Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Andrew and Courtney of Tsavo Touring on Overlanding with a Toddler and Multiple Vehicle Platforms
Transcript
- 0:06Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast.
- 0:09Speaker 2: I am senior editor of Overland Journal and Expedition Portal,
- 0:12Speaker 2: Ashley Drudano, and today I'm doing a podcast in the
- 0:15Speaker 2: field in the beautiful Cascade Mountains of Washington, and I'm
- 0:19Speaker 2: joined by Courtney and Andrew of Savo Touring. Thank you
- 0:23Speaker 2: guys so much for joining me today.
- 0:25Speaker 3: Thank you for inviting. We're just so excited.
- 0:27Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you guys have been long term listeners of
- 0:29Speaker 2: the podcast since day.
- 0:32Speaker 1: One, listening to did you say all of them?
- 0:35Speaker 4: All of them?
- 0:36Speaker 3: That's impressive and now our son's oddly listening through all
- 0:39Speaker 3: of them again four and a half.
- 0:41Speaker 5: That's awesome and special. Thanks to Equipped for supporting today's podcast.
- 0:47Speaker 5: More than fifteen years ago, Equipped Expedition Outfitters became the
- 0:51Speaker 5: first American company to import the best in breed vehicle
- 0:55Speaker 5: expedition equipment from across the globe. Since their humble beginnings,
- 0:59Speaker 5: they have risen to become a go to leader then
- 1:01Speaker 5: the adventure travel industry, continuing to deliver a diverse portfolio
- 1:05Speaker 5: of reliable, long lasting products backed by unparalleled customer service
- 1:11Speaker 5: from Shelter Solutions, from easy on the portable fridges, from
- 1:14Speaker 5: National Luna to aluminum storage boxes from Value Box. Their
- 1:18Speaker 5: ever growing selection of best in class gear increases your capability, comfort,
- 1:23Speaker 5: and confidence during any adventure. Is it equipped one dot
- 1:27Speaker 5: com to gear up?
- 1:28Speaker 4: He listens to it before Ben.
- 1:30Speaker 1: What's your son's name?
- 1:31Speaker 4: John? John? John listens to it every night, and he
- 1:34Speaker 4: likes to say that it's a very Scott has a
- 1:37Speaker 4: very relaxing voice.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So we're actually sitting in your van,
- 1:43Speaker 1: so do you want to tell me and us?
- 1:45Speaker 3: So the van we bought new in twenty sixteen. We
- 1:48Speaker 3: were originally going to start out with a business that
- 1:50Speaker 3: did kind of like a mail order almost like it's
- 1:52Speaker 3: an adventure waking kit that's in it now, and it's
- 1:54Speaker 3: basically the same idea. We're going to set it up
- 1:56Speaker 3: so you can ship a palette somewhere fill the van,
- 1:58Speaker 3: but that kind of didn't work out, so we decided to
- 2:00Speaker 3: keep it because we liked it, and then two years
- 2:03Speaker 3: ago were a year and a half ago, we built
- 2:05Speaker 3: it out to where it is now. We were planning
- 2:06Speaker 3: to go to Europe and kind of cruise around to
- 2:08Speaker 3: eastern Europe, but we China kind of change course. So
- 2:11Speaker 3: this is going to sit and wait for us. Well,
- 2:12Speaker 3: we're down in South America for a little bit. We'll
- 2:14Speaker 3: come back, get in and hopefully ship it over the
- 2:16Speaker 3: probably Germany.
- 2:18Speaker 4: He was an adventure wagon kit. Okay, he did the
- 2:21Speaker 4: build and he did it and about you said about
- 2:23Speaker 4: a week.
- 2:23Speaker 1: So that was a great nice nice and quint.
- 2:25Speaker 4: I did not help it all. I was a really
- 2:28Speaker 4: good We we have to kind of figure out because
- 2:30Speaker 4: I would have John, and John would want to help,
- 2:32Speaker 4: and then like I'd have to help. If John wanted
- 2:35Speaker 4: to come in, then I'd have to be like, oh,
- 2:37Speaker 4: like can you come get him? And so we did
- 2:39Speaker 4: have to do a lot of like mixing, but for
- 2:41Speaker 4: the most Andrew did just about all of it. Nice.
- 2:43Speaker 3: And what's the making model. It's a twenty sixteen or
- 2:46Speaker 3: Cities Sprinter four by four and it's one hundred and
- 2:49Speaker 3: seventy inch wield base. It's the long ish not the longest,
- 2:51Speaker 3: but the long longer one.
- 2:53Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, it feels really spacious in here, I know.
- 2:55Speaker 4: So it's very big.
- 2:57Speaker 3: It's really really nice on its park as a little
- 2:59Speaker 3: quirks and it's not parked, but overall we really like it.
- 3:02Speaker 2: Nice for the pros and cons of this build or
- 3:04Speaker 2: this set out at you've experienced.
- 3:06Speaker 3: Probably like one of the big comfort issues that we've
- 3:08Speaker 3: kind of encountered, mostly before we had the installation and
- 3:11Speaker 3: the lining's package put in, as it would get really hot.
- 3:14Speaker 3: It was like a toaster of it in here. So
- 3:16Speaker 3: that was a big one. It's not quite I mean
- 3:18Speaker 3: everybody sees like the Mercedes start on the front and
- 3:20Speaker 3: they think it's quiet and luxurious. It's a fed Ex
- 3:22Speaker 3: van at the end of the day, so it drives
- 3:23Speaker 3: like a fed Ex van. It's kind of loud, but
- 3:25Speaker 3: like it's a little quirky, but do it.
- 3:27Speaker 4: We try and keep it out of Like we don't
- 3:28Speaker 4: like using it in the summer for the reasons he said,
- 3:30Speaker 4: like it gets really hot and then it retains its
- 3:32Speaker 4: heat for a long period of time. So then like
- 3:34Speaker 4: even though we don't have air conditioning in it because
- 3:36Speaker 4: we didn't feel like we needed it, we have two
- 3:37Speaker 4: fans up top and on the front on the back,
- 3:39Speaker 4: and I feel like when you run the fan it
- 3:41Speaker 4: like helps it for sure, but it's definitely like we
- 3:44Speaker 4: took it to Colorado recently and it was probably like
- 3:46Speaker 4: eighty five degrees or eighty degrees and it was very
- 3:50Speaker 4: hot in here, and I would say by like two
- 3:52Speaker 4: or three in the morning, it finally felt how we
- 3:54Speaker 4: wanted it. And then our son like sleeps on a
- 3:55Speaker 4: little matt in front of our seats, and he wants
- 3:58Speaker 4: to sleep in like a sleepy bag, like a twenty
- 4:01Speaker 4: five degree sleeping bag, and it's like eighty five degrees
- 4:03Speaker 4: in then, and he has to he likes to get
- 4:06Speaker 4: all in and cozy and all and then I have
- 4:08Speaker 4: to like wait for him to fall asleep and he's
- 4:10Speaker 4: just like dripping sweat. I have to like open up
- 4:12Speaker 4: the sleeping bag and like like pull him out, and
- 4:15Speaker 4: like he just gets so sweaty and he but he
- 4:18Speaker 4: loves it. He wants to like get cozy and get like.
- 4:21Speaker 3: He likes all the vehicles we've traveled in. I think
- 4:23Speaker 3: the van's his favorite because he can play on the
- 4:25Speaker 3: floor with you know, he gets hot wheels and lego
- 4:27Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So he gets down there and
- 4:28Speaker 3: he's like, I miss.
- 4:29Speaker 4: The van, well a should we after we'd not been
- 4:31Speaker 4: in it for a while, and goes, oh, it's so
- 4:33Speaker 4: good to be home, which was really funny because we
- 4:35Speaker 4: had been in our g for so long and he,
- 4:37Speaker 4: you know, after being in the roof top ten, not
- 4:39Speaker 4: having like the indoor space, he really enjoys, like he
- 4:42Speaker 4: mostly plays on our fridge or on our alley boxes
- 4:45Speaker 4: with his cars and his lego and things like that.
- 4:47Speaker 4: But he he likes it the best, for sure.
- 4:49Speaker 1: Sweet so nice.
- 4:50Speaker 2: Well, I know that two Eyes had vehicles before this one,
- 4:54Speaker 2: and so let's go back in time in our time
- 4:57Speaker 2: machine and go back in time and go to the beginning.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Everybody has their.
- 5:01Speaker 2: Own story or their own TSN turning point, you know
- 5:05Speaker 2: that happened that led them to a life on the road.
- 5:08Speaker 2: Take me back to the origin, the origin story, your
- 5:12Speaker 2: origin story.
- 5:13Speaker 3: Like the original origin thing was probably back in the
- 5:16Speaker 3: mid nineties. I saw the Turtle four. I believe it
- 5:19Speaker 3: was in a magazine. It's like, oh, there's people that
- 5:20Speaker 3: drive around the world, and war By fours is like,
- 5:22Speaker 3: sign me up. And then as it became an abuilt,
- 5:24Speaker 3: it was like, that's going to have to wait till,
- 5:25Speaker 3: you know, when I'm retired and we built a life
- 5:28Speaker 3: and started tired. Yeah, go get jobs, do that kind
- 5:30Speaker 3: of stuff.
- 5:30Speaker 4: Back in two thousand and what would have been fifteen,
- 5:34Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, I had like health scare. So we had
- 5:38Speaker 4: lost twins and I was in the hospital for like
- 5:41Speaker 4: a month and a half, like almost lost my life.
- 5:43Speaker 4: It was this really big scary moment. We had just
- 5:45Speaker 4: gotten married, like we had only been married six months,
- 5:48Speaker 4: six months, I want to say. It was a big test,
- 5:51Speaker 4: one to a relationship test to like kind of realizing
- 5:55Speaker 4: that once I was finally better, it probably took me
- 5:57Speaker 4: a solid year to get back on my feet and
- 6:00Speaker 4: like after like the grieving was done and like all
- 6:03Speaker 4: of that. So then after about a year he took
- 6:06Speaker 4: me to over an Expo West and sixteen, I was
- 6:11Speaker 4: finally kind of back like being active again like it took,
- 6:14Speaker 4: and happy and just trying to get myself. So Andrew
- 6:17Speaker 4: was like, well, I'm going to take it Expo West.
- 6:18Speaker 4: I'm going to get you out there with people again.
- 6:21Speaker 4: And I walked into an earth Roamer and I said, oh,
- 6:23Speaker 4: I'm going to live in this. And so then we
- 6:26Speaker 4: kind of had said, well, talking about that, like what
- 6:29Speaker 4: could we live in that we could that would not
- 6:31Speaker 4: be an earth romer, but that we could afford, And
- 6:33Speaker 4: so we started looking at a lot of different options.
- 6:35Speaker 4: We both had decided we didn't want to be in
- 6:37Speaker 4: a van. Actually, we wanted to be in something that
- 6:39Speaker 4: was outside so that we wouldn't be forced to stay inside.
- 6:42Speaker 4: They wanted some sort of an outdoor trailer of some
- 6:44Speaker 4: kind that would be forced to cook outside and still
- 6:47Speaker 4: not feel like you were in a van all the time.
- 6:50Speaker 3: And we weren't one hundred percent sure that we were
- 6:51Speaker 3: going to travel long term, like we originally were like, Okay,
- 6:54Speaker 3: let's try this for six months, see if we like it,
- 6:56Speaker 3: and if we do, then we'll revisit. So the first
- 6:59Speaker 3: vehicles we kind of set out on the road with
- 7:01Speaker 3: we're kind of more a backstop too. If we didn't
- 7:03Speaker 3: want to travel, we could still camp, so we had
- 7:05Speaker 3: to pick up and then we had a little off
- 7:06Speaker 3: road trailer that we towed behind it. And we figured
- 7:08Speaker 3: that if, you know, if we didn't like it, we'd
- 7:10Speaker 3: go buy a house, start our life back over and
- 7:12Speaker 3: still enjoy camping and outdoors and everything on the weekend.
- 7:15Speaker 4: So we're in a Patriot trailer for six months and
- 7:17Speaker 4: it was great and we loved it. It had its
- 7:19Speaker 4: own like a lot of positives and negatives to it.
- 7:21Speaker 4: It had like the setup was easy, but it was
- 7:24Speaker 4: kind of a lot of work. At the same time,
- 7:26Speaker 4: like and we would move every day, like we didn't
- 7:28Speaker 4: tend to stay in one spot for two or three days,
- 7:30Speaker 4: which is I think kind of what the Patriot I
- 7:32Speaker 4: felt like was for it was like a weekend trip.
- 7:34Speaker 4: You kind of set it up, you leave it that.
- 7:37Speaker 4: We were like putting it away every single day for
- 7:40Speaker 4: six months and like, actually we met justin We met
- 7:43Speaker 4: him Expo West. I think after we'd had the Patriot.
- 7:46Speaker 4: He was like, you live in it. Nobody lives in me.
- 7:50Speaker 3: There's some people doing it now. We loved it, So
- 7:53Speaker 3: he came.
- 7:54Speaker 4: And like saw us and then talk to us about
- 7:56Speaker 4: it a little bit, and it was it was actually
- 7:58Speaker 4: really funny. So we did that for six months, and
- 8:00Speaker 4: then when we realized how much we loved it, you
- 8:02Speaker 4: were like, well, why would we stop?
- 8:03Speaker 3: Left that about so we were going to have another
- 8:05Speaker 3: kid at the time. So we had John when we left,
- 8:07Speaker 3: two those nineteen who'd been about one and a half
- 8:09Speaker 3: when we left, and then we were going to have
- 8:11Speaker 3: another one right and about that it's like six eight
- 8:13Speaker 3: months time that we'd set for ourselves originally, and then
- 8:15Speaker 3: that didn't pan out. So we were just like we
- 8:17Speaker 3: still like living on the road. It's like we visit
- 8:19Speaker 3: this and Currany's like, I need something that's really warm,
- 8:22Speaker 3: a lot of shelter, a lot of space.
- 8:24Speaker 4: I need hard side, I need a decent heater. I
- 8:26Speaker 4: need like a space where we can cook and have
- 8:29Speaker 4: like if the weather is bad. Because I think that
- 8:31Speaker 4: was what we found it the Patriot is the weather
- 8:33Speaker 4: was really crappy, we'd like make sandwiches really quick, or
- 8:35Speaker 4: we would like just do like a quick meal. But
- 8:38Speaker 4: I wanted to know that if there was bad weather
- 8:41Speaker 4: we could still cook in it.
- 8:42Speaker 3: So we got a twenty nineteen forty three fifty, took
- 8:45Speaker 3: the bed off, put a nor World tray on it,
- 8:46Speaker 3: and then on top of that, we had a Hawk
- 8:49Speaker 3: Fooral Campus Hawk flatbed on it. And we cruise around
- 8:51Speaker 3: that and for two years, I think we made two
- 8:53Speaker 3: or three trips back and forth across the country. Took
- 8:55Speaker 3: it to Canada.
- 8:56Speaker 4: It's only international was Canada. Canada. That's a mile lots
- 9:00Speaker 4: of miles really fast, a lot of miles fast.
- 9:03Speaker 3: Because we I don't know, we have like a bad habit.
- 9:05Speaker 3: So we've been traveling for three and a half years
- 9:07Speaker 3: now and we still can't break that. You like that
- 9:09Speaker 3: weekend Warrior kind of mindset of being like, all right,
- 9:11Speaker 3: let's go to this place, let's go to this place. Sorry,
- 9:13Speaker 3: the pack up, go home. So we still only stay
- 9:15Speaker 3: I mean five days in the spot is really long
- 9:17Speaker 3: for us.
- 9:18Speaker 4: Well, we did ten days in Mexico. That was like
- 9:21Speaker 4: in Mohaka, and it was like unheard of. But normally
- 9:24Speaker 4: we're one to three days. Like if we find a
- 9:26Speaker 4: spot we really really like and we've gotten better about
- 9:28Speaker 4: it because like when we went to Colorado recently, we
- 9:30Speaker 4: stayed in the spot for two days because like this
- 9:32Speaker 4: it was like on a cliff and it was so beautiful,
- 9:34Speaker 4: and we're like, so we've gotten better, but it is
- 9:36Speaker 4: still the same where we're like, let's get up and
- 9:38Speaker 4: let's go and let's drive for a couple hours, and
- 9:40Speaker 4: then we'll like we'll stop a lot because obviously it's
- 9:43Speaker 4: traveling with a three and a half year old.
- 9:45Speaker 2: I have to.
- 9:45Speaker 4: Pee or I'm hungry or I'm bored, or we stop.
- 9:49Speaker 4: We try and keep our drive, driving about like three
- 9:52Speaker 4: hours at the most, depending on if we have to
- 9:54Speaker 4: be somewhere at a certain time or if we're like
- 9:56Speaker 4: really trying to like like the last couple of weeks.
- 9:59Speaker 4: I feel like we drive in like long, long hours
- 10:01Speaker 4: to get places, and so we try to avoid that
- 10:04Speaker 4: at all costs, and then we try and find camp,
- 10:06Speaker 4: like maybe around between three and five, so that the latest, yeah,
- 10:10Speaker 4: the latest. We don't like to drive in the dark
- 10:11Speaker 4: if we don't have to that we junk and still
- 10:13Speaker 4: have some daylight to play. And then like once you
- 10:16Speaker 4: come into winter, sometimes that's not an option because it
- 10:19Speaker 4: gets dark so early. So in that point we try
- 10:21Speaker 4: and maybe stop around two or three and so that
- 10:23Speaker 4: he still has time to build Lego for a little bit,
- 10:27Speaker 4: like kind of just decompressed from the drive, and then
- 10:29Speaker 4: make dinner and then maybe he watches Hill and maybe
- 10:33Speaker 4: watch a show before bed or just something to decompress
- 10:35Speaker 4: him because he's.
- 10:35Speaker 3: Kind of regular house life. Yeah, park turns into but
- 10:38Speaker 3: it's moving. It's not like a lot of people, I think,
- 10:41Speaker 3: and I've heard it on the podcast before, is it
- 10:42Speaker 3: friends family people like that. I think there's like a
- 10:44Speaker 3: big vacation of every day just being awesome places. But
- 10:47Speaker 3: we sleep in cracker barrels and like beast pro shops
- 10:49Speaker 3: all the time, and we have all the same a
- 10:51Speaker 3: lot of the same problems, if not more than we
- 10:53Speaker 3: did in a house.
- 10:54Speaker 2: Yeah, you still have to do your laundry, stuffing, the
- 10:57Speaker 2: grocery shopping. Then added on to that is where we're
- 10:59Speaker 2: going to sweep.
- 11:00Speaker 4: Yeah, And it used to be when we first started.
- 11:04Speaker 4: I would always be so anxious about planning and being
- 11:07Speaker 4: like where are we staying tonight? Like where are we going?
- 11:09Speaker 4: I got to look it up, I got to see
- 11:10Speaker 4: where it is. And Andrew and I and I don't
- 11:12Speaker 4: do it really as much anymore, but it took me,
- 11:14Speaker 4: I would say, like a solid year.
- 11:16Speaker 3: Toting awesome though, Like Corney didn't grow, So I grew
- 11:18Speaker 3: up camping all over Montana. That's all we did. We
- 11:21Speaker 3: didn't have a ton of money, so we couldn't fly anywhere.
- 11:23Speaker 3: So when I met Courtney she was I was like,
- 11:28Speaker 3: what do you like to do? And she goes camping
- 11:31Speaker 3: question Mark. I was like, where do you camp? And
- 11:34Speaker 3: she goes the Gorge and I was like, do you
- 11:36Speaker 3: mean like Dave Matthew's concert venue and Washington. She's like, yeah,
- 11:39Speaker 3: in my super room.
- 11:41Speaker 4: So when we so when we first met, I had
- 11:45Speaker 4: kind of just lied a little and just said, oh,
- 11:48Speaker 4: I love to camp. And then when he heard, like,
- 11:50Speaker 4: where I like to camp? He was like, oh, it's camp,
- 11:52Speaker 4: it's not really camping.
- 11:53Speaker 1: It was strategic on your part.
- 11:55Speaker 4: It was because I wanted to come outdoors. I wanted
- 11:57Speaker 4: to learn to like to be outside and like to
- 12:00Speaker 4: camp because my family didn't do it growing up. And
- 12:01Speaker 4: so so then he took me on my arvort one
- 12:03Speaker 4: of our first backpacking trips through the Olympic.
- 12:06Speaker 3: OLYMPICSUL would be like a ten mile hike into the
- 12:09Speaker 3: forest and camp, and then I think she said two
- 12:11Speaker 3: days and then came back out.
- 12:12Speaker 1: What was your reaction when.
- 12:14Speaker 3: Oh, she's like a liar. Yeah, I liked her a lot,
- 12:17Speaker 3: so obviously it worked out.
- 12:19Speaker 2: And then what about when you guys did your first
- 12:21Speaker 2: camping trip together? What was your reaction to that?
- 12:24Speaker 4: Was that the hike or he's like, do you want
- 12:27Speaker 4: to go backpacking? And I was like, no, really, can't
- 12:30Speaker 4: we just camp at a car?
- 12:32Speaker 1: Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
- 12:34Speaker 3: Right before I met, I still camped out of vehicles
- 12:36Speaker 3: and stuff like I always have. But I was on
- 12:37Speaker 3: a big backpacking like light mountaineering kit, so I was like,
- 12:41Speaker 3: come on, let's not go climb some stuff and She's like,
- 12:44Speaker 3: and it was.
- 12:45Speaker 4: Like r and it was like my feet hurt. I
- 12:47Speaker 4: was just it was just a terrible experience.
- 12:49Speaker 3: I hated it.
- 12:50Speaker 4: But then when we got there, it was amazing. It
- 12:52Speaker 4: was so pretty, it was the really great spot. And
- 12:55Speaker 4: then when we came back down, I just was like,
- 12:57Speaker 4: I liked to hike. I really enjoy it. But I
- 13:00Speaker 4: don't think that backpacking is for me personally. I don't
- 13:03Speaker 4: think it's something that I'm interested in. And so I'm
- 13:05Speaker 4: glad I tried it. We'll never do it again. It
- 13:07Speaker 4: was only ten miles, like it wasn't even that far
- 13:09Speaker 4: in the grand scheme of things, but I don't think
- 13:11Speaker 4: I didn't think it was ten miles.
- 13:12Speaker 3: I thought it was only like five miles, like fast
- 13:15Speaker 3: forward but maybe three years when we were getting married,
- 13:17Speaker 3: our honeymoon was actually us driving our line cruiser at
- 13:20Speaker 3: the time with a roof tent from Arizona back to Seattle.
- 13:22Speaker 3: We got married done in Arizona, so she took the water.
- 13:25Speaker 3: She took to a pretty quick.
- 13:26Speaker 1: Kind of line cruiser.
- 13:27Speaker 3: It was a two thousand and two one hundred series
- 13:30Speaker 3: with a I think I had a CBT roof cup
- 13:31Speaker 3: tent time.
- 13:32Speaker 4: It had a CVT roof Top ten and we still
- 13:34Speaker 4: have it actually, and so I'll no, I've been trying
- 13:38Speaker 4: to do I was trying to get him to exchange
- 13:40Speaker 4: it for like a trooper year. He's not interested in.
- 13:44Speaker 1: It would all take a Troopye.
- 13:46Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious why you guys chose overlanding, like you
- 13:51Speaker 2: kind of alluded to it a little bit.
- 13:53Speaker 4: I didn't know what it was. I didn't even know
- 13:54Speaker 4: it was a thing.
- 13:55Speaker 2: Like vehicle based travel, Like why did you pick that
- 13:58Speaker 2: avenue or that.
- 14:00Speaker 3: I guess I'm probably responsible for that because I had
- 14:02Speaker 3: that stuck in my head from I think I must
- 14:04Speaker 3: have been like a sophomore sophomore in high school. It
- 14:06Speaker 3: so it's like I was like, I'm going to do
- 14:07Speaker 3: this someday. And I actually when I was in high school,
- 14:09Speaker 3: I got an eighty six jeep Cherokee to the salvage
- 14:11Speaker 3: and anytime that I wasn't working or doing whatever on
- 14:13Speaker 3: the weekends, I would just go drive around the forest
- 14:15Speaker 3: and camp and all that stuff. So it's kind it
- 14:17Speaker 3: kind of started early playing around with the idea, but
- 14:19Speaker 3: I think I was the one that kind of we
- 14:21Speaker 3: just brought it to her attention.
- 14:22Speaker 4: I think we just wanted to travel. I didn't really
- 14:24Speaker 4: care how we did it. I just I think when
- 14:26Speaker 4: we first started, when we first started in the Patriot,
- 14:29Speaker 4: it was just simple fun like state parks. And because
- 14:32Speaker 4: he eased me in, like, Okay, if we're going to
- 14:34Speaker 4: be living in this, I was really scared about being
- 14:36Speaker 4: in the wild, like owt like camping them, Like what
- 14:39Speaker 4: was that? Do you hear that? Like it really freaked
- 14:41Speaker 4: me out. So he eased me in, like make sure
- 14:43Speaker 4: we are in state parks, make sure I like to
- 14:45Speaker 4: be near people like And then as we kind of
- 14:48Speaker 4: ventured out of the Patriot and went into the four
- 14:51Speaker 4: wheel Camprige, I think I felt more comfortable. And then
- 14:54Speaker 4: I liked being out on like blm Land and like
- 14:57Speaker 4: out Mild because then you start realizing I don't like
- 14:59Speaker 4: being near people because I trust people. What if they're
- 15:01Speaker 4: like I don't know if they're messing with our stuff,
- 15:03Speaker 4: I don't I don't like being a big estate par
- 15:04Speaker 4: because you just don't know. I don't have to be
- 15:06Speaker 4: out of middle with nowhere where nobody is around.
- 15:08Speaker 1: Now so so interesting.
- 15:10Speaker 2: This weekend we were at the Northwest Overland rally and
- 15:13Speaker 2: plane and I heard more than one person say, you know,
- 15:17Speaker 2: my wife, I would love her to come along with me,
- 15:19Speaker 2: but she isn't a comfortable camping or she would like
- 15:24Speaker 2: more comfort when I'm camping or whatever. So was easing
- 15:28Speaker 2: her in the way that that worked out and she
- 15:32Speaker 2: You know, the more experienced you got, Courtney, the more
- 15:35Speaker 2: comfortable you felt. Or I don't know, is there like
- 15:37Speaker 2: advice or any.
- 15:39Speaker 3: Probably I didn't. I didn't realize it at the time
- 15:41Speaker 3: because I was easing your end, you know, just to
- 15:42Speaker 3: kind of try to be kind and sympathetic out there.
- 15:45Speaker 3: But now that we see other couples going out, one
- 15:49Speaker 3: of the flaws that I really screwed up probably a
- 15:52Speaker 3: few times in my life was that I wouldn't necessarily
- 15:54Speaker 3: make the trip for her. I would be bringing her
- 15:56Speaker 3: along on my trip. Like we're really intentional now, even
- 15:59Speaker 3: with John, is that everybody has to be enjoying themselves.
- 16:01Speaker 3: So like we take John a museums, and we take
- 16:04Speaker 3: them to things, like even if it was a weekend trip,
- 16:05Speaker 3: we'd want to take him to something that he wants
- 16:07Speaker 3: to do, or he loves being around kids, so we
- 16:09Speaker 3: would we would want to take him somewhere it would
- 16:11Speaker 3: give him a piece of because it's his trip, it's
- 16:13Speaker 3: her trip, it's my trip, so we all have to
- 16:14Speaker 3: be happy and kind of all compromise and make sure
- 16:17Speaker 3: they're doing it.
- 16:17Speaker 2: So a lot of stopping what were some things that
- 16:20Speaker 2: you that made it your trip as well?
- 16:22Speaker 4: For food based mostly look at this little cafe, like
- 16:25Speaker 4: this looks really nice, and so I love to find
- 16:28Speaker 4: places that have good food. And when he's driving, I'm
- 16:31Speaker 4: like always on my phone and I'm like on Yelp
- 16:33Speaker 4: or I'm on like any sort of like, oh, this
- 16:36Speaker 4: place could be good. This has like ten thousand reviews.
- 16:39Speaker 3: Corny group like in around Seattle, So that was like
- 16:42Speaker 3: a big one too. I mean I like cities too,
- 16:43Speaker 3: but so going to cities and kind of.
- 16:45Speaker 4: Exploring like new towns and exploring new cultures and new
- 16:48Speaker 4: people is huge on my list. Like I love interacting
- 16:50Speaker 4: with people and I love like getting to know like
- 16:53Speaker 4: places that they like and like really like kind of
- 16:55Speaker 4: get it. So like when we were in Mexico, we
- 16:57Speaker 4: like we did Baha and interior Mexico, and when we
- 16:59Speaker 4: got into like mainland Mexico, I don't know we call
- 17:02Speaker 4: we've been calling it into your Mexico now, but like
- 17:04Speaker 4: going into like Wahaka. We stayed at this little town
- 17:06Speaker 4: called Santa Maria Deltule, which is this beautiful, cute, adorable town,
- 17:10Speaker 4: and we were there for ten days, as long as
- 17:12Speaker 4: we probably stayed in any spot. So I really had
- 17:14Speaker 4: gotten to know like the people that lived in the town,
- 17:16Speaker 4: and I got to know where the fruit and vegetable
- 17:18Speaker 4: stands were and where the cheese stands were, and I
- 17:21Speaker 4: got to figure out like because we cooked a lot.
- 17:23Speaker 4: And so I think that because I love to cook
- 17:26Speaker 4: so much, I'm constantly looking for great little vegetable stands
- 17:29Speaker 4: and what can I make here? Because we were in
- 17:31Speaker 4: our g we just had like a backpacking stove, like
- 17:33Speaker 4: we didn't have anything big, and so we got really
- 17:36Speaker 4: creative on the kind of things we'd make with We
- 17:38Speaker 4: make like a press salad, and maybe we would make
- 17:40Speaker 4: like wraps or things like that. And so I think
- 17:42Speaker 4: that that's probably a big part of my travel.
- 17:45Speaker 3: John Knight here, so I can kind of speak to him.
- 17:47Speaker 3: He loves kids, like he'll chase kids down. He's like, oh,
- 17:50Speaker 3: there's some friends over there, go find me. I'm gonna
- 17:52Speaker 3: go find these kids and.
- 17:53Speaker 4: It'll be dead quiet and he'll hear a kid laugh
- 17:55Speaker 4: and be like, do you hear that?
- 17:56Speaker 3: Shit?
- 17:57Speaker 4: Right?
- 17:57Speaker 3: Yeah? He makes he makes tons of friends. And that's
- 17:59Speaker 3: like the other one of the kind of like switching
- 18:00Speaker 3: topics a lot here. But one of the big things
- 18:02Speaker 3: that we really like is that we live in central
- 18:04Speaker 3: Oregon and so it was pretty homogeneous in terms of
- 18:07Speaker 3: culture and everything like that. Him traveling around, he's got
- 18:09Speaker 3: to hang out with all these kids from different parts
- 18:11Speaker 3: of the United States, like all kinds of like socioeconomic
- 18:13Speaker 3: conditions like this, and he doesn't care. He just like
- 18:15Speaker 3: he's like, hey, let's be friends and then goes off
- 18:17Speaker 3: in play. So that's really cool to see because I mean,
- 18:19Speaker 3: I definitely didn't have that growing up.
- 18:21Speaker 1: When you guys were in Mexico.
- 18:22Speaker 2: What was it like seeing John interacting with the local
- 18:26Speaker 2: kids or the other kids that were on the road
- 18:28Speaker 2: speaking in Spanish speaking English.
- 18:30Speaker 4: John got really frustrated in Mexico because he loves to talk,
- 18:34Speaker 4: like loves to talk, like to the point where it's
- 18:36Speaker 4: almost sometimes mentally exhausting, and he would get frustrated because
- 18:40Speaker 4: they would speak English and a lot of times they did.
- 18:42Speaker 3: It didn't take too long. He kind of like broke
- 18:44Speaker 3: through that and like the international language like kind of
- 18:46Speaker 3: took over, so he'd be running around with them and playing. Actually,
- 18:48Speaker 3: one of the funny ones is when we're in Mexico,
- 18:50Speaker 3: we met this German family that was on a sabbatical
- 18:53Speaker 3: or something like that, and they're playing and they had
- 18:55Speaker 3: a seven year old. The mom spoke English and she's said,
- 18:57Speaker 3: I heard our children interacting and playing, and he was
- 19:00Speaker 3: telling him he's trying to teach him English, and he said,
- 19:02Speaker 3: if you want to say hi, I know, if you
- 19:03Speaker 3: want to say hello, say hi, And if you want
- 19:06Speaker 3: to say goodbye, you wave your hand. Yeah, a blast.
- 19:10Speaker 3: It's just so good for him. I think he picked
- 19:12Speaker 3: up a lot. Like we were approached by some people
- 19:14Speaker 3: and they kind of said, like, I think you understand
- 19:15Speaker 3: some Spanish, like do you guys speak Spanish or like
- 19:17Speaker 3: I'm not kind of not really, but like in four months,
- 19:19Speaker 3: I think he picked up quite a bit.
- 19:21Speaker 4: My brother got married and Megan San Jose del Cabo
- 19:23Speaker 4: and so the hotel that we had been staying out
- 19:25Speaker 4: at the time because we had to find a babysitter
- 19:27Speaker 4: during two of the events, and I asked her do
- 19:31Speaker 4: you speak Spanish? And she said yes, I go, do
- 19:33Speaker 4: you speak like because you're English? Because John obviously doesn't
- 19:36Speaker 4: speak Spanish, he needs to be able to speak to
- 19:38Speaker 4: you in English. And I go, if you coulf, you
- 19:40Speaker 4: don't mind, could you just just speak to him in Spanish?
- 19:43Speaker 4: And I'm just curious to see what he knows. And
- 19:45Speaker 4: she was with him for like four or five hours probably,
- 19:48Speaker 4: and I came back and I asked her, I go, oh,
- 19:50Speaker 4: so how did he do? She goes, you know, I
- 19:51Speaker 4: spoke Spanish the whole time, and I think he understood
- 19:55Speaker 4: about maybe like sixty to seventy of what I was saying.
- 19:57Speaker 4: I would say, like we get you wear your pajamas,
- 19:59Speaker 4: or where you're too fresh, or where do you sleep?
- 20:02Speaker 4: And he just would show me. And so I think it's.
- 20:06Speaker 3: Those are like immerged him forcefully kind of in the car.
- 20:09Speaker 3: We always said we were going to be the parents
- 20:11Speaker 3: who did screen time and stuff, but that kind of
- 20:12Speaker 3: fades away pretty quickly when you have a kid. We've
- 20:15Speaker 3: made the deal with him that you get I think
- 20:16Speaker 3: watch like thirty minutes a day of just TV on
- 20:18Speaker 3: his iPad. Anything else I had to be in Spanish,
- 20:20Speaker 3: and then we'd do like maybe half an hour or
- 20:22Speaker 3: an hour of that. So I think he might have
- 20:23Speaker 3: picked some stuff up there.
- 20:25Speaker 4: It just depends because when we would have like really
- 20:28Speaker 4: long long drives, like I think the longest we did
- 20:30Speaker 4: was ten hours, we kind of extend that a little bit,
- 20:33Speaker 4: be like, oh, I might I could be on the
- 20:34Speaker 4: iPad for like an hour or two. You can do
- 20:37Speaker 4: like because he has all his books are on there,
- 20:39Speaker 4: he has his homeschool stuff is on there, and then
- 20:41Speaker 4: he has like shows he can watch. Sometimes they'd be like,
- 20:44Speaker 4: you can watch it for an hour, and then after
- 20:46Speaker 4: that you have to watch it in Spanish. He doesn't
- 20:48Speaker 4: get super frustrated with it, but I think he kind
- 20:50Speaker 4: of gets exhausted from it a little bit, where he's like,
- 20:52Speaker 4: I don't really want to listen as Spanish anymore. But
- 20:55Speaker 4: I asked him, I go, do you understand, because he'd said,
- 20:57Speaker 4: Dad doesn't vamos need go? Yeah, because I think a
- 21:01Speaker 4: lot of the shows you watch are like bominos. So
- 21:03Speaker 4: I think he picked up a lot more than we
- 21:05Speaker 4: thought he did. Yeah, And I think that was only
- 21:07Speaker 4: four months in Mexico. So when we do South America
- 21:09Speaker 4: for the two years, it's going to be like I
- 21:11Speaker 4: think it's going to be amazing. I think he's going
- 21:13Speaker 4: to pick it up really quickly.
- 21:14Speaker 5: This week's episode is supported in part by Icamper and
- 21:18Speaker 5: make innovative hardshell and soft sided riof tents that are
- 21:22Speaker 5: designed to survive long term overland use. Their revolutionary X
- 21:26Speaker 5: cover won the Overland Journal Editor's Choice Award, eliminating the
- 21:30Speaker 5: bulky PBC cover and also allowing for the fitment of
- 21:34Speaker 5: crossbars for carrying bikes and kayaks. Their Skycamp Mini is
- 21:38Speaker 5: another award winning design that provides a hard shell tent
- 21:42Speaker 5: in the footprint of a much smaller clamshell model. This
- 21:45Speaker 5: is the perfect solution for smaller vehicles or on vehicles
- 21:49Speaker 5: where rack space is dedicated to other systems. I Camper
- 21:52Speaker 5: believes that the best times are those spent traveling discovering
- 21:56Speaker 5: the world with those you love most. You can find
- 21:59Speaker 5: out more about quality tents at kamper dot com.
- 22:02Speaker 2: I imagine for a lot of parents, the idea of
- 22:05Speaker 2: hitting the road and traveling full time in a vehicle with.
- 22:08Speaker 1: The youngster might be overwhelming.
- 22:11Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 22:12Speaker 2: I can't speak to that, but I imagine it would be
- 22:14Speaker 2: just like educating and whatever.
- 22:17Speaker 4: You know, all the things that involves.
- 22:19Speaker 2: If somebody is looking to do that, what's your advice
- 22:23Speaker 2: to just pick up and travel full.
- 22:25Speaker 4: Time with your family. Yeah, for us, we did it
- 22:28Speaker 4: when John was young, but we knew this way he
- 22:33Speaker 4: wouldn't be in school yet, so we could kind of
- 22:35Speaker 4: just like do whatever with him for his going to
- 22:37Speaker 4: be easy. I was a teacher for twelve years, so
- 22:39Speaker 4: I said, oh, you know, I could home school in
- 22:41Speaker 4: like I could probably figure it out. I was a
- 22:43Speaker 4: monestory teacher, so I can't do it the way that
- 22:45Speaker 4: I was trained, but I could do it differently. I
- 22:47Speaker 4: would highly recommend that for families that really want to
- 22:49Speaker 4: do it, Like just sit down and do like quick
- 22:52Speaker 4: weekend trips to see how you enjoy it first, to
- 22:55Speaker 4: see if anyone like maybe your kids don't even like camping,
- 22:57Speaker 4: like maybe it's not going to be enjoyable or everybody,
- 23:00Speaker 4: So do it like weekend, or do it like for
- 23:02Speaker 4: a week maybe they're all spring break or something. Go
- 23:04Speaker 4: do it for a week, see how the family does. Like,
- 23:07Speaker 4: what does everybody want to do. It's not just about
- 23:09Speaker 4: like we said earlier, it's not just about me. It's
- 23:11Speaker 4: not just about Andrew. But it's about like what does
- 23:13Speaker 4: John want to see? He loves museums. So normally when
- 23:16Speaker 4: we're driving, we're like, oh, no, we've been driving for
- 23:17Speaker 4: two hours. There's a music, Like we're going into Denver,
- 23:20Speaker 4: like there's a school museum here. Let's stop, let's make lunch,
- 23:23Speaker 4: Let's go take him to a museum, and now let's
- 23:25Speaker 4: go find a place to camp. Like maybe if we're
- 23:27Speaker 4: in a big city, we'll do like a harvest toast
- 23:29Speaker 4: or something and stay like one of those wineries or
- 23:31Speaker 4: brewery is something that's in the city. Walmarts are almost
- 23:34Speaker 4: always in cities, So he was obsessed with cracker barrel.
- 23:38Speaker 3: Stay cracker barrel.
- 23:39Speaker 4: I want a French toast. I would think that would
- 23:41Speaker 4: be like a big, a good one. I also would
- 23:44Speaker 4: say that let your kids help plant if you have
- 23:46Speaker 4: older kids, be like where do you what do you
- 23:48Speaker 4: guys want to see? Do you guys want to do
- 23:50Speaker 4: more like hikes? Do you guys want to do more
- 23:53Speaker 4: like city like restaurants? Like I have a friend at
- 23:55Speaker 4: Lozon Dallas that her daughter like loves going out to dinner,
- 23:59Speaker 4: Like she's like huge foody, she's like twelve or something.
- 24:02Speaker 4: But they're helping them like taking a big map out
- 24:04Speaker 4: into and letting them help you plan it. We haven't
- 24:07Speaker 4: been able to do that with John. Sometimes Andrew will
- 24:08Speaker 4: say like, where do.
- 24:09Speaker 1: You want to go.
- 24:09Speaker 4: He's like, Oh, I want to go to the zoo.
- 24:12Speaker 3: We're like, oh, I want to go to South America.
- 24:14Speaker 3: We're like, that's not yet. I think it's just like
- 24:15Speaker 3: a big thing is to just make sure that everybody's
- 24:17Speaker 3: needs are being met and that you're not pushingle you're
- 24:20Speaker 3: not pushing time, you're not pushing agendas, like you're out
- 24:23Speaker 3: there just traveling around and seeing the stuff that you
- 24:25Speaker 3: guys want to see, like not trying to live up
- 24:27Speaker 3: to something that you might have seen on social media
- 24:29Speaker 3: or the like. It's not all like I said earlier,
- 24:31Speaker 3: it's not all like beautiful campsites and all kind of stuff.
- 24:33Speaker 3: And it's not just camping. I mean, if it was camping,
- 24:35Speaker 3: we'd have been done a long time ago.
- 24:37Speaker 4: There's a lot of meltdowns, there's a lot of frustrations,
- 24:39Speaker 4: there's a lot, but there's also a lot of excitement,
- 24:42Speaker 4: a lot of happiness, a lot of like so like
- 24:44Speaker 4: if we stop for two months, sometimes we'll like because
- 24:46Speaker 4: we're getting ready for this big trip right now, and
- 24:48Speaker 4: we've been spending a lot of time with family and
- 24:50Speaker 4: like Seattle area and family and the Utah like Salt
- 24:53Speaker 4: Lake area, and so it's been really nice. But now
- 24:56Speaker 4: we're both like chopping at the bit to let get
- 24:58Speaker 4: back on the road. Although I've been I have actually
- 25:01Speaker 4: really been loving the showers every day. It's been really nice,
- 25:04Speaker 4: like like being able to do laundry without being like, oh, okay,
- 25:08Speaker 4: where's the close laundry mat? And although I was, I
- 25:11Speaker 4: think I was telling you actually that I love doing laundry.
- 25:13Speaker 4: I think it is very relaxing. I love looking for
- 25:16Speaker 4: laundry mats. I think it's like I always like to
- 25:17Speaker 4: find like fun, quirky laundry mats that have like a
- 25:20Speaker 4: cafe next to it, or a lot of the laundry
- 25:22Speaker 4: mats are in like strip malls, and I seem to
- 25:24Speaker 4: believe that strip mall food is the best. I think
- 25:27Speaker 4: if you can find like a good tie place and
- 25:29Speaker 4: a strip mall, it's always really really good. We always
- 25:31Speaker 4: try and find laundry mats and that have like cool
- 25:34Speaker 4: stuff around it, so if you don't have to or
- 25:36Speaker 4: will sit, Like when we had our camper, we popped
- 25:38Speaker 4: the top in the camper, and John would I do
- 25:40Speaker 4: some homeschool work and he Andrew might get a little
- 25:42Speaker 4: try and get a little work done, and I might
- 25:44Speaker 4: like read or something like that. So I enjoy doing
- 25:47Speaker 4: laundry a lot. Kind of weird, it's so.
- 25:49Speaker 3: Good and it works out really well for me.
- 25:53Speaker 4: Well, you he did a trip and Onyx recently and
- 25:56Speaker 4: you're like, he's like, I got to do my own
- 25:57Speaker 4: laundry and it was weird because I didn't go on
- 26:00Speaker 4: the trip with them, and so going like, I think
- 26:02Speaker 4: it's at a hotel. You know, sometimes if you stay
- 26:04Speaker 4: at those hotels and have the laundry, you have to
- 26:06Speaker 4: like go up the stairs, down, the stairs up.
- 26:08Speaker 1: So you were talking about not believing.
- 26:10Speaker 2: What you see on social media in terms of like
- 26:12Speaker 2: the everything's wonderful all the time. Was there a specific
- 26:15Speaker 2: instance that sticks out in your head about the time
- 26:18Speaker 2: that where that you know, what hit the fan?
- 26:20Speaker 3: So we're driving through Nevada on our way it's I
- 26:23Speaker 3: think to California or something, and we're driving through the desert,
- 26:26Speaker 3: maybe like five miles out of town, and I started
- 26:28Speaker 3: smelling diesel and I was like, did I get diesel?
- 26:30Speaker 3: Like on my feet, like what's going on. I was like,
- 26:32Speaker 3: there's something wrong and we're in now a big, fancy, cool,
- 26:34Speaker 3: like Instagram ready truck. I'm like, man stinks. And I
- 26:37Speaker 3: was like, I'm gonna turn around. It's getting because it
- 26:38Speaker 3: smells getting stronger and stronger and stronger, and I'm just we.
- 26:40Speaker 4: Thought it's where the road we were on at first.
- 26:42Speaker 3: Yeah, And so we get back to this boat launch
- 26:46Speaker 3: to where I could get out because there's really not
- 26:47Speaker 3: an ideal place to get out and look, so I
- 26:49Speaker 3: got to this boat launch, I get out and there's
- 26:50Speaker 3: just like diesel touring down out of the truck. It
- 26:52Speaker 3: has a fuel filter up on top of the engine,
- 26:54Speaker 3: and the tech that had done our service didn't tighten
- 26:56Speaker 3: it in, so it broke these lines. We fortunately the
- 26:59Speaker 3: tow truck drivers are nice and have to come a
- 27:00Speaker 3: little bit out of the gravel to get us. It
- 27:02Speaker 3: took us into town and ended up parking us at
- 27:04Speaker 3: a Walmart parking lot. We're like, oh, this would be fine,
- 27:06Speaker 3: like you all fix it tomorrow, right, yeah, And so
- 27:08Speaker 3: it ended up being Uh. I think we're there for
- 27:10Speaker 3: five days waiting for parts and win to Moket and
- 27:12Speaker 3: I think it's win to moket but like a Walmart
- 27:14Speaker 3: parking lot's like the ideal place to be stuck. And
- 27:16Speaker 3: it was cold. And then all of a sudden, like
- 27:17Speaker 3: I think day two, it snowed, just started pouring snow.
- 27:20Speaker 3: So we were stuck in the camper just chilling out,
- 27:22Speaker 3: like not doing anything, and we couldn't dig down to
- 27:24Speaker 3: the park and anything like that. So like we're sitting
- 27:26Speaker 3: there in the camp for every two hours, John's going
- 27:28Speaker 3: to Walmart.
- 27:29Speaker 4: Yeah, don't get a toy, like or pick out a
- 27:32Speaker 4: hot wheel or here goes, get some legos you can
- 27:34Speaker 4: build in the van and the truck and like, or
- 27:36Speaker 4: just get on and walk around beause he can hang
- 27:38Speaker 4: out in the toy section four hours.
- 27:40Speaker 3: Look, that was rough. I mean that people go through
- 27:42Speaker 3: way worse things.
- 27:43Speaker 4: But when I was thinking, I was when we were
- 27:45Speaker 4: worse with some friends camping coming back. We were coming
- 27:48Speaker 4: back from somewhere on our way back to Bend. Camera
- 27:50Speaker 4: if we were still living in Bend at the time,
- 27:52Speaker 4: And no, we must have been in the Patriot because
- 27:53Speaker 4: I was changing John's diaper or something. That was little.
- 27:56Speaker 3: It was the first time we tried to leave on
- 27:58Speaker 3: a little test trip.
- 27:59Speaker 4: Yeah, doing a dry and I was changing John's diaper,
- 28:02Speaker 4: and I think Andrew was on the back like getting
- 28:04Speaker 4: a snack while we were stopped, and there was some
- 28:06Speaker 4: kind of something going on, like I was, I don't
- 28:09Speaker 4: there was some weird people just kind of hovering around
- 28:12Speaker 4: us because we were at a park, thinking like, oh,
- 28:14Speaker 4: this will be safe, but it was kind of like
- 28:16Speaker 4: one of those. It was a park that just had
- 28:17Speaker 4: a lot of maybe not so friendly looking people in
- 28:20Speaker 4: the area. And so Andrew was like, hey, you know,
- 28:23Speaker 4: can you hurry up, like so you can get back
- 28:25Speaker 4: and way back. And I'm like I'm hurry, I'm going
- 28:26Speaker 4: as fast as I can. And I'm like doing his
- 28:28Speaker 4: like and then he got to the points like literally
- 28:29Speaker 4: like just get in the van, like just get in
- 28:31Speaker 4: the car, like let's just go. And I'm like trying
- 28:33Speaker 4: to like change John's diaper. It's quickly as possible, and
- 28:35Speaker 4: he's moving around and then I had to get him
- 28:37Speaker 4: in the car seat. And Andrew was like literally looking
- 28:39Speaker 4: at me, like it in the car, like right now.
- 28:43Speaker 4: And we got in the car and drove away, and
- 28:45Speaker 4: I had seen it, but I wasn't paying attention.
- 28:47Speaker 3: I mean, we were like go filing people, maybe a
- 28:49Speaker 3: little bit totally, but even sitting there like staring at
- 28:52Speaker 3: our truck and like talking for a while, Andy and
- 28:54Speaker 3: I were getting closer and closer, and then they finally
- 28:56Speaker 3: like you started walking across the street towards us. What
- 28:59Speaker 3: did you call kitty corner towards us? Yeah, street right
- 29:02Speaker 3: like straight out it sounds like towards this And we.
- 29:05Speaker 4: Were by ourself. I think we had been with friends
- 29:06Speaker 4: earlier and then we had like part of ways with
- 29:08Speaker 4: them or something, and it was that was I think
- 29:10Speaker 4: that would have been the only moment that I was
- 29:12Speaker 4: like scared, you know, and that was before we we
- 29:15Speaker 4: were in traveling. But I don't think anyone's ever been
- 29:18Speaker 4: like I got food poisoning once. John got food poisoning once.
- 29:22Speaker 4: But really, in reality, none of us have really like
- 29:24Speaker 4: had that. I don't have like a terrible story of
- 29:26Speaker 4: like we were so sick, so mad. We don't really fight.
- 29:31Speaker 4: We don't really like we bicker. John calls it fight talking,
- 29:36Speaker 4: but like we'll bicker and be like, oh, well, like
- 29:39Speaker 4: I don't want to go here, like I don't want
- 29:40Speaker 4: to be I don't want to be in the car anymore. Normally,
- 29:43Speaker 4: if I'm like frustrated with Andrew. It's normally like I
- 29:45Speaker 4: need a shower, Like I haven't been four days since
- 29:47Speaker 4: I've showered. I'm like ready to shower, or I'm hungry,
- 29:50Speaker 4: or I do not want to be in the car anymore.
- 29:52Speaker 4: Like you've been in the car for five hours read
- 29:53Speaker 4: a little bit of a longer day than we expected.
- 29:55Speaker 4: Let's just find somewhere at a camp. I don't care where
- 29:58Speaker 4: it is. And John will say that He'll be like,
- 29:59Speaker 4: was this strive longer than you expected? No, actually, it's
- 30:02Speaker 4: ten hours. Is about what we thought you were to
- 30:04Speaker 4: do today. So how's that change?
- 30:07Speaker 2: You were traveling as a couple before Don came along.
- 30:10Speaker 2: How has that changed your relationship on the road.
- 30:13Speaker 3: So we didn't travel a whole lot, like we went
- 30:14Speaker 3: over to Italy and drove around for a few weeks.
- 30:17Speaker 3: Three weeks in Italy, we drove around. Since we've had
- 30:19Speaker 3: the read full time, John Zoways been.
- 30:20Speaker 4: Around okay, because we left when he was one of that.
- 30:23Speaker 4: So when we first decided to be on the road,
- 30:25Speaker 4: he was one of But I.
- 30:26Speaker 3: Think as a family or just even as a parent, like,
- 30:28Speaker 3: one of the coolest things to see is that a
- 30:30Speaker 3: lot of the stuff we're seeing for the first time,
- 30:32Speaker 3: but it's the things that we've seen before that he's experiencing.
- 30:34Speaker 3: It's really crazy to see like him trying to sort
- 30:37Speaker 3: out like what's going on or like you know, like
- 30:39Speaker 3: is that a like is that a volcano?
- 30:40Speaker 1: Is?
- 30:41Speaker 3: Like is that that? Were there dinosaurs here a long time?
- 30:43Speaker 4: Is there an octopus in there?
- 30:46Speaker 3: It's cool to sit there and travel around and see
- 30:48Speaker 3: stuff through his eyes and like just seeing him grow
- 30:51Speaker 3: and change. Really fortunate to be able to just to
- 30:53Speaker 3: be able to see him every single day, like making changes.
- 30:56Speaker 3: I used to before. I used to travel a lot
- 30:58Speaker 3: by myself before we moved in or again. And if
- 31:00Speaker 3: I were to stay in that kind of mindseter career out,
- 31:02Speaker 3: I never had missed so much of his life.
- 31:04Speaker 4: So because he he started really working for himself when
- 31:06Speaker 4: John was born. Actually remember the day that like John
- 31:09Speaker 4: was due, like any day, oh I quit my job?
- 31:12Speaker 3: Good?
- 31:13Speaker 1: Was like, and what were you doing before? And what
- 31:15Speaker 1: did you now?
- 31:17Speaker 3: At one point I built as an aerospace industry for
- 31:20Speaker 3: seven years or eight years, and then before that I
- 31:23Speaker 3: worked kind of in healthcare like I was on a
- 31:24Speaker 3: doctor anything. But I helped build the processes and help
- 31:27Speaker 3: people improve programs and implement things. And then when we
- 31:29Speaker 3: moved to Bend, Yeah, I worked. I just I worked
- 31:31Speaker 3: a lot of hours, and I would fly to Texas
- 31:34Speaker 3: at the at the air aerospace job. I'd fly to
- 31:36Speaker 3: Texas once a month, once a month, like seven to
- 31:38Speaker 3: ten days, just like clockwork, over and over and over.
- 31:41Speaker 3: And it was great at the time. But the same
- 31:43Speaker 3: stuff that, Yeah, the stuff that we get to see
- 31:45Speaker 3: in John and getting to watch him, you know, change
- 31:48Speaker 3: and grow every day. It's I mean, it's just it's
- 31:50Speaker 3: mind blowing. It's incredible.
- 31:51Speaker 4: And we're lucky enough because we've been traveling since he
- 31:53Speaker 4: was so young. That car rides like he's just it's what.
- 31:56Speaker 4: He's all normal. It's just used to it. He doesn't care.
- 31:59Speaker 4: Recently though, he's and like I'm bored, like are we
- 32:01Speaker 4: there yet, like kind of a recent thing. We're lucky
- 32:04Speaker 4: with John too that he is actually pretty laid back
- 32:07Speaker 4: and he kind of will go with the flood. The
- 32:08Speaker 4: kid will sleep anywhere. He doesn't eat any almost anything,
- 32:11Speaker 4: but like he'll sleep anywhere, and he's super laid back
- 32:14Speaker 4: and he will go anywhere. And I think because we've
- 32:17Speaker 4: lived how we've lived or lucky to the point where
- 32:20Speaker 4: like when you like right now as we're speak talking,
- 32:23Speaker 4: he's with my mom and my sister and he is
- 32:25Speaker 4: having a blast, like eating lots of candy and like
- 32:29Speaker 4: going to them, and so he still is getting the
- 32:31Speaker 4: life that some people are like, well, don't you wish
- 32:33Speaker 4: that he had like a neighborhood where he could play
- 32:35Speaker 4: with kids and he could ride his bike and join
- 32:38Speaker 4: a soccer team. And I'm like no, because I don't
- 32:40Speaker 4: think he'd like it. I think that he wants to
- 32:42Speaker 4: keep traveling.
- 32:43Speaker 3: He loves making, and like he makes he's I don't
- 32:46Speaker 3: explain the bonds that he makes particulate, but he makes
- 32:49Speaker 3: these bonds with kids, you know, like over the course
- 32:51Speaker 3: of maybe like a week, and he remembers and like
- 32:53Speaker 3: months later, like we're getting on the boat from Maza
- 32:55Speaker 3: Lan back to the pause to both this winter and
- 32:57Speaker 3: I was like, did you have fun over there? And
- 32:58Speaker 3: he goes, yeah, he has. But I'm a little bit sad,
- 33:00Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, what do you said about
- 33:01Speaker 3: He's like, my friend Body's still over there. He's like,
- 33:04Speaker 3: he goes, I want to miss him.
- 33:05Speaker 4: Yeah. So like he makes friendships and he's he's almost
- 33:08Speaker 4: like a little kind of intense about it. Actually. Yeah,
- 33:10Speaker 4: so it's it's a hard.
- 33:12Speaker 1: All are on the road.
- 33:14Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a neighborhood, right.
- 33:15Speaker 1: Friendships really fast and really hardcore.
- 33:19Speaker 2: And then you're like, I don't know when else see this,
- 33:21Speaker 2: Pierce and again, exactly, it's exactly.
- 33:23Speaker 3: But it's cool, like now that we've travel a little
- 33:25Speaker 3: bit more international, the sense of community is a little
- 33:27Speaker 3: bit bigger. Yeah, we met all these people in Mexico,
- 33:29Speaker 3: you know, either going up to Pan American or down
- 33:31Speaker 3: to Pan American or just traveling on our Mexico And
- 33:34Speaker 3: like you said, gold, these bonds like really quick and
- 33:36Speaker 3: you can't make like these lifelong friends. And that's really
- 33:39Speaker 3: I don't know, people kind of even us, we probably thought,
- 33:41Speaker 3: you know, like we're going to be missing all these
- 33:42Speaker 3: aspects that we're going to We miss our friends, we
- 33:44Speaker 3: miss this, we miss our family. But we do. But
- 33:46Speaker 3: the people that we've met on the road.
- 33:47Speaker 6: Have just become like really fast friends and will become
- 33:50Speaker 6: a family because when you when you dip into that
- 33:52Speaker 6: international international travel, the pool actually becomes quite a bit
- 33:55Speaker 6: smaller of the kind of people that you can be like, well, oh.
- 33:58Speaker 4: You've been, Like, oh, Ashley, you've been, Like South America?
- 34:01Speaker 4: Like what was your favorite part? Like we know almost
- 34:03Speaker 4: very little people that have we known that I've been
- 34:05Speaker 4: to South America that we can sit and be like
- 34:07Speaker 4: where should we go? Like let's put out a map
- 34:09Speaker 4: and let's play figure out some good places. I just
- 34:11Speaker 4: thought at the pool gets a lot smaller, but you
- 34:13Speaker 4: think it's bigger.
- 34:14Speaker 3: I mean the sense of community in the state, the
- 34:17Speaker 3: Lower forty eight or Canada. You know, you might meet
- 34:19Speaker 3: somebody camping or whatever be like, oh, hey you're camping,
- 34:22Speaker 3: you're camping, friends and any kind of go your separate ways,
- 34:24Speaker 3: but I think there's a really deep connection. Like me,
- 34:26Speaker 3: you're sowhere far from home.
- 34:27Speaker 2: You see a license plate for US, it was like
- 34:30Speaker 2: the US or Canada. If we saw a Canadian our
- 34:33Speaker 2: US license plate in South America, who was like, let's
- 34:36Speaker 2: run after these people content, figure where they're from.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Let's where your best friends?
- 34:43Speaker 4: Yeah, so fast.
- 34:44Speaker 5: This content is brought to you by Overland Journal, our
- 34:47Speaker 5: premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in two
- 34:50Speaker 5: thousand and six with the goal of providing independent equipment
- 34:54Speaker 5: and vehicle reviews, along with the most stunning adventures and photography.
- 34:59Speaker 5: We care deeply about the countries and cultures we visit
- 35:02Speaker 5: and share our experiences freely with our readers. We also
- 35:06Speaker 5: have zero averatorial policy and do not accept any advertiser
- 35:09Speaker 5: compensation for our reviews. By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're
- 35:13Speaker 5: helping to support our employee owned and veteran owned publication.
- 35:17Speaker 5: Your support also provides resources and funding for content like
- 35:21Speaker 5: you are watching or listening to right now. You can
- 35:23Speaker 5: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
- 35:27Speaker 1: Yeah, what did you guys learn from your trip to Mexico?
- 35:30Speaker 1: That was recent.
- 35:31Speaker 3: Because we came back in April this year.
- 35:34Speaker 4: We're there for four months about and I would say
- 35:37Speaker 4: I was really scared to go to Mexico because I
- 35:39Speaker 4: did not know what to expect. It was my first
- 35:42Speaker 4: except for Canada. It was like my first tip into
- 35:44Speaker 4: international travel. And you know, you hear people that are like, oh,
- 35:48Speaker 4: like careful, it's really dangerous and you know you're gonna
- 35:51Speaker 4: get sick, and careful what you eat and be careful
- 35:54Speaker 4: where you go, like we did not. We love Mexico
- 35:57Speaker 4: so much that we felt the people were super kind.
- 36:00Speaker 4: We felt very welcome food was phenomenal. We never got sick,
- 36:04Speaker 4: like we got sick. Maybe a couple of stomach aches
- 36:06Speaker 4: once or twice too. Yeah, but we took probiotics every day,
- 36:10Speaker 4: and I think that really helped. Andrew actually has really
- 36:12Speaker 4: sent the stomach so for him to take probiotics every day.
- 36:19Speaker 1: We also travel with promotics.
- 36:22Speaker 4: But I think that for someone that in the past
- 36:24Speaker 4: gets stomach aches easily, he didn't really have any all
- 36:27Speaker 4: in Mexico except for when we say, at my brother's wedding.
- 36:29Speaker 4: Then he got sick at a resort and he got
- 36:31Speaker 4: super sick. And it's like one of the main things
- 36:34Speaker 4: I think we learned was like how to spot like
- 36:35Speaker 4: good taco stands.
- 36:37Speaker 1: You know, we could say, well.
- 36:38Speaker 4: There's all these taco stands here, but everybody seems to
- 36:40Speaker 4: get this taco stand. Let's go over there. There was
- 36:43Speaker 4: one in San Pelipe was just like a little restaurant
- 36:46Speaker 4: and it wasn't even busy, but their food was actually
- 36:48Speaker 4: pretty good. And we had and we only were like,
- 36:50Speaker 4: we need Wi Fi. We need to like download some
- 36:52Speaker 4: stuff for John. I need to like I want to
- 36:54Speaker 4: download like a book, and he needs to work. You
- 36:56Speaker 4: would find these places and like it has really fast
- 36:58Speaker 4: Wi Fi. I overlanders really good good Like they would
- 37:02Speaker 4: tell you if like you had RB parks and say
- 37:04Speaker 4: this fast Wi Fi.
- 37:06Speaker 3: One of the things that I really took away from Mexico.
- 37:08Speaker 3: I've had a lot I've been in my adult life.
- 37:10Speaker 3: I've been around a lot of people from Mexico, so
- 37:12Speaker 3: I know that people that are pretty family were into
- 37:14Speaker 3: but I had no idea how much they love random kids,
- 37:17Speaker 3: you know, Like John would be walking down the street
- 37:19Speaker 3: and everybody be like, hey, Hi, Hi, look at this kid. Hey,
- 37:21Speaker 3: they're just kids, Like how cute he is. That was
- 37:24Speaker 3: so cool to see everybody.
- 37:25Speaker 4: You know, he's so blonde, you know, and he's so faist.
- 37:28Speaker 4: He's not fair skin. He's actually quite darkly.
- 37:29Speaker 3: Because every like all the kids, because we'd go to
- 37:32Speaker 3: town with kids from the campsites we'd stay in and
- 37:34Speaker 3: just everybody like goes crazy over kids. It's kind of
- 37:36Speaker 3: like if you're in band or something, the way people
- 37:38Speaker 3: go after dogs and your.
- 37:40Speaker 4: Dogs kid, Yeah, but that's the way.
- 37:43Speaker 3: Yeah, he just loves so much. I thought it was
- 37:45Speaker 3: so cool for him to see that.
- 37:47Speaker 4: Every time they see it, they'd like touch his.
- 37:49Speaker 3: Head all really walking through this market in whake Collga.
- 37:52Speaker 3: It's market Marcao Diabastos, and this lady like did a
- 37:57Speaker 3: double take and saw him and then she rubbed his
- 37:59Speaker 3: head and she's like like, oh I said something. I
- 38:01Speaker 3: think she said like oh stuff. And then as we
- 38:05Speaker 3: passed by, she leaned out of her stall and she
- 38:07Speaker 3: started yelling down down the aisle that he was coming.
- 38:12Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 38:12Speaker 3: So all of our friends came out. They're just so
- 38:13Speaker 3: happy and excited to see him, and he's just like
- 38:15Speaker 3: what's going on.
- 38:16Speaker 4: It was like when we saw that mom with a
- 38:18Speaker 4: toddler sitting just like on the sidewalk like eating something,
- 38:22Speaker 4: and John passed by and the mom planted. John was
- 38:25Speaker 4: talking to her daughter like helping her, like like smooth
- 38:28Speaker 4: and she goes well rito when she was like trying
- 38:32Speaker 4: to they like waved at him. That was so many.
- 38:36Speaker 3: It was just cool, like how welcome and everybody's so welcoming.
- 38:39Speaker 3: He did your talk on Saturday last night about how
- 38:41Speaker 3: welcoming everybody was too, and it was just like that.
- 38:43Speaker 3: It's kind of sad that the States isn't so much
- 38:46Speaker 3: like that, and we've never had somebody walk up to
- 38:47Speaker 3: us and be like, oh, hey, come try this, try
- 38:50Speaker 3: my restaurant, and we like that guy in Baja, we
- 38:53Speaker 3: met a fisherman and we sat there and even speak English,
- 38:56Speaker 3: movie speaking mediocre Spanish. So we were like trying to
- 38:57Speaker 3: like wait our way through a conversation and we didn't.
- 39:00Speaker 3: All right, and we were talking to him and then
- 39:01Speaker 3: it was getting darker and we hear this like wrestling
- 39:03Speaker 3: in the bushes and this guy came out, that's what
- 39:05Speaker 3: it was like. I was like, oh, it's that guy.
- 39:06Speaker 3: It was like he's coming and he had an arm
- 39:08Speaker 3: out of firewood to bring us. Yeah, and he just
- 39:10Speaker 3: like sits it down and he starts like piling it
- 39:12Speaker 3: up and he makes us a fire. And then he
- 39:14Speaker 3: goes to leave, and I was like, hey, like you
- 39:16Speaker 3: want a beer, like you want to hang out for
- 39:17Speaker 3: a bit, And he's like no, no, no. I was like, oh,
- 39:18Speaker 3: come on, like have a beer. We went we had first,
- 39:20Speaker 3: we had a beer. Yeah, So we drank a beer
- 39:22Speaker 3: with him and then we kind of like connected more
- 39:24Speaker 3: and like he was having fun and everything and finished
- 39:26Speaker 3: his beer and he's like, all right, well I have
- 39:27Speaker 3: to go back after work, you know, after you're ready
- 39:29Speaker 3: for tomorrow. Like all right, we'll gets fun hanging out
- 39:30Speaker 3: with you. Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes later, we
- 39:32Speaker 3: see the flash like coming down the beach and I
- 39:34Speaker 3: was like, oh, no, is this something wrong or like
- 39:35Speaker 3: what's going on? He came back and he had like
- 39:36Speaker 3: a whole big giant lincot play he brought us.
- 39:39Speaker 4: He brought us like yeah, and we're just.
- 39:41Speaker 3: Like like, oh, can we pay you for this? He's
- 39:42Speaker 3: like I want to accept it, blah blah blah. And
- 39:44Speaker 3: then next to the next day, we like we were
- 39:46Speaker 3: leaving and everything, and he's just like goodbye, like have
- 39:47Speaker 3: a safe trip. Like it's just so cool. I mean
- 39:49Speaker 3: we see it here in the States, but just not
- 39:51Speaker 3: on that scale.
- 39:52Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 39:53Speaker 4: Well, the fish was like already flayed.
- 39:54Speaker 3: It was beautiful.
- 39:55Speaker 4: It was just like this beautiful piece of fish. We
- 39:57Speaker 4: cooked like the next night and made like fish tacos.
- 39:59Speaker 4: It was I was so delicious. It was a very
- 40:02Speaker 4: heartening experience because in a lot of situations, people might
- 40:05Speaker 4: be like, oh my god, there's a person coming towards us,
- 40:07Speaker 4: like let's get in our cars because who knows what
- 40:09Speaker 4: he's gonna do. In reality, we didn't feel scared at
- 40:12Speaker 4: all when he came by I'm like, oh, maybe he's
- 40:13Speaker 4: gonna tell us we can't camp here because it was
- 40:15Speaker 4: like a big fish camp. And then when we asked,
- 40:17Speaker 4: we're like, oh, we came and camp here, and he said,
- 40:19Speaker 4: oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, and then like would walk around
- 40:22Speaker 4: the belong the beach and then as it got darker, that's.
- 40:24Speaker 3: When he came to was that was really cool. I
- 40:26Speaker 3: mean there's tons and tons of stories and you guys
- 40:28Speaker 3: have the same thing, and just people just out of nowhere.
- 40:30Speaker 3: He's random act of kindness. It's just it's so cool.
- 40:32Speaker 3: That was my favorite part of coming out of Mexico.
- 40:34Speaker 2: Yeah, so you had the Patriot camper and you've had
- 40:37Speaker 2: the Flural camper and a flatbed and the land Cruiser
- 40:43Speaker 2: and a jeep and this van.
- 40:46Speaker 1: Jeez, which vehicle did you take down to? Which vehicle
- 40:50Speaker 1: did you take down to Mexico?
- 40:53Speaker 3: So it was the twenty twenty jeep Gladator we found
- 40:55Speaker 3: on the lot. That was really good.
- 40:56Speaker 1: Dude, Okay, okay, we're going to try it out.
- 40:58Speaker 3: And we ended up so we had the rooftop tenth
- 41:00Speaker 3: took off of the Forerunner and we're like, we don't
- 41:01Speaker 3: want to put it like invest a ton more money
- 41:03Speaker 3: into this thing if we're not going to like him
- 41:04Speaker 3: want to s So we put the rooftop tint on
- 41:06Speaker 3: with a canopy and we drove that down to Mexico.
- 41:09Speaker 3: So we we did another rooftop ten but Mexico's perfect word,
- 41:11Speaker 3: I mean, it's so warm and nice. And it was
- 41:13Speaker 3: nice to have that because we could go get an airbnb,
- 41:15Speaker 3: you know every two weeks.
- 41:16Speaker 4: No, we got an airbnb, and then we got a
- 41:22Speaker 4: hotel is to see and then we our friend lived
- 41:27Speaker 4: as I lived almost Kelly and Dace. We stayed with her.
- 41:30Speaker 3: But it was really he ended up really really liking it.
- 41:32Speaker 3: We were kind of like on the fance' like, you know,
- 41:34Speaker 3: it's pretty small, Like we don't know if we're gonna
- 41:35Speaker 3: like it.
- 41:36Speaker 4: Well, Andrew had said, because I were originally going to
- 41:38Speaker 4: take the van, but we didn't really know what we
- 41:41Speaker 4: like how much off roading we were going to do,
- 41:42Speaker 4: Like this off road's fine, but the jeep obviously will
- 41:45Speaker 4: offerad better. And he had said, oh, well, once we
- 41:47Speaker 4: get into bas if you don't like, because I was
- 41:50Speaker 4: against the geep because I was kind of like, well,
- 41:54Speaker 4: it's like not a lot of space and what about
- 41:56Speaker 4: like bad weather because I thought it was gonna be
- 41:58Speaker 4: like more like crappy weather of Mexico for some reason.
- 42:00Speaker 4: And so Andrew's like, well, let's do the northern port
- 42:02Speaker 4: of bah first. If you don't like it, I can
- 42:05Speaker 4: we can come back into San Diego. I can like
- 42:07Speaker 4: drop you guys in San Diego and I'll go back
- 42:09Speaker 4: and get the van at the time, which was in
- 42:11Speaker 4: Bois and then we'll we'll swap him out. And then
- 42:13Speaker 4: as we kept staying in the jeep and the we
- 42:16Speaker 4: have the what's on the jeep right now is an
- 42:18Speaker 4: easy on rooftop tent and we like stealth, and we
- 42:20Speaker 4: loved it. It was big, it was spacious, and we
- 42:23Speaker 4: got down. I think the coldest it got might have
- 42:25Speaker 4: been like in the thirties. The coldest we've been in
- 42:28Speaker 4: that specific ten is eighteen in Greece in Texas, but like,
- 42:30Speaker 4: we were super warm and it was not an issue
- 42:33Speaker 4: at all. And it was big, and I thought for
- 42:35Speaker 4: sure that we weren't going to fit in there very
- 42:36Speaker 4: well because John's lot bigger since the last time we
- 42:38Speaker 4: had done it, and he I think by the end
- 42:41Speaker 4: of that trip we were getting a little a little
- 42:44Speaker 4: tight and there.
- 42:46Speaker 3: We decided we decided to switch our time in Europe
- 42:50Speaker 3: with our time in South America like this, and we
- 42:52Speaker 3: think it'd be pretty perfect for South America. So came back,
- 42:54Speaker 3: got rid of the rooftop tent and the canopy, and
- 42:57Speaker 3: now we just had an Alu cab canopy camper put
- 42:59Speaker 3: on there. So we have a little bit more stand
- 43:01Speaker 3: up room, a little bit more room to play around,
- 43:03Speaker 3: but still be small enough to still get an Airbnb
- 43:05Speaker 3: and hopefully park it in a garage or fit under. Something.
- 43:08Speaker 4: We do opposite what most people do. Most people start tiny,
- 43:11Speaker 4: a little bigger, a little bit bigger. We're like, start small,
- 43:14Speaker 4: go big, go small again, maybe go big again, and
- 43:17Speaker 4: maybe go medium size.
- 43:18Speaker 3: Town was trying to get us to do a four
- 43:20Speaker 3: wheeler a motorcycle in a side by side live in
- 43:25Speaker 3: let's go take a four He's like, Mom will ride
- 43:28Speaker 3: the side by side, I will ride the four wheeler,
- 43:30Speaker 3: and you can ride the motorcycle. Was like, it's I
- 43:32Speaker 3: don't know where are we sleeping. So we landed on
- 43:36Speaker 3: the gladiator now, so that's what we're gonna do a
- 43:38Speaker 3: little bit of work on and then by the time
- 43:40Speaker 3: anybody here's this will hopefully be in South well yeah.
- 43:42Speaker 4: Well we should probably be in New York Way by
- 43:43Speaker 4: the time this podcast will be very exciting. Ship yeah,
- 43:46Speaker 4: like what end of July inch and then but flying
- 43:50Speaker 4: into your way probably sometime in the fall.
- 43:52Speaker 2: Plans do you have or the terms of any modifications
- 43:56Speaker 2: or accessories or.
- 43:58Speaker 3: It already has some sound accessories. We have a lot
- 43:59Speaker 3: of stuff like that, they and cruise stuff. I have
- 44:04Speaker 3: a lot of confidence. And then he goes on the
- 44:06Speaker 3: gply Well they have the bumper. We inch small small,
- 44:09Speaker 3: tiny lift and then we have you cannyy camper on
- 44:11Speaker 3: the back. And then I am going to build out
- 44:14Speaker 3: the inside, do all the electronical stuff and any kind
- 44:17Speaker 3: of systems. Get that put together and hopefully it'll hold
- 44:19Speaker 3: up for the trip without too many issues or anything.
- 44:21Speaker 4: The plan is doing. I think we decide on a
- 44:23Speaker 4: diesel heater. Yeah, that's all I care about. Took a
- 44:28Speaker 4: seat out that he'll probably build like.
- 44:30Speaker 3: At platform storage or anything.
- 44:32Speaker 4: So our fridge will go on the back seat next
- 44:34Speaker 4: to john which will actually be kind of nice because
- 44:36Speaker 4: if we're driving, I can like reach back and be like, hey,
- 44:39Speaker 4: Johnny hungry, which is like always hungry if you like
- 44:42Speaker 4: so for the fact that he doesn't need anything, he's always.
- 44:44Speaker 1: On what needs you decide to shift to your Ugay
- 44:50Speaker 1: instead of driving down the pen American Highway.
- 44:53Speaker 3: So for some reason I got like tunnel vision and
- 44:55Speaker 3: fixated on Columbia for a long time. So everything I
- 44:58Speaker 3: was doing is built around Columbia. Then I started going
- 45:00Speaker 3: on websites and we're putting like whether you know when
- 45:03Speaker 3: the rainy season is, when it's cold, when it's hot,
- 45:05Speaker 3: on all this stuff, and I was like, man, it's
- 45:07Speaker 3: going to be really hard to get the jeep done
- 45:08Speaker 3: by the time that you know, like the rainy season
- 45:10Speaker 3: comes in Bolivia, and I've heard bad things and so
- 45:12Speaker 3: I have to get like, I have to get the
- 45:13Speaker 3: jeep done here here, here, And so let's talking to
- 45:15Speaker 3: our friend or Neesto. He's like, well, why don't you
- 45:17Speaker 3: just go to Uruguay. He was like, I don't know, question,
- 45:21Speaker 3: that's a good idea. So does that really helped? And
- 45:23Speaker 3: then that alleviates any kind of the time craunch and everything,
- 45:25Speaker 3: because we'll get down there right in the nice, nice weather,
- 45:28Speaker 3: nice time of year, and then we can cruise around
- 45:30Speaker 3: and enjoy the southern half and see all I mean
- 45:32Speaker 3: everybody keeps telling it's like how big it is. I
- 45:35Speaker 3: mean it's kind of like anywhere right, Like before we
- 45:36Speaker 3: went to Mexico, we were aware that there's a bunch
- 45:38Speaker 3: of states and it was this size, but you kind
- 45:40Speaker 3: of think of it as a monolith. Like you think like, oh,
- 45:42Speaker 3: we're going to Mexico, and then as you go there,
- 45:44Speaker 3: you see like different states, you know, like Sinaloa like
- 45:46Speaker 3: I was called Antes, like somebody supposed to see and
- 45:48Speaker 3: all that stuff, and then when you're there you start
- 45:50Speaker 3: realizing with scale and what's where and what it's like.
- 45:52Speaker 3: So when we get there, I think we might pop
- 45:55Speaker 3: up into Brazil. I just quick trip or some quick
- 45:57Speaker 3: trip to Brazil. But everybody's been telling us how great
- 46:00Speaker 3: Brazil is. So we might go up there for a bit,
- 46:02Speaker 3: turn around, come down through your Aguay and then down
- 46:04Speaker 3: through Chile and Argentina, turn around, come back up through
- 46:07Speaker 3: Central America through Mexico and the Cornea is surprised that
- 46:10Speaker 3: I said this is the day without talking to her.
- 46:11Speaker 3: But we might drive all the way to Alaska.
- 46:13Speaker 2: I was.
- 46:15Speaker 3: Somebody who's asking this about it. I was like, O, yeah,
- 46:16Speaker 3: we're gonna go to Alaska.
- 46:17Speaker 4: He's like, what did this happened? Wonder by the time
- 46:21Speaker 4: is more of my well I should be talking. I'm like,
- 46:22Speaker 4: what are we gonna put it on our four now that
- 46:24Speaker 4: the FOMAL camera's going?
- 46:26Speaker 1: So like most looking forward to about this South America
- 46:30Speaker 1: treat that you have land, I think.
- 46:32Speaker 4: The unknown, like we have no idea, like what We're
- 46:35Speaker 4: not big planners.
- 46:36Speaker 3: We just kind of go with the flood We've planned
- 46:38Speaker 3: in the past and then things change and it always
- 46:41Speaker 3: tends to work out. So I'm just kind of like
- 46:42Speaker 3: I have like a really rough plan, but as you go,
- 46:44Speaker 3: people will be like, oh, you know, like you need
- 46:46Speaker 3: to go check out X, Y and Z, or you
- 46:48Speaker 3: need to go try this food. So then I e
- 46:49Speaker 3: side trips so hopefully, and it's a pretty well traveled route,
- 46:52Speaker 3: so I think we'll get a lot of pointers from
- 46:54Speaker 3: our friends here who have been and then a lot
- 46:57Speaker 3: of pointers as we're moving through the continent.
- 46:59Speaker 4: I'm really excited to learn the language and really get
- 47:02Speaker 4: immersed in the culture. I really want to be a
- 47:04Speaker 4: good Spanish speaking person, Like I really want to understand it,
- 47:07Speaker 4: I really want to speak it, like and I think
- 47:09Speaker 4: I'm the most excited about that, and the more we
- 47:11Speaker 4: interact with people in Mexico, the more our Spanish got better.
- 47:14Speaker 4: So I feel like just after four months of being
- 47:16Speaker 4: in Mexico, our Spanish got so good. So I can
- 47:19Speaker 4: only imagine what two years will have. That's what I mean.
- 47:21Speaker 4: Eighteen to twenty four months is about the time will
- 47:23Speaker 4: be in that area if we decide to go up
- 47:25Speaker 4: to Central America and into Mexico. But it just depends
- 47:27Speaker 4: on because, like you know, things can always change. Ye
- 47:30Speaker 4: you never know, like if we'll have to like go
- 47:32Speaker 4: home early. I just that's why we don't really plan.
- 47:34Speaker 4: We're just going to kind of go with the flow
- 47:36Speaker 4: for as long as possible.
- 47:37Speaker 3: Really looking forward to the just meeting the cool stories
- 47:40Speaker 3: you can look back on met and people, like whether
- 47:41Speaker 3: they're vocals or whether they're fellow travelers. I'm looking forward
- 47:44Speaker 3: to all those cool stories that we'll have some day
- 47:46Speaker 3: we were like, oh do you remember that time they
- 47:47Speaker 3: met that guy? I needed a yeah, yeah, So I'm
- 47:50Speaker 3: looking forward to that the most nice.
- 47:52Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Also, following your trip fun,
- 47:56Speaker 1: what is your favorite book?
- 47:57Speaker 3: I question? So I was actually talking to someone the
- 48:02Speaker 3: other night, and this is more like a professional book.
- 48:04Speaker 3: But one of my favorite books is by this guy
- 48:05Speaker 3: named Taitioo. It's about the Toyota production system. So it's
- 48:09Speaker 3: not like it's not like a huge turn pager for
- 48:10Speaker 3: a lot of people, but in all honestly, it's probably
- 48:13Speaker 3: one of the things that shifted my mindset the most moment,
- 48:16Speaker 3: Like what why so I worked in that kind of
- 48:18Speaker 3: in the industry and in that space, you know it
- 48:20Speaker 3: continuous improvement and before that, and then meeting a mentor
- 48:24Speaker 3: and then my sense from a company called Shingi Jitsu
- 48:27Speaker 3: it's Toyota's in house continuous improvement program. Before that, I
- 48:30Speaker 3: was like more into like the lean sic Sigma kind
- 48:32Speaker 3: of like the more complicated. It's like more of the
- 48:35Speaker 3: It was a little bit more complex than Kaisen. And
- 48:38Speaker 3: so like my mentors like, read this book. This will
- 48:41Speaker 3: help you figure out like what we're trying to do here.
- 48:43Speaker 3: And I was like, I was like, oh, I was
- 48:44Speaker 3: like it's not simple, but it's like it makes sense,
- 48:46Speaker 3: Like these things actually like make sense to me.
- 48:48Speaker 1: Interesting.
- 48:48Speaker 3: That book was great. I need to think of a
- 48:50Speaker 3: good one.
- 48:51Speaker 4: I don't have like cool over landy books like some people,
- 48:54Speaker 4: any book like any people on this podcast, like, oh,
- 48:56Speaker 4: I did a book about like Africa, this person that
- 48:59Speaker 4: traveled to a top of a mountain.
- 49:00Speaker 1: I am fiction.
- 49:02Speaker 4: I'm a very I am a fiction reader. I really
- 49:04Speaker 4: really enjoy it. I actually just started I like Leanne
- 49:07Speaker 4: Moriarty who did like Nine Perfect Strangers, and she did
- 49:09Speaker 4: I think a lot of people know her from It's
- 49:11Speaker 4: not Hausban's Secret, but it was a big little lies
- 49:14Speaker 4: that was on TV at right point. Yeah, so I
- 49:16Speaker 4: read all of her books. Her books are she's based.
- 49:18Speaker 4: She's an Australian author, and she just has these great
- 49:20Speaker 4: stories that all I had these crazy twists at the
- 49:23Speaker 4: end and she I'm reading Apple Never Falls right now.
- 49:26Speaker 4: It was really good about it's basically like their mom
- 49:28Speaker 4: has gone missing and they're trying to like figure out
- 49:31Speaker 4: it's like they think it's the dad. It's just kind
- 49:33Speaker 4: of like it. Really I literally started this book maybe
- 49:37Speaker 4: a week ago and I'm like eighty percent through it,
- 49:40Speaker 4: like it's it's a I start her books, I like
- 49:42Speaker 4: cannot put them down. And so and then the other
- 49:44Speaker 4: one I just started was Anthony Bourdina Cook's Tour and
- 49:48Speaker 4: it is really really good and I'm literally on page four,
- 49:52Speaker 4: so it's but so far it's really good.
- 49:54Speaker 3: We both started, and then when I was on this
- 49:56Speaker 3: trip in Arizone, I finished the audiobook of it. But
- 49:58Speaker 3: it was the Log of the Sea of Corte John Sine,
- 50:02Speaker 3: and it was cool because we're going to all these
- 50:03Speaker 3: places through Bob and but the big surprise to me
- 50:06Speaker 3: was that I was sitting in camp by myself one
- 50:08Speaker 3: night and the book ended. I was like, that was
- 50:09Speaker 3: a pretty good book. And then the appendix starts and
- 50:11Speaker 3: it's just a whole nother story. And that story just
- 50:13Speaker 3: had me like glued to the speaker. I was just
- 50:15Speaker 3: like seeing her listening to the to the appendix of
- 50:17Speaker 3: the book. I was like, that was incredible. I mean,
- 50:18Speaker 3: I guess that's why stand back Steinbeck. But it was
- 50:20Speaker 3: just it was a good book.
- 50:21Speaker 4: Pick I'd recommend that was what was the one that
- 50:23Speaker 4: we read that was the about why it was?
- 50:26Speaker 3: Why was John Mischer? Was John Mischner?
- 50:28Speaker 4: Yeah, he really liked that one. I know John Mischner's
- 50:31Speaker 4: books are like eight hundred pages long, and they're super long.
- 50:33Speaker 4: And I think that audio we were listening to the
- 50:35Speaker 4: audio book and I think it was like fourteen hours
- 50:38Speaker 4: or eighteen hours or something.
- 50:39Speaker 3: We have a friend that's read every missioner book and
- 50:41Speaker 3: he said, I remember how you phrase. He goes they start,
- 50:43Speaker 3: you know, like a thousand years before the Book of
- 50:45Speaker 3: Genesis and they like three weeks ago.
- 50:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 50:48Speaker 2: Well, thank you guys so much for tuning into every
- 50:51Speaker 2: episode and it's been such a pleasure having you on
- 50:54Speaker 2: your own episode.
- 50:55Speaker 1: And obvioubly one day John will come out with his
- 50:58Speaker 1: own episode two. That would be really fun.
- 51:00Speaker 4: He wanted to be on this podcast yet. I can't
- 51:05Speaker 4: wait to hear your voice. Mom.
- 51:08Speaker 2: Yeah, where can the find folks of the podcast world
- 51:14Speaker 2: find you guys online?
- 51:15Speaker 3: Probably Instagram's the best. We're not super active, but we
- 51:17Speaker 3: have an Instagram. It's SAVO Touring with a tas of
- 51:21Speaker 3: t s a v O Underscore Touring.
- 51:23Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys again so much.
- 51:24Speaker 2: It's been an absolute pleasure, and I'm sure there are
- 51:26Speaker 2: lots of families out there that are just very excited
- 51:29Speaker 2: and inspired.
- 51:30Speaker 4: And thank you.
- 51:30Speaker 1: We'll look to you and be inspired by your trip.
- 51:33Speaker 1: So thank you so much.
- 51:34Speaker 4: And thanks for having us.
- 51:36Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the Overlining Journal podcast,
- 51:40Speaker 2: and we will see you next time.