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Overlanding West Virginia with Jason Specht · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the overland journ podcast.
0:08
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with Jason Speck. Now,
0:12
Speaker 2: Jason has been in this industry for a very long time.
0:15
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed watching his videos. They've done trips around the country,
0:20
Speaker 2: but they really specialize in the East Coast and West
0:24
Speaker 2: Virginia in particular. And I am having a great time
0:27
Speaker 2: right now at Camp Cheat. So this is a historic lodge,
0:31
Speaker 2: and Jason's going to tell us all about this incredible
0:34
Speaker 2: story of people like Henry Ford and Edison going out
0:38
Speaker 2: and overlanding in the early nineteen hundred. So, Jason, thanks
0:42
Speaker 2: so much for being on the podcast today.
0:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Scott, thanks for having us.
0:46
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0:50
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2:00
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk through a little bit of your backstory.
2:03
Speaker 2: I mean I've known you, we've met a few times
2:06
Speaker 2: in the past, but I don't know your whole story.
2:08
Speaker 2: So what first got you interested in the outdoors?
2:11
Speaker 3: Oh? Wow, the outdoors? You know, I grew up you know,
2:15
Speaker 3: playing in the woods behind the house, sure, building forts,
2:18
Speaker 3: just like most kids in rural America if they have
2:21
Speaker 3: woods and forests in their backyards. But was a boy
2:25
Speaker 3: scout and eagle scout. I would say that that propelled
2:28
Speaker 3: me into with the wilderness and backpacking, and that's kind
2:32
Speaker 3: of where everything started. Was you know, what can we
2:35
Speaker 3: do human power pursuits, fell in love with whitewater and
2:39
Speaker 3: you know, hiking, and slowly it kind of adapted that
2:41
Speaker 3: into you know, using my vehicle to keep myself places,
2:45
Speaker 3: and that's kind of where it all started as a team,
2:49
Speaker 3: you know, and the whole Mountain State Overland project that
2:53
Speaker 3: started on the banks of a river in West Virginia
2:56
Speaker 3: and us reflecting on you know, other people that were
2:59
Speaker 3: you know, showcasing this overland lifestyle and this hobby. So
3:04
Speaker 3: that was really the drive with outdoor recreation has been
3:07
Speaker 3: a big part of my life.
3:09
Speaker 2: The Boy Scout thing is I mean I was in
3:11
Speaker 2: the Boy Scout for a small period of time and
3:14
Speaker 2: I just remember learning a lot from that. I remember
3:16
Speaker 2: going to Catalina Island, and you know, I think as
3:19
Speaker 2: a young as a young man, it's really important or
3:22
Speaker 2: as a young boy in many cases when you kind
3:24
Speaker 2: of get started into it, but it's just such an
3:27
Speaker 2: important time of your life to be outdoors, to learn skills,
3:31
Speaker 2: to work, to learn to work as a team.
3:34
Speaker 1: You know.
3:34
Speaker 2: I grew up in Los Angeles. I was in the city,
3:36
Speaker 2: so to be able to go with my dad out
3:39
Speaker 2: on a Scout trip and learn something or or just
3:42
Speaker 2: to be a little uncomfortable, I think is important. What
3:45
Speaker 2: would you say or some of the things that the
3:47
Speaker 2: Scouts taught you that you've brought throughout your whole life.
3:53
Speaker 3: I think it just opened up a world of opportunities
3:57
Speaker 3: for me in general preparess, Like I mean, just you know,
4:02
Speaker 3: the motto is like be prepared. You know, it built confidence,
4:08
Speaker 3: It built no how you know, everything from you know,
4:11
Speaker 3: starting a fire to properly packing your backpack so you
4:14
Speaker 3: can you know, lug the weight over twenty thirty forty miles. Right,
4:19
Speaker 3: So those simple things understanding equipment, talk about equipment, I
4:23
Speaker 3: mean we talk about that with overlanding. The options are endless, right,
4:26
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, it really opened me
4:29
Speaker 3: up to being comfortable. Generally, there was merit badges about everything,
4:34
Speaker 3: some things you didn't want to learn about the project itself,
4:37
Speaker 3: for you know, Eagle was very time consuming. We run
4:41
Speaker 3: to the gun under stress, like right before my eighteenth birthday.
4:45
Speaker 3: I remember all that very vividly, But more importantly, I
4:49
Speaker 3: think just general preparedness.
4:51
Speaker 2: Was there a favorite Mary badge that you got, one
4:54
Speaker 2: that you look back and like that was cool?
4:56
Speaker 1: I know, my least favorite let's do that.
4:58
Speaker 3: It was personal finance. I think that's still my weak
5:02
Speaker 3: point today.
5:03
Speaker 1: That's fair.
5:06
Speaker 3: I don't know really what would have been my favorite.
5:09
Speaker 3: I think the wilderness. As we start talking about Camp
5:12
Speaker 3: Cheete here, we've got our friend Rick Stowe's out with
5:16
Speaker 3: our guests right now. They're foraging, you know, through the
5:19
Speaker 3: wilderness and he's teaching them, you know, how to build
5:22
Speaker 3: a bow and drill and you know, how to start
5:24
Speaker 3: a fire with flint, you know, and that that experience.
5:29
Speaker 3: I was actually watching Rick and thinking like it was
5:31
Speaker 3: so cool when I was a scout and I was
5:33
Speaker 3: doing wilderness survival and they just stuck us out in
5:36
Speaker 3: the woods with a box of matches and they said,
5:38
Speaker 3: we'll come check on you guys in the morning. Good night.
5:40
Speaker 1: Wow.
5:41
Speaker 3: So we had to build our own little fort and
5:43
Speaker 3: we had like a one of those sleeping sacks or whatever,
5:46
Speaker 3: you know, the emergency blankets, right. But I was like, yeah,
5:49
Speaker 3: that was fun because that's what I did as a kid.
5:51
Speaker 3: When we first started talking, it was like we went
5:53
Speaker 3: out and we built forts in the backyard. You know,
5:56
Speaker 3: that's just what we did.
5:57
Speaker 2: So that was my favorite, and I think that, you know,
5:59
Speaker 2: for those that are listening. When you consider the equipment
6:03
Speaker 2: that you've purchased through the years, it's the training and
6:07
Speaker 2: the testing of the stuff in the field that is
6:09
Speaker 2: one of the most important components of it. I think
6:12
Speaker 2: the more that we learn, the less stuff that we
6:14
Speaker 2: actually need to bring. But if you've got a winch
6:18
Speaker 2: on your vehicle, when's the last time that you used it?
6:22
Speaker 2: Not when you're under duress and you're stuck, but like,
6:24
Speaker 2: let's set up a scenario. Yes, I'm going to set
6:28
Speaker 2: up a scenario where we're pretending that the vehicle is
6:32
Speaker 2: stuck and I'm going to pull out all my gear
6:34
Speaker 2: and next thing, you know, like oh shoot, like I
6:36
Speaker 2: remember I.
6:36
Speaker 1: Took that shackle out and I let gim borrow it
6:39
Speaker 1: or whatever.
6:40
Speaker 2: If we use our equipment and we're not using it
6:43
Speaker 2: in anger, we're not using it under duress. When we're
6:47
Speaker 2: using it in a training environment or in a testing condition,
6:50
Speaker 2: that's so important to keep those skills sharp.
6:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like you said, like, what did you get
6:55
Speaker 3: out of scouting that's helped you be where you're at today.
6:58
Speaker 3: It was like feeling comfort about using the equipment, And
7:02
Speaker 3: you know, the winch is a perfect example because everybody
7:04
Speaker 3: feels like they need to have it that when was
7:06
Speaker 3: the last time you spooled it out? It's not packed
7:07
Speaker 3: with mud? Is you're remote? If you have a remote?
7:10
Speaker 3: Is it where is it? Is it charged? Is it
7:12
Speaker 3: ready to go? Is your abrasion guard you know, squashed
7:17
Speaker 3: up in the school like you can't? Can you pull
7:19
Speaker 3: it out? Like all of that stuff because when when
7:22
Speaker 3: things go sideways, you need to be prepared, right, Like,
7:26
Speaker 3: that's the whole idea. So we're constantly, you know, on
7:29
Speaker 3: these trips that we do, we walk our guests through
7:32
Speaker 3: all of that in the beginning and saying like you
7:34
Speaker 3: have all this equipment, let's get your recovery equipment out
7:37
Speaker 3: so it's there when we need it so we can
7:39
Speaker 3: improvise and we can handle this matter and get you
7:42
Speaker 3: out safely and quickly.
7:43
Speaker 2: One of the things I love from this morning with
7:46
Speaker 2: the teaching Rick is doing is all the things that
7:49
Speaker 2: they're using the knives for, Like they're doing notching and
7:52
Speaker 2: they had to go out and get a basically a
7:54
Speaker 2: whittle stick to try a bunch of different techniques. And
7:58
Speaker 2: you know, he talked a lot about safe talked a
8:00
Speaker 2: lot about kind of making sure that there's no one
8:03
Speaker 2: around you that you might accidentally injure, and then how
8:06
Speaker 2: to be really.
8:07
Speaker 1: Careful about not injuring yourself.
8:08
Speaker 2: But you think about at the end of the day today,
8:11
Speaker 2: these people that are we've got about twenty people here, don't.
8:14
Speaker 3: We, Yeah, sixteen guests, and we have six Yes staff members,
8:19
Speaker 3: and then there's actually staff that are cooking dinner for
8:21
Speaker 3: Yes year too.
8:22
Speaker 2: So there's quite a few people that are learning this
8:25
Speaker 2: skill today and they've probably never used their knife in
8:28
Speaker 2: that way. They've opened a lot of Amazon boxes, I'm sure,
8:31
Speaker 2: but like, how many times do we really use our
8:34
Speaker 2: knife to create something? In this case, I saw them creating,
8:38
Speaker 2: you know, kindling for starting a fire. They're learning how
8:42
Speaker 2: to use the blade properly. And that's one of the
8:45
Speaker 2: things when I saw the lineup for this trip, I'm like,
8:48
Speaker 2: that is really cool to be able or even tomorrow,
8:52
Speaker 2: to be able to go out and do some fly fishing.
8:54
Speaker 2: And I'm starting to learn through the years. That's one
8:58
Speaker 2: of the big differences between overlanding in the West and
9:01
Speaker 2: overlanding in the East. I think that you guys in
9:05
Speaker 2: the East do a really great job of incorporating other
9:08
Speaker 2: things into the trip history.
9:12
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I.
9:13
Speaker 2: Remember touring a you know, this is with bowlers up
9:16
Speaker 2: in Vermont, but I remember tour touring a you know,
9:19
Speaker 2: a maple tree, you know, a maple factory, you.
9:22
Speaker 1: Know where they had all the lines coming out of there.
9:26
Speaker 3: Them.
9:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was super amazing. So in your experience, because you've.
9:30
Speaker 2: Done a lot of traveling out west and of course
9:33
Speaker 2: traveling here east a lot, what do you find are
9:36
Speaker 2: the major differences not only in the experience, but in
9:39
Speaker 2: the in the people that are overlanding, in your customers,
9:44
Speaker 2: you find the differences.
9:45
Speaker 3: I think, I think we could talk about a little
9:47
Speaker 3: bit about that and include also, like the difference in
9:51
Speaker 3: the landscape. So we're very fortunate on the East Coast
9:55
Speaker 3: to have lots of moisture. Yeah, so we can have
9:58
Speaker 3: a campfire every night. There are some exceptions, you know
10:01
Speaker 3: at times, and we like to cook over the fire.
10:04
Speaker 3: That's definitely a luxury that we have here. Sure, we
10:07
Speaker 3: have lots of you know, public roads across creeks and
10:09
Speaker 3: streams and things like that, and that's all done responsibly,
10:12
Speaker 3: you know, But as far as people go, I don't think,
10:16
Speaker 3: you know, it's any different. I think I think you
10:20
Speaker 3: have a lot of bigger rigs out west because you've
10:22
Speaker 3: got wide, vast open landscapes.
10:25
Speaker 2: I've noticed that not very many full sized trucks here
10:29
Speaker 2: just because the trails are quite narrow.
10:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are. We have lots of forest roads here
10:33
Speaker 3: in West Virginia, in particular when you get up into
10:36
Speaker 3: Vermont and things like that. As you've experienced, the Class
10:39
Speaker 3: four roads are really tight. But it's not out of
10:42
Speaker 3: the Ordinarrea you have. We've got a tundra out here
10:44
Speaker 3: right now. Two tundra is actually both with ALLUC units
10:48
Speaker 3: on them, so they we've got clearance for it. You know.
10:50
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's trees that are down. It's not uncommon for
10:53
Speaker 3: us to. I think Jerry from Timbo Tusk was on
10:56
Speaker 3: a trip with us two years ago. We were in
11:00
Speaker 3: Utah and he was kind of lasting because we had chainsaws.
11:04
Speaker 3: He's like, I go with people all the time and
11:06
Speaker 3: they got chainsaws and they never use him. I was like,
11:09
Speaker 3: they don't live on these coasts.
11:10
Speaker 1: Yeah sure.
11:11
Speaker 2: Or even in the Pacific Northwest, the amount of trees
11:14
Speaker 2: I've had the winch or cut out of the way
11:17
Speaker 2: in the Pacific Northwest too.
11:19
Speaker 3: Yeah fast, yeah, I mean even on the last trip
11:21
Speaker 3: that we did here in March, we cut down fifteen
11:24
Speaker 3: trees cut out of the way fifteen trees. We didn't
11:27
Speaker 3: cut down fifteen trees, but sure them, you know, in
11:30
Speaker 3: conjunction with winching, you know, winching them out too. So
11:34
Speaker 3: that's that's ordinary for springtime. As we're clearing the path,
11:39
Speaker 3: you know, for other motor vehicle enthusiasts. Side by sides
11:43
Speaker 3: are really big here in West Virginia as well, so
11:46
Speaker 3: we're kind of like kind of forging the way for
11:48
Speaker 3: everybody when we go on some of these tracks so
11:50
Speaker 3: that they can go and they're like, Oh, I don't
11:52
Speaker 3: have to worry about cutting these trees down. Somebody did
11:54
Speaker 3: it for me.
11:54
Speaker 2: One of the things I really enjoyed about the conversations
11:57
Speaker 2: so far is, you know, you've got a lot of
12:00
Speaker 2: very interesting professionals that are here. You know, people that
12:02
Speaker 2: have in some cases very high stakes jobs, or they're
12:06
Speaker 2: working in the government, or you know, they're running their
12:08
Speaker 2: own business, or they're managing finances for entire families. So
12:14
Speaker 2: these people are under a lot of pressure, you can tell.
12:17
Speaker 2: And they're all so relieved to be out of nature
12:21
Speaker 2: right now because they're otherwise they're on a commute in Gridlock.
12:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it was really interesting this morning Ezrick was
12:29
Speaker 3: leading the first bushcraft session and watching all of these
12:35
Speaker 3: grown adults on vacation but in a class setting outside
12:41
Speaker 3: beside a tarp, carving with knives and doing it the
12:44
Speaker 3: right way and just watching and observing, you know, these
12:47
Speaker 3: people being instructed and just loving every minute at that.
12:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
12:50
Speaker 3: And like you said, you know, we get a lot
12:52
Speaker 3: of DC folk. We get a lot of traffic from
12:56
Speaker 3: North Carolina, even New England now too, and in the
13:00
Speaker 3: southeast too, so down Atlanta. We've got some folks from
13:04
Speaker 3: Room Georgia here too, But just a wide variety of
13:08
Speaker 3: like different lifestyles, you know, family scenarios, careers, and that's
13:15
Speaker 3: what's most interesting. You've got a doctor sitting beside, a
13:18
Speaker 3: software engineer sitting beside, an account manager sitting beside you
13:22
Speaker 3: know whoever. And we're in this fantastic three story lodge
13:27
Speaker 3: from the you know, late eighteen hundreds right now. That's amazing.
13:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the history is I mean, just when Jim
13:33
Speaker 2: from OK for World Drive, I'm traveling. For those who
13:36
Speaker 2: are listening, I'm traveling with Jim from OK four WL
13:38
Speaker 2: drive down here from New Jersey, and we drove the
13:41
Speaker 2: Grenadier and stopped at a bunch of these little towns
13:43
Speaker 2: along the way, and you know, you go to get
13:45
Speaker 2: coffee and you walk by an inn from seventeen thirty six.
13:50
Speaker 1: That is cool. Yeah, you know, I live in a
13:52
Speaker 1: very old home.
13:53
Speaker 2: By standards of the West, and it was built in
13:55
Speaker 2: nineteen fourteen, so you know, you know, hundreds of years newer.
14:00
Speaker 2: And it's a very old home in Arizona. But out
14:03
Speaker 2: here it's a pup.
14:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and there's there's We've had this conversation
14:08
Speaker 3: a couple of times, you know, specific to this area
14:11
Speaker 3: West Virginia. I feel like a lot of the rich
14:14
Speaker 3: history is more recent than other states along the East coast,
14:19
Speaker 3: like you would talk about you talk about lumber and
14:21
Speaker 3: coal mining still happening today. You know a lot of that,
14:25
Speaker 3: you know, history on the New River in Thurman, West Virginia,
14:28
Speaker 3: where all the big timbering was done up here in
14:31
Speaker 3: Canaane Valley and stuff like that. That's all very recent,
14:35
Speaker 3: you know, within the last hundred years.
14:36
Speaker 1: Oh.
14:37
Speaker 3: Interesting, this wasn't like two hundred and three hundred years ago.
14:39
Speaker 3: This was it feels like not too far away.
14:44
Speaker 2: Pretty odal an interesting thing for me, and I'm really
14:47
Speaker 2: grateful to be here in West Virginia. My grandfather, my
14:51
Speaker 2: mom's dad, he grew up incredibly poor, and he grew
14:54
Speaker 2: up in West Virginia, like they called it, the West
14:58
Speaker 2: Virginia settlers, like these were. They just didn't have a
15:02
Speaker 2: lot of resources. And his dad died very young, and
15:06
Speaker 2: you know, his mom, his mom couldn't afford to feed him,
15:09
Speaker 2: so she took him into the recruiter's offices as World
15:12
Speaker 2: War two was riffing. She lied about his age. Wow,
15:16
Speaker 2: and off he went because she couldn't afford to feed
15:18
Speaker 2: him anymore. So, you know, I have never had the
15:21
Speaker 2: opportunity to really spend time in West Virginia and think
15:25
Speaker 2: about and I was trying to do some research before
15:28
Speaker 2: I came, like where was my grandpa living? And there
15:31
Speaker 2: wasn't a lot of information. You have a birth certificate,
15:33
Speaker 2: which is why she was able to you know, fib
15:36
Speaker 2: about his age. But pretty incredible the history here, and
15:39
Speaker 2: even that touches my own life and my own family history.
15:42
Speaker 3: Yeah wow.
15:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, they never.
15:44
Speaker 2: Really had a chance to to drive around and check
15:47
Speaker 2: it out.
15:48
Speaker 1: So this is really cool.
15:49
Speaker 3: This is cool. We're glad you're here, man. This is
15:51
Speaker 3: West Virginia is a very special place to me. And
15:54
Speaker 3: you know, we're really focused on community and you know,
15:58
Speaker 3: introducing people to all the opportunity that are here. Yeah,
16:01
Speaker 3: there's en less recreational opportunities here in the state.
16:05
Speaker 2: Well, and you've done a great job of that. You've
16:06
Speaker 2: done a great job of really fostering community. And I've
16:09
Speaker 2: seen you do that through a bunch of ways. You
16:11
Speaker 2: have fantastic videos that you document your adventures in the
16:16
Speaker 2: East and in the West, I mean around the country.
16:19
Speaker 2: But then you hold these events on a regular basis
16:21
Speaker 2: that brings in people and starts to expose them to overlanding.
16:25
Speaker 2: So you've really found a way and that you support
16:28
Speaker 2: sponsors and you help develop product and test product and
16:31
Speaker 2: document it. So you found a way to create a
16:34
Speaker 2: really great business. But one of the things that I
16:36
Speaker 2: was really curious about is if you could think about
16:39
Speaker 2: somebody from the West or somebody who's moving out east,
16:42
Speaker 2: because surprisingly there's a lot more people now moving east
16:45
Speaker 2: from the West because there's more affordable housing. You know,
16:49
Speaker 2: there's great history. You know, you can do a lot
16:52
Speaker 2: of lakes and if you like the water. You know,
16:54
Speaker 2: there's a lot of reasons to move back east. But
16:56
Speaker 2: if you were to give like a top three to
17:00
Speaker 2: and let's take as much time as we need, because
17:02
Speaker 2: I think people listening will find it fascinating. Three to
17:06
Speaker 2: five great trips, I mean just epic overland trips. They
17:10
Speaker 2: don't have to include a bunch of fowel driving, but
17:12
Speaker 2: if they do, that's great.
17:13
Speaker 1: But like, what are your top three to.
17:15
Speaker 2: Five routes along the west or along the East coast
17:19
Speaker 2: that you think are the ones for people to check out?
17:22
Speaker 3: Well, so we have we have a catalog of you know,
17:26
Speaker 3: different routes that we host specific to our guided trips.
17:30
Speaker 3: There's that as a resource. We're always willing to help people. Yeah,
17:33
Speaker 3: you know, if they've got questions.
17:34
Speaker 1: About things and is that on your website.
17:36
Speaker 3: Or we's people will just email us and ask in
17:40
Speaker 3: contact us, ask us questions. You're starting to see things
17:44
Speaker 3: with on X people publishing some routes and locations. You know,
17:48
Speaker 3: a popular location in West Virginia which maybe people know
17:51
Speaker 3: about is Canane Loop in the Canadine Valley area. Hopefully
17:54
Speaker 3: we'll be taking you through there on your visit.
17:56
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that a little bit.
17:57
Speaker 2: Let's tell me about the loop and what do you
17:59
Speaker 2: see along the way and is there disperse camping available
18:03
Speaker 2: those kinds of thing.
18:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so there the Loop road is a public
18:07
Speaker 3: road that starts in Blackwaterfalls State Park and then navigates
18:13
Speaker 3: into National Forest and then ends out, you know, on
18:16
Speaker 3: paved So it's a loop starting from pavement and then
18:19
Speaker 3: ending at pavement, right. So it's a combination of kind
18:23
Speaker 3: of gravel, rough sandstone, blackwater, creeks and springs that you
18:28
Speaker 3: drive through, which is really cool. It's a nice experience.
18:31
Speaker 3: Not anything that's uberly uber technical, okay, but it's beautifulul
18:36
Speaker 3: It feels like you're kind of in a rainforest at times.
18:41
Speaker 3: We have a lot of road drum and Mountain Laurel
18:43
Speaker 3: in the state, so you're constantly like you know, pushing
18:47
Speaker 3: through you know, these this vegetation. Right now, there's actually
18:52
Speaker 3: construction on the upper end of Canane Loop, but there's
18:54
Speaker 3: another road that leads into that. So those two routes,
18:58
Speaker 3: you know, these two roads I'm talking about, I think
19:00
Speaker 3: are available on on X. Yeah. I've been trying to
19:03
Speaker 3: work with the Forest Service and tread lightly to encourage
19:08
Speaker 3: you know on X to actually have them, you know,
19:10
Speaker 3: direct traffic one way so that we can maintain our
19:14
Speaker 3: impact on the land because sometimes you'll run into other vehicles.
19:17
Speaker 3: But you know, you're out in Utah on BLM on
19:20
Speaker 3: some of these tracks and they're really nero. You still
19:23
Speaker 3: got to find a way. Somebody's got to back up,
19:24
Speaker 3: somebody's got to do that. But this area is very
19:28
Speaker 3: sensitive to if you get off trail, you get bogged down,
19:32
Speaker 3: and then those tracks to the yeah, you could do
19:34
Speaker 3: a lot of damage. So we try to constantly advocate that.
19:37
Speaker 3: Whenever we run trips through that area, we break down
19:42
Speaker 3: our group into micro groups, so we don't drive with
19:44
Speaker 3: more than five vehicles on any of our trips. So
19:48
Speaker 3: we break that group down into two or three vehicle groups,
19:52
Speaker 3: and then we stagger them by like thirty minutes, so
19:55
Speaker 3: it gives them an opportunity to pass through in case
19:57
Speaker 3: there's oncoming traffic, sure, and then we segment next groups through.
20:00
Speaker 3: So we we love Gnning Valley, but you know, we're
20:03
Speaker 3: really focused on kind of protecting that. So that's that's
20:06
Speaker 3: a beautiful area. You know, there's endless opportunities in the
20:10
Speaker 3: Spruce and Seneca Rox National Recreation Area. I think there's
20:14
Speaker 3: like three hundred miles of total gravel.
20:16
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe how beautiful those rocks were. I mean,
20:18
Speaker 2: and there was that gym and I stopped there. Yeah, yeah,
20:22
Speaker 2: Jim and I stopped there, and there was this like
20:23
Speaker 2: one hundred year old general store, still run by the
20:26
Speaker 2: same family. I think they were getting ready to prep
20:29
Speaker 2: generation number six to run the store, you know. And
20:32
Speaker 2: they had a cash register in there made out of
20:35
Speaker 2: bronze and brass and metal from like the early nineteen hundreds.
20:39
Speaker 1: It was awesome.
20:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, the creaky wood floor.
20:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was so cool, and it was it looks
20:44
Speaker 2: like it's a really popular place for you know, for
20:47
Speaker 2: rock climbers and people to get out and explore.
20:51
Speaker 1: That's great.
20:51
Speaker 3: Yeah. The Cineca ROX Area is beautiful. And so that
20:55
Speaker 3: area is a in conjunction with the Spruce Recreation Area,
21:01
Speaker 3: so they call it the Spruce Cob Center Rocks National
21:03
Speaker 3: Recreation Area. And then Spruce KNBB is the summit of
21:06
Speaker 3: West Virginia, so it's the highest point in the state.
21:08
Speaker 3: And then once you get on that plateau, there's some
21:12
Speaker 3: sections that you would drive through pasture lands that you'd
21:14
Speaker 3: feel like you were in Ireland.
21:15
Speaker 1: Wow.
21:16
Speaker 3: You know, not too far from from there. And Canaane
21:19
Speaker 3: Valley is Dolly Sod's Wilderness. So we're not talking too
21:22
Speaker 3: much about overlanding routes right now, but the Dolly Sods
21:24
Speaker 3: Wilderness is kind of like an Alaskan tundra landscape as well.
21:28
Speaker 1: Wow.
21:29
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of cool, you know history about
21:32
Speaker 3: how that land became what it was. There's the Minute
21:35
Speaker 3: Lanta BDR which runs through through West Virginia, basically down
21:40
Speaker 3: along the border of Virginia too.
21:43
Speaker 1: How long is that rut?
21:44
Speaker 3: I don't know how long that is. I think that's
21:47
Speaker 3: a couple hundred miles or so. I haven't driven that,
21:49
Speaker 3: but we've been on a lot of those roads. The
21:51
Speaker 3: trans America Trail starts not too far away from here,
21:55
Speaker 3: and we've spent a lot of time on the trans
21:56
Speaker 3: America Trail over the years. So there's good.
22:00
Speaker 2: That's one of the coolest things I've done in my life.
22:01
Speaker 2: I mean, if someone has a chance to because it
22:05
Speaker 2: takes about five or six weeks to do it, even
22:07
Speaker 2: on a motorcycle, you're gonna be on five thousand miles
22:11
Speaker 2: of dirt.
22:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's unbelievable.
22:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, you know, and but there are so
22:17
Speaker 3: specific to this date West Virginia. There are so many
22:22
Speaker 3: roads and places that travel that are earth and service gravel, dirt,
22:27
Speaker 3: and then you know, by chance, a lot of time
22:29
Speaker 3: when we map routes, we find abandoned roads that are
22:33
Speaker 3: very primitive. You know, that's when it gets really fun.
22:36
Speaker 3: I think the most exciting thing for us about overlanding,
22:40
Speaker 3: as we've been doing it since like twenty twelve, twenty
22:42
Speaker 3: thirteen and kind of creating this business is the discovery process,
22:47
Speaker 3: you know. I think people really are excited about, like
22:50
Speaker 3: I want to overland now, I want to build my
22:53
Speaker 3: truck now, and I want to route so I know
22:55
Speaker 3: where to go. For me, overlanding is discovering. It's like
23:00
Speaker 3: building a route using Google pin and two points and
23:03
Speaker 3: finding the windiest backroads you possibly can and then seeing
23:08
Speaker 3: what happens. And then when you get out there and
23:11
Speaker 3: you actually have to put it in four wheel drive,
23:13
Speaker 3: or you have to cut a tree out of the way,
23:15
Speaker 3: or you're scurrying to find a campsite in the middle
23:19
Speaker 3: of the night. Sure, like, that's when it gets really exciting,
23:22
Speaker 3: you know, That's when it's really special. So I try
23:24
Speaker 3: to talk people through that. But you know, there's so
23:27
Speaker 3: many resources out on the internet now, you know, to
23:30
Speaker 3: help you build those routes and those locations or that
23:33
Speaker 3: you want to go. But I try to preach that
23:36
Speaker 3: because that's really what's fun.
23:38
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people that live out east
23:41
Speaker 2: and they're looking for a place to go. I mean,
23:44
Speaker 2: some of our most popular content was that we published
23:48
Speaker 2: a series of routes in Texas and they're just like
23:50
Speaker 2: no one had really put the content out there, you know,
23:53
Speaker 2: And next thing you know, you got like an article.
23:54
Speaker 1: With a million views.
23:56
Speaker 2: It's like, it's just unbelievable how hungry many parts of
24:01
Speaker 2: the country are for these kinds of routes. So it's
24:04
Speaker 2: just not really available. You think about Arizona, there's lots
24:07
Speaker 2: of great documentation in books and there's three different books
24:10
Speaker 2: that cover the same route, whereas here there's just not
24:13
Speaker 2: as much information, so.
24:15
Speaker 3: There's not you know. I remember going to Charleston for
24:19
Speaker 3: the first time to kind of advocate for Adventure Travel,
24:22
Speaker 3: and I was standing up in front of the crowd
24:25
Speaker 3: introducing you know who we were. At Mountain State. It
24:27
Speaker 3: was like two hundred people or something, and I was
24:30
Speaker 3: just like, you know, we love the state so much.
24:32
Speaker 3: We're so happy to get people to come here and explore,
24:36
Speaker 3: you know, the mountain state. And it was just kind
24:38
Speaker 3: of quiet. And then people I didn't know how to
24:41
Speaker 3: take it. Yeah, because these are all locals that like
24:44
Speaker 3: live here, and they're like, yeah, we don't want people
24:48
Speaker 3: to come, not that they not are inhospitable, but they
24:51
Speaker 3: just like, this is our secret. I mean in West
24:55
Speaker 3: Virginia driving the roads, I like to get this from
24:59
Speaker 3: farming out in the brown Like everybody waved it. Everybody
25:02
Speaker 3: when you're driving down the road, lift two fingers off
25:04
Speaker 3: the steering wheel. And that was always like it shows
25:08
Speaker 3: to me that people are welcoming you in their space.
25:11
Speaker 3: And that's what's funny though, you know. I had that
25:13
Speaker 3: experience at the Capitol, but everywhere I go in West Virginia,
25:16
Speaker 3: I always I gauge my environment wherever I go by
25:20
Speaker 3: waving it. People all the time see like what's this
25:22
Speaker 3: place like? Right? So you start waving and people just
25:24
Speaker 3: wave back, and people pull up to the gas station
25:26
Speaker 3: they want to know what your truck's all about, Like
25:29
Speaker 3: where are you going? Where have you been what are
25:31
Speaker 3: you guys doing so you know it's it's fantastic.
25:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I would agree. I mean, so far it's
25:37
Speaker 1: just been beautiful.
25:38
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that we're in a We're going
25:41
Speaker 2: to shift the conversation a little bit towards where we're
25:43
Speaker 2: at now and this story of the vagabonds and everything
25:46
Speaker 2: else like that, but you know, we're in a we're
25:49
Speaker 2: in a lodge cap I mean you can see these
25:51
Speaker 2: rough hewn beams and it was originally a single story
25:56
Speaker 2: and they added on a little bit more to it later,
25:58
Speaker 2: but you can tell even if you look at the
26:00
Speaker 2: outside the fireplace, the chimney stack, I mean the lower
26:06
Speaker 2: bricks or the lower stones, you know, they were producing
26:11
Speaker 2: a totally different way than the upper ones. You could
26:13
Speaker 2: see that they were driving metal steaks and stuff like
26:17
Speaker 2: that into them to chip them off, and totally they
26:19
Speaker 2: look totally different than the higher wild.
26:21
Speaker 1: It's super cool.
26:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what's really cool here too, are some
26:25
Speaker 3: of the size of the logs in this hand heman
26:29
Speaker 3: log lodge. It's definitely not a cabin. Yeah, you know,
26:32
Speaker 3: it's like really big and you can't see it on
26:35
Speaker 3: the video. If you guys are watching but in the
26:39
Speaker 3: dining room area there's a log that's easily two and
26:43
Speaker 3: a half inches or two and a half feet thick. Right,
26:46
Speaker 3: So it's fantastic and so well maintained. I was blown
26:51
Speaker 3: away when I walked in here the first time.
26:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, what an incredible venue.
26:54
Speaker 2: And it's just in the fact that there's room for
26:56
Speaker 2: camping and it's pretty easy to get to, beautiful little
26:59
Speaker 2: drive to get back in here, and you can we
27:02
Speaker 2: could be fly fishing in the morning and having a
27:05
Speaker 2: fire in the evening. But let's talk a little bit
27:08
Speaker 2: about how this what is this trip about? Talk, let's
27:12
Speaker 2: dig into the history. Let's talk about camp cheat and
27:15
Speaker 2: why it's here, and who are some really interesting gentlemen
27:18
Speaker 2: that came and explored here one hundred years ago?
27:21
Speaker 3: Just wow. Yeah, So we we passed this place pretty
27:26
Speaker 3: regularly on our trips, and I've known about it before
27:29
Speaker 3: we really started to do overlanding, and I always thought
27:33
Speaker 3: it'd be cool to have some sort of experience here
27:36
Speaker 3: and bring, you know, a limited group of folks. This
27:39
Speaker 3: is not you know, it only houses twenty three people
27:42
Speaker 3: like that's Yeah, we had heard about this place and
27:47
Speaker 3: when we started kind of thinking about what we could
27:49
Speaker 3: do to create an experience. We have this vision of
27:52
Speaker 3: like multi sport activity in conjunction with overlanding, but having
27:57
Speaker 3: a nice meal to come home to in this epic
28:00
Speaker 3: remote wilderness landscape. But when we started doing in the
28:03
Speaker 3: real research, I knew that there was some very important
28:07
Speaker 3: people in our history and American history that actually came
28:10
Speaker 3: and stayed here. I just didn't know the whole story, right,
28:13
Speaker 3: So it was Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and
28:19
Speaker 3: naturalist John Burrows. Right, So those guys, the story is
28:24
Speaker 3: just amazing. For those such important people in innovation and
28:31
Speaker 3: in the American Industrial Revolution to go camping together in
28:36
Speaker 3: model ts and drive from Dearborn, Michigan for two two
28:40
Speaker 3: and a half three weeks and come down and explore
28:43
Speaker 3: and spend a large portion of their time in West
28:46
Speaker 3: Virginia is pretty cool. And they stayed here so by accident, right,
28:51
Speaker 3: So they were traveling down from Dearborn, they had a
28:55
Speaker 3: vehicle breakdown in Elkins and it was raining and they
28:59
Speaker 3: were just tired of getting rained on. They were dusty
29:01
Speaker 3: and dirty, so they sent some people out with the
29:04
Speaker 3: mayor of Elkins, I believe, and he said, let me
29:07
Speaker 3: take you to this lodge and you guys can check
29:09
Speaker 3: it out, maybe you can stay here. And they came
29:11
Speaker 3: here and saw it and they were like, this is
29:13
Speaker 3: gonna be great, it's gonna be perfect, and they stayed.
29:17
Speaker 3: They ran a very tight schedule, so I don't think
29:19
Speaker 3: they were here much longer than just the day and
29:23
Speaker 3: then left the next morning. But they showered and they
29:26
Speaker 3: they shaved. Even though Thomas Edison didn't want anybody to
29:31
Speaker 3: be cleaned up and he just wanted everybody to grow
29:34
Speaker 3: a long hair and live outside. He was very against
29:36
Speaker 3: you know, people, you know, accepting or embracing the modern
29:41
Speaker 3: luxuries of their time, even though they had batteries and
29:44
Speaker 3: lights of their campsite, which is crazy too. But to
29:47
Speaker 3: be able to come and stay in the same lodge
29:51
Speaker 3: that these guys sat in, and honestly, some of the
29:54
Speaker 3: furniture in here is the same furniture that they sat
29:58
Speaker 3: in him and had a in the same room is
30:03
Speaker 3: super special. And the connection it has with Overlandon.
30:06
Speaker 2: It really does. And they were they were doing that.
30:09
Speaker 2: They were doing the purest form of it, and very
30:12
Speaker 2: very early because that would have that was you know,
30:15
Speaker 2: nineteen yeah.
30:17
Speaker 3: Early nineteen hundred. So this this particular trip that came
30:19
Speaker 3: down here was nineteen eighteen eighteen.
30:21
Speaker 2: I couldn't remember if it was eighteen nineteen eighteen or
30:24
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen.
30:24
Speaker 3: But yeah, their first kind of formal informal trip camping
30:29
Speaker 3: together was I think in nineteen fourteen they went down
30:31
Speaker 3: to the state in the Everglades of all places. Wow,
30:33
Speaker 3: I had to go down to stay in the swamps.
30:36
Speaker 3: Sure in camp now you'd think, wow, that would be
30:38
Speaker 3: really buggy, lots of snakes. But they had a great time.
30:41
Speaker 3: They took their wives, and their wives insisted that they
30:43
Speaker 3: went on every trip after that too, And I think
30:46
Speaker 3: they got away with actually going out with just the guy.
30:49
Speaker 3: Of all the pictures, there's one on the wall right here,
30:51
Speaker 3: it's just the guys staying there. Yeah, so that linked
30:55
Speaker 3: with overlanding, and you know, they in an essence piety
31:00
Speaker 3: motor camping, right, which is.
31:02
Speaker 1: So of the photos are great.
31:04
Speaker 2: You know, they got a tarp set up over the
31:06
Speaker 2: back of the trucks and they got like an improvised campground,
31:09
Speaker 2: and like you said, Edison brought along battery, a battery,
31:13
Speaker 2: and he brought along lights. You know, could you imagine
31:16
Speaker 2: someone here in West Virginia that didn't have power.
31:18
Speaker 3: They probably didn't. I don't think this place had power. Yeah,
31:22
Speaker 3: could you imagine, Yeah, it would have been like, yeah, it.
31:25
Speaker 2: Would have been like something something out of another planet.
31:28
Speaker 3: Well if you saw somebody, because that's what they did.
31:30
Speaker 3: They just found places along the side of the road
31:32
Speaker 3: to camp, or they'd ask permission from a farmer. Sometimes
31:34
Speaker 3: they couldn't because they didn't know who the farmer was sure,
31:37
Speaker 3: so they just set up. And if you were a
31:39
Speaker 3: farmer sitting in your house and you saw lights off
31:41
Speaker 3: in the distance, nobody has lights, and you'd be like,
31:44
Speaker 3: what is going on right now?
31:45
Speaker 2: Could you imagine no, or even just I mean how
31:48
Speaker 2: rare automobiles would have been at that time. Still, Yeah,
31:51
Speaker 2: they were still quite rare at that period of time.
31:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean even my little house in Prescott,
31:56
Speaker 2: you know, was built in nineteen fourteen, and it was
31:58
Speaker 2: built with a stable on it because they're you know,
32:00
Speaker 2: they didn't own a car, so you know, it was
32:04
Speaker 2: well before I mean, it never ended up with a garage,
32:06
Speaker 2: but didn't have a stable.
32:07
Speaker 1: At one point in time.
32:08
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's wild, you know, you know, to think
32:12
Speaker 3: that they took Model t's, They put canopies on the
32:16
Speaker 3: back of them. They equipped one as being a refrigerator truck.
32:20
Speaker 3: They had they had a wardrobe truck, both pull out
32:23
Speaker 3: drawers in cabinets. I think there was a food truck
32:28
Speaker 3: that actually had a tap on the outside of it
32:30
Speaker 3: so you could get water. And you look at all
32:32
Speaker 3: these rigs that we have parked out here, sure they'll
32:35
Speaker 3: have exactly the same thing. And this was it we're talking,
32:38
Speaker 3: you know, early nineteen hundred and nineteen teens, right, So
32:41
Speaker 3: they were that passionate about it, and they had the
32:44
Speaker 3: flexibility and probably the income and you know, be able
32:47
Speaker 3: to do things like that where maybe some some people couldn't,
32:50
Speaker 3: but they it didn't matter. They created it, right.
32:53
Speaker 1: They wanted that experience, They.
32:54
Speaker 3: Wanted that experience. And for those for those four guys
32:59
Speaker 3: to get together put all their self interests, their self
33:02
Speaker 3: their businesses aside and collaborate and work together and create
33:07
Speaker 3: opportunities that would benefit one another. That really says something
33:12
Speaker 3: about what it does to be outside sitting around campfire.
33:16
Speaker 2: And you're seeing your customers doing that right now, right
33:19
Speaker 2: now on this trip. You know, they're all chatting, talking
33:22
Speaker 2: about life, learn learn about each other's businesses, but kind
33:27
Speaker 2: of turning some of that off too.
33:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. So you know you had Harvey Firestone that
33:33
Speaker 3: speaks for cellfire centires right, and Thomas Edison. We know
33:37
Speaker 3: Thomas Edison, we know Henry Ford. And then there was
33:40
Speaker 3: John Burrows and.
33:41
Speaker 2: I don't know much about him, so let's talk a
33:43
Speaker 2: little bit about him.
33:44
Speaker 3: So John Burrows was a nationalist of his time. He
33:46
Speaker 3: was a booker, he was a writer, he was an
33:48
Speaker 3: author and it was an artist as well. He liked
33:51
Speaker 3: to drawl and trace, you know, things that he saw
33:54
Speaker 3: in the wild and it was a poet and so
33:58
Speaker 3: he was the guy would be like, hey, Henry, this
34:03
Speaker 3: is a woodchucker. Hey Henry, this is you know, an osprey,
34:08
Speaker 3: or there's a bald eagle, or you know, here's here's
34:12
Speaker 3: some rale mushrooms or here's some ramps. You know. And
34:15
Speaker 3: he was that person that really helped them connect and
34:19
Speaker 3: inform them about wildlife and the nature and their surroundings.
34:23
Speaker 3: So they weren't just driving namelessly. They were being educated
34:27
Speaker 3: and they were they were opening their minds to opportunity.
34:32
Speaker 3: I think there was some innovation of some rubber that
34:34
Speaker 3: was used for Firestone from those from those adventures, you
34:38
Speaker 3: know together, I think just general open mindness about the environment.
34:43
Speaker 3: Like Burrows, he was such, you know, still connected with
34:47
Speaker 3: the environment. He hated the Model T. He hated the
34:49
Speaker 3: invention of the automobile because he thought it would like
34:51
Speaker 3: destroy society. And Henry Ford was He befriended John Burrows
34:57
Speaker 3: because he was a fan of the author, actually a
35:00
Speaker 3: birdwatcher too, And so Henry Ford said, why do you
35:05
Speaker 3: hate cars so much? And he said, because they're going
35:07
Speaker 3: to destroy a modern society as we know, you know,
35:09
Speaker 3: it's not going to be the same anymore. And so
35:11
Speaker 3: Henry Ford said, well, let me just give you a
35:14
Speaker 3: car and then you can tell me what you think
35:15
Speaker 3: about it. So Henry Ford just sitting a Model T
35:21
Speaker 3: and he fought with it, and they're struggling with it.
35:23
Speaker 3: I think he ran it into a barn at one
35:25
Speaker 3: point in time. It's really interesting. There's a lot of stories,
35:28
Speaker 3: but there's just as we're talking right now, I'm looking
35:31
Speaker 3: at this picture on the wall, these guys sitting out
35:33
Speaker 3: here on the shaversport where we're at right now and
35:36
Speaker 3: probably laughing about the same thing.
35:38
Speaker 2: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
35:40
Speaker 2: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
35:44
Speaker 2: are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So when
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Speaker 2: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
35:53
Speaker 2: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
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Speaker 2: a year. It also gives you access to our digital archive,
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Speaker 2: and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous images
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Speaker 2: journalism that we have been famous for, so it allows
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Speaker 2: us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another way
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Speaker 2: you can help out too. I produced a book last
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Speaker 2: year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one oh one.
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Speaker 2: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
36:41
Speaker 2: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
36:45
Speaker 2: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures
36:47
Speaker 2: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
36:52
Speaker 2: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
36:54
Speaker 2: been distilled down into print form with great lists and
36:57
Speaker 2: beautiful imagery, so you can find that at your local
37:01
Speaker 2: bookstore overlanding one on one and thank you all for
37:04
Speaker 2: listening and for supporting us so much throughout these years.
37:08
Speaker 2: Now we talk about AI. They were talking about cars
37:11
Speaker 2: back then.
37:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, totally.
37:13
Speaker 2: The history repeats itself time and time again. So let's
37:17
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about some of the trucks that
37:19
Speaker 2: you use you've used through the years, like what your
37:21
Speaker 2: what's your current set up and how did you how
37:24
Speaker 2: did you put it together?
37:26
Speaker 3: So a big thing of tacomas. I've had several tacomas.
37:30
Speaker 3: This current platform we're on right now is a twenty
37:32
Speaker 3: and twenty five off read premium and we have a
37:35
Speaker 3: mod cap ALLUCAP mod cap on the back of it. Nice.
37:38
Speaker 3: We've built out the entire rest of the truck with
37:42
Speaker 3: AARB front, bumper, step, rails on the sides get played,
37:46
Speaker 3: and the new airb wench on the front too. So
37:49
Speaker 3: that's all we're doing. So we're going to build out
37:54
Speaker 3: a kind of a modest interior, you know, for our travels.
37:58
Speaker 3: We'll be going over the next Bow West in May. Yeah, yeah,
38:02
Speaker 3: here soon. It's crazy. It seems like it's all happened once.
38:06
Speaker 3: Then we'll come home, we'll mount you know, this family
38:09
Speaker 3: camper on the truck, and then my wife and my
38:12
Speaker 3: son and I we're going to Oregon for thirty days
38:14
Speaker 3: and living out of the truck.
38:15
Speaker 1: Awesome.
38:16
Speaker 3: It'll be kind of a rally between now and then.
38:19
Speaker 1: But and will you go to Pacific Northwest when you're
38:21
Speaker 1: up there?
38:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what we're gonna Uh, it's actually going to
38:24
Speaker 3: be the same time, but we're doing our seventh season
38:27
Speaker 3: of hammer Down filming after that, so it's conflicting with
38:30
Speaker 3: that weekend. But we actually, you know, we'll be starting
38:33
Speaker 3: hammer Down on that weekend over then next XBOPNW. But
38:37
Speaker 3: I've had the whole catalog of valuecab products. We had
38:41
Speaker 3: like the fifteenth Kaya camper, you know, it was like
38:44
Speaker 3: we had the original Kaya camper. It was a silver
38:47
Speaker 3: edition when they had the silver option. We've had the
38:50
Speaker 3: Explorer Canopy. We've had you know, the Gen three rooftop tent.
38:55
Speaker 3: We had the Canopy Camper when it came out. I've
38:58
Speaker 3: had the mod cap of the Twoday sleep top, the
39:01
Speaker 3: mod cap with the family top and the modcap with
39:04
Speaker 3: the family top is just fantastic. Especially it's like when
39:10
Speaker 3: you've got a full family, it's great, but when you're
39:12
Speaker 3: by yourself, you've got it upstairs and downstairs, it's amazing.
39:15
Speaker 3: I just I love it. You know. We spent thirty
39:17
Speaker 3: seven days in Newfounland living out of it last year
39:20
Speaker 3: and really got intimately connected with the product, you know,
39:25
Speaker 3: and really came back with some positive feedback for you know,
39:28
Speaker 3: you have USA team and okay for World Drive you know,
39:32
Speaker 3: from that to try to create some more opportunities to
39:34
Speaker 3: you know, further improve a great product. But that's what
39:38
Speaker 3: works really well for us, like for our guided trips,
39:41
Speaker 3: Like you know, it's important for us to stay organized,
39:44
Speaker 3: to get good sleep, to be comfortable, to be quick.
39:48
Speaker 3: You know, when you've got five other trucks with you
39:50
Speaker 3: on a guided trip, you know, as a guide, you
39:53
Speaker 3: need to be ready when they're ready. And it's easy
39:56
Speaker 3: if you need to. If you need a couple of
39:57
Speaker 3: minutes more sleep, you can because you know, you can
39:59
Speaker 3: just out of the truck and close it up and
40:01
Speaker 3: be done with it.
40:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do button up really quick.
40:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, they really do, and you know, very very happy
40:06
Speaker 3: with the product. But yeah, I love my Tacomas.
40:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was how I started, really was
40:11
Speaker 2: with the Tacoma in two.
40:13
Speaker 3: I remember your Tacoma.
40:14
Speaker 1: I love that thing. But it was way too heavy. Yeah,
40:17
Speaker 1: it was way too heavy.
40:18
Speaker 2: But we learned we all learned that along the way
40:21
Speaker 2: off by butt bolting everything on and then you realize that, yeah,
40:23
Speaker 2: maybe that doesn't work.
40:24
Speaker 1: So well, it doesn't work so well anymore. Dial it
40:27
Speaker 1: back a little bit.
40:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're trying to focus on the weight of this
40:31
Speaker 3: vehicle consistently through the build, right, So we build it
40:35
Speaker 3: with a contour canopy first as kind of a touring
40:38
Speaker 3: mode to coma just to show people what that what
40:41
Speaker 3: that transition looks like. Yeah, but we're really trying to
40:44
Speaker 3: focus on how we construct the interior, so we don't
40:47
Speaker 3: we try not to exceed in the gross vehicle weight, right.
40:51
Speaker 3: So I think that's really important us because that's always
40:53
Speaker 3: a talking point people like to talk about and bring up.
40:55
Speaker 3: Well it's over, you know, and we always conjustify it
40:59
Speaker 3: with heavier suspension and larger braking systems and you know,
41:02
Speaker 3: transmission tunes and re gearing and things like that, but
41:05
Speaker 3: at the end of the at the end of the day,
41:06
Speaker 3: the vehicle is designed to carry so much weight.
41:09
Speaker 1: So I wish there was a way for I wish
41:11
Speaker 1: there was a way like in Australia.
41:12
Speaker 2: Where we could, you know, do a gross vehicle way
41:15
Speaker 2: up upgrade on these trucks. Some of these trucks, I
41:18
Speaker 2: think some of them lend himself well to that, like
41:20
Speaker 2: a Tacoma or a quarter Master or whatever. You think
41:23
Speaker 2: you'd be able to recertify it a little bit high,
41:26
Speaker 2: higher weight.
41:26
Speaker 3: I just some don't too.
41:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, some just aren't really well suited to that. I
41:31
Speaker 2: was worried about it as a business. You know, it's
41:34
Speaker 2: like if if you run into if you get in
41:36
Speaker 2: an accident, is your insurance going to really cover you
41:39
Speaker 2: if you're a thousand pounds overweight?
41:41
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I mean we had that happen. We learned
41:45
Speaker 3: a lot about insurance. I think Eric who's on Mountains
41:48
Speaker 3: and everyone team, he's also learned a lot about insurance too,
41:51
Speaker 3: and like how to properly ensure your vehicle, the right
41:54
Speaker 3: steps to take. I think there's always been an opportunity
41:57
Speaker 3: for the right insurance company to do that correctly. But
42:00
Speaker 3: you know, at the end of the day, you can
42:02
Speaker 3: have the best insurance in the world, but it's the
42:04
Speaker 3: person here to hit you. Yeah, it all depends on
42:06
Speaker 3: their insurance.
42:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
42:08
Speaker 3: So if you run your truck in a wall and
42:10
Speaker 3: you have good insurance, you're you're gonna sit fine. If
42:13
Speaker 3: that person's uninsured or under insured or under insured, then
42:18
Speaker 3: you're it's gonna be tough to figure that out.
42:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be a real, a real challenge for sure.
42:24
Speaker 2: Let's talk through You know, you've been doing this a
42:26
Speaker 2: long time now, you said twenty twelve timeframe you got
42:29
Speaker 2: fired up doing this. What are the two, three four
42:33
Speaker 2: things that you've really learned along the way that kind
42:35
Speaker 2: of have become tenants for you that you then share
42:39
Speaker 2: with your customers or fellow travelers or on your YouTube series.
42:43
Speaker 2: What are some of the things that you have really
42:45
Speaker 2: learned along the way that have made a big difference
42:47
Speaker 2: for you as a traveler.
42:50
Speaker 3: I think one I hit on was like experiencing it
42:53
Speaker 3: for yourself, you know, that that true sense of exploration
42:58
Speaker 3: of like that road, maybe getting some advice from somebody,
43:03
Speaker 3: but going out and aimlessly finding a place to go
43:07
Speaker 3: in a state that you haven't been before and figuring
43:09
Speaker 3: out how to get there. Like, I think that sense
43:11
Speaker 3: of excitement that I know, that sense of excitement is
43:14
Speaker 3: what got me into this lifestyle, created this business, and
43:19
Speaker 3: like that's what I preached the most and meaning time
43:21
Speaker 3: when we're talking around campfires with our folks, like I'm
43:24
Speaker 3: always saying that, I think number two is community. I've
43:28
Speaker 3: talked with you about that here, you know, you know,
43:31
Speaker 3: community is so important, not just and it's not about
43:35
Speaker 3: it's not about me at all. It's about creating really
43:40
Speaker 3: good experiences for people to just connect outside of their space.
43:45
Speaker 3: I feel like it's like my it's like my duty
43:48
Speaker 3: to give people those opportunities. And people come on guide
43:51
Speaker 3: to trips with us, then they can go to we
43:54
Speaker 3: host a community event without any vendors. It's just come camp, Explore, Cave,
44:01
Speaker 3: Orienteer Overland. What's the name of that event again, that's
44:04
Speaker 3: adventure XST.
44:06
Speaker 1: What time of the year is that help?
44:07
Speaker 3: We host it around September eleventh year and it's held
44:13
Speaker 3: on Spruce nob the highest point in West Virginia. So
44:16
Speaker 3: but they're very it's like a it's kind of like
44:18
Speaker 3: this camp cheat experience, but even more laid back and comfortable.
44:22
Speaker 3: You know, we have agendas for kids and things like that.
44:24
Speaker 3: I think our youth is extremely important to the approachability
44:29
Speaker 3: of outdoor recreation and giving kids an opportunity to go
44:32
Speaker 3: camp and just get out there with their parents, you know,
44:36
Speaker 3: makes the parents feel good because the kids are having fun.
44:38
Speaker 3: So the community piece of it is extremely important to me,
44:42
Speaker 3: and I've always been one to always embrace that and
44:47
Speaker 3: create an opportunity for those people. And honestly, like it
44:51
Speaker 3: takes a lot of work to film, and it takes
44:54
Speaker 3: a lot of work to make content, but just do
44:58
Speaker 3: it at your own pace. Don't stress your yourself out,
45:01
Speaker 3: because you'll get to a point where it'll tax you
45:04
Speaker 3: and you'll question right. So I always tell people that
45:08
Speaker 3: you know are thinking about like starting up a YouTube
45:11
Speaker 3: channel or starting up a social media channel, is always
45:15
Speaker 3: just like how do you do it? How do I
45:17
Speaker 3: get there? Is what they want to know. And I
45:19
Speaker 3: just said, always focus on what you can maintain, because
45:24
Speaker 3: once you get to a point where you think you
45:27
Speaker 3: can do more, you need to maintain that and that
45:31
Speaker 3: can weigh heavy on your shoulders. And if that starts
45:33
Speaker 3: weighing heavy on your shoulders, you're not having fun anymore.
45:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it stops really being a trip anymore.
45:39
Speaker 3: Huh.
45:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, you really you're working harder than you do in
45:42
Speaker 1: your day job.
45:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've got a great team of guys that support
45:48
Speaker 3: Mountain State overly end and we all work really hard
45:51
Speaker 3: to create experiences like this. We had a fun opportunity
45:56
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago where we actually opened up
45:57
Speaker 3: applications and people submitted video applications and then we put
46:02
Speaker 3: them through an overland challenge games and we call it
46:05
Speaker 3: the Overland Games, and we hosted a series of you know, challenging,
46:09
Speaker 3: stressful situations that they had to navigate through and they
46:12
Speaker 3: would a Crewe points and we would, in theory end
46:15
Speaker 3: up hiring two of the guides. Well, we just fell
46:17
Speaker 3: in love with all of them, so we brought them
46:19
Speaker 3: all on. You know, we're just like we can't. It's
46:22
Speaker 3: like when we were done and we were like, well,
46:26
Speaker 3: I guess it's you guys, And then the other guys
46:28
Speaker 3: are just sitting there like, oh man really, and then
46:32
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, we'll figure it out. Let us
46:34
Speaker 3: just think about it a little bit more. So without them,
46:37
Speaker 3: we couldn't do what we do. And it's always been
46:41
Speaker 3: fun and manageable to the point that if we're happy,
46:45
Speaker 3: our guests are happy and they're having that experience with
46:48
Speaker 3: each one of our guys. You know, we want to
46:50
Speaker 3: have that. You know, when you go to a restaurant
46:52
Speaker 3: and you like, you really like it, but the next
46:55
Speaker 3: time you go to that same restaurant with that same chain.
46:58
Speaker 3: I'm not going to mention any names, but you had
47:00
Speaker 3: that same experience at each of those restaurants you go to.
47:04
Speaker 3: That's what we want each of these Guida Tripics experiences to.
47:07
Speaker 1: Be, no matter who excellence. Yeah, sure, that.
47:09
Speaker 3: Standard of excellence has to be there because that's why
47:13
Speaker 3: people will come back. That's why we have such a
47:16
Speaker 3: high return rate is because we are focused. People know
47:19
Speaker 3: exactly what to expect and then they watch the video
47:21
Speaker 3: and they say, these are who these guys are anyway,
47:25
Speaker 3: so I know what to expect when I go as well, so.
47:29
Speaker 1: I can see it here.
47:30
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you had your team mixing drinks
47:33
Speaker 2: last night, and you had other parts of your team,
47:36
Speaker 2: you know, interacting and helping.
47:38
Speaker 1: I mean they helped me haul my bags in.
47:40
Speaker 2: I mean just they just jumped right in to support
47:43
Speaker 2: and they did it across not just for me. They
47:45
Speaker 2: did it for everybody that's here, so I think you
47:47
Speaker 2: guys have made it feel very welcoming.
47:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just it's fun. I think everybody can sit
47:54
Speaker 3: back and be like that was really cool. You know,
47:56
Speaker 3: like that was really fun. Did you see how they
47:59
Speaker 3: really enjoyed them when you set up the bar the
48:02
Speaker 3: way it was with your menu, and you know, I
48:04
Speaker 3: think it was a really nice touch. You know, people
48:06
Speaker 3: are having it. Really We're always talking about do you
48:09
Speaker 3: think they're having a good time? Do you think they're
48:11
Speaker 3: having a good time. We're always focused on that and
48:14
Speaker 3: that's what drives us.
48:16
Speaker 4: And a special thanks to Hankook Tire for supporting this
48:20
Speaker 4: week's podcast. With Summer Underway, head over to Expeditionportal dot
48:25
Speaker 4: com for Jeep Beach Vibe inspiration. Our team spent the
48:30
Speaker 4: weekend with handcoocked Dinapro Tire at this year's twenty twenty
48:34
Speaker 4: six Jeep Beach Week in Daytona, Florida and took a
48:38
Speaker 4: look at their Wrangler three ninety two Look for Jeep
48:42
Speaker 4: Beach twenty twenty six. When you go to Expedition Portal
48:45
Speaker 4: dot com, Well, I.
48:47
Speaker 2: Can assure you that everybody's having a good time, because
48:50
Speaker 2: that's what I've heard across the board. Had some great
48:52
Speaker 2: conversations last night. These two ladies are getting ready to
48:56
Speaker 2: go do a big adventure in Africa, so we were
48:58
Speaker 2: talking about that and they're awesome, and showed them how
49:01
Speaker 2: to use their exhaust break today this morning, and I'm
49:05
Speaker 2: just totally enjoying it. You've done an incredible job and
49:08
Speaker 2: the fact that this is available for people to come
49:11
Speaker 2: out and have an experience where they don't need to
49:14
Speaker 2: have spend all that time getting ready or research or whatever.
49:17
Speaker 1: They can work with a great team like yours.
49:19
Speaker 2: And and come out and have a wonderful experience and
49:22
Speaker 2: then head back to work, you know, the next week.
49:24
Speaker 1: But that's a pretty rare thing to find.
49:26
Speaker 2: It's difficult to find that level of execution around guiding.
49:31
Speaker 2: I mean, there's lots of great guides in the world,
49:33
Speaker 2: but they tend to really focus on I'm going to
49:35
Speaker 2: guide someone, you know, over the Mohave Road. But you've
49:38
Speaker 2: got a much broader experience that people are having here.
49:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the guide thing is kind of interesting because
49:44
Speaker 3: we're constantly going to Charleston every year in February March
49:48
Speaker 3: while they're in session.
49:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the.
49:50
Speaker 3: Capitol and you know, lobbying for responsible adventure travel, right,
49:55
Speaker 3: so you know we got side by sides are crazy,
49:59
Speaker 3: like they're all over lace in West Virginia and you can. Yeah,
50:02
Speaker 3: and I think it's I think it's great. It's getting
50:05
Speaker 3: people outside. You know, I don't have any opinion on
50:08
Speaker 3: that piece of it, but I think there needs to
50:10
Speaker 3: be some education. And the thing is is, like we
50:13
Speaker 3: can force publications, enforce marketing, enforce all of that, but
50:18
Speaker 3: it's gonna take it. It's going to take generational like
50:21
Speaker 3: knowledge before that because they're coming from you know, we
50:25
Speaker 3: can drive anywhere on anything to like now we have
50:27
Speaker 3: these extremely powerful machines that will go anywhere. So we're
50:30
Speaker 3: just gonna you know, So there's there's an education opportunity there,
50:35
Speaker 3: and so we're constantly lobbying, not against that by any means,
50:39
Speaker 3: but lobbying for legislation in this state to to qualify
50:44
Speaker 3: standards for guide services. There are guide service expectations for
50:50
Speaker 3: like the national forests. We're using public reads and we're
50:53
Speaker 3: using state roads. So if we use public campgrounds and
50:58
Speaker 3: things like that, we pay commissions for that. So as
51:01
Speaker 3: far as the guiding goes in this kind of unique
51:04
Speaker 3: niche thing that we're doing here in West Virginia, there's
51:06
Speaker 3: a big opportunity for the state to create legislation that
51:10
Speaker 3: requires guides to have licenses, to have insurance, to have
51:14
Speaker 3: proper wilderness for staid training so that we can ensure
51:19
Speaker 3: that there's the right people doing it right. And I
51:21
Speaker 3: think I'm willing to pay a fee for that, Like
51:24
Speaker 3: I'm willing to invest in budget in that every year,
51:27
Speaker 3: I'm investing in my team so that they're trained and
51:29
Speaker 3: things like that. But we really desperately need that in
51:33
Speaker 3: this state. And because as this rose and overlanding becomes
51:38
Speaker 3: more popular or maybe you know, it transitions into other
51:41
Speaker 3: opportunities for people, we need to be focused on how
51:45
Speaker 3: to do it and how to do it responsibly.
51:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that goes a long way. It starts to
51:50
Speaker 2: set standards. It sures people have better experiences, safety improves,
51:57
Speaker 2: you have less conflict with other multi use users that
52:01
Speaker 2: are out there on the trails. I think that's the
52:04
Speaker 2: biggest challenge that we face with the technology that's available
52:07
Speaker 2: in the side by side space is that the speeds
52:10
Speaker 2: are just so high. You know, in a national forest
52:12
Speaker 2: road in the United States the speed limits twenty five
52:14
Speaker 2: miles an hour and people don't know that and it's
52:17
Speaker 2: rarely enforced. So it just you know, you got that
52:21
Speaker 2: elderly couple that's just out trying to hike for mushrooms
52:25
Speaker 2: or whatever they are, and you know, you know, and
52:28
Speaker 2: that's just they could get injured or it could be
52:31
Speaker 2: a really bad experience for them.
52:32
Speaker 1: So I just think is as an.
52:35
Speaker 2: Industry, we need to continue to reinforce the fact that
52:38
Speaker 2: responsible use is going to allow for long term use
52:42
Speaker 2: if we're irresponsible with it and people driving like maniacs
52:45
Speaker 2: and they're just going to shut it down.
52:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I as a kid, like I had
52:50
Speaker 3: a lot of fun, you know, I learned lessons and
52:53
Speaker 3: then as I grew up, I knew what I should
52:57
Speaker 3: and shouldn't do. What we have right now is we
52:59
Speaker 3: have adults into a hobby where they weren't youth, you know,
53:04
Speaker 3: making mistakes and doing things the wrong way and learning.
53:07
Speaker 3: So there's a clear opportunity for us to and that's
53:11
Speaker 3: what we do. Like everybody signs a tread lightly agreement
53:14
Speaker 3: when they come on a trip with us, like they
53:16
Speaker 3: know what our rules are, you know, they know what
53:18
Speaker 3: the rules of tread lightly are and so we enforce
53:21
Speaker 3: that and we talk about that like that's really important.
53:24
Speaker 3: And I feel like we're doing that because those people
53:26
Speaker 3: are touching people that are in the space and they're
53:29
Speaker 3: seeing somebody doing something and being like, yeah, you probably
53:32
Speaker 3: shouldn't do that.
53:33
Speaker 2: How you create a new standard and the industry will
53:37
Speaker 2: be better off for it.
53:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's in my opinion for sure. Absolutely.
53:42
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, let's kind of ask you a couple
53:45
Speaker 2: more kind of wrap up questions. I know you're a
53:48
Speaker 2: big reader. Let's make sure we give the name of
53:51
Speaker 2: the book for this that you kind of ran this
53:53
Speaker 2: whole trip around, and then any other of your favorite books,
53:57
Speaker 2: either of this region or travels.
54:00
Speaker 1: So what was the what was the book that you
54:01
Speaker 1: gave out to all of us.
54:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, he put me on the spot. I think it's
54:04
Speaker 3: an American Journey by Wes Davis. There was another one.
54:07
Speaker 3: I think it's called The Vagabonds I and that's V. A, G. B,
54:12
Speaker 3: O N D S. The Vagabonds, and that refers to
54:17
Speaker 3: Henry Ford, Edison, Firestone, and Burrows. They referred to themselves
54:21
Speaker 3: as the Vagabonds like that. So if you wanted to
54:24
Speaker 3: learn any information about you know, these four characters traveling
54:27
Speaker 3: and model t's across the country and they went to
54:29
Speaker 3: California too. It's crazy. You can read either The American
54:33
Speaker 3: Journey by Wes Davis or The Vagabonds. I can't remember
54:36
Speaker 3: the name of the author, but I read both of
54:38
Speaker 3: those books. And you know, when we put this trip together,
54:41
Speaker 3: I said, we need to give everybody The American Journey
54:44
Speaker 3: because chapter eight in the book highly details almost my
54:48
Speaker 3: turn in location across the bridge. They turned right, you know,
54:52
Speaker 3: and drove up the hill like you can almost kind
54:54
Speaker 3: of you feel like you're trying you're tracing their experience.
54:59
Speaker 3: There's a lot of really interesting history about West Virginia.
55:03
Speaker 3: I couldn't give you any specific book titles.
55:06
Speaker 1: Oh that's okay, but if there's one that comes to mind,
55:08
Speaker 1: you yeah, I always like to ask that question.
55:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's not anyone in particular that comes to mind.
55:13
Speaker 3: I think there's one called I believe it's called The
55:15
Speaker 3: Last Forest and it talks about, you know, logging in
55:19
Speaker 3: West Virginia's history. Yeah, specific to that, there's you know,
55:24
Speaker 3: we have what we had, I think the most recent
55:28
Speaker 3: national park added to the state O cool. Added to
55:31
Speaker 3: this state the New River Gorsh National Park, which is
55:34
Speaker 3: a beautiful place. And again there's a lot of history there,
55:36
Speaker 3: a lot of fun stuff we can talk about. But yeah,
55:40
Speaker 3: those are some great resources. Like I said, the history
55:42
Speaker 3: here is very recent. It's really cool to find gym's
55:46
Speaker 3: like this and read about it and then come see it.
55:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, super awesome.
55:51
Speaker 2: So how do people find out more about coming along
55:55
Speaker 2: on trips like this which I would highly recommend. I'm
55:58
Speaker 2: already having a great time. We still got a couple
56:00
Speaker 2: days left to go. How do people find out more
56:03
Speaker 2: about coming along on trips like this? How do they
56:05
Speaker 2: find out more about the video series that you guys
56:08
Speaker 2: put out? How do they get connected with you and
56:11
Speaker 2: your business and your community.
56:13
Speaker 3: So Mountainstateoverland dot com, I mean you can hit all
56:16
Speaker 3: of our socials from there. We're ms out Overland on
56:21
Speaker 3: Instagram and Facebook and everything. But Mountainstateoverland dot com. That's
56:25
Speaker 3: where you can, you know, find a guide trip. You
56:27
Speaker 3: can watch our videos, you know on YouTube. You can
56:31
Speaker 3: you know join when experiences like this. You know, Venture
56:34
Speaker 3: ex Fast is coming up first September.
56:37
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great start for someone.
56:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, that event yeah, it's it's a good price. We're
56:42
Speaker 3: trying to keep it. We're trying to keep it the
56:44
Speaker 3: same We've kept our guided trips at the same cost
56:46
Speaker 3: for five years. So we make tweaks to these events
56:50
Speaker 3: and these trips so that we can maintain that cost.
56:53
Speaker 3: Because things are the prices of things are just increasing,
56:57
Speaker 3: you know, So it's important that we give people more
57:00
Speaker 3: value and maintain the cost in my opinion, So if
57:02
Speaker 3: we can create ways to do that, we'll always do that.
57:05
Speaker 3: And Adventure Access is an Adventure Access is a pretty
57:09
Speaker 3: great scheme of things, pretty cost effective, great opportunity to
57:13
Speaker 3: meet people in the Mid Atlantic region, in southeast region,
57:17
Speaker 3: you know, here of the United States.
57:19
Speaker 2: Awesome man, Yeah, well, thank you so much for being
57:21
Speaker 2: on the podcast. It's been great to spend more time
57:24
Speaker 2: with you. I'm really looking forward to what the rest
57:26
Speaker 2: of the weekend is going to bring about. You just
57:29
Speaker 2: told me about a cool little trail that walks up
57:32
Speaker 2: walks up the river, so I might go for a
57:33
Speaker 2: hike after we wrap up. I feel like I'm on vacation, man,
57:37
Speaker 2: it's crazy. I'm trying to decide between a hike and
57:41
Speaker 2: a nap.
57:41
Speaker 3: So well, after the Chili. We just say everybody, that's.
57:47
Speaker 1: Great, that's great, awesome.
57:48
Speaker 2: Well, thanks again, we appreciate you all listening, and we'll
57:51
Speaker 2: talk to you next time.