that of course
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: it was voiced by Tom Hanks too, so you're endeared immediately.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: But judging from the letters, it seems like they were
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: just a great couple, a very loving family. He called
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: her Swipes, and no one knows why that nickname was there,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: but he you know, he signed it as Nelson and
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: you're yours forever Nelson and my dearest Swipes, and it
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: was really really sort of a beautiful story of this couple,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: and he knew he had to get a guy to
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: go with him, and so he picked a great traveling partner.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: He was a small engine mechanic and a factory named
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Sewell Crocker, who was about ten years younger.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: He's twenty two years old. I think we was. Horatio
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: was like two.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, So this guy could fix cars, he knew cars,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and apparently like they really liked each other and were
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: which was a big deal. You know, you've been on
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: road trips and regular cars. Yeah, and that's a key factor.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: But especially back then with all the troubles they were
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: going to have, he had to have someone that you
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: could get along with.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: That's a big one for sure.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So he asked Crocker, hey man, what car should we
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: get for this? And Crocker said, well, you have basically
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: limitless funds, get the best by yourself, a nineteen oh
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: three Winton touring car. And Ed points something out that
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I think is very astute. The reason why, probably Sewell
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Crocker said get a Winton was because Winton had already
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: shown that they were making really good cars enough so
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that they were willing to try to make it across
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: country in one of them. So that's exactly what Jackson
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: did did. He's the kind of guy you call him
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: by his first name because it's got a great first name,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and he's Tom Hanks, like appable.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So so Horatio bought himself a Winton touring car
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen oh three. Apparently he paid essentially one hundred thousand
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: dollars for.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: It, and it was used.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was used, but it was the only one available.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So he just paid whatever the person wanted for it.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And so I think in nineteen oh three dollars he
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: paid three thousand dollars. But he named it the Vermont
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: because that's where he and his wife Bertha lived. But
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit about this car there was it was
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: an It was open in every sense of the word.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It was like if you took a tub and put
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: wheels on it and then had a steering wheel sticking
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: out of it.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: That was the car.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: There was no windshield, there was no roof, there was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: no back windshield, there were no doors, there was no nothing.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: It was like a giant riding lawnmower with like wagon wheels.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Well it's funny that you bring up riding lawnmowers, Chuck,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: because the two cylinder chain drive engine had twenty horse power,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and my friend a John Deere X three hundred series
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: riding mower has twenty two horse power.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: That's funny, that's really funny. This thing topped out at
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: thirty miles per hour. I don't think that John Deere
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: does that, but that's probably just because it's cutting grass
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: at the same time.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But imagine imagine traveling the country on riding lawnmower.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Basically that's about what they were doing.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: But yes, you're right, thirty miles an hour is substantially more.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: That's what it could do. Max. Yeah, no way did
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: they average thirty miles.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: An hour, not even close. It was someone it was
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: red a really good looking car. You'll only see black
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: and whites. But someone on Reddit, that's the picture I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: sent you did a very fun colorized picture of Horatio
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: and Crocker and a a third party to be named
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: later and colorized it and it just it looks awesome.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: And this car is so cool looking.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't mean to detract from it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: It was a cool looking car.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: As far as comfort goes, it was not at all comfortable. No,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I say, we take a break and then set out
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: on the road trip with these guys.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Huh oh, let's do it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: So, as we will see, there were other car manufacturers
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: planning to do the same thing at the time, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: a couple of them ended up. You know, it ended
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: up sort of being a race against like a corporation
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: versus human even though he was driving. You know, it's
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: not like a car he built himself. It was a Winton,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: but he was doing it himself with this other guy.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: He wasn't for fun, he wasn't sponsored. It was about
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the spirit of adventure. All these as we'll see, all
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: these other companies sent like supplies ahead and the like.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: They had teams of mechanics. He didn't have anything to prove.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: He put this together in four days, including buying the car,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: And that's just I really want to get across. The
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: spirit of this whole thing was just this optimist who
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: was like, let me see if I can do this
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: crazy thing.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: So two months after Horatio and Sewell set out on
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: their trip, Packard sent a team out and like you said,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they were very well outfitted. They had a mechanic on board.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: There was gasoline for them at every stop. Because gasoline
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: was there were no gas stations, and definitely there were
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: no gas stations out west. You would go to the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: general store and be like, I'd like a can of
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: your most dangerous volatile liquid, please, and they would hand
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you some gasoline in a can and you buy a
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: few of them to drive around with. It was incredibly dangerous,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: but that's how you didn't run out of gas. Packard
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: had the advantage of like every town or every x
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: number of miles, there was gasoline waiting for them. So
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: they essentially had gas stations that were reserved exclusively for them.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Horatio and Sewell did not have anything remotely like that,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and so they got into all sorts of fun little adventures,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: like the time that Sewel Crocker had to bike dozens
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of miles on a borrowed bicycle to go to and
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: fro to fill up their gas can and bring it
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: back and then fill it up again and then bring
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it back. And that might have been there right exactly,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And it's fun now in retrospect us talking about it
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: here in twenty twenty three in the studio. I'm sure
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: it was not a great day for Sewel Crocker.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think they were drawing straws, though, you
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: know what I mean. The rich thirty one year old
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: that had TV is definitely saying, all right, hit the
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: road on the bike.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my friend, were equals in almost every way, but
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: hit the trail on the bike, right, all right.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: So Packard did so two months later, like you said,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and Oldsmobile did the same thing a month after that,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: I believe, much the same operation, you know, fully sponsored
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: and like rigged up and everything. So they tore out
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: the back seat on this Winton. I don't think we
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: mentioned this thing could go two hundred and fifty miles
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: with their tank of fuel, which was way more than
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I thought. Yeah, for sure, I was super impressed. So
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: they ripped out the back seat, which doesn't look like
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: it was much of one anyway, and packed you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: a cooking kit, tons of rope. Something that would probably
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: be the most valuable thing in the whole car was
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: a pulley system, a block and tackle.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: They had a codec camera, They had sleeping bags, they
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: had a shovel and axe. They had a bunch of
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: guns and ammunition because they might be hunting for food
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: out in the middle of nowhere or just maybe want
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: to murder someone, yeah, or just.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Like shooting out of an untopped car is probably pretty
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: fun when no one's around.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: That is fun.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the problem is is like they weren't experts
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: at tying down their gear, and they would get to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: like a stop probably basically every day and find that
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: something they needed had dropped.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Off and bounced out at some point.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Like back on their trail, and that they had gone
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: too far to go back to try to find it.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It's really they lost like cooking utensils. Horatio lost multiple
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: pairs of his eyeglasses. It's just crazy to me that
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: they weren't like put a tarp on it and wrap
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the tarp up and then put rope on the tarp.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: You know who knows.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: But they did lose a lot of stuff, and luckily,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: like you said, they didn't lose that block and tackle.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It would really come into play multiple times. But they
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: made a really good decision early on number one. They
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: followed I can't remember it for some mister won Alexander
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Winton's example and started out west. So what they would
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: be doing is getting the hardest part of the trip
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: out of the way first. While the car had very
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: few miles on it, right.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which was a nice little copy.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: But then they made a really really great decision, and
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I think the decision that frankly made them a success
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: in the end. Did I just spoil it? I guess
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: we talked about what a great story was. It wouldn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: be great if they conked out in Michigan.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: True.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: True, But they decided to go at hundreds of miles
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: to their trip by not just taking a right and
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: going across the country, but going north up through Oregon
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to avoid that Nevada desert, and that, my friend, even
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: though there was some treacherous mountains that they had to
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: go through, avoiding that desert I think is what ultimately
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: made them successful.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, hundreds of miles added to the trip,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: But it was incredibly smart because again Winton had bottomed
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: out in that sand. That sand wasn't going anywhere at
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the very least. There were wagon trails and stuff up
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in Oregon, and they were able to kind of make
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: their way along these the railroad tracks that were there.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So there were railroad right of ways, which is the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: land cleared on either side of a railroad track, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: they would drive on those or if they had to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: drive on the railway themselves, and they would they would
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: ride on railroad bridges in a car that could go
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: thirty miles per hour max. Yeah, and hoped God that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a train that was going to come. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm so glad I watched stand
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: By Me a couple of days ago.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Chris about to bring that up. You watched it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It's such a great part of that movie. And I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: was telling you, like, that was a masterpiece. Is Rob
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: b Reiner's masterpiece, And he's made some pretty great movies,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: but it is exponentially better than I even remembered as
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: a kid.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I'll throw a spinal tap in there. But I know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: have you still not seen that?
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. No, it's great.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: That's a great movie. I think when Harry met Sally's
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a great movie. Like there's tons of great movies Rob
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Briiner's made, but I think stand By Me might be
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the best.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great movie.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I love that scene when they put their hands on
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: the rail, Yeah, and it just gets real quiet and
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: they're listening. They're like, do you feel any vibration at all?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And that's probably what these guys were doing.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, but they were doing it bumping along in
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: their open car. Yeah, also shout out. I don't know
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Phil Wheaton still listens to us. I know he used to,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: but man, all of those kids.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Did a great, great job.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: But he really did a magnificent job acting in that movie.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So way to go Wheaton, totally listening.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Great movie. I love it.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna watch it too now. Talking about it in Vegas,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: it made me nostalgic for it for sure.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: All right, so we are at leave time, which was
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: May twenty third, nineteen oh three.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: It was a Saturday.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Apparently it was a hot spring in California, and it
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: rained that afternoon and they took off from San Francisco
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: and very quickly blew a tire out.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It was like Romeo Michelle.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And the chronicle in San Francisco wasn't even
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: covering it. Basically, the San Francisco Examiner had a very
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: short little piece about it, about a horseless carriage going
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: from sea to sea. But it would build, as you
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: will see, with the press as things went along. But
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: it wasn't well covered at first, and the tire thing,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: it was an issue I mean the car tires at
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: the time would routinely blow out. They had a hard
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: time on the trip finding new tubes. They would stock
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: up on used tubes whenever they went to a town
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: it seemed like that had any kind of tubes, they
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: would just buy them, right and Yeah, and it was
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: a tires were an issue that woud seemed like one
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: of the main issues.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean you can imagine there's not people
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: selling car tires because there were so few cars, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: out west they kept encountering people who had never seen
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a car.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I saw mention of that Packard team that was riding.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I think Tom Fetch was the Packard guy who was
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: driving the car, and they pulled into one town that
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: where a murder had just been committed and so few
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: people had seen a car in that town that everybody
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: left the fresh murder scene, including the sheriff, to come
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: look at the car that had just rolled into town.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Like that was like what it was like out west
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: at the time. So of course you weren't gonna find
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: car tires easily. You had to improvise any way you could.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Sure, and a murdered body out there back then was
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: a dime, a dozen, dime a dozen. Ye's not going anywhere,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that's right, it's gonna check out that new car.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not going anywhere.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So they're going east. They're going through some treacherous terrain,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: go to the Cascade Mountains. It's fun in the documentary
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: to hear the diary or letters home to his wife
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: where he was talking about, you know, the roads that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: are basically big enough for one car because I can't
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: remember exactly I said it, but like because nature has
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: made it that way, basically like it's a cliff side
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: on the side of a mountain. So luckily, you know,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: they're having to share the road with stage coaches and
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: horses and stuff like that, not really any other cars probably,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: but they would it was what you would think. They
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: were constantly getting stuck, constantly blowing tires. They I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the record was eighteen times in a day they had
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to use that block and tackle to pull themselves out
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of a ditch or a river or a mud hole.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: That must have been the suckiest day ever. Yeah, and
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: then the maps were an issue too, right.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they would have to rely on locals for directions.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Some when they could find locals a lot of times
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: they just had to guess I saw again the Packard team.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Sorry to keep bringing them up. I know or not
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: what the story's about, but they learned to avoid the
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: nicest roads because out west that usually meant that it
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: just dead ended in some rich person's house, and when
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: you could find locals, they would sometimes just literally misguide you.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: There was one that Horatio and Sewell ran across a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: woman on horseback who told them to get to the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: next time they should go down this road, and it
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: dead ended in her family's farm.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: It was her driveway.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Basically, they came back the way they went and ran
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: across her again. They're like, why did you do that?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, my dad and mom and husband
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: would have wanted to see a car. They've never seen
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a car before, so she purposefully sent them the wrong
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: way down a dead end, miles down a dead end
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: apparently too. And I did not hear that they had
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: gotten angry with her or cross even. I think they
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: probably just said like, good day to you, madam and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: kept on.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: They should have said, you don't know this yet, but
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: one day giving directions will be very important, and this
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: will not be cool.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: This is not going to reflect good on your family. Manson,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you like.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: That, Tina. I just loved Tina. It was so not
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: a name back then, Tina Manson, I love it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Great choice.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: The breaks were kind of what you would imagine. They
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: weren't great, So it was quite thrilling when they would
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: get on these downhill runs and there wasn't a lot
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: you could do about it. The clutch went out a lot.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we talked about our various van
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: journeys out west. We were in a Volkswagen Van for
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: mine and the mountains killed it. Like we had to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to get a rental jeep Cherokee in Nevada for the
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: whole second half of the trip because going through the
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: mountains literally killed his. And it wasn't like a brand
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: new VW van. It wasn't one of the old ones,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: but it was like the Vanigan. But like it drove
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: us from Atlanta to the mountains just fine, and the
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: mountains killed it. So imagine what the mountains did to
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the clutch system on this lawnmower.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, I have to admit, until today I did
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: not know what a clutch did. I knew that the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: clutch was the thing you push into shift gears. Never
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: understood why the reason why you push in is because
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: you actually want to stop the clutch from working temporarily.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: What the clutch does is it transmits the motor power
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: or the motor's torque to the transmission, which in turn
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: turns the axle to the tires the wheels. Right, that's
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: my understanding of it. And when you're pressing in the clutch,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: what you're really doing is keeping that transfer from taking
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: place so that you can go into another gear and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: then you let the clutch out and that transfer begins again. So, yes,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the clutch is an extremely important instrument. The car does
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: not go without it. And apparently Suel Crocker had to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: fix that thing almost as many times as they used
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the block and tackle to pull themselves out of mud.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Well he was worth his weight, oh boy, yeah he was.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: He did have one modification they made on the way there,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: as they added a headlamp and a ceedlean headlamp so
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: they could drive at night because they want to make
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: up time, you know, because there were times when they
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: had to go to a town and wait for I
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: think one of them was like three or four days
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: where they're waiting ironically for a stage coach to show
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: up with parts that they had ordered. There were times
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: when a stage coach or a guy on a horse
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: would pull them out ironically.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Again.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I didn't get the impression that Horatio was
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: trying to prove that horses were obsolete.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so at all.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I think he still saw it as pretty ironic that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: he still relied on horses in this horseless carriage.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think he threw shade even when blacksmiths would
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: make repairs. They pointed out in the documentary that I
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: think it was in one of his letters he said
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: it like the irony wasn't lost on him. But I
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: don't think he was like, you're not going to have
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: a job in a few years, sucker.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Right right, that's what segue makers said to people on foot.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Didn't the adventure of this segue drive off a cliff
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: on a segway.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Oh that sounds like an urban legend, but maybe one
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that's just crazy enough to be true.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: I'll have to look that up. Should we take a break, Yes, well,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: we'll take a break and look that up. All right,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: we'll be back here with the truth, right, after this.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back and chuck it's true bbc D He
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: really says it.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Wow, Jimmy Hezelden was sixty two when he rode off
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a cliff on his company's segues.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: They killed him obviously, Yes, in West Yorkshire. That's sad.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, making it My god, that's quite a legend.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: It's like Fabio getting hit in the face with a
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: duck on a roller coaster.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: What no, you know that.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: No, Fabio on a roller coaster. A duck flew across
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: his path and hit him in the face.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: And killed him. No, no, no, oh okay.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: But it's uh, it's one of these pictures on the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Internet where you're like, oh, that's got to be fake,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: and it's and it really happened, poor Fabio. I know,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I feel bad for the guy, but it was also like,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: of all the people to get for this to happen
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: to it was just it was pretty rich.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine, what way is he a jerk?
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: No? No, no, is he?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, but he's Fabio And like you know, that kind
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: of stuff doesn't happen to Fabio.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: It's not happened to me for sure, and me too,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: totally with you on that. Did you look up that picture?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I'm watching the video right now. I can't not chuck.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: We will have an episode someday where we just tell
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: each other internet memes and the other one will look
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: it up and then react on Mike, and that's how
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: we'll do it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: All Ye, stuff you shouldn't couldn't care less about will
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: be the name of that new.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Stuff you really probably shouldn't bother listening to. All right,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: so let's pick up with the trip.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: It sounds like we're painting an ed I'm glad he
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: pointed this out. It sounds like we're painting a picture
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: of an awful time. Because of all of the delays
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: and all of the things that happened. They knew what
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: they were in for with this. They didn't think it
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: was going to be a pleasure cruise. It was also
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: a great fun adventure. Like these guys are having a
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: great time. They were seeing things that few people had
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: ever even seen in person before, even by horse at times.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: And they had no schedule. I mean, they were trying
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: to beat this ninety day thing. But like I get
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: the feeling he really just wanted to finish the trip,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: so you know he had money. They were staying in hotels,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: they were staying with people along the way who opened
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: their homes to them.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: They were driving about two.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Hours at a time time, and it seemed like they
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: were having fun at the same time.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I have that same impression too, for sure. And plus,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: don't forget Sewell Crocker was making some pretty good money too.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't find that. What was he getting paid.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: I didn't see either.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: But we can go ahead and say at the end
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: they tallied up how much Horatio Jackson spent on the trip,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and this included Crocker's pay.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: It was about eight.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Grand back in nineteen oh three, which is a two
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven grand today.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: So much funny. So if you think about it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Hotels, food, supplies, gas, car parts, repairs, that still leaves
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a pretty decent amount for Sewell Crocker, and I hope
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: he got a big chunk of that.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: I hope so too, Chuck.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I cannot, for the love of life find the stupid
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: picture of Fabio getting hit in the face. I found
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: some ABC report and it just shows him going into
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: the roller coaster station after the ride, just faces all
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: bloody and he looks really upset, but nothing about the
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: actual hit.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I wonder if what I saw was a
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: faked recreation of that, and there is only a before
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: and after.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: That would make sense that it looked photoshopped, then I'm sorry.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: I just had to had to circle back.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: On that because my disappointment was palpable.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, So they're making their way out west or
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: i'm sorry, back east. And it's funny they say, back east,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: out west, up north, down south.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: So they're back. They're heading back east.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Uh. And they come to Idaho. M When I mentioned
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: a third party in that photograph, we were holding out
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: for this big surprise and Caldwell, Idaho. They left without
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Jackson's code, turned back to go get it, and this
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: guy said, here, I have this pit bull named Bud
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: and he wants to go with you and be your mascot.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And they said, hop a board, Bud, And all of
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: a sudden, they have this beautiful white pit bull in
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: between the two of them.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's routinely described as a bulldog, but he's pretty
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: clearly a pit bull.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: For he's a pity and he's beautiful, and like, if
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: this story couldn't get any better, now you have a
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: pit bull in between you.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: And they made him.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Doggles to protect his little eyes, and there's a wonderful
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: photo of it in the documentary.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they were, you know, like you said, they
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: were getting pressed as they went from town to town,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and they were like, oh my god, a car. There's
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: people actually trying to use it to cross the United
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: States in that car. When Bud joined it, people just
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: went berserk over this whole thing, in part because he
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: was wearing these goggles, but also he very quickly learned
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: how to ride in the car. He look ahead, he
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: loved it to look for ruts or bumps or whatever,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and would like brace himself like. He just took to
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: it very easily and became like this great mascot. So
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: everybody started to really find out about this when Bud joined.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And I don't get the impression that sewel or Horatio
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: with least bit jealous.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: No, he paid him fifteen dollars, which is five hundred
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: dollars today for this dog. And Crocker said, hey, adopt,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: don't shop And Jackson said what does that mean, right,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: and he said, no, don't worry about it. That comes later, right.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: So they're getting all this press thanks to Bud. They
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: make their way through sort of that toughest stretch of terrain,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: they're running out of food. They finally sort of cross
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: out of the mountains and they're like, all right, that
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: was sort of it, like we think this is not
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: literally but this is sort of downhill from here. And
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: he in his letters he was saying, I've never felt
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: more confident now that we're gonna make it to New York.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: And this is when they were in like Wyoming.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then once they got to Omaha, it really
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: got easier. And then after Omaha Chicago, and then after Chicago,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: probably Cleveland or something like that, maybe an Indianapolis in between,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: like the city after city just started to pop up,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and they were getting closer and closer, and there were
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: much better roads. The railroad rideaways were just beautiful. Sitting
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: there for the picking flat. They started to really yeah,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: they started to really make some pretty good time.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: How many miles did they top out at the day.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like it was like seventy something, which is
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: not too bad.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I don't remember, actually, I think in.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: The documentary said seventy seventy something miles in a single day,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: like when they were kind of cruising, which that's awesome,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: that's good time for that car.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not bad at all, especially considering it maxed
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: out at thirty miles an hour. Yeah, so that was
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: just like a two and a half hour day for them,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, Yeah, sure so, but that really does go
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to point out like just how slow they were going
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: because of things like breaking down and waiting for parts
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: and just the roads being terrible. And I mentioned Cleveland too.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: They actually when they showed up in Cleveland, that's where
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: the Winting Motor Carriage Company was located. And we didn't
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: say I don't think that Wynton had by this time
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: heard about the whole trip and that they were actually
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: making pretty good headway.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so he got he sort of officially offered
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: to kind of sponsor them from that point on, and
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Jackson turned him down. He was like, no, I've got
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Packard and Oldsmobile behind me, and I don't want this
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: to become like a corporate sponsored thing. Like we made
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: it this far, we can make it the rest of
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: the way. And they did go by the factory and
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: they got some fanfare, and I think they helped him
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: out with fixing this car up and stuff. But they
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: got free beer koozies exactly refrigerator magnets, and they were
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: on their way.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: M Yeah, I'm sure they probably fixed the car up
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But Wynton was talking like, we'll have
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: gas like every hundred miles for you kind of thing.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: We'll send a technician to ride along with you. I'm
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: sure the idea of adding a third stranger or a
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: stranger to this mix by this time, which is just unthinkable.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they turned them down, but they made it
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: through Cleveland. They made it all the way to Buffalo.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until Buffalo, New York that they had their
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the worst wreck that they had, where all three of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: them sewell, Horatio and Bud were ejected from the car
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: because they hit something. Bud Horatio only mentions it as
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: a hidden obstruction, so I'm not sure if he ever
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: knew what it was. But none of them were injured
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and the car was okay, so they just kept on
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: keeping on.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: So take us home. When did they they pulled into Manhattan,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: didn't they? Finally?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: On July twenty sixth, at four thirty am, sixty three days,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: twelve hours and Thirty minutes after they set out from
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, they made it to Manhattan, New York, and
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Horatio Nelson Jackson won his bet, which, by the way,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: he never collected on.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, I was curious about that. He didn't. Nope, what
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: a stand up?
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or he's like, I'm never going out west again.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: It's too long of a ride.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And there to greet him where it was a throngs
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: of press and journalists, people from the wint And car
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: company and swipes the old girl herself right there.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so cool.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I love that they had like a great relationship, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: he had a great relationship with Sewell and everybody loved Bud.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: And if you're wondering what happened to Bud, Bud lived
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: out the rest of his days on the Jackson farm
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: in Vermont.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: And that's not an euphemism for like, right, he really
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: got lost and died.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Right, No, he really did live out his days there.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Jackson went on to live a very interesting life after this,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: even he had a number of businesses that he ran.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: He joined the military in World War One in his
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: forties and apparently became a decorated veteran.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Probably collected tobacco baseball cards.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: At the time. Probably so so Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I think he ran for governor and lost governor of
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Vermont at one time in loss. I don't know how
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: he lost. I don't know who in the world would
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: vote for someone else other than this guy. Right, and
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: donated that car the Vermont to the Smithsonian, which and
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: those doggles. Ed has seen this in person, I don't
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: think I have, even though I've been there, so or
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: maybe I didn't. I just didn't know the story at
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe it seems like you'd be able to recall a
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: car like that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I've been to a lot of museums,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: seen a lot of old cars. Right.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Sadly, Suell Crocker, he died young. He contracted an illness
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and died in nineteen thirteen, so he was about forty, no,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: thirty something, early.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Thirties, and he's thirty one.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He had been sent to Mexico, I think, to protect
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: some land during the revolution there, and he the stress
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: of it killed him, essentially, is how I saw it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Jesus, that's really sad. I know it is.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: So that's really the only big sad thing that happened
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: aside from Bud getting ejected from the car in Buffalo,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: A nice little cherry on top here that ed found.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Two was six years after this trip, a woman named
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Alice Ramsey and three of her friends became the first
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: woman and women to accomplish this same thing. They were
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: sponsored by Maxwell Brisco, an automaker, and they did the
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: trip in fifty nine days in basically the same or
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: maybe just barely slightly better conditions than Jackson and Crocker
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: did it in. So they pulled it off, and they
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: kind of encountered the same issues, and they got a
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: lot of press at the time and obviously did a
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: lot to advance, you know, the shine a light on
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: what women were capable of doing, which was driving a
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: car through terrible circumstances for fifty nine days.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Right exactly.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Also despite being described as pretty in every single article
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that was about them at the time.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: So one other thing, and that was a kind of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a note about this, is that thirty years after Horatio
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and Sewell and Bud made their trip, the record was
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: set that stood for decades. Fifty four hours, so two
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and a half days. Guy named Irwin Cannonball Baker, we
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: made a famous run from New York to LA and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I think about forty years after that, in the early seventies,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Car and Driver magazine editors said, this Cannonball Baker guy,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: he deserves his own his own place in history. So
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: we're going to commemorate him with a recreation of his run.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: We're gonna call it the Cannonball Run.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: That's right, And if you want to learn more about that,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: we was that a two parter.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: It was just a one arter.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I think it was probably one of our fifteen minute episodes.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: No, that was a good one.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: It was a good one. I'm just saying we used
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to real shortback then. I can't believe I didn't talk
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that much back then that we could actually record an
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: episode that was fifteen minutes long.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I think we probably talked for fifteen minutes about Burt Reynolds.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Probably probably, but that was probably the episode two. Yeah,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: you're right, you got anything else? No, I don't either,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: which means it's time for listener male.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this short but sweet Amazon factoid. Hey, guys,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: About a quarter the way and through the episode of
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: the moment, the episode reminded me of our trip of
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: the Amazon to.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know, is it Manaus or Manaus m A
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: n a u S. I think manaos an owse.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And back on a Viking ocean cruise, he said, Surprisingly,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: ocean cruise ships can go that far about a thousand miles.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Who knew on the cruise Our Amazon guide told us
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that what I think is the greatest bit of trivia
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I've ever heard. The volume of water leaving the mouth
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: of the Amazon is equal to the volume of water
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: going over Niagara Falls Victoria Falls. I'm going to do
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: my best with my pronunciation on this falls in South America.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Iguazu.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Perhaps very nice for South American listeners should write in
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and let us know.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Right so it is the volume of water leaving the
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: mouth of the Amazon is equal to those three giant balls.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Wow times twelve. Wow.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I was not expecting that extra little bit of math
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: right there.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: I think that's what makes it amazing. That's from Rich Pope.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks Rich Pope. Great name too, really gets it across.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Rich Pope.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good to meet you, you know, yeah, I agreed.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Well, it's good to meet you to Rich Pope. And
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: if you want to be like Rich Pope, you can
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: email us as well. Send it off to stuff Podcasts
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.