Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Interview with Bryon Bass, Explorer, Archaeologist, Vintner, and Overlander

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Interview with Bryon Bass, Explorer, Archaeologist, Vintner, and Overlander · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady. My co host Matt Scott is
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: not available today, so we will see him on a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: future episode. But I have a great friend of mine,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a longtime friend. He is a previous podcast guest, so
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: this is our first time that we've had a second run,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and that is Brian Bass. And Brian is in the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: episode titled The Real Andiana Jones.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: That's right exactly. So.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Brian is an archaeologist by trade. He is also a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: lifetime adventurer. He has lived around the world and traveled
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: around the world by foul drive and by motorcycle. He
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: also has a very wide sweeping scope of interests as well,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: which we're going to get into more today. There was
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a lot that we wanted to talk about in the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: last podcast that we weren't able to get to. So
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: thank you Brian for being on the podcast again and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: spending some time in Prescott with me.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Great to be bad.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been no pressure, by the way, by calling
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: out that I'm the first return.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you are, And that's because there's so much
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: fun stuff for us to be able to chat about,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and we're always scheming future adventures. In fact, maybe we'll
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: even talk about a few of those today on the episode.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: But it would be great to go through a couple
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of those things that we weren't able to really talk
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: about last time, So get into those with a little
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: bit deeper dive, which I think will be a lot
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of fun. This episode is supported in part by red
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  Speaker 1: and innovative and tough as tanks. One of the first
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: questions that I thought would be interesting to get into
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: more on the technical side of things is really that
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: subject around every day carry because I tend to just
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: ask you what you're using for a pen or a
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: knife or whatever, because it just saves me so much
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: time and research, because you usually have it nailed by
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the time I ask you. So let's go through what
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: your current everyday carry is, the things that you tend
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to have on your person when you're in North America,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and then of course how that changes when you travel
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: around the world for example.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no problem. I think for me, daily carry has
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: to equate to daily use. While I might have some
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: really cool things in my say for around the house
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: sitting on my desk, I don't necessarily carry those unless
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: there is a scenario or scenarios where I would envision
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: using them. So every day I have my usual knife.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Can't say it's the usual a knife in my pocket
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: clip kind.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So what would you typically have on your person when
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you're on the ranch in California?
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Well, actually this is going to be repeat But what
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I have on now, which is what I carry most days,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: is a really great knife by a guy named Robert
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Smith from Gooseworks. Okay, he's also the owner of res
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Co Instruments. They make watches, beautiful watch. Yeah, he's a
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: former Navy seal and his stuff is just it's just
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: field ready. I suppose people could collect his knives, but
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: that's not really what he's naming for.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So I carry that and is it a folder or
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: is it a folder? Yeah?
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very basic design. He has influences that are very
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: obvious when you see the knives, but they're just great
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: for the field, for thrashing about, you know, pull it
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: out and go, I wonder if I should really use
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: this for that task.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: You just take the knife out and use it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: And then the other everyday carry is a it's gonna
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: sound crazy, but it's a Victor Knox one eight, the
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: German Army knife GAK is what people call it. Actually
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: carry one that wasn't one of the issue ones, but
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: it's they have red handle and green handle and they're
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: one hundred and eight millimeters long, and that's why either
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: called the one O eights. They don't make them anymore. Unfortunately,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: they're a pretty interesting knife. They're just a great knife
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: and for the field. They only have a pivot at
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: one end. They're super robust and I was a grad
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: student night that was the only knife that I had.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: And because it has a very long there's a saw
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: with a really stout screwdriver blade screw driver at the
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: very end. So when I was riding around on my
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: R one hundred PD. That was like the everyday tool,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: you know, And so that's really that is it for
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: my It must be on me every day all day.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if I have, like sure nicer pair
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: of trousers or whatever I had a for the one
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: o eight, I'm not carrying them in my pocket. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: have a there's a great sheath maker, a holster maker
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: in where I live, in the Santinez Valley. I ramped
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: up the optimal pancake type sheet for it, so it
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: can kind of be worn off to the side, similar
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: to like what people people are familiar with. How like
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the old Snubnos revolvers were carried that kind of a sheath,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and so it's it's obviously for this knife for the
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Victor Knocks one oweight. So it just kind of stashes
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: away on my hip and it doesn't bother me when
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: I drive, but it's always there as a.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Quarkscrew on it. So you're you're you're ready for anything,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: all the important stuff. Right.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, paint a picture on how long you have
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: had that knife. That's amaze. You said you had it
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: when you were in graduate school, so you have not
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I mean knock on wood or whatever. But you you've
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: kept this knife now for decades.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I should say to qualify this that the one
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I have on me is not that exact same one.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: So I gave that that other one away. I paid
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: ten Swiss franks for it at an outdoor market in
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Zurich and then carried it forever, and then recently gave
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: it away as a gift. And well, you know, I'm
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: not giving away here, but online, if you get onto
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: different the Fura and things like this, you can find
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the one o eights.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: They're very affordable.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: They're they're kind of collectible because there are so many
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: different manufacturers down the line that somehow had license or
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: something like this from Victori Knocks to make them. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: so there's a whole little sub community of a sub
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: community that collects these things.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And so it has a cut blade, it has a
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: saw with a with a screwdriver tip, and then it
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: also has a corkscrew.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and all and in all as well, yes, it all,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: of course.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: And then some of them, you know, some of the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: ones that are a little bit harder to find, have
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: a like a striker on the saw blade on the
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: side for strike on anything.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Matches.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: You can probably use it as a fingernail file or
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: something like that. And so those are those are pretty
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: cool too to track down. It's well thought out. Yeah,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: that sounds like it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the corkscrew, this is something I don't think
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: we talked about much or at all on the last podcast.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But in addition to you being an archaeologist, you've also
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: become a vintner over the last decade. That was a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: true victory. Yeah, what inspired you to want to create
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: your own wine?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: That's an easy and difficult question.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: I guess I never really thought about wine one way
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: or the other until I started my field work down
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: in Croatia, on an island off the coast. There where
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: every family, almost every family in the village where I
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: was based, I make their own wine. And you know
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: where I'm from in California, you know, at that time
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: it was like Napa. I didn't know anything about about
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Santinez Valley or Sonoma or any the other Russian river.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I would have just excellent wine and here I'm like,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: there's a penniless grad student. And then I you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I would follow around and watching on them, topping the
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: barrels and doing different things. And I was only at
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: the tail end of a harvest once down there at
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: that time, so it just kind of put the hook
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: in me for trying good wine. It doesn't have to
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: be expensive wine, just good wine. And everything there was
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: just it was the vintage from last year. I mean,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: it wasn't you know. They would pull out some bottle,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: you know, this was my grandfather from you know, forty
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: seven years ago or something like that, and that just
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: kind of put the hook in me. And then when
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I moved back to the US, I ended up in
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: the wine country, one of the wine countries in Santinez Valley,
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: and obviously got into it, you know, helped out during harvest,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: worked in one of the labs at a pretty well
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: known winery there. They just needed someone to measure bricks
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: which is sugar and pH and help out and they
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: gave me wine as a sort of a thanks.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Anyway.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Sure, they said, well, hey, are you familiar with you know,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: high school chemistry? And I didn't really give them my
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: grade when I was in tenth grade chemistry grade wasn't
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: the best. But but I could cope with it, obviously. Sure,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: and you know, one thing led to another just kind
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: of got into the scene. And then I found out
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: that there was evening courses for you know, people like
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: me or professionals, but could study up on wine and
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: wine making. And then it was and it came down
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: to a dare. Myself and four other friends. We just said, hey,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: let's just go in on a ton of grapes and
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: see what we can do. And so I called all
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: my winemaker buddies, said, hey, can I borrow some barrels?
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Can we borrow this? Can we do that? Can you
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: help us with this? Tell us what we do when
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: this happens. And then that's how it started amazing.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And what because I think back when I was stationed
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in Italy, when I was in the Air Force, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I remember I would go and spend time with some
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of the Italian families that were also firefighters on the base.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: They would always have their local, their family wine. Maybe
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: they didn't themselves produce it, but their uncle did, or
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: some it was their family wine, and it was all
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: reused bottles with like questionable quarks and everything. The wine
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: always did taste so good. What's the difference?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I mean? And maybe it's just context.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And I was in this wonderful experience and the food
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: was wonderful, But what is it about, like the traditional
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Croatian or Italian table wine that makes it so just
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: drinkable enjoyable.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it could be. There are so many factors that
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: really play into it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: I mean on the Croatian coast, I would say that
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: on the whole, if it's a family vintage that's you know,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: from the last harvest, it's fairly common for them to
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: mix water in it. Oh when you're actually drinking it,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: so you'll fill about half with the wine and half
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: with water, and it's more of a beverage entrance. And
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: so then you know, they'll even serve it to kids
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: that you know here would be underage, but that's just
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: normal there. And you'll have it with your lunch and
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: with your dinner, so it's it's fairly common. But you know,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: back to the flavor profile, I mean, there are a
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: lot of things that factor in.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And it could be the setting.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I could safely say that probably some of the
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: stuff that I drink, you know, in a different setting,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: or if somebody you know did fake it and pull
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: a cork out of something and it had a label,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: I would say that was maybe not the best at
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: least on my palette. For example, with white wines, I
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: still train with white wines because it might sound ploncy,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: but for me, white wines on my palette are either
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: really great or terrible. And so you know, I try
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: to plow in there, delve into the complexity and try
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: and refine my palate. You know, sure, because somebody will
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: hand me something, Oh this is really great, and you know,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: my brain either has the killer or it's really bad.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: And I'm not really bad, but you know, it just
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: doesn't hit my brain the right way. And then with
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: red wines, completely the opposite. Yeah, hotly, sectrum hits my brain,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: my palette sends the right signal at it, and over time, yeah, totally.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: And I am tasing other people.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a I'm a complete neophyte when it comes
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to understanding wine.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: But I do enjoy drinking it. But that's all that matters.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I know, that's all that matters.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I do notice that context makes such a difference.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: You can be out with great friends having a great
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: meal and talking about travel and you know, whatever our
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: passions may be, and the wine always does taste better
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: in that context. And I think that that's also really
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: wonderful as well a reminder that you don't have to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: spend one hundred dollars on a bottle of wine because
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: it is about the context, So just enjoy the time
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: with your friends or family.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I'm still trying to figure out why for me in
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: the outdoor setting, red wines just are the best. Oh again,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: when you're traveling or you're by the campfire. And now
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I haven't figured out it's not quantitative, of course, this
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: is just theoretic cut, right, but it might be that
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: usually the wine is a little bit on the warmer
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: side than normal because it's been in your truck or
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: something like that. I don't know, you know, I find that,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: you know, especially in the camping settings.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I love red wine, and everything seems to taste so
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: much better.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I do salmon over or next to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the fire, and there's just something about food and even
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a nice drink around a campfire in a setting like that.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So again context comes back to it, and all the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: more reason for us to get out right right and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: go get camp yeah, or spend or have a great
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: meal with friends, right. All the more reminder to do
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that for sure. That is so fascinating about the wine process,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and it's well outside the wheelhouse of this podcast typically,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: But I think the reason why I asked that is
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: what I find is that as people travel, their interests
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: do become quite broad, and they're usually influenced by something
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in their travel. So you just mentioned that time that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you had in Croatia and drinking the table wine and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: starting to experience the harvest, and it created this seed
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: for you in many ways for being a future venner.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: So oh yeah, and it came back years later, you know,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: the boomerang went out and then I kind of forgot that,
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: you know, it was floating around out there, and then
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: just hit me one day when I realized I'm living
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: in one of the wine countries of California. Sure, why
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: not like it, jump in and you know, learn more,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: not spend more, but just learn more.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Sure, you know.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: And of course I would cruise around and if some
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: tasting room had something going on where it didn't really
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: other than the tip, you know, I didn't have to pay, sure, you.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Know, totally. And your your wine is also it's available
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: in many of the restaurants in your area in a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: few yeah, and what's what what's the name of your wine?
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Brand Brandsinosino won't you won't find the website yet where
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: it's work in progress.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, I know you're too busy consuming the inventory, right, right, exactly.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: On the other part of the everyday carry, you do
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: tend to be fairly mindful of the clothing that you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you have. Even this morning when we were grabbing coffee,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you talked about when you were in Edinburgh and you
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: were or you would go into the outdoors there in
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the northern part of the UK, that you would have
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: to bring along all of these different layers because the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: weather could change so dramatically. So what are some of
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the things that how do you think about that today
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you do live in a like this sunny part of California,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but maybe when you're not, maybe when you're not.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: In the month of bad weather.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So during the month of bad weather, like what do
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you typically bring along as like your mid layer and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: your outer layer, your shell would you typically use.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because over time I was in Scotland in
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the early and mid nineties and maybe Marina wool was
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: around then, the thinner wool layers, but I you know,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: I didn't if it was I couldn't afford it, so
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: it was just sort of having some sort of long
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: John esque thing underneath, and then like a heavy sweater.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: And now I definitely focus on Marina wol As a
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: matter of fact, I can almost exclusively wear just that,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I mean everything from a collared shirt. I mean I
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: wear it on hot days, not because I need the warmth,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: but because if you just have one loose layer of
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: that doesn't smell, you know, you can kind of they
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: tend to look a little bit nice.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I find that, at least for me.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I get a lot of holes in them from just
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: were doing seat belts and old trucks or whatever. Things
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: clip in and then you get a little tear, but
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: that's part of the look.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Ye.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: So I focus on that as sort of my bottom layer,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: and sometimes the mid layer because that also obviously when
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: wool gets wet, you know, you retain some warmth there
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: and I think feel that that's important. And then for
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: the outer layers, I've recently sort of rediscovered down jackets,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff from Patrick ma Prometheus Design Works.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So those are great little puffy jackets. Yeah, I'm totally
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: sold on them.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: And then the fact that you can you can stuff
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: it into the back pocket and make a camp pillow.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And then it also also includes a neck pillow stuff sack,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and I've used that on every trip now and i
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: just leave it stuffed into the pocket while I'm on
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the plane. Wait, I just have a clip to my
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: carry on bag or whatever. Yeah, they're really good. Yeah,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: they're very impressive the overall quality.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: And also now there's some technology that's gone into the
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: down so when it gets wet, it doesn't clump the
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: material that the outer material of the jackets where you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: in the old days, you know, if you had any splash,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: it immediately went through the fabric to the feathers. So
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: that's definitely that game has changed too. My outer layer
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: kind of depends on where I am and if I
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: need another layer of warmth, I'm perfectly fine just having
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: like some sort of gore tex at esque outer and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: without any insulation, and I'll put that on over the
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: top of everything else.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I do likes.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't have to be down necessarily, But I
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: do appreciate different kinds of vests that have some wind
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: protection and warmth because obviously that is the core. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I find that, you know, a vest is a little
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: bit smaller, it rolls up easier into your rucksack. True,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: and then if you need, you know, if if things
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: start to get cold, especially when you're like riding a
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: motorcycle something like that, I'm usually fine just putting the
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: vest on, staying it up, and then you know, then
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I'm then I'm fine.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever had a vest I mean that,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: but it makes sense, especially with the motorcycle where you're
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: really space limited, you could just add that warming layer
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of a vest.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you know, obviously the down vests are
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: they roll up super small. Can also use those as
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: a pillow, you know, when you're looking at aspect of
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: motorcycle where sure you want to kind of focus on
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: every last little piece that you're taking along with you.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And the jacket you've got on right now, what's what's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the This one looks you could do some welding and yeah, right.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's like Filson influenced. It's made by free
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: note cloth and they're down in your San Diego I
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: want to say, Sam Juan Capistrano maybe so they're like a.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So Cal company.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: It's just cool jacket wax cloth, but it's have a
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: different cut to it. And yes, you know, I like it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: This is my land cruiser, you know, working on the
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: farm jacket.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's perfect, It's totally great. Yeah, that's perfect.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Well, let's segue that, I mean, talk a little bit
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: about your newest acquisition, your newest vehicle that you added
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to the fleet.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess maybe a little more than a year ago.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Picked up from a Buddy Toyota land Cruiser BJ forty,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight BJ forty. It's the diesel it started
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: out life and as a Canadian market left hand drive diesel.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: It's one of those trucks where you just don't really
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: know the full history. Although the person that he bought
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: it from, the gentleman who I bought it from, said
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: that it was down in a coffee bean plantation in
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Central America for quite a while. Normally I would be
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: and well, you know, because obviously as an archaeologist you
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: hear a lot of stories that are pretty far from
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: the truth. But just wrenching under the hood. There's red
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: dirt caked everywhere, sure, and so it's I would believe
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: that you can see we're the rest is and everything
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: and the repairs what did. Somebody recently gave me the
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: term native repair right now where you can see that
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: this was done in some garage in some village somewhere,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: and it's just going just to keep it going. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: at some point one of the previous owners put in
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: a three B diesel motor from nineteen eighty two, so
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: it's you know, it's a little bit better than the
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: motor that originally came in it, and then later on
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming it maybe you know, concurrent with that installation.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: It has an H fifty five f five speed manual tranny. Perfect,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: So it's this kind of slugo non turbo diesel but
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: with a five speed training. So where I live, I can, yeah,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I can get on the freeway. I mean, obviously people
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: are passing me, but you know I could cruise along it,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: you know, sixty sixty five miles an hour and you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm holding my own.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Why the BJ forty, I remember around the time that
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: you bought it, you were looking at trying to find
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a diesel g wagon. You were looking at a couple
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: different kinds of vehicles. What ultimately settled you on the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: on the BJ?
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Well, the BJ came along before my quest for a
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Diesel g Wooken came along.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I gotcha.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I think that you know, I've lived with this guilt
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: for a long time. I had the world's cherist FJ
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: forty nineteen seventy seven. FJ forty bought it. It had
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: literally you can't make this up. It had belonged to
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: an old lady. She liked shopping with it because it
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: had the ambulance stores at the top it. I bought
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: this in San Diego. By the way, the top had
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: never been off it had never been off road. It
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: really didn't have any scrapes. It had the original rear heater.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Everything was was intact and just so sweet. I bought
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: it in I guess nineteen eighty six or eighty seven,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: so it wasn't It was barely ten years old. Sure
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: could hardly call advantage at the time. And then shortly
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: before I moved to Europe for grad school, thought, wow,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: these things are a dime a dozen. I mean, I
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: had plenty of buddies, I had them. Sure, I just
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: sell it, and you know, if I want something similar
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: when I moved back, you know, I'll just get it.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: And you know, six plus years later, seven years later,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: it had all already become a cult car. I can't
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: say cult classic, but people were already hunting them down
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: and I didn't have the financial horsepower to go and
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: pick one up. And then this BJ came along, sure,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: and I reemp chatting with my buddy Yeah, and he said, Hey,
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about selling it. I want to have a
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: muscle car. And he didn't even finish the sentence, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: I said, I'll figure it out. I'm buying that thing.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: That is crazy that your FJ forty was a seventy
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: seven and I didn't even know that you had an
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: f J forty before, because the one and only FJ
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: forty I ever owned was a nineteen seventy seven. Best
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: year ever. Well, it was a pretty good year for those.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: They had the disc brakes in the front, and the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: later like the early eighty ones, were so limited production,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and they had some additional things like power steering and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: all that made those very very expensive. The seventy seven
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I had it was red and it had the rear heater,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: uncut fenders, and I drove that for for five years.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't make a lot of money on it, but
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I made it was I never did anything cleared a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: little bit with I never had to fix anything. I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: did add things like air conditioning, and I did gussy
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it up a little bit, you know, I put a
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: winch on the front and things like that, but I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: never I never needed to fix anything. It never broke,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it never had needed a repair. To use a car
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: for five years and then make a little profit on it,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that just doesn't have everything's an appliance now, yeah, totally.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And to be able to have a vehicle like that,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I mean that's why they're so charming.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I had in that vein. I had to
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: have some redemption in some way, and now I find
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I mean it's my daily driver at the BJ forty.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I mean every day I can't wait for you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I got to go to the post office. Cool get
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: in there. I mean right now, the passenger side window
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: doesn't lower. I've got the parts on order, but you know,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: the crank doesn't work, and it leaks a little bit
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: of water if it rains on it. Sure, and I
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: now park it under a car part so it's it's protected,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: you know, from that kind of stuff. But I just
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I can't look so every day I look forward to
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: jumping in it if you know, I make up an excuse,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm gonna go to the market.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And that's because you needed to give your Tacoma a
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: little bit of a break way. Here's your Tacoma two
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: thousand and and how many miles did you just hit
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: with that thing?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Just cross? Three hundred thousand miles? Yeah?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I mean as long as I have known you, you've
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: had that truck. And did you buy it new or
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: near brand new? I think it had like twenty you know,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: one miles on it or something. It's unbelievable and you've
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: really been thoughtful about how you've modified it. Being a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Gen one Tacoma, it is kind of that high water mark.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: It was still a little smaller than they got in
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the Gen two. The motor was fine. The three point
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: four liter was fine, very very reliable. People commonly get,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you know, over three hundred thousand miles out of those engines.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: But you were pretty tasteful in how you modified it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: What were some of what are some of the things
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that you did to your Tacoma that you liked the most,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the modifications that you think really stood the test of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: time for you.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I could definitely.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Say the steel wheels that are just the Toyota manufactured.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I think they're actually made to be the spares. Yeah,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: you know they look cool, kind of powder coated early on. Yeah,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: they come black anyway, but you know they'll start to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: rust because maybe they just in their purpose for being
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: squirreled away as a spare. And I put those on
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: it and sold the came with some aluminum wheels. I
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: really like that. That was more of an aesthetics thing obviously,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: but as far as you know, holding up too sure,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I beat them up and there
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: everything's fine. You know, I'm oh, well, there's a ding here,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: there's a ding there. You'd hit it with a rattle can.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: And then everyone comments on it like where did you
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: get them? And I say, well, you know, you just
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: go to the dealership and get the spare rim to steal.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Well that that truck really hasn't had that many mods.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I have like king shocks on it, which ended up
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: kind of lifting it. Oh you know what I do
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: have the dever leaf springs.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I went to the diver shop wherever that is in
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: the LA Base And that was crazy because they started
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: out making leaf springs for buggies and carrosugies. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: so cool, crazy yeah. And then I'm talking with the
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: guy about you know, and this is what I'm going
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: to have in the back of my tacoma and stuff.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And then other than that, I think the only other
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: thing besides the bumpers was putting on a snorkel. Everything
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: else is bone stock. Yeah, and you put is it
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: an ARB bumper in the front? Arb bumper in the front.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: One day I was down at Aluminus for something unrelated
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: and with a tacoma, and somebody there, not Dave, but
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: somebody else mentioned that they had done a template for
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: that Gen one tacoma for a rear bumper. They said
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: they could make one up if I was interested in it,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: and I just said, oh, yeah, let's do it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. So it's on the rear. Cool. It
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: has an aluminous bumper, which is.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Good because those those trucks were fairly sensitive to payload.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: They didn't have a lot of payloads.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, And I'm a big fan for lightning where
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: you can and then keeping things light, so then.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You have a you have a canopy on the back,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: is that right?
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Or just a just a shell, just a shell, just
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: a shell, and then on top of that of the
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: front Runner, they're minimalist, slim line rack that I can
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: put whatever, and I've done rooftop tent tests with it
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and there's my own gear. Yeah, and that's that's really that's.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Such a such a great I remember seeing the other day,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I think you sent me a text with a hitting
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: three hundred thousand miles.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: That was just awesome, right, it was just awesome.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: So it's just so impressive the reliability of those vehicles.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: It has become cult and they deservedly so for sure.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Although that's my conundrum right now, Yeah, because it's getting
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: long in the tooth. It runs fine, but you know
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: it's pressing on now towards three hundred and fifty thousand miles,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: So then where do I go? And you know, one
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of the things I'm exploring is maybe putting a two
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: point eight liter diesel in.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It, yeah, or selling I don't know, I have to
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: think about.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: That's tough. Yeah, that was our very first project vehicle.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I remember that white when you had Expeditions West. We
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: did a two thousand and four crew cab TRD Tacoma.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Same one, yeah, same rings, different year. Yeah.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but a cool rig. I mean you can see
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: over the hood. Yeah, they're more nimble. They feel more
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: nimble anyway than the later generation Tacomas.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: They are a.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Little smaller, and that's what I think made them a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: little more useful in that regard. Those are such neat trucks.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. And it's just fun that you've had.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about the money that you have saved
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: by just keeping that same truck for all of this time. Well,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you know when people will lease a vehicle and they're
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: just constantly in this five six, seven hundred dollars a
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: month payment program, whereas if you just buy something great
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like a BJ or A or a Tacoma and drive
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it for twenty years, because it's almost twenty years, I know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: it's just coming up on twenty years, it's unbelievably. Yeah,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: you saved so much, and then that truck is still
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: probably worth twelve to fifteen grand, which surprises me.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: And you could still find ones out there unmodified. Yeah,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: especially the you know the crew cab to double cab
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: youon know, like you find them out there.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were just daily drivers for people. Yeah, with
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a neat vehicle, for sure, and we're going to take
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a quick break. This episode is supported in part by
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: d MOS Collective. One of the worst shovel problems you
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: can have is not having one to begin with, not
• 26:50
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• 26:52
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• 27:17
  Speaker 1: DMOS for supporting this podcast. The next thing I wanted
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to chat with you about, because you have met so
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: many interesting people in your travels, is talk a little
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: bit about the two to three people in your life
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: that you've met in your travels that really inspired you,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: or or maybe they woke something up in you, or
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you learn some really valuable life lesson from these people.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Because you've accomplished so much, Brian, and maybe this isn't
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the case for you, but I know for me that
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: at times I just needed that bit of inspiration to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: go that next step or to push on a little further.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Who are those people for you? Well, I guess the
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: qualification that you had was through my travels or otherwise.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: My first instance, you know, closer to home. Definitely my
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: father and mother, just because of who they are and
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: how they've been supportive, not not necessarily financially, just just
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: supportive of Okay, you want to do this, you want
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: to do that. I mean, maybe I mentioned before, but
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: you know, my father was a paratrooper and then he
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: went into the Special Forces. This was in the late fifties,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: early sixties, so it's not you know, recent recent, and
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: then went into the movie business. After a short term
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: selling paper bags, he became a stuntman and was a
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: professional stuntman for the rest of his life. My mom,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: she's eighty one going on thirty one. She goes on
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: you know, three to five mile hikes every day, and
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: she's just solid world traveler, been everywhere, and I can
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: safely say that just learning from them about this is
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: your planet. Go capture it, go go see it, go
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: experience it. I mean, when I had an opportunity to
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: do a semester as an undergrad and call it overseas.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It was in London.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: I threw away the paperwork that showed up, and you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: my mom said, hey, you know by the way, you know,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: look at the specs and know this is the kind
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: of thing we can possibly afford. You know, it's just
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: really the round trip and then you have a stipend
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: and et cetera. And that was I would have been,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you know, I would have just stayed home that semester
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: and just worked through class as I did. And that
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: was what put the hook in me. And that's how
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: I ended up getting into the field as an archaeologist
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: and going to the Middle East to work as a professor.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: I met in London and you know, it's just on
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: from there. But as far as the travels go, I
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: think one of the main influences for just capturing and
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: and and learning, continue to learn and do until some
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: power that be takes you out is definitely Sir Fitzroy MacLean.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: He you know, to kind of give a thumbnail. I
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: did a book report or a book review for I
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: can't remember it was, it was some years ago for
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Overland Journal. One of his I think one of the
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: best books is Eastern approaches, and he he started my life.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: He was educated at Eton, went to Cambridge and went
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: into the Diplomatic Corps, was posted as a junior diplomat
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: to France and then into Russia. And this was before
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: the Second World War. When he had days off, like
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: who does this? But when he had maybe because he's Scottish,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: when he had days off in Moscow, he would go
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: just head east and he had his camera and he
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: wasn't up to anything, at least if he happened to
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: have been up to something other than just being a tourist.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: He never copped to it ever, And you think by now,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: you know he's passed away, so you know that would
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: have come out. But he just would hit the road
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: and take photos and you know, we'd have you know,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: the kind of the precursor to the KGB and the FSB,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the the NKVD. They usually have some one or two
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: people posted to him that would follow him, and sometimes
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: he'd even meet up with them and get him on
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: the truck that he was on so they could just
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: he could get on with his travels and do this thing.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: And then when the Second World War started, he realized
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: that he was going to be out of the loop
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: as a diplomat. So he he enlisted as a private.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: He's actually I think one of only a few people,
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: if not just one or two and two or three.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I think that went from in the Second World War
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: from private to brigadier. I think in the US we
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: call it a brigadier general throughout the course of the war.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: But he enlisted, went to North Africa, ran into David Sterling,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: who at the time was setting up the SAS. I
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: mean they didn't have, you know, was this was a
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: new unit. You know, they and the original and they
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: linked up with the Long Range Desert Group in the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: early days. They just learned from from learning the hard
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: way about you know, how to conduct operations and those environments.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: And you know, you see over time, well every short
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: period of time, they started taking on native garb and
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: native look and not having the grooming standards that normal
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: soldiers had. And so at some point, you know, making
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: a whole that story short, Churchill found out that they
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: had this diplomat trained as a commando and he was
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: then sent into Yugoslavia, parachuted into link up with Tito
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: and and you know it's just his story goes on
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: and on and about how he had to learn you know,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Serbo Croatian. He spoke Russian, which is in the Slavic
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: language group, like then Serbo Croatian. You know, you can't
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: say that you're fluent in it. I mean, you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: maybe some of the nouns or verbs or whatever are
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: similar route. But so he had a bone up on that.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And then after the war he was he continued on
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: as a member member of Parliament. He actually became one
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: during the war, you know, just as a dare and
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: just continued on and he just didn't stop, right. He
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: wrote books on Scottish cooking and photography and just just incredible.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Even in the later in the eighties when when Russia
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: and Perestroika and Glassnos and things were coming around, and
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan and uh and Gorbacheff were kind of getting,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: you know, into the doing the tango a little bit
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: about opening everything up and you know, taking down the
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Berlin Wall. Gorbascheff came over to Scotland and did a
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: walk around with fitzro MacLean and they could dismiss all
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: the bodyguards, all the translators, and it's just one on
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: one conversation. You know that they had about what who
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: knows what you know they talked about. I'm sure that's
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: you know, somewhere out there. But anyway, he was quite
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: inspiring just from his trajectory of you know, what he
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: did and what he accomplished, and maybe you know, obviously
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: as as as you know, se s soldier, he just
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: learned that, you know, truly who dares wins, you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: you just have to go for it or just be
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: quiet and you know, sit down and you know, don't
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: raise her hand and be a complainer. And he was
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: just really an inspiration.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah you met him at once.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and his family, his wife, Lady MacLean,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: and two summers ago I ran into one of his
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: sons down on the island of Cortilla. You know, it's
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: one of the funny things. After the war, Tito let
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: him purchase a villa on the island of Cortila, but
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: foreigners weren't allowed to own property at that time, so
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: they made corcial a town, a sort of a free town,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: kind of like Trieste. Sure, and then he purchased the
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: property and then they changed the status again. So up
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: until nineteen ninety one when Crowe she became independent. He was,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I guess, in theory, the only foreigner who outright owned
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: property Inslavia. But I would say, you know, there's there's
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: even a precursor to him, although I never met this individual,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: but definitely Sir Richard Francis Burton, not Richard Burton the actor,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: but the traveler who I came across him because he
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: had published articles when he was a British consul to
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Trieste in the eighteen hundreds. In the eighteen eighties, he
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: had traveled specifically to the southern part of Dalmatia to
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: visit some lighthouses that the Austro Hungarian Empire had built
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: on some fairly remote islands, remote for the Mediterranean. He
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: was a generation of educated well and self educated too,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: traveler where he would write about stuff and then publish it.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: So when I started doing my graduate work down there
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: on some of these outer islands, talking about things like
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: the geology and the flora and the fauna and stuff
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: like this, I asked a colleague who was out of
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: a museum and the univers Split and the coastal city
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: of Split, where can I find the best references for
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: soils and geology and stuff like that? For those smaller islands,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: and he said, oh, it's still Richard Burton's original writings
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: from the eighteen hundreds. Oh, I mean, to just be
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: aware of that. And at the same time, you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: when you really dive in on that individual, Richard Burton,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: I mean he was, you know, the first western Er
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: at least that anyone knows about, to go a Mecca
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: during the Hajj, dressed in local Garb, speaking Arabic, and
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: he translated, you know, from Sanskrit the Kamasutra, and it
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: just goes on and they believe that he could speak.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: And you know, this is like when in the days
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: where you had to put your money where your mouth was,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you know, upwards of almost thirty languages. And he wrote
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: hex on sword play and tricks that he had learned
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: using a sword in the field from his travels. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, just he was a cartographer, you know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: I mean he would map things and just and that
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: to me, that was just reading about him and reading
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: his publications. You know, he's a you know, fellow of
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: the Royal Geographic Society. He was reading stuff that he
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: had published, was it just boggled my mind. And that's
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: a bar I know, I'll never be able to attain that.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, it's it's that bar is
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: so high.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I like to aim for for you know, you know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and I like to aim for stuff like that for sure.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I mean what inspirational individuals. And it's amazing what people
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: can accomplish when they're not concerned with vanity metrics on
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Instagram right where you can actually stop scrolling past other
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: people's dreams and find some way to create your own.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And those people, they worked so hard and they were
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: so dedicated, and much of what they accomplished was at
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: very young ages too, because people didn't really live that
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: long back then, some of these guys did.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: But but also at a time when like, for example,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: to go to Mecca at that time as a Westerner,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, the punishment wasn't like, well, we're going to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: kick you out and put on the plane. I mean,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: you know, there was like punishment pain by death or whatever,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: you know. I mean that was that was hardcore. Or
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: going to to locations where you know, you couldn't like
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: bone up on the language on en route, you know,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: or read the you know, the travel guide, uh, you know,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: on the way and then that's that's just stuff that
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: we we don't have that. I mean, it's it's hard,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: you know, to have find individuals like that. And then
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: also just some of the publications where you're like, did
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: he just stay up at late at night every night
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: and write it out? I mean it wasn't like he
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: had Microsoft Word or something where he can you delete
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: that paragraph and you know, move that one around and
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: change the spelling or whatever.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah, they were prolific journalists back then.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: They just would journal every day and they would keep
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: track of their experiences. And I think that when you
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: write that much like many of them did, they wrote
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis. Churchill is a great example of that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was absolutely prolific as a writer. I
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: think he wrote more books after the age of sixty
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: or seventy the most authors do in a lifetime. And
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's it's when you journal every day and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you write on a regular basis that you just get
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: so much more efficient at it. I know that when
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I stop writing for a period of time because something
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: else is demanding my attention, when I need to get
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: back to it, it's a false start.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It's hard to get started. You got to dive in.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I struggle with it. Yeah. Yeah, but those guys just
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: they never stopped writing. I can't. I can't fathom it. Yeah,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I mean even now.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: I mean obviously I'm in modern age, so you know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: they must have spent hours every night.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: They didn't have television or other sources of entertainment. They
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: were They were just voracious readers and writers. Yeah, pretty impressive.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Anybody else come to mind. That's a great one.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, I.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Would say those are the two, you know, like that
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: really kind of stick out, obviously, Fitzroal MacLean with my
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: travels and Richard Burton as I stumbled across him literally,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: you know, in his his publications, I should say, and
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: then just started to do my own research and like
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: who is this guy? Yeah, you know, like and when
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: he was done on the Dalmatian Coast, I was at
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: the end of his career, and you find out that,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: you know, he had published drawings of like stone tools
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: and descriptions of flora and geology and sediments and soils,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: and and at that time you have to recall that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: like before that, at least in the UK, there was
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: a guy named William Smith, you know, who kind of
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: you know, predated him who was he's a sort of
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: the father of modern English geology. And at first people
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: just kind of, you know, sort of poopooed what he
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: was up to.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: He was self taught.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: And then Darwin came along and you know, was obviously
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: aware of William Smith identifying ascils in different strata. And
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: then you have somebody like Richard Burton come along, who
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: was obviously aware of everything that those guys were up to. Sure,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: and then he went out in the field and just
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: started writing about stuff. And at that time it wasn't
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: like popular people weren't ready for what Charles Darwin had
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: to say.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah at that time amazing. Yeah, yeah, so anyway, impressive, No,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: for sure. I guess to segue a little bit. Recently,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you wrote an article for Overland Journal where you were
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: talking a bit about mindset and safety around travel, and
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I guess it's important to preface this whole conversation with
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that the world is incredibly safe. It is
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a common misconception that the world is less safe today
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: than it was in the past, and that is the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: furthest from the truth. The world is far safer than
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: it ever has been. There's more periods in regions in
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: peace time right now than ever in history. It is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: very safe time to be a human traveling and bouncing
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: around the world. But if we do come in with
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a mo mindset and some preparation
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: in our travels, we can help reduce that likelihood of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: something going wrong. And that could be just as simple
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: as someone breaking into your room and stealing your camera,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, very disruptive to a trip. But
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about what you discussed in
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that article, primarily around lodging and kind of that mindset
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: with the traveler.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I think a lot of it has to do
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: with its common sense. In many cases, you don't have
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: to delve into it that deep as a traveler, or
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: you don't have to be paranoid. I know that a
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: lot of people will kind of go for that as though, Wow,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: it sounds like you're really paranoid when you travel, but
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: I'm actually not. I totally get into the experience of
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: being outside of where I live and my culture. But
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: at the same time, there isn't It's not a big
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: deal to like walk around the hotel that you're staying
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: in and go Hey, how would I get out of
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: here if there's a fire?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: And okay, obviously that maybe is a little bit of
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: a it's not so much of a warm, fuzzy that's
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: a cold brick ly, you know, like what if there's
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: a fire in the hotel. But then you walk around,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: You're like, oh, that's cool, that's where the gym is.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: All right, well I got that down or cafe, they
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: got the rooftop bar, okay cool, or you know, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: there's where there's where the exits are. And so you
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: just explored your environment that you're going to be in
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: for the next day, two three, whatever happens to be
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: a week, or a couple couple weeks or a couple
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: of months. So now you've kind of expanded your knowledge
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: of what's around you. That's really how I see it now.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's just being an anthropologist, that's how I see it.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: You know, there's nothing I'm not worried about people coming in, uh,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: you know, breaking into my room. Obviously, when you're staying
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: anywhere that's not your own setup, you have to assume
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: that it's it might not be secure. Sure, let's say
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: not safe, it's just not secure. Sure, I mean, you
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: know the deal. Sometimes you travel to places where something
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: on your wrist is more. With that alone, a whole
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: village could prosper for five years, sure, you know, and
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: or they'll never even have any technology like that. Maybe
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: they don't need a technology like that, right, I think
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: that you know, there's certain safety I don't know, precautions.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: I guess you could say that that people can take
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: along the road. But some of it's like have a flashlight. Yeah,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: I mean I've been in a hotels power goes out
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: and you're like, Okay, I got the flash light.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: You know, there wasn't that wasn't being paranoid y have
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: a flashlight, you know, a simple one. There's a lot
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: of other stuff. But there are some other thoughts that
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: come to mind. Now If I remember, a lot of
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: this came from when you were working with teams in
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: the field. You guys had like a safety protocol or
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: you had some kind of a Is that that's where
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of this came from. You were doing documentation
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: for different groups on safety in the field.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Was that kind of where a lot of this was.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it kind of I could safely say that
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: I got sort of sucked into it in a way
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: from from a colleague who's an exploration geologist. Teaching courses
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: originally was more focused on sort of the search and rescue,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: more of the survival side of things, and then it just,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: I won't say it spiral from there, but it kind
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: of expanded to working with people that are sent to
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: austere locations, remote locations for work. And it's not because
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: they wanted to go there. It might be that the
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: you know, corporate just goes Scott, We're sending it to
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: kazakhs Stan because you're the guy that knows how to
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: operate the software for the drilling equipment, sure for our
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: gear there, and you're going to teach three guys there
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: how to use that gear. And you say, yeah, sure,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: But meanwhile, you know, you live in the inner city
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: of somewhere in North America. You don't own a vehicle
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: because you don't need one. You take the bus, you
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: save in your cash. You know, you want to buy
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: property somewhere outside of town eventually, and then you get
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: sent to someplace where they hand you the keys to
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: four wheel drive and there's like a you know whatever,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: a fifteen kilometer, fifteen minute, two hour whatever, drive is
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: sure work location. And in the past there would have
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: been zero training for you other than get your visa.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: You don't get your shots, get squared away, you know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: and there you go. And so now there are some
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: specialty firms that focus on the training. Obviously it's focused
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: on region and environment. So you know, you're not going
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: to learn about bear like grizzly bears if you're being
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: you know, sent to someplace in Central America or something
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: like that. Sure, but that's kind of where the focus is,
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: and it's not over the top stuff, you know, some
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of the core is that I've provided, you know, I
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: start out with, okay, everyone just do an internet search
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: for geologists taken hostage, and it's just pages and pages
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and pages and page and then and then so then
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: how about this tourist taken hostage? You know, and then
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: it's just even more pages that you're up on an
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: internet search. And then we'll say, okay, what's the safest
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: country or what's the safest country that we feel, you know,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: when it's presented to the rest of the un everyone
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: usually says Switzerland or you or Liechtenstein or some San Marino,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: some little place. Okay, So type in Swiss tourists taken hostage.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: It still comes up with stuff, So it doesn't matter.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: And you know, like you said, the world is a
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: safe place, but if you're transitting areas or working in areas,
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: it can help to just kind of be aware so
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: that you're not the target. And you know, if the
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: point isn't to make other people the target, but just
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: so that you know you're not presenting yourself as as
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: something that's soft or or you know, easily accessed, or
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: you know, your gear. You know, there's there's a lot
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: of different angles to it, and there are a lot
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: of other people that are definitely more well versed than
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I am on teaching these courses. But it's an interesting aspect.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: You know, what are some other things that come to
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: mind along those lines, So it could be the way
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that you operate your vehicle or you know, even the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: process of checking into the hotel. What are some things
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: that come to mind for you those practical pieces of
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: advice that the listener could really.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Back your vehicles in, even if it's just a rental car,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: even if you're you're on MAUI back it in. If
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: you talk with people that teach a public safety driving
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: to law enforcement or fire. Most accidents happen backing out
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: of spaces. Those are people men and women that are
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: trained in being you know, active and driving at speed
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: and going from zero to one hundred, not just physically,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: but you know, from getting a call and going and
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: that's when most accidents occur, you know, and pulling out
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: of a space is backing out of the space or
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: jumping into something. So back in and also backing in
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: there isn't any quantitative information, but it definitely conveys that
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: the owner of that vehicle is aware. Sure, they're space
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: spatially aware of their vehicle and their ownership. That is
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: their vehicle, they have the keys.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: The only downside with backing in, I guess is if
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: you have depending on how the rear of your vehicle opens,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: sometimes you could it could be occluded by some bushes
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: or a wall or something like that. I mean that's
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: one of my start from that. You know, it always
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: helps depending on where you are, you know, if there
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: is like a concierge or something like that. Obviously that's
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: more highbrow kind of travel, but talk to the people
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: at the hotel. I mean, they're they're going to know like, hey,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: this is the place around the corner. It's just a
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: locals only thing, you know, obviously have to pay attention
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: to that, yeah, you know, but feel it out as
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: you go.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: That's probably the only times I've ever felt really uncomfortable
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: as a traveler, is literally going into the locals only
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: bar and it just they just don't They're like, we
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: see tourists every day. This is our chance to get
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: away from all of you.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Would you just and then here you are rolling on in.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: It's probably the only time I've ever felt uncomfortable. It's
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: just it's literally the back alley. But then there's also
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: a hundred more times than that that I go into
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the locals only backcountry bar and and they're they're just
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: stoked to see us, so oh.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then tell you about their country to city,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: you know, what's going on.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Oh hey, by the.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Way, you're here during the olive harvest, you know, so
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: you have the best olive oil whatever it happens to be. Yeah,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many different aspects to it, you know,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: knowing how to get out of your hotel room besides
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: the front door, yeah, you know, I should say the
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: door of your room. How to secure the door. The
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: downside of just securing your door in case, you know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: you need to be accessed from somebody in the hallway
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: for safety reasons and now you've blocked that. Yeah, there's there.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: There are various aspects to it. I mean, it's it's
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: a very deep field of study, it is, and it
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: depends on your location. I would say that depending on
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: where I'm going. I'm not concerned with things like that.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: It really depends, you know, if it's some little botique
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: hotel somewhere or just some you know B and B
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: where it's on the ground floor and it's it's on
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: the island of Mole in Scotland, I'm worried about that. Yeah,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't nobody's gonna come charging in. You know,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: maybe you know, somebody after having some single malt or
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: something like that. But that's you know, that's about it.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Knocks on the wrong door. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: pretty much it. And most of it is randomness.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: In fact, any of the real troubles that I've had
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: have been in places where I would have never expected
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: it to happen.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: You were just the person who was wrong.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Totally randomness.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, whereas the places, well we you and I did
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: have some moments of tension in Kenya?
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Were we in load war? Is that?
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Where were some north of Oh? Yeah, that's right. I
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: forgot about that.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that. I forgot about that.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you were having more tension than I was with
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: somebody who.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Had Yeah, he was, he was.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: He was making it very very clear that he he
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: was a boxer.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: And he wanted to have his hands with me.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: And after looking at his knuckles, I realized, like, this
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: is probably not a fight that I want, that I
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: even want. So we I think we worked really hard
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to dispel that one. We did. And if I think
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: it was the locals that finally came to my aid,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it was.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: It was moments of tension for sure.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: And or Stanley Hillman walking up, you know, because he helped, Hey,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: you guys, break it up here. Okay, we've got to
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: work on this truck and kind of gets fixed on that.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: It was a problem.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's so challenging because you know, what the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: guy wanted was money, and you just don't do that.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: You don't just give out money, and especially someone who's
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: clearly intoxicated and being aggressive and so when you tell
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: them no, they just don't. It just escalates from there.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: But it fortunately it didn't get too bad. So slightly
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable that was about it. So those are all great
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: pieces of advice for sure. And that also leads me
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: to something that I do like to ask on a
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: regular basis on these podcasts. That would be kind of
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: your favorite books, books that you maybe gift the most
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: often to others, or the books that have maybe made
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the biggest difference for you as a traveler as an individual.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: And it can be anything at all. I mean, it's uh.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: I think in the last podcast you talked about the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: land Rover books that you read your son maybe maybe
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: some what were those again, it's.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: The Landy series.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I even did a sort of a like an
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: overview of them for one of the journals not to
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: do long ago.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I didn't delve into any the specific books, Yeah, but
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I talked about it. And the funny thing is it's
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: like the Bugs Bunny cartoons where there's the child aspect
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: of it, where they're like, oh wow, that's.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Kind of fun.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: And you know the little Landy, you know, has the
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: eyes and a mouth kind of thing, and you know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: the mumper moves and makes a smile. But then the
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: owner breaks out the high lift jack and starts doing stuff,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and obviously is an owner of or you know,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: driver of overland vehicles. You're like, well, that's cool. He's
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: breaking the thing out. And then when you see the
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: little drawing that the author has, you know, it's it's
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: everything's legit. The wheels chocked cool, you know, it's like
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: it's awesome, real deal.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: I think that's a good way to you know, like
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: kind of keep your kids interested in you know. And
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and maybe it's not the best thing
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: when they start to look for some arconic you know,
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: one ten defender that's going to cost them some money
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: on one of those, you know when I turned sixteen.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: But I don't know.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: It's it's obviously, uh deep. You could dive deep on
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: the books, you know. One of the it's hard to find.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: I think I've mentioned it to you before. You'll have
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: to find it, like it's it's out of publication. But
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: it's a book by Lionel Case and there's a classical
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: archaeologist and it's called it's a translation paraplus Mars or
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: ruth Ree, which is travels in the Red Sea.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: We don't even know who the author was.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: They know about the time that it was written because
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: the author mentions different personnel like romans that are in
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: Petra at the same time, and they know that the
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: person obviously was a mariner and a trader. But it's
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: basically like a traveler's guide to going down the Red
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Sea and the different villages, and it reads, it doesn't
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: doesn't have It's clear that it's aimed at just a
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: general audience. There must be a lot of other texts
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: out there. I don't know if they're findable or people know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: but it's just aimed at somebody who would be trading
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: or traveling in that area. So it has information like
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: when you pull into this port, be prepared to bribe
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: the dock guards with two amphora of some mediocre to
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: bad wine. They won't know the difference, but they'll guard
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: your cargo overnight, you know, as if it were their own,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: or you know. When you pull into this harbor, make
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: sure you do it at high tide.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: And if you're.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: There during the full moon, be sure to check out
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: the wrestling competition held just outside the harbor wall amazing,
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: or you know, on the dock, be prepared to purchase incense.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: We're slave musicians, And I mean, like a bizarre he
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: just random things and then the author just moves on
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: to the next location. But the author also talks about
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: different types of vessels at length about what they look like.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: Some of them clearly the description is almost like a rib,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: like a zodiac, kind of inflatable, and he's surmising there
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: it must be animal skins or something. And they're just
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: a nearshore floating boat with somebody paddling, and then other
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: ones that are deeper draft with sail, this and that
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: and the other. And it doesn't have any other purpose
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: other than that.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: So unlike you know, we're reading authors that are maybe
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: from around the Mediterranean contemporaries and even earlier. You know,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: they're writing it for different audiences or to impress people,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: and this one clearly isn't. So it's hard to find,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: but it can be tracked down. And then I don't know.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Right now I'm reading Anthony boarding book Kitchen Confidential.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a little loss we had with.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Oh Man, you know, and just he's like a chef anthropologist.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know, awesome human Yeah.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I mentioned fitzwal McLean's book Eastern Approaches, But
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: there are so many I have on my What do
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: I have on my desk right now? Some training manual
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: on combatants? Yeah, sure, it's from the Second World War.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: It's just you know, everyone, all the people that are
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: demonstrating different moves and techniques. They're all wearing like back
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: when you wore a tie, you know, as part of
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: like your class a. You know, just interesting stuff like that. Yeah,
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: I think that's my current quiver of things that I'm
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: reading through.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that's good.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: It's fun because we over the last couple of days
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: we've been talking about, well for the last year, we've
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: been talking about what our next trip might be, and
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: our last one was notable with Uganda and Kenya. I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: think that something in Eastern Europe would be pretty fun.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking maybe starting somewhere in Croatia we talked about that, yeah,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and then heading sound maybe ending up in Greece at
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: some point. So hopefully the next time we do a podcast,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: we'll do it from a cafe in Moldovia or something
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: So some in the middle of Lobliana Yevanya or something
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: else from Pizzaia or something.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's hope, So, let's hope.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: So what would you give as some of the most
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: important pieces of advice to someone who is just getting
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: started with international travel or overland travel. What would be
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the thing that if you were sitting down with a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: newly graduated college student that wanted to go see the world,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: what would be some of the advice that you would
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: give to that person, Taking into consideration all of the
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: advice and the great insights that you've received from others,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: what would be the advice that you would give to
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: a new person to overland travel.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. I would say that especially now now,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: meaning in twenty twenty one, not nineteen ninety, you can
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: do so much research online about where you might be going,
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: the food, the culture, everything like this. I would say
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: to somebody just out of you know, high school or college,
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: they want to hit the road, leave the McDonald's behind,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Lead the whole foods and the supermarket kind of attitude
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: or whatever it is. Lead that here that's going to
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: be here when you come back, experience it how they
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: experience it.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Wherever you're going.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: So if you have to wake up at four am
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: to go and buy the bread at the shop or
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: get the cheese from the cheesemonger. Do it, experience it,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: you know, and take it in. It's always good to learn,
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: you know. I mean everyone says this, but learn a
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: couple of words if it is a language that you
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: don't speak, so you have like a high thanks, hello, goodbye,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: you know, or even a fun phrase you know, where
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: they'll be like wow, you know, and that might be
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: your segue into you know, going out within the field
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: with somebody, or being invited for dinner or something like this.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: You know. I think it's important to pay attention to
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: the fact that, you know, when you are in a
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: different culture, there might be certain kinds of dress. And
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: it's not so that you don't stick out. It's just
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: so that you're not offending.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: There might be issues with like I've worked a lot
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: in the South Pacific and places where men wear strongs.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: That's just how it is. You know.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: If I were walking around in Prescott, Arizona, and people
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: be like, hum, Okay, I'm not really sure what's going
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: on with that. Sure, but that's just standard standard issue there.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: There might be places where showing your legs. It's just
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: it's not it's not appreciated. Sure, so it's okay, be
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: aware of that, and then it's you know, pay attention
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: and try to try out what the locals do. You know.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: I think now that you know there's a little more
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: access online to information and you can kind of have
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: an idea about what it is to expect, at least
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: from the first instance. You know, once obviously, you know
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: when you're traveling and you get there and you're like, wow,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: this is not what I expected, and that always happens.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: Flood easier now with you know, debit cards and shoes
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: like that, where you don't have to have like travelers checks.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: I don't even even know last time I had a
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: traveler's check, which is cool, and that helps you out.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: That lightens your load. You know, everything's you know, not
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: as complicated.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: At the same time, you know, just kind of be
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: aware of what you're doing and where you're going, and
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: you know, have fun really and you know, pack accordingly.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Don't be afraid to like buy something where you're going.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to take everything with you.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: You know, maybe when you get there if it's a
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: colder climate, buy something cool, some local jacket that you
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: know local people have, maybe it's wool got hood, whatever
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: it happens to be. And then just take things on
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: as you need them. And then maybe you don't, depending
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: on you know what you're doing. If you're then going
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: back to a warm climb, give things away, you know,
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: give gifts to the local, right, Yeah, for sure, exactly exactly.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of stuff to see out there. There
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: is there's so much to see, and the important thing
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: is to go. And as you've demonstrated in your decades
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: of travel, it's not about the gear, it's not about
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. It's about making a decision to see and
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: experience something new. If we invest our money in those
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: experiences as opposed to things, then we end up with
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: having a lot more stories to tell to future generations
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day. You know, you talked
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: a lot about people who have inspired you and as
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: my friend, you have inspired me deeply through the years,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm just grateful for that, Brian. I'm grateful for
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: all the times that you have helped the numerous articles
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: that you've written for Overland Journal. Just recently, you and
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I were talking about watches, and you were giving me
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: all of these deep insights into military watches, just things
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: that I have just greatly enjoyed in our in our
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: travels and our conversations together. So thank you for being
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: an inspiration to me, Brian, and thank you as always
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: for being on this podcast. We were going to talk
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: about watches today, but we again different again, we hit again,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: We hit over an hour, so maybe we will get
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: to watches when we are at that pizzeria somewhere somewhere
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: somewhere in eastern Europe.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Who knows.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: But thank you again Brian for being on the podcast.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me again, Scott, I appreciate it. Yeah,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: thank you and we will talk to you all next time.