Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Adventure Motorcyclists Jeremy Kroeker and Elle West on Self-Discovery Through Travel

Transcript

Adventure Motorcyclists Jeremy Kroeker and Elle West on Self-Discovery Through Travel · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overlain Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ashley Jurdano, and today I was fortunate enough to sit
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: down with Jeremy Craiker and Elle West, two Canadian adventure
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: motorcyclists who have traveled the Pan American Highway and beyond.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Elle is a motorcycle trainer based in Calgary, Alberta, and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Jeremy is the author of four books. As ever, we
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode and thanks so much for
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: tuning in.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: This content is brought to you by Overland Journal, our
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in two
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: thousand and six with the goal of providing independent equipment
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and vehicle reviews, along with the most stunning adventures and photography.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: We care deeply about the countries and cultures we visit
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and share our experiences freely with our readers. We also
• 0:53
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• 0:57
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• 1:03
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• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Your support also provides resources and funding for content like
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: you are watching or listening to right now. You can
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Here today on location in Canmore, Alberta with Jeremy and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: l to adventure motorcycle riders with plenty of history of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: traveling throughout the world, so thanks for joining me.
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  Speaker 3: Great to be here, yeah, happy to be here.
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  Speaker 4: I ride well currently. I write a BMW seven hundred gs,
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  Speaker 4: and back in two thousand and four, I was riding
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  Speaker 4: hot a shadow and I thought I could get to
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  Speaker 4: the end of the road in Panama. I knew that
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: the highway ended just after Panama City. And if you
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: look at Canada on a map, from east coast to
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: west coast, it's a long distance, but you could do
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: it in two weeks. If you take that same distance
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: and turn it this way, it looks like Calgary to
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  Speaker 4: Panamon back. So a friend of mine and I went
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  Speaker 4: together on two different bikes and we thought we could
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  Speaker 4: go there and back in six weeks and it's humanly possible.
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  Speaker 4: But we did not make it. We went to Guadalajara
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  Speaker 4: and then came back ran out of time. So the
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  Speaker 4: thought ever since then was I have to do that,
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  Speaker 4: like it's an incomplete trip. I need to go do it.
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  Speaker 4: So twenty thirteen. I actually did go down to Panamon
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  Speaker 4: back and then loved it so much. Did it immediately
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  Speaker 4: after that again in twenty fourteen, and then thought I
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  Speaker 4: need to go all the way. I got to go
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  Speaker 4: all the way to South America, to the tip of
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: South America, and so I was planning to do that
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  Speaker 4: around twenty nineteen, and then Jeremy and I started hanging
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: out with each other.
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  Speaker 3: Her name is el West by the way.
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  Speaker 4: Jeremy and I said. Jeremy was like, actually, I haven't
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: been all the way to South America. I've been to
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: Panama back, of course, as he writes about in his book,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: but I haven't been all the way. And I was
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  Speaker 4: thinking twenty nineteen as well, and I was like, hmm,
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  Speaker 4: maybe maybe we could go together. But it depends how
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: things go and if we still like each other, we'll see.
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  Speaker 4: And turns out we did go together. In August of
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  Speaker 4: twenty nineteen. We left Alberta and made it down to
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  Speaker 4: the southern tip of Argentina in early twenty twenty, just
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  Speaker 4: before COVID broke out, and then we were starting to
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  Speaker 4: make our way north again. We got as far as
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  Speaker 4: Uruguay before the borders closed and locked us in. Oh wow,
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: so we made it down, but we didn't make it back.
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  Speaker 1: So what did you do? Were you trapped in Uruguay
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: for a little while?
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  Speaker 4: We were trapped in Uruguay for five months?
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  Speaker 1: Oh for a little while? Wow? Okay, So your bike's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: there and everything? Or had you okay?
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  Speaker 4: We were trying to decide do we ship them, do
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  Speaker 4: we leave them? Can we store them? Is this going
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  Speaker 4: to blow over in a few months or is it
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  Speaker 4: going to take two years? And we didn't. We weren't
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  Speaker 4: sure what to do, so did go while and then
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: it was expensive.
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  Speaker 3: So we're launching right into this. Hey, I thought you
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  Speaker 3: were going to go Hi. My name is el West.
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  Speaker 3: I've been to this many countries and I ride a
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  Speaker 3: BMW And then I was going to say hi. My
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  Speaker 3: name is Jeremy Craiker. I ride at Kawasaki KLR six
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  Speaker 3: fifty and I've been to about thirty different countries with
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  Speaker 3: my motorcycle. I'm also the author of two books, and
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  Speaker 3: their names are Motorcycle Therapy and Through Dustin Darkness Nice.
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  Speaker 1: What's covered in the books.
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  Speaker 3: Motorcycle Therapy talks about a trip that I did in
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  Speaker 3: two thousand and three Basically, me and my buddy were
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  Speaker 3: both unceremoniously let go by our girlfriends, respectively, and so,
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  Speaker 3: feeling sorry for ourselves, we jumped on a couple of
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  Speaker 3: motorcycles and just headed south. And then in the process
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  Speaker 3: of doing that trip, I discovered that my friend was
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  Speaker 3: also quite irritating, and then that caused me to think
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  Speaker 3: that the only common denominator here is me. So it
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: turns out I'm a very difficult person to live with
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  Speaker 3: and travel with, and so that's kind of the foundation
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  Speaker 3: of the book.
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  Speaker 1: And then you found a travel partner that you traveled
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  Speaker 1: well with.
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  Speaker 3: I have been unable to travel with anyone except for
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: l I've traveled with Neville, our host here, who is
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  Speaker 3: the owner of all these motorcycles. We have actually managed
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  Speaker 3: to travel together, but just for a fairly short period
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  Speaker 3: of time. I'm sure that even Neville would agree that he,
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  Speaker 3: by the end of two week trip, was quite irritated
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  Speaker 3: with me as well.
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  Speaker 4: And we traveled well together overall. Generally we left together
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  Speaker 4: and we came back together. But there were a couple
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  Speaker 4: of rough spots.
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  Speaker 3: Oh sure, yeah, I don't think you could go on
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  Speaker 3: any kind of overlanding trip no matter what Instagram might
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  Speaker 3: lead you to believe without a little bit of drama
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  Speaker 3: and a little bit of you know, a few blemishes
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  Speaker 3: that the pictures don't show.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's an important part. And I think that's
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  Speaker 1: one thing. When I was reading your book through dust
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  Speaker 1: and darkness, one thing that I noticed was there the
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  Speaker 1: good end of bad was captured. You know. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: just like this wonderful trip or everything went well right.
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  Speaker 1: It was a really honest account of all of the
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  Speaker 1: emotional and spiritual and physical things that travel entails, which
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was yeah, really nice, really refreshing and thank you yeah
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  Speaker 1: times of Instagram.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I kind of set out with these
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  Speaker 3: books to be fairly open and honest, and it doesn't always.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't always paint myself in the most
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  Speaker 3: positive light either, but hopefully there's some humor to carry
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  Speaker 3: the day.
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  Speaker 4: And that's a danger in being a travel partner of Jeremy's.
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  Speaker 4: Before we ever left, I said, if you do any
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  Speaker 4: writing about this, I want editing privileges. He said absolutely not.
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  Speaker 3: No, Yeah, she doesn't get editing privileges because I know
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  Speaker 3: what she would do. She would want to write her
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: side of things, and that's valid but that's for your book.
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  Speaker 4: It happen someday.
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  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, when was the initial
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  Speaker 1: trip that you went on the first time.
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  Speaker 4: I tried going all the way to PanAm on back
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  Speaker 4: two thousand and four, and there was nothing that I
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  Speaker 4: knew of at the time called an adventure bike or
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  Speaker 4: portals or websites where you could go and learn about
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  Speaker 4: all this kind of stuff, let alone conferences where people
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  Speaker 4: got together and shared this kind of info. I had
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  Speaker 4: to stop once a week and find a library in
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: order to access the internet, email home, A little bit difference, Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: very different than now.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was actually in Guatemala in two thousand
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  Speaker 3: and three before I found any websites that suggested that
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  Speaker 3: this was even something that people do. So I hadn't
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  Speaker 3: read Jupiter's Travels yet, and I hadn't found any websites
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  Speaker 3: with information about how to do this. I just thought
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  Speaker 3: that I was the first person to ever think about
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  Speaker 3: doing this trip, so in a way, that complete ignorance
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  Speaker 3: actually made the trip more interesting. But since then, obviously
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  Speaker 3: I've discovered a lot of the resources, and it's a
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  Speaker 3: fantastic time to do this kind of travel.
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  Speaker 4: And we still don't do a lot of research. Like
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  Speaker 4: our South America trip, we didn't know a lot before
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  Speaker 4: we went. I remember arriving in Bolivia and seeing an
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  Speaker 4: animal like moving across the land far away, and I
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  Speaker 4: stopped and I thought, is that an ostrich?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 4: What is happening right now? There's no ostriches in South America?
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  Speaker 4: Are there? I had no idea it was a re
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: aria and if I'm pronouncing it for operly, but a
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  Speaker 4: smaller version of an ostrich. I had no idea those
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  Speaker 4: animals existed. I wasn't aware that they were glaciers in Peru.
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  Speaker 4: Lots of things were still surprises.
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  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but we don't research at all and should be said,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, still we somehow bumble our way through.
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  Speaker 1: So how did you come together? How did you meet?
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  Speaker 1: Were you both riders so you knew each other through that?
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  Speaker 1: Or were you both in Canmore living here so we
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  Speaker 1: met that way?
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  Speaker 4: I stopped Jeremy for about five years.
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  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, we met in British Columbia at
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  Speaker 3: a motorcycle rally and I was there to promote Motorcycle Therapy,
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  Speaker 3: my first book, and I was there with my then girlfriend.
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  Speaker 4: And I was there with a partner I was traveling
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  Speaker 4: with who had just read Motorcycle Therapy, because I gave
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  Speaker 4: it to them and I said, you should read this,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: and they did, and they started making plans based on
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  Speaker 4: this book. This guy says that if two of you
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  Speaker 4: travel together, you should travel on the same motorcycle because
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: then if you need any spare parts, they work for
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  Speaker 4: either bike. We're going to do exactly that. And he
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  Speaker 4: loved the book and he was like quoting it to me.
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  Speaker 4: And then I showed up at this event and this
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  Speaker 4: guy is wearing a name tag that says Jeremy Craiker,
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  Speaker 4: author of Motorcycle Therapy. And so my very first words
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  Speaker 4: ever to this man were.
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  Speaker 3: Holly, could you're the guy? And I wrote the book?
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  Speaker 3: Hey good, I beg this guy.
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  Speaker 4: And Jeremy's very first impression of me was that I
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: was slightly insane.
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  Speaker 3: Well, and also my girlfriend at the time. I could
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: feel her like eyes boring into the back of my head.
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  Speaker 3: She did not appreciate that kind of attention that I
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: was getting. It wasn't my fault. I was just the
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  Speaker 3: author of an amazing book.
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  Speaker 4: So then we bumped into each other every year or
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: twice a year, at motorcycle events, the Motorcycle Show in Calgary,
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  Speaker 4: Overland gatherings like that, and I would every time be like, hey, Jeremy,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: could I say you again? And he would stare at
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: me and say yeah, hi, and I could tell he
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: did not remember who I was. So after about four
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: or five years of that, I think we finally connected
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: through some common friends.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out that we had some mutual friends
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: who kind of reintroduced us. And l was, of course
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: well aware of who I was, but I took me
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: a while to figure out who you were. And now
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: I'm so happy that I didn't.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Tell me a bit about your riding history, Like how
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: did you both get into riding? Was it something you
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: did as a kid, was it something you picked up later?
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  Speaker 1: How did that?
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: My dad bought me a dirt bike when I was
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: like thirteen years old and we were living in Saskatchewan
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: and there was nothing but open prairies, and so I
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: kind of spent my summers just chasing gophers around the fields. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I learned to ride on a field on a little
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: dirt bike. When I was sixteen. I got my motorcycle
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: rode license right away, and I've been riding ever since.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: I've had a motorcycle since I was probably about twenty
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: twenty one years old. As soon as I got my license,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: I loved it. I would cancel my car insurance in
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: the summertime and only by my motorcycle for everything, to
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: get groceries, to do anything, I would carry my cat
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: inside my motorcycle jacket with me if I was going anywhere.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: I just always loved motorcycles since I was old enough
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: to be online, and I think even in high school
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: when girls would often want to go on a motorcycle ride,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: they had to have a guy who liked them enough
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: to want to take them, And immediately I thought, well,
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: that's a bad plan, Like just get your own, learn
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: how to ride your own. There was maybe a couple
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: of years in my life when I didn't have a motorcycle.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Almost every single summer throughout my life since twenty twenty
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  Speaker 4: one years old, I've had a bike, and it's just
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: the best way to travel. I prefer it so much
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: to be in a van or in a four sided vehicle.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Being part of the environment and feeling the wind in
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: your face and being out there not behind a pane
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: of glass, makes a big difference. To me, I've been skydiving,
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: I've been mountain climbing. I've been a lot of different
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: ways to try to get that feeling of exhilaration, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: to me, a motorcycle is the best way.
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  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, thank you. Where was that happening when
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you were in your twenties and you in Calgary?
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: Okay? Yeah, so I've always lived in Alberta, came to
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: canmore after Jeremy finally said I think I like you
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: enough to like to move in.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: That's exactly how it happened.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I what about for you? What is it about the bike?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I would echo a lot of what Ell says.
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  Speaker 3: I just feel it's the ultimate for me. It's going
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: to sound cliche, but it's just a sense of freedom.
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  Speaker 3: It feels like you're flying, and even when you're not happy,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: and it's very easy to be unhappy on a motorcycle.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: You can go from having the best time of your
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: life to all of a sudden being the most uncomfortable
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: you've ever been in like zero point five seconds. But
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: even then, there's something kind of nice about it. It's
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: being alive and not it's difficult to be complacent when
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: you're on a motorcycle, and it's dangerous to do that too, right,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: to kind of zone out and just kind of not
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: really pay attention. So forcing you to kind of be
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: present and really experience the wind and the noise and
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: the smells and all that kind of stuff, even if
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: they're not always pleasant smells or pleasant temperatures.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how does that work with driver fatigue on these
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: long trips? I guess you have to pace yourself. Do
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you have to pay yourself because you're paying attention into
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: all these things that are happening on the road and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: all the temperature changes.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And yeah, like when we were doing our trip from
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: can Moore here to Tierra del Fuego and Argentina, you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: there was a few days where we did big miles,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: like nine hundred kilometers, but that was all kind of
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: in Canada and the States, and then once we got
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: to Mexico and Central America, I'll bet you like for us,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: a really big day would be five hundred kilometers. Most
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: of the time we were kind of doing four hundred
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: and you know five we maybe push it now and then,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: but so we would really take rider fatigue kind of
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: seriously and trying to find shelter of course before dark
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: and all that kind of stuff.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think generally speaking, it's easier to do longer
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: days in a four wheel vehicle than on a motorcycle.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Ye start more often for gas, and you need to stretch,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: and you can't have snacks while you're riding and things
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Hell, can she can eat chocolate when she's chocolate is
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: always around. It's actually interesting because I can always tell
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: when she's stuffed a piece of chocolate in her mouth
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: because we have an intercom system generously provided by a
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: motology school. That's right, and so on the intercom, I
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: can just hear her like a happy little chipmunk, and
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: then she'll be talking and yeah, I can actually hear
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the smile on her face.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: He's got to keep one piece and let it melt
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: slowly over a long time.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, then you've got the sugar and the caffeine
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and the joy. That's awesome. So did you guys take
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: any training before you left on any of your trips
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: or were you mostly riding on road or off road
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: or how did your experience build?
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: Probably mostly on road, a little bit off, but I'm
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: not super confident off road.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: And I'm overly confident off road.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: When we go on gravel, Jeremy just goes and he
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: knows to wait at the end for me, and I'll
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: slow down and I'll take it at the pace that
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: is maybe not the smartest, because when it's gravel or
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: these rough surfaces, it's better to have momentum. And sometimes
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I slow down because I think I'm only willing to
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: go as fast as the speed i'm willing to crash at.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: And Jeremy's like, if you go faster, it'll be over quicker,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: you'll be more stable, And I understand the reasoning, but
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to ever be as fast as Jeremy
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: and gravel and she.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Usually catches up, but one time she caught up to
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: me after I had crashed. Yeah, so it doesn't always
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: work out in my favor to be that confident. It
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: was in Chile. I was going I don't know how fast,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: but I know that I was looking at my speedometer
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: and then I was looking at the road up and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: down and up and down. So it was between sixty
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: and fifty kilometers an hour, like kind of hit a
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: ridge and I got sucked into the ditch and then yeah,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: the KLR did some gymnastics and then I had to
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: bike up on its wheels by the time you came
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: around me because.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: A carload of people came and helped you.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, I'm willing to ride faster than I want
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: to crash.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And then on the road the dynamics of the relationship,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you've obviously figured that out.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: Or or have made it work together on a little
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: bit of luck, maybe a bit of I think age
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: helps quite a bit generally in any relationship.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: And understanding that sometimes it's better to just bite your tongue.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Ell is finally settled for someone that could.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Be somewhat of a factor. But someone who rides motorcycles
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: isn't willing to go to South America and back with me.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: That's a big plus.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: And also there's some things that are super simple that
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: you don't think about, which is just having snacks.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you should learn by this age, and still haven't
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: learned apparently, Like I'm fifty.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Years old now and it's only now occurring to me
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that when I get really grumpy, sometimes all I need
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: is a peanut. And sometimes it doesn't always work this way,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: but sometimes if I can feel that you're getting irritated
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: with me, Rather than change my behavior because I'm too
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: old to do that, I'll just give you a piece
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of chocolate.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And sometimes sometimes it helps at least for amount of time.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, especially crossing borders and things like that. But again
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: not to be all Instagram polished or anything. It's difficult
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: sometimes traveling with anyone, and then you travel with your
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: life partner, you know, whom I love, but also being
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: in that close proximity under stressful situations and you're not
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: always comfortable and you don't know what you're going to
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: do next or where you're going to sleep sometimes and
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: it's easy for me to get kind of short and
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: not lose my temper exactly, but demonstrate my irritation. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: that is something that I could learn to be better with.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I'd say there was one good day when temper was lost, Yes,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: in Uni in Bolivia, Okay, Yeah, and then we just
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: separated for a day.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: We have few hours.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he was unhappy and he wanted to find food
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: and I wanted to find food too, and we didn't
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: have breakfast that day. He was mad and frustrated and
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: basically like giving up, and I said, fine, give it
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: to me. I'll see if I can find and I okay,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: I think there's some restaurants. It looks like a whole
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: bunch of a commercial area over here. I'll lead, let's
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: go over here. And so I'm leading and I'm going
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: to the place, and on the way, he's behind me.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: I hear him the ina tron. Oh, I think I
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: see a place. I'm just going to go there. Fine,
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: go ahead, see you later. And I thought about it.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Am I doing something I'm going to regret? Is this
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: of one of those decisions that's going to have a
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: really big impact And I'm going to wish I hadn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: done it later? And then I thought, oh, he's just
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: around the corner. I know where he stopped. I can
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: go back and find him. I'm going to go eat
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: lunch by myself in my own restaurant on my own bike.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: And I think that's a saving grace too, if we
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: were both on one motorcycle. I don't know how those
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: people do it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know either.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: We even brought two tenths. That was my decision that
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: Jeremy made fun of me ahead of time. But I
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: was like, I we haven't lived together, we haven't been
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: dating that long. I'm not ready to commit to that
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: the whole way down. And if you piss me off enough,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: I want to be able to go my own way,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: or at least for lunch, my own way. And I
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: think that actually was a good decision. We had a
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: couple hours, we ate our own lunch, let me reconnected.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And also my side of the story is I
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: was actually quite relieved when I heard her voice like
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: fade out of my intercom. She was talking, talking all this,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm gonna go have some food and then
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: so there again, it basically came down to food.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, after we ate lunched, both of us, I think
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: we're feeling quite a bit better.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: A breakfast.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we missed breakfast, and then we were cold, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: then we were there's a combination of things.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Temperature, not eating, little blood sugar. Because of not eating.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: It's like the classic yeah couple overlanding couple situation coming up, Yeah,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: which you don't necessarily when you're at home, you don't
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: necessarily have to deal with that because you can go
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: your separate.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Way and you're not together twenty four seven at home,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: go to work, or you go spend time with friends
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: or do something else.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: How do you do it? You're traveling to in one vehicle.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: How do we do it? Richard? How do we do it?
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: He's not micd up. You've got all the power. Yeah.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've talked about food so many times
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: on this podcast. About snacks. Yeah, like search word snacks. Yeah,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you talked about that with many different couples.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: And yeah, the same way you pacify a toddler, you
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: have to just take care of yourself sometimes, yea.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: And especially when you're getting into a stressful situation, like
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you said, a border crossing. If you're going into a
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: border crossing really thirsty, really hungry, really hot, really cold,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and all of that going into it, and you have
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to go into a problem solving situation, you're not going
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: to be in a good place.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: So, especially a problem solving situation that is unfamiliar, that
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: isn't in your native language, that doesn't make any sense.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: How many times in I think Nicaragua was one of
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: the worst border crossings for me. Thank you? Is there
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: anything else I need to do? Nope, you're good to go, sweet,
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: And then the next person is like, no, actually, you're
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: not good to go. You didn't get this stamp, and
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: you didn't get a coffling. You didn't bring it to
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: this soft miss wool. Just tell me, and I'm happy
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: to do whatever's required. Am I done?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yep?
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: Am I good to go?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Yep?
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: And try leaving. No, there's a police officer stopping you.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: You don't have this like there's always something that just
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: doesn't make sense. At those border crossings.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, those are tough ones. Central America worder crossings.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: They hate them, and it's like you have to switch
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: off for your North American brain.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you like, let's turn on our next change those expectations.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: It was at that border crossing that we finally found
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: a line to clear our paperwork that was in front.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: Of me after leaving one building and walking across the
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: mud in construction to another building waiting hours. We'd already
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: been two or three hours into the process by then. Yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: found the new building.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: And she's in line and she gets her paperwork stamped
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: and it's done, and she's like thank you, and then
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: the guy goes with the window and like she goes
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: away with her paperwork done, and I'm like the next
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: person in line and like what oh, this line is closed.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: So I had to go to the back of the
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: line that was right beside me.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Maddening. And on that border crossing as well, we were
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: told to go bring your paperwork to the blue house.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: That's what we heard. Yeah, it turns out we were
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: supposed to go find a police officer wearing a blue shirt.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: So we were looking for a blue house and we
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: were trying.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: To it was influent in the language, would make a difference.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, for sure. I remember there was a kind
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of little guidebook written by the time we had gotten there,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and they had laid out the procedure kind of you know,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: it's always going to change.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: It'll change down a Tuesday compared to a Saturday, and who's.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Working then with the framework started to get familiar, which
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it did with you as well. By the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: time you got further south, were're like, okay, now this
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: is sort of what needs to happen.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And then by the time you figure it out, you're
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: suddenly in Colombia, and then all the border crossings just
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: get easier and easier and easier and easier. And it's
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: not that you know the language better, although that may
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: be part of it, but it's just the central America.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: They have not figured out how to move people through
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: their borders efficiently.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: How did that compare to your trip over in Europe
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and the Middle East? I mean, obviously the Europe apart.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the hardest borders things that I've had
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: to do is into Egypt. A lot of travelers, if
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: you talk to them, you'll hear the same story. Egypt
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: is difficult to get in, especially if you have a
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: vehicle or you know, I saw one guy crossing in
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: with a pet. That's even more problematic. But yeah, it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: just a lot of the same skills apply a lot
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: of patients. You know, try to not be loosened fast
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: with your cash. If somebody asks for money, there's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: good chance it's for a bribe, and you know, you
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: try not to give into that kind of pressure. It's
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: just bring some snacks, bring a lot of patients, and
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: just kind of outweigh them. Like that's something that you
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: can do as a traveler if you have no itinerary. Really,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: you kind of have more power than they think you do. Like, oh, okay,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: well we're not going to cross the border tonight. I
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: guess we'll just camp here. Or you can't camp here, well,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: then I'm coming home with you. You have to provide
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: without being you know, saucy, or without raising your voice.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: I know some people do it with great and a plum.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: They can raise their voices and get mad at people
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: and they don't seem to suffer any consequences. But it's
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: not how I choose to handle like that situation. I'm
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: always friendly, try to be smiling and patient.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: And same with protests too. I've come across situations where
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: the road was blocked because of a protest, and one
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: time I just went up to the front of the line.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Because of the motorcycle you can wiggle out your way
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: up there, which is nice. Kind of just watched what
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: was happening for a bit and I was intimidated, definitely.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: People had sticks and they were smashing the sides of
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: the transport trucks and chanting something that I couldn't understand.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: They clearly weren't happy. After observing one guy who made
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: eye contact with me, I just said, hey, my Spanish
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: is very poor, but if you're able, I'd love to
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: ask you some questions and learn more about what's happening
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: here and why you're protesting. And he went Kenner let
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: me tell you the government this and our water's polluted
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: and nobody's helping and rah rah rah. And I was like, wow,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: that's awful. I think I understand. Thanks so much for
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: explaining to me. Is that your motorcycle? Yep, hey, George,
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: open the gate, let her through. And I was like, bonus, Ah,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: that was somewhere in Central America. It might have been Mexico,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: but there were multiple times when protests were happening. And
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I know other travelers have said, like, you just got
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: to crack your engine and barrel through, or you got
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: to yell at those people. And my approach is they're
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: protesting for a reason.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like we are on pretty good rung vacation essentially. Yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: these people are dealing with very like possibly life and
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: death struggles and they're tired.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: And if I need to rent a hotel room for
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: an extra night and wait for it to clear, or
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: if I put my tent down here, like I've got
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: everything I need. That's the bonus of traveling with all
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: your tent and everything.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: I think that's the nice thing too about traveling versus
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: going on like a two week vacation. Yes, if you
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: have enough time, your plans get disrupted, but it's not
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: that big of a deal because this is all part
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: of the experience where if you have a two week
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: or three week vacation, every day seems so important. We
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: have to see this thing and this thing and this thing.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: You know, if you have time, it makes any travel
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: a lot better, for sure.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of food poisoning or getting sick. Yeah,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you know that can blow out your whole lot. Two
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: week vacation or one week vacation.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to mention your digestive track yet.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good tip to go and talk
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to them.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: If it seems safe and if you're comfortable with it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Sometimes it's not a possibility. Yeah, And I've done the
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: same thing at border crossings too. There was a border crossing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: I was following a friend of mine who wrote to
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: me and said, hey, instead of the Pan American Highway,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: come over to the east coast. I crossed from Panama
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: into Costa Rica and it took me twenty minutes, and
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: I was like, no, wait, there's no such thing as
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: a twenty minute border crossing in Central America. So I
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: went over there and she did everything, stamped my passport.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: I'm in and then I said, okay, now my vehicle
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: and they said, oh, no, the computers down. Well how
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: about another computer. No, no, no, it's not the computer.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: The computer system is down. Well what if I went
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: back and drove two hours across the country back to
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: the other side. And she said, no, the whole system
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: is down. You won't get across any border today. So
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: I had my tents with me, I had food with me.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: There was other people in vehicles who also couldn't cross
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: that day, so we just shared. We put up our
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: tents in the parking lot, which was dirty and gross
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: but free, and we shared food. So I had to
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: jar a peanut butter. Somebody else had a loaf of bread.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: Somebody else had spaghetti, and somebody had tomatoes. And we
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: just all together made spaghetti sauce with peanut butter sandwiches
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: the next day for breakfast.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: That sounds like a horrible company.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it worked out, and that's a story to tell later. Again,
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: if you were in a two week itinerary, that wouldn't happened, yeah, yeah,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: or you'd be panicking and stressed out.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I say, and El disagrees, but I don't
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: know why. I think that good memories are based on
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: bad experiences, some.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Of them, but not all of them. You can have
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: good ones too, sure.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: True, the best stories seemed to come out of a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: stressful or uncomfortable situation.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: In Argentina, classic example, we were on the route of
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: forty and it was like a horrible gravel section. In fact,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: some people call it the worst gravel section of that
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: entire journey. Yeah, the seventy three MultiTOS.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the seventy three shitty ones.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And we had high winds like and I can't exaggerate
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: how high the winds were, and Elle had a few offs.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: We were told too, Like we were told by somebody
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: who grew up in Argentina and spent a lot of
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: time with us and rides a motorcycle, And they said,
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: just get up early, Just get up early, do as
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: much riding as possible before the wind picks up, because
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: usually it's calmer in the morning, picks up throughout the day,
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: get off the road by noon and then sleep. Get
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: up early and do your traveling early in the morning.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: But we didn't listen.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Nope. So after the third time that l crashed your bike,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: we set up a tent in the high winds and
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: just slept there right in the ditch. Yeah, And I
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: was tempted to say, let's just go to the like
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: we're almost there, but then I thought better of it
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: because what if she gets hurt? What if I get hurt?
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: It was infuriating, it was maddening, Like you can't stop.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: As soon as you stop and put your foot down,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: the wind just flattens. You got to keep that momentum.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: And on gravel you can't, like literally, I'm pushing as
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: hard as I can into the wind and I'm just
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: sliding across the road sideways.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: But my point is that that was a bad day,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: but it's a great memory, and I think traveling is
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: like that. A lot.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: We had food. We had cold pizza left over. That
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: was saving grace.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Good memories are based on foodies are based on cold pizza.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: That's a yeah. That By the way, that whole event
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: where we crashed and had to set up shelter and
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: everything is on my YouTube channel. So lately I've been
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: doing less writing and more kind of logging sort of things,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: and that's on my YouTube channel. If you want to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: search for Jeremy Craker, that's where you find that kind
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: of stuff.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: How have you found the storytelling aspect of going from
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: writing to the video component.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: It's a steep, steep learning curve, Like all the the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: story principles are the same, but like learning the technology
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: and the gear and all that kind of stuff. If
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: you're a writer, essentially all you really need is a
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: pencil on a piece of paper. But if you're going
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: to tell stories through video, you need microphones and camera
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: equipment and lights and things like that. So it's been
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: a steep learning curve. It's quite rewarding though, when you
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: get it right. I'm still trying to work my way
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: up to my one hundred videos. Long ago, someone gave
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: me some advice. They said, make a hundred crappy videos
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: before you give up, And so I'm getting up to
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: that point now, and hopefully they're getting less and less
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: crappy as the time goes on. But I might return
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: to my paper and pencil soon, we'll see.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you also about how you
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: started writing and pub getting books published. That something that
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: you had done as a kid, or did you just
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: start taking notes while you were traveling and it kind
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of came along or how did that begin?
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I did write for a few newspapers
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: and things like that before I went on this trip
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: in two thousand and three, and whenever I travel, I
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: keep a pretty good journal, so I'm always kind of writing,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: but it's not really for consumption. But what I was
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: doing on this trip to Central America was I was
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: writing emails back and forth to my family and friends,
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: and I was putting quite a bit of effort into them,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: so some of them were quite long and some of
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: them were funny. And then when I got back, people said, oh,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: those are funny emails. You should write a book, And
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: then they just left right that they thought that that
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: was a very sage advice that they gave me. Yeah,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: so I started to think that I could do it
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: quite easily if I just compiled the emails in my journal.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: But then I realized how much actual hard work and
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: revision is required to make a proper book. So that's
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: how that book came about. Was I compiled everything and
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: then I rewrote it about I don't know, I don't
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: want to exaggerate, but I'll bet you I rewrote it
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: ten times, finally hired an editor. In the end, I
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: ended up self publishing Motorcycle Therapy. Off the success of
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: that book, I was able to find a publisher for
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: through dustin Darkness.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: That's Rocky Mountain Books.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Rocky Mountain Boy. They're local, yeah right, well yeah, they
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: used to be based in Calgary and now they're based
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: in Victoria. But it's a great little publishing house. And
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Don Gorman is over there running the show right now.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: I believe he's still there. Haven't communicated him with him
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: for a while because I haven't been writing, but yeah,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: and then I went back to publishing my own anthologies
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: when I did Motorcycle Messengers and Motorcycle Messengers too.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And those are a collection of various stories from other
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: motorcycle adventures.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: It's all just motorcycle travel stories, short stories, and I've
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: got a few stories in there as well. So I
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: guess I've always been writing, but I only really started
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: taking it seriously when I set out to write Motorcycle Therapy.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, and then, what did you learn from Motorcycle Therapy
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: that you did differently for the next I.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Learned almost nothing. I honestly thought, Okay, now I've written
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: a book, the next book will be easier, and I
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: know how to do this. As it turns out, every
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: stage of the writing and publishing process is the most
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: difficult stage, Like the starting is the hardest thing, and
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: the continuing then that becomes the hardest thing, and on
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: and on and on until finally you're exhausted and you
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: hand it off to a publisher or to an editor,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: and then selling it becomes the difficult thing. So it's
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: really a labor of love more than anything else. They
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: say of mountaineering that the most important tool that a
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: mountaineer has in his toolkit or her toolkit is a
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: short term memory, because you forget all the suffering. And
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: I would say the same applies to writing. If you
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: want to do it well. I did want to do
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: it well. I'd always want to do like every story
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: that I tell I want to make it the best
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I can.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Were you taking notes diary style in the evening because
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: obviously you're writing and you're having these experiences, so how
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: are you getting those onto paper so vividly?
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: If you see my journals, like if you look at
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: my and sometimes I'm typing them on my computer and
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: sometimes I'm scribbling them in a notebook, but if you
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: read them, they're almost unreadable, like They're just things that
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I jot down to trigger my memory when I go
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: back to them later if I have time, then I'll
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: sit down and i'll write a proper journal entry. And
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: then sometimes I'll get like way behind and I'll have
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: to catch up ten days, and then it will just
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: be bullet points, lots of swearing and lots of spelling
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: mistakes and scribbles. And then I try to be better
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: going forward.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: And He'll jot down stuff along the way, like a
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: thought in his head that he wants to preserve and
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: save for later. So I think more capturing the feeling
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: and then constantly coming back to me asking where were
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: we and what date was that and what country was that?
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: And so I keep the data.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've also got like a little notebook, like you say,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: and sometimes I'll just jot down a phrase or a
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: funny sign or something like that, and it's really just
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: about triggering the memory or a direct quote. Elle has
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: some strange quotes that I've written down.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: How did it differ between self publishing and working with
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a publisher, Because I know that a lot of Overliners
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: have gone both roots or either one. Some are only
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: publishing themselves or some are only with publishers. So what
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was that difference?
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Like, like, self publishing is I think, very difficult if
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: you want to do it well. So it's just a
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: lot more dedication, I guess, and you have to really Yeah,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: it's just it's determination. You've got to really see it
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: through and if you ever decide that you are done
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: with it. The problem with self publishing is you can
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: just publish it and maybe it's not good enough yet.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: So that's why I hired an editor for Motorcycle Therapy,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: and they helped me rewrite the whole thing. They helped
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: me find a story, like I had a bunch of
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: things that happened. They helped me find the thread. They
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: didn't write it for me, but they gave me some guidance.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: They said, I like this, I'd like to see more
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: of this. You can ditch this section. And then so
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I rewrote it again. And that would be my advice
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: to anybody who wants to self publish is spend the
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: money and hire an editor. Not your friend, not your
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: English teacher, not somebody that you know, but like a
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: professional who will give you good and sometimes difficult advice.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: With a publisher. Rocky Mountain Books was very good to me,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: and I'm grateful for everything they did. They were the
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: ones who after I also hired a publisher and I
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: had it basically ready to go to self publish, and
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: then I handed it off to them and they liked
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: what they saw, and then they helped me shape it
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: even more. But then I could relax a little bit too,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: because once they had the manuscript, then I knew that
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: the copy editing was going to be done, I knew
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: the layout was going to be done, I knew the
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: artwork was going to be done. Just took a lot
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: off of my plate. And they also did a great
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: job with distribution, which as a self published author, distribution
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: is often the problem. So you can find copies of
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Through Dust and Darkness in bookstores all over Canada. If
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: you can't find it there, you could ask them to
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: get it in and they can't. And I think motorcycle
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: therapy as well. But if you self publish, then it
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: becomes more difficult to get books into the hands of readers, right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they have a machine that is a publicity machine
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: with connections and email lists and things like that that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you don't necessarily always have access to as a self publisher.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that makes sense, and they say the book
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: stops selling when the author does, so. I think that's
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: also part of the reason that I started the YouTube channel,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: to be honest, was to just be like, check out
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: my books, right, Yeah, and they're actually still doing well,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: so I'm happy. It's it's difficult, not that I'm complaining,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: because it's all something that I've chosen, but don't expect,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: you know, I never did expect and I wouldn't expect
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: going forward to make any money doing this.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about budget a little bit. That's always
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the question that everybody asks. I'm sure you have experienced
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: this where people are really curious about, you know, how
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: can you just leave your home or your job or
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: whatever for long periods of time and travel And motorcycle
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: travel is a really great way to travel in a budget.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: From what I've seen, and I haven't done it myself yet, I.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Think it really depends how you travel. It can be
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: done quite cheaply, and it can be done quite expensively too,
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: And I think with two two of us on motorcycles,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: two different bikes, two different gas tanks to fill, I'm
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: not sure that it is cheaper. I think if we
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: had been in a small four reel vehicle. I think
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: it would have been cheaper on gas every time we
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: cross a border and pay for all the temporary vehicle
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: import permits every time, and insurance and registration and things like.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: That, but would have been too hard in our relationship.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we wouldn't have come back together. Probably. But when
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: I first went to Panamon back, I was gone for
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: six months, and that was my plan, was to avoid
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: a Canadian winter, So I left when the snow came
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: and I didn't come back till the snow melted. So
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: six months I budget and that was more than a
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: decade ago now, so prices have increased somewhat, but I
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: budgeted ten thousand dollars. I don't think I could live
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: in Canada for six months for ten thousand dollars.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: So it depends what.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: You're doing and how you're living, if you're in your
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: tent a lot, if you're staying in local places, or
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: if you're staying in five star hotels, and where you're eating.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: I stayed in Nicaragua at a home stay for a month,
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: took some Spanish lessons, did some volunteering. I lived for
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: a whole month on two hundred Canadian dollars because I
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: had room and board included with my state and when
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: I did volunteering. So if you want to do it cheap,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: it's possible. Nowadays, I think I would have a higher budget.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Can see what the whole budget was for a whole year.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Sure, h.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: I think our whole budget for entire well thirteen months
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: was thirty thousand dollars each.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: Each Canadian dolliion dollars.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what that included. Getting stuck in Uruguay
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: for five months and then having to ship our motorcycles home,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: which we weren't budgeting for.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: We then went over.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but that includes like new tires, new brakes, a
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: couple oil changes, maybe chain and sprockets along the way.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Now that sounds like a lot of money, and
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: it is. But again, like living in Canada for an
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: entire year, I don't think, I mean, it'd be tough
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: to do that for thirty thousand dollars. Right now people
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: screaming at the podcast saying I can do it for cheaper. Yeah, definitely, Oh, definitely.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Ed March he's a good friend of mine. He can
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: travel around the world on something like ten dollars.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: A day or probably if anyone could ed March could.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah I can't. I mean maybe I could. I don't
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: think I could, though.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: And age, I think is a factor to the older
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: I get, the less I want to be uncomfortable. Oh yeah,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: and sleeping in the dirt on an uncomfortable mattress every night.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I'm usually the one pushing for like a hostel or
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: a hotel, but I have noticed that as we're both aging,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Alle much more gracefully than me, that it's easier to
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: push her in the hostel. We can sleep in the ditch,
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: But wouldn't you rather.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: Have a hot shower in a real bed.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are also experiencing that too. It's so nice
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: to have that hot shower and those comforts in life.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We just did a short three week kind of
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: adventure in February. We flew to Ecuador and we rented
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: a motorcycle, and then our friend loaned us some motorcycles,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: so we had two bikes. And we always state we
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: didn't have our camping.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: Gears, so we didn't have tents and everything with.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Us always stayed in places by our standards, were even
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: a bit upscale.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: A couple of times.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was so nice. Yeah, just so much nicer.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: And that's the other side of it. Like we loved
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: taking a year off, and I'd love to go again
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: for a year. I'd love to go for multiple years,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: but financially, I have to come back and work. Yeah,
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: and so this is what we're stuck with now is
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: three weeks vacation is what we're allowed at our jobs.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: Jeremy gets four weeks, and so we took three weeks.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: We flew to Ecuador. We had some people we met there,
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: so we knew we had a place to stay in
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: a bike to borrow, but it still cost quite a
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: bit to fly, to rent a second bike, to stay
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: in places where we didn't have tents. And now hopefully
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: we're saving a little bit more every year in order
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: to go again for a year some day sometime. But
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: we're paying for that. We have roommates, we don't go
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: out very often. We're being quite frugal, that's right.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And my YouTube channel is now beginning to pay for
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: the trips.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so it's such a great income.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: I'm making thirty three cents a day, perfect, every day,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: every day, thirty thirty three cents. Just rolls in. I'm
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: curious about your budget, Like you're about to continue this
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: big trip that you're on, and yeah, since we've broached
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: the subject, how are you doing it?
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be very interesting to see what
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the difference is like. Because we did our first Pan
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: American trip in our nineteen ninety Toyota pickup back there.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: That was how much was that seventy five bucks a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: day for Mexico Central and South America over eighteen.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Months inclusive for both of these of you. That's pretty good.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: That's great reading shipping home or shipping across the right.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: So it'd be more, obviously, but I thought we that
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: was a pretty good, pretty good job during that time.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Doing something similar in North America would have been around
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars a day easily.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and emidation day.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Things are more expensive now we have so we're taking
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: our two thousand and eight tundra and a camper to Europe.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: So we're both like, oh my gosh, this should be
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: interesting with budget, and you know, Europe's supposed to be expensive.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much more expensive it is in
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Canada or the US, because I would say the US
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: portion hasn't wasn't inexpensive.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: It's fuel in Europe, It's totally.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: So we'll try to move really really slow, stay in
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: places a long time, don't.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: Go to Scandinavia, or if you go to Scandinavia, just
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: realize you're going to blow your budget totally.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Yep, there's that, and then we are really really really
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: fortunate that we have transitioned our work to things that
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: we can do on the road.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if you can make money while you're traveling, Yeah,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: it's a big difference.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: My editorial duties and writing articles and Richard's filming, so
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: all those things we can do. So it should be
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: it's different than the last trip. Last trip we were
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: just out quit everything, and there's a different mindset in that.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: For sure, you're just free. You're doing the thing that's
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the way, but you're free and tell right that end
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: how the money runs out. And then that's a sad
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: feeling that post trip. I'm gonna call it post trip depression.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: That's a real thing because I have experienced it also,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people I've talked to have had
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a hard time with it. So let yeah to share
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: your experience if you want, I.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Would say that I've experienced it often and it always
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: catches me off guard, like I think that I, Oh,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't have it this time, and then like eighteen
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: months after I'm home it hits or I never I
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: never see it coming.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: I think that was part of what I was going
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: to say, is we talked about it because we've both
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: been familiar with it. We've both experienced it before, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: so this time we said, oh, yeah, that's a thing.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: But we're aware of it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: We're familiar with it, so it won't be an issue.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: It still happens. Being aware of it doesn't stop it
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: from happening. It still comes. And for me winter like
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: in Canada, when we have the darker nights and the
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: less hours of daylight and the cold temperatures where I
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: just don't even go outside sometimes for a whole day,
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: it's it can be pretty depressing.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: It's brutal here. And also the mountains are some of
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: my favorite in the world, like Canmore is one of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: my favorite places on the planet that I've been to.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: But having those really steep mountains, yeah, and you only
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: get yeah, yeah, you only get it sometimes a shockingly
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: low amount of sunlight per day.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: One of the worst places in the world, I think,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: is just up the road here in the field. So
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Field is beautiful. It's just across the BC border. But
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: the mountains are so high and the canyon is so
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: narrow that in the winter time, I don't even know
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: if he I don't even know if the sun crests
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: the hill.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So how did you work through that time period?
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: I remember watching some YouTubers who were traveling as I
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: was getting ready for my first twenty thirteen trip. Followed
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: them and stayed in touch with them, and met up
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: with them at the same place where I first met
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Jeremy and yelled at him. When I finished my trip
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: and came back, I was like, ugh, this feels awful.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: I don't want to go back to work. I don't
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: want to pack my motorcycle away for the winter. This
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: is a horrible feeling. And she wrote to me and
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: she said said, now you know what you're working for.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: And I hung on to that. That was good. I
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: was like, yeah, so every day that I'm going to
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: work and thinking, oh, I don't want to go to
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: work today. Oh yeah, but if I save my money,
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: this is what's going to get me back to where
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: I want to be. And one of the things that
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: we did after this trip was Jeremy just offhand mentioned
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: where are we going to go? And when can we
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: take time to go for a year again. We need
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: to redo South America because we didn't get to finish it,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: we only got halfway. We need to do that again.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: But when can we do it, and how can we
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: do it? And how much money do you think? And
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: we just kind of tossed a number in the air
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: and said, what if we had fifty thousand dollars, how
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: long you think it would take us to save that much?
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: What if we could do that by twenty twenty six?
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: And so I grabbed a felt marker and I wrote
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: it twenty twenty six, fifty thousand dollars. And that's still
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: on the whiteboard today. So you can look at that
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: every once in a while when you're like, I.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Don't want to go to work today.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure, Yeah, that's what I'm working for.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get fired before that. Well,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: so maybe we can go even sooner. And I think
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: I think I kind of handle winter a little bit better,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: yeah than Nill. I know, I'm outside all the time
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: and sometimes it's minus thirty. I still ride my bike
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: to work every day. Yeah, well it's like seven minutes away. Bicycle, bicycle,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: yeah yeah, bicycle. Yeah, so seven minutes and minus thirty
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: is still bad, but it's on an ice sheet. Yeah,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: I've got studded tires like this. Yeah. But I think
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: me having a somewhat active job is helpful. And then
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: when I come home and it's like it's dark when
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: I go to work and it's dark when I come home.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: But having these videos to make was helpful. I think,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: just some creative project that I like to do.
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: I watch them all the time. Jeremy comes home and
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: he finds me watching YouTube, but he's like, oh, what
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: are you watching? Oh you're watching us, And I'm like, yeah,
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: can you believe we were there? Like Ecuador was just
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: a month ago, and it feels like did that really
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: happen or was that just a dream? Or were we
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: talking about that or did we really do that? So
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: I love that we've got these tangible videos that I
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: can look back on and go, yeah, that happened.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So great because you forget so much so quickly.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about Through Dust and Darkness
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: because there was a very specific reason why you went
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: on this trip to the specific area of the world.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: So I was raised in a very closed off, kind
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: of insular, conservative Christian place, so I was I say
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: in the book that I was given all of the
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: answers before I had any questions. It kind of started
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: didn't really fit with me that worldview. After I left
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: home and started poking around the world, and my thought
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: was that I wanted to go to an entirely different
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: worldview and examine religion from a different perspective. So I
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: went to Iran, which was at the time, I think
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: George W. Bush was making noise about, you know, their
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: nuclear program, and it looked like war was not an impossibility.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: And I wanted to go see this country because I'd
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: heard so many beautiful, wonderful, glowing reports about it. But
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: I also wanted to look at religion from a totally
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: different vantage point. So that's what I did. You know,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: it sounds like I'm talking about religion quite a bit,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: but I still don't consider it a religious book. It's
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: at heart a motorcycle journey, and for me it was
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: a kind of a journey of discovery. It was helpful
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: and you know ultimately now at this stage in my life,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: religion doesn't really hold much of a place for me anymore.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I've kind of, i think, moved past it. But it
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: was helpful for me to go and just kind of
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: have my foundation kind of shaken a little bit. It's
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: easy to look at another culture or another religion, or
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: someone with different religious beliefs and to see it with
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: all of its blemishes and its flaws, and maybe even
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: look at a certain set of ideas and think that
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: they're ridiculous. But it's hard to look at your own
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: sets of ideas and be critical and really examine them openly.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: So that's what that trip did for me.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: That's pretty powerful.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a difficult journey, not only the motorcycle
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: getting it there and getting through all these countries, through
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Syria and Iran. I didn't actually get my motorcycle into
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Iran spoiler alert, but I did travel there. Yeah, I
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: would say it was a trip to change my life.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: I would say in a positive way. My mum would
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: say in a negative way. She's still praying for my
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: soul probably right now this podcast.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks Mom, shout out.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: But again, I don't like to think of it as
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: a religious book. It was just me kind of examining
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: the presuppositions that I had and my background and my
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: upbringing and coming away I think with the broader view
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: of the world. It's all thanks to motorcycles and the
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: k l R six fifth.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, I would agree. Oh good, agree
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, really interesting. Thank you to follow with
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: you on the journey and see what you were thinking
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: and how it was changing, and what you were observing,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and the experiences that you had and meeting different people,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and oh yeah, it was really interesting.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Well, actually, I think that's partly why I haven't written
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: another book, was because Through dustin Darkness really took a
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: lot out of me. My opinions and my beliefs about
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the world and myself and where I saw myself in
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: the world. They were shifting as I was writing the book.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: So there was a few times I actually I actually
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: stopped writing and I said, that's it. It's not a book.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: It's a series of short stories. I'm going to sell
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: some of them to magazines, which I did, and no book.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: And then I went back to the Middle East, which
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: is not in the book. It was after the Civil
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: war was kicking off in Syria. I went to Syria
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: and I was doing some work for the Toronto Star.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: Kind of a long story, but I got arrested and
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: then kicked out of the country and then ended up
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: back in Canada. And then that's when I was kind
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: of depleted emotionally. I picked up the book again and
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: after sending it to my friend Mark Richardson, who's a
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: dear friend of mine, a good writer and editor, he
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: went through it basically said you can finish this in
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: six months, but you have to commit to it. And
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: I did. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Was it the kind of vulnerability and the difficulty of
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: going through those changes that was really hard? Plus the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: writing that was hard? Or was it just everything together?
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: It was everything together? Like I laid myself bare in
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: this book. There's a few passages that I don't think
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: that I could have been more vulnerable, and so that
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: was difficult to put down because I had to first
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: be honest with myself and then I had to decide
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: that I was going to let other people see that
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: side of me, and that was no easy feat. You know, again,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: I don't want to ruin the ending, but it's not
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: a pro or. It's not a book that rails against
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: religion or faith. It's not a book that embraces it either.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: It's just me going through the journey. I think if
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: I wrote that book now, it would have a much
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: different conclusion. I think I would be more decisive in
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: how I finished the book. This book leaves a little
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: bit of mystery at the end. I would say, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: I did have an encounter with something bigger than me
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: that was unseen, and that happened in Iran. And that
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: again is open to interpretation as to what that was.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: If that was God speaking to me, or if it
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: was just my own anxiety. The reader can make up
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: their own mind. I know what I think happened. But
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: it was a difficult book to write. Ill didn't like
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: it as much as she liked my first one, which
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: is just me talking about rice and eggs in Central America.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: The first one is funnier.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the first book is funnier, it's quicker, it's an
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: easier read. And then this through Dust and Darkness. I
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: do think it's a better book. It's got more substance,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: and it was difficult to write. Some people read the
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: back cover, I think, and they're turned. They might be
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: a little hesitant to pick it up because it doesn't
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: mention religion, right, But as I say in the book,
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: you can't you know, you can't go to Iran and
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: write about it. You know, if you try to write
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: about it without mentioning God or religion, it's like trying
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: to sail around the world without writing about the ocean. Yeah,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: religion and religious belief is everywhere in the Middle East.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I haven't been to Iran, but from what I
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: know of the area, it's infused into.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: The daily life, even the language. You can't speak Arabic
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: without Probably somebody's going to be listening to this and
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: say that this is incorrect, But I believe it's difficult
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: to speak Arabic without using religious terminology, and it's very
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: influential religion in the Middle East.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Would you go back to Iran.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: In a heartbeat love?
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Would you go?
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: I would go, sure, yeah, if we can get in Yeah, yeah.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Well when I went, it was actually more difficult for
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Canadians to get in than it was for Americans. And
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: I actually met a Canadian in Iran that had a
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: stamp in her passport from Israel. Everybody says that's impossible,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: but I saw it with my own eyes. Yeah, she apparently.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: I don't think she was anyway. She flirted with a
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: border guard. I don't think she did anything inappropriate beyond that,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: but somehow she got in.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Wow. I was going to ask you about you mentioned
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Earli that there's a good community of female motorcyclists. Have
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you seen that change? Is it growing or is it
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: tell me more.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: About that generally, I do think it's growing. I teach
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: in Calgary in summertime. Of course, on the weekends, I
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: teach motorcycle school for brand new riders. I learn a
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: little bit of statistics through that, and there's talk about
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: generally in probably this is a North American statistic about
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: eighteen percent getting close to twenty percent of riders or women.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: I think that number would be higher if we had
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: bikes and gear that was more comfortable and more purpose
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: built for women. Some people worry when I go on
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: rants like this. I'm not trying to be an angry feminist.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: I think that if I owned a company that built
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: motorcycles and I knew that ninety or eighty percent of
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: the people buying them were going to be men, I
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: would target it to fit their bodies. The problem is
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: not just seat height. We've looked at grip strength and
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: all kinds of differences in women's bodies. Having some adjustments
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: to those bikes is I think making it better. And
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: there's a few there's a few that are not just girls'
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: bikes but have some adjustability to them, like levers that
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: you can adjust, and seat height is getting a little
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: bit more customized on some bikes now, which makes a difference.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: And you can walk into a store and not just
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: find pink gear that is for women. So that's getting better.
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: And I think that if you feel like you belong
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: and you don't have to walk into a store and
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: feel like, oh, if nothing in here fits me, maybe
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: I'm not meant to be here. If you don't keep
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: getting that feeling every time you go to a class
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: or a motorcycle shop or a gear store, then hopefully
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: more women will get into it as well. I think
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: I was just stubborn. I just wore men's gear and
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: it didn't stop me from riding a bike, and I
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: just picked a smaller bike to begin with. But at
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: the Overland event in Oxford, Am I saying it right? Yeah?
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: There was so many women there so many who had
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: been doing this way longer, and I ever was way longer,
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: since before I was born. I mean, look at women
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: like Elsbeth Beard, who went around the world on her motorbike,
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: and she tried to get sponsors, and she tried to
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: write articles, and there just wasn't people willing to publish
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: it and take it and support her. Now there are
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: now people are like, you did what you did? That?
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: When holy cow, that's amazing. Why isn't there a book
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: written about it? Why isn't there a website dedicated to that?
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: Why isn't there a YouTube channel? Well, because people at
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: that time weren't interested in what women were doing. There's
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: the two sisters or the mom and daughter couple who
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: rode across the United States Van Buren, Yeah, the Van
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Buren sisters. Like this is back when there weren't roads.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: There were motorcycles with headlights that were actual flames. You
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: had to stop and light it when it got dark out.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: And they wrote and what happened. Did they get applauded,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: did they get supported, did they get offered sponsorship? They
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: got arrested for wearing men's clothing. Come on, there's a
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: lot less reason distance nowadays, which is great, so I
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: get to see some of these women. Like in Oxford
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: there was a lot of women Women's International Motorcycling Association
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: members who have fabulous experience and stories to tell that
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: are just coming out now.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: Well here you got a shout out lowest price and yes,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Tiffany Coats, yes, and Antonia Ballingbrook Kent Yes, And I'm
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: forgetting a bunch of them. But there are books written
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: by women riders and they have done adventures like Tiffany Coats.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to ride with her. Like Tiffany, I
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: love you, but yeah, she would lead me in the mud.
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah we did ride with her, but we followed on pavements,
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: a gentle nice easy days riding. Yeah, for sure, I
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: wouldn't keep up with her at off road.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: There's a story about two women that across the Sahara
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in a motorcycle and a sidecar. I can't remember the year.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I'll have to send it to you guys. It was
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: probably one of the most intense travelogs I've ever read,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Getting stuck motorcycle and side through the sand. It was
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: in incredible, incredible, So lots of cool stories out there.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I have a special affinity and interest in women's historical
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: overland trips, so I can totally identify with that.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: Motorcycle Messengers too, actually has a lot of female writers
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: in there, so that's a good place to kind of
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: sample he's out there for writing perfect.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: There are a couple of questions that we asked during
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: every podcast, and I'm stealing Scott Brady's question, which is
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: what is your favorite book and why?
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: Favorite book?
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Favorite book?
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: I know what you're going to say.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: No, you don't. I don't. I don't know what I'm
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: going to say.
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: You go ahead, you're going to say, Ted Simon, Jupiter's Travels,
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: travel book.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Doesn't have to be doesn't have to be traveling. Oh okay, okay, okay,
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: So I will say yes, Ted Simon, thank you for
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: writing Jupiter's Travels. With all the respect, mister Simon, that's
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: not my all time favorite book. I would say that
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: maybe is then in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: something by Hemingway, probably a fair one to Arms. I'm
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: going to go with a farewell to arms. I'm going
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: to throw a curve ball. It's got nothing to do
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: with motorcycles. Yeah, he Hemingway inspired me in many ways
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: to improve my writing.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Hmmm. He has a very interesting style because it's kind
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: of it seems simple, but it's really effective.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: And that one is about his time in Spain. Is
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: that right?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: That's right?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah? What is it about that book that you really liked? Well?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: I think that was the first Hemingway book that I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: ever read, so I think it really impacted me more
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: than his other works. It was just what he could
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: do with very simple sentences and very simple terminology. And
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: I also love Tom Robbins as a writer, and he
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: is the polar opposite of Hemingway. He is very uses
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: giant words. I've got to sit there with the dictionary
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: by my side and like, look up every you know,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: every other word. But yeah, I'm going to go with
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the farewell to arms, and I know that as soon
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: as this podcast is over, I'm going to go, oh,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: I should have said.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: This or that.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking as you were talking, and like, I can't
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: pull up one. I can't pull up one. I think
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: it's really hard to pick one.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: It's like your favorite movie, favorite movie.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: I think for me though, one of the definitely top ones.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: I'm going to say my lowest price. I was going
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: to say, this is my chance to do hear some
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: points right and name one of your books. Definitely Motorcycle Therapys,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: for sure. I have reread it, and I don't do
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: that very often with a lot of books, but Motorcycle Travel,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: I think Lowest Price has to be up there in
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: the top. She's got a great writing style and it
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: keeps me engaged, not just because of it being a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: motorcycle travel book, but her writing style in general.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the history that's woven through and her storytelling ability,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it's great. I can't wait to have around
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: the podcast.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Well, where can people find you two on the interwebs?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah? So online, I would say, if you want to
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: see our videos, just go to YouTube and look up
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Jeremy Craiker. It's k R E K E R. So
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: that's partly why I started that YouTube channel, was just
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: to teach people how to pronounce my last names. It's
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: difficult to spell. It's Jeremy Craker.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: It's Jeremy's channel. But there's lots of me on there.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: He loves to keep the camera on me, even when
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: I don't always know.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that my online presence is a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: bit broader because I've been working at promoting books and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. But I'll bet you if you'd search
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: el West on YouTube, which is easier to spell.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: It would take it to Jeremy's channel.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all right.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: You also have a website, and do you have any
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: social media handles that you want to share where people
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: can find you.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: It's all Jeremy Craaker based, so Jeremycreaker dot com. My
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Twitter handle is Jeremy underscore Quaker. I think that's my
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: Instagram as well, Jeremy Underscore Creaker.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sensing a theme.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's a very Also, if you search motorcycle therapy,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of those things pop up as well.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: chat with me. I feel like we could chat forever
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: talking about this stuff, and it's been really wonderful to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: listen and learn more about all of your adventures. And
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to seeing where the next trip
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: both of you. Thank you, it would be really exciting.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: I want to answer one of Richard's questions because it
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: was great and I didn't get a chance to tee
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: it off. If anyone's looking for the books, Richard, thanks
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: for asking. The best place to start is go to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: your local independent bookstore and they can get it in
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: if you ask for them by name. And if they can't,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: then you can shop online. But support your local independent
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: bookstore super important. Yeah, we've got a great one here
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: in Canmore called Cafe Books.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Well it's excellent. Yeah, I really like it. Yeah, I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: love that place. Well, thank you guys again, and thank
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you so much to the Overland Journal podcast listeners for
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: taking the time to tune in today and we will
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: catch you next time.