Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Katie Harris of the Road Chose Me on Blending Human and Vehicle- Powered Adventures
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
- 0:08Speaker 1: host Ashley Jordano. Today I'm joined by Katie Harris from
- 0:12Speaker 1: the Road Chose Me. Thank you so much for joining
- 0:14Speaker 1: me here in Nelson, b C.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Katie, Oh, it's such a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yay.
- 0:20Speaker 1: So, as I said, the Road Chose Me. So, you
- 0:23Speaker 1: and Dan Greg have been traveling together for a while,
- 0:26Speaker 1: and he's been on this podcast before talking about all
- 0:29Speaker 1: his different travels, so many of you may not know
- 0:32Speaker 1: that Katie has been along for the ride too. Australia, Iceland, Tunisia,
- 0:38Speaker 1: parts of Europe. Anything I'm missing?
- 0:41Speaker 2: I think that's that's pretty good. Yeah started any Yeah, awesome?
- 0:46Speaker 1: Cool. So I wanted to start chatting.
- 0:49Speaker 2: With you about.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Your pre overlanding life because before you met Dan, you
- 0:59Speaker 1: did all these incredible activities on your own and then
- 1:02Speaker 1: came into this sort of industry and lifestyle learning all
- 1:06Speaker 1: about vehicle travel. So yeah, tell me a little bit
- 1:10Speaker 1: about your pre overland life.
- 1:13Speaker 2: My pre overland experience for sure.
- 1:17Speaker 3: And a special thanks to this week's sponsor, the Great
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- 2:16Speaker 2: Yeah, and we live.
- 2:17Speaker 4: Yeah, we're We're in Nelson, DC, which is a super
- 2:19Speaker 4: outdoorsy town. And that was part of what drew me
- 2:22Speaker 4: here for sure, is the mountains and we're beside this
- 2:25Speaker 4: big lake and there's lots of great rivers and tons
- 2:27Speaker 4: of like backpacking in that country experience and experiences that
- 2:31Speaker 4: are possible opportunities.
- 2:33Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:34Speaker 4: So before I met Dan, I mean, I still work,
- 2:39Speaker 4: but I would try and go away as much as
- 2:41Speaker 4: I can. So like I paddled the Wind River up
- 2:44Speaker 4: in the Yukon, which took like two and a half weeks,
- 2:46Speaker 4: and like, I love paddling, being on the water and
- 2:49Speaker 4: love backpacking.
- 2:50Speaker 2: So like did the Annapurna Circuit.
- 2:53Speaker 4: And nepaul oh Wo which was yeah great, And so
- 2:56Speaker 4: always kind of just looking for opportunities to get to
- 2:58Speaker 4: get out and we're so close to so many amazing
- 3:02Speaker 4: great hikes and backpacking things, and I love seat touring.
- 3:05Speaker 4: That's the number one reason why I moved here is
- 3:07Speaker 4: because I love the snow and I love.
- 3:09Speaker 2: Being up in the mountains.
- 3:10Speaker 4: And so that was a huge thing that Dan and
- 3:12Speaker 4: I connected on at first. He used to live in
- 3:13Speaker 4: the Yukon and so we really talked about the Yukon
- 3:15Speaker 4: and just all of those backcountry experiences that we had
- 3:18Speaker 4: in common. And so, yeah, overlanding was a big was
- 3:22Speaker 4: a transition because you also can't bring as many toys
- 3:25Speaker 4: when you go overlanding.
- 3:26Speaker 2: You can't bring like five pairs of skis and canoe
- 3:29Speaker 2: and raft and all your backpacks, although I tried.
- 3:32Speaker 4: I want to starve to Australia, but yeah, so that was, yeah,
- 3:36Speaker 4: that was something that we really connected on and that
- 3:38Speaker 4: was also kind of how Dan sold me on overlanding,
- 3:40Speaker 4: because that's always a bit of his story is that
- 3:42Speaker 4: you know, he got into overlanding because you loved hiking,
- 3:45Speaker 4: and that was part of one of the ways that
- 3:48Speaker 4: he ended up getting into overlanding was just the journey
- 3:52Speaker 4: to the trailhead.
- 3:53Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Yeah, there are lots of similarities too, because
- 3:56Speaker 1: some places you need to look into how are you
- 3:59Speaker 1: going to get to the places where you need to go? Yeah,
- 4:02Speaker 1: you know, maybe you need to download some tracks or
- 4:04Speaker 1: do some research with maps or figure out where you're
- 4:07Speaker 1: gonna camp and how you're gonna You can only bring
- 4:09Speaker 1: a certain amount of stuff with you, so I can
- 4:12Speaker 1: see how those skills that you had from all these
- 4:15Speaker 1: things translated.
- 4:17Speaker 4: Totally very like transferable. Yeah, Like packing for crossing the
- 4:20Speaker 4: Simpson Desert was great. I was like I've packed for
- 4:23Speaker 4: lots of multi day canoe trips, Like I kind of
- 4:25Speaker 4: already had a sense of like what was gonna bruise
- 4:27Speaker 4: in the back of the jeep and like what kind
- 4:29Speaker 4: of meals could we make after we run out of
- 4:31Speaker 4: our fridge space? Right, because you are gonna have to
- 4:35Speaker 4: pack two weeks worth of food. You can't always put
- 4:37Speaker 4: two weeks of food in your fridge, but some things
- 4:39Speaker 4: keep really well not in fridge.
- 4:41Speaker 1: I love that so much, how that all kind of
- 4:45Speaker 1: works together. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
- 4:47Speaker 4: I felt like I could bring something to our over
- 4:50Speaker 4: Lanny because he brings a lot obviously, totally.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Yeah, it was nice to feel so like I.
- 4:54Speaker 4: Have a few skills that will come in common and
- 4:56Speaker 4: like map reading and all that stuff.
- 4:58Speaker 2: So that was yeah, that was handy, I guess.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Yeah. And then you would have, also, I'm assuming, been
- 5:04Speaker 1: able to bring some things that maybe you wouldn't be
- 5:07Speaker 1: able to on sort of like a human powered adventure.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Yeah. Like when Dan described what a swag was.
- 5:14Speaker 4: To me the first time, and I was like, we
- 5:15Speaker 4: get to bring pillows, like each of us gets like
- 5:19Speaker 4: a real pillow and like bedding, Like.
- 5:22Speaker 2: I was really confused.
- 5:24Speaker 4: I think sometimes when people get into overlanding, it's like
- 5:27Speaker 4: really but roughing it, and but for me.
- 5:29Speaker 2: It felt the opposite.
- 5:30Speaker 1: You know.
- 5:30Speaker 2: It was like I get to bring an immersion blender,
- 5:33Speaker 2: Like it was really excit.
- 5:35Speaker 4: We did not bring an immersion blender when we were
- 5:37Speaker 4: in Australia, but we did bring one when we were
- 5:39Speaker 4: in Europe, which was actually very useful. So yeah, that
- 5:42Speaker 4: was also kind of a funny Yeah, funny realization and
- 5:45Speaker 4: funny transition for me as well.
- 5:48Speaker 1: So many transferable skills that can go both ways.
- 5:51Speaker 2: I love that for sure.
- 5:53Speaker 1: The ski touring, Like, what are some really wonderful memories
- 5:57Speaker 1: that you've had from ski touring trips?
- 6:00Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just I mean for me, like sounds cheesy maybe,
- 6:05Speaker 4: but like the mountains are totally like a really spiritual
- 6:08Speaker 4: place for me. It's just like there's something about being
- 6:10Speaker 4: up in a mountain range and like when you get
- 6:13Speaker 4: up at elevation and just I don't know the way
- 6:15Speaker 4: that the silence is so full, you know, when you're
- 6:18Speaker 4: up there and being away being human powered and kind
- 6:22Speaker 4: of I remember kind of the first couple of times
- 6:24Speaker 4: I went describing it like because there is also a
- 6:27Speaker 4: huge element of risk, like you feel like you're I
- 6:30Speaker 4: kind of described it as like climbing up the.
- 6:32Speaker 2: Maine of a sleeping lion.
- 6:34Speaker 4: Sometimes you know, like you're appreciating that you're taking these
- 6:37Speaker 4: big risks to be in these beautiful places and hopefully
- 6:39Speaker 4: not taking like crazy risks. And I love like working
- 6:42Speaker 4: as a team and the food that you get to
- 6:44Speaker 4: eat when you're in the back country, just grating, fairy.
- 6:46Speaker 2: Food, motivating. So I love the delicious snacks and.
- 6:50Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just the stars. Yeah, and there's some great
- 6:54Speaker 4: cabins around here. So yeah, that really told me, Yeah.
- 7:00Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
- 7:00Speaker 1: I could not love that more amazing. So you and
- 7:05Speaker 1: Dan came together and had all of these skill sets
- 7:09Speaker 1: that overlapped and interests that overlapped. What was the moment,
- 7:13Speaker 1: like when did you too meet? I?
- 7:16Speaker 4: So Dan was living with one of my friends his
- 7:20Speaker 4: roommate at the time, but he was never home and
- 7:22Speaker 4: at the beginning, his roommate was.
- 7:23Speaker 2: Like, oh, I love my new room. He's never home,
- 7:26Speaker 2: he's always away.
- 7:27Speaker 4: And then lockdown happened and suddenly her roommate was home
- 7:30Speaker 4: all the time. And I think part of it was
- 7:33Speaker 4: she was trying to get him out of the house
- 7:34Speaker 4: and so she started she was like, I really think
- 7:35Speaker 4: I should set you guys up. Like she kept like
- 7:38Speaker 4: really pushing Dan. He was like, oh, he's such a
- 7:40Speaker 4: great guy. You know, he's we live in a ski town.
- 7:43Speaker 4: So like it's as you may know, it's rife with
- 7:46Speaker 4: Australians who like live on couches and you know, are
- 7:50Speaker 4: see officeing the world.
- 7:51Speaker 1: So he's like, he's Australian and he lives in his
- 7:54Speaker 1: car and he's.
- 7:55Speaker 4: Really good at chopping firewood. It was like okay, Sarah
- 7:59Speaker 4: like through really selling.
- 8:01Speaker 2: Him, like I don't know, and.
- 8:04Speaker 4: Then of course eventually I like gave him and like
- 8:07Speaker 4: met and he's lovely.
- 8:08Speaker 2: He's got a lot of things to offer, not just
- 8:10Speaker 2: chopping firewood. So it was pretty kind.
- 8:13Speaker 4: But yeah, I feel guilty in hindsight because he really
- 8:16Speaker 4: does live in his vehicle. But yeah, it came across
- 8:21Speaker 4: slightly differently when she was advertising.
- 8:23Speaker 2: Him as it as a potential partner. But yeah, that
- 8:25Speaker 2: was it. So we met, and I used to travel
- 8:26Speaker 2: a lot for work.
- 8:27Speaker 4: I was on the road or kind of in the
- 8:29Speaker 4: air but half the time, so for me too, I
- 8:32Speaker 4: also like suddenly was in Neelsent with a lot more
- 8:34Speaker 4: time than I had ever had before. So so yeah,
- 8:37Speaker 4: so we met during lockdown and that was great because
- 8:40Speaker 4: if not I don't know, I who we ever would
- 8:41Speaker 4: have been in the same place long enough to have connected.
- 8:44Speaker 1: So right, yeah, and what were you doing for work
- 8:47Speaker 1: at that time?
- 8:48Speaker 4: I was working provincially doing quality improvement work, so I
- 8:52Speaker 4: was traveling to the coast, a lot down Vancouver and
- 8:55Speaker 4: the capital, like the island, and then also just like
- 8:58Speaker 4: all over the province like doing projects and workshops and
- 9:01Speaker 4: stuff like that. So I really liked it, but it
- 9:04Speaker 4: was a lot to travel all the time, and it's
- 9:08Speaker 4: very difficult to fly out over our local airport too,
- 9:10Speaker 4: so truth.
- 9:11Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's hard. It's fun, but it's also hard.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. It's kind of a place that you go
- 9:17Speaker 1: to intentionally, yes, absolutely, yeah, which is great, but also
- 9:21Speaker 1: can be tricky to get out of sometimes if you
- 9:23Speaker 1: need to get to a hub or something quickly.
- 9:26Speaker 4: Yeah, you need to be very intentional about leaving also, yes, right, yeah.
- 9:31Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 9:32Speaker 1: So when you and Dan met, were you like, oh, wow,
- 9:37Speaker 1: this is a really random thing. This guy that I've
- 9:40Speaker 1: just met has like traveled by vehicle all over the world.
- 9:45Speaker 1: But then you also, I bet had a bunch of
- 9:48Speaker 1: stories from your experiences traveling and working and your outdoor pursuits,
- 9:54Speaker 1: and then he obviously had a bunch of stories and
- 9:56Speaker 1: it kind of came together in this amazing way.
- 9:59Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was pretty funny.
- 10:02Speaker 4: Actually, the weekend we met, I had actually just signed
- 10:05Speaker 4: the paperwork to buy a house and like to have roots,
- 10:09Speaker 4: you know, my first house.
- 10:10Speaker 2: And so he's like, I travel the world and I
- 10:12Speaker 2: was like.
- 10:13Speaker 4: I just signed papers to buy a house, but he
- 10:16Speaker 4: was like, no, that's actually such an advantage, like that
- 10:18Speaker 4: can be a really good asset, and so yeah, it did.
- 10:21Speaker 2: It did come together. But we our first conversation, we
- 10:23Speaker 2: really mainly blinded about. Yeah, the Yukon. He talked so
- 10:26Speaker 2: much about the Yukon.
- 10:27Speaker 4: And I didn't actually hear about most of his international
- 10:31Speaker 4: travels until way down the line.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Well.
- 10:34Speaker 4: Not way down the line, obviously, I saw his jeep
- 10:36Speaker 4: when we arrived, which at the giant map on the
- 10:39Speaker 4: front of it. But yeah, and I also spent some
- 10:41Speaker 4: time in Mali when I was a lot younger, four
- 10:44Speaker 4: months in Sub Soar Africa, so we also connected our
- 10:47Speaker 4: own that because not a lot of people have visited
- 10:49Speaker 4: Mali's right.
- 10:50Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really nice.
- 10:51Speaker 1: Oh wow, yes, yeah, you could really relate to each other. Yeah.
- 10:57Speaker 4: He actually he spent a couple of weeks in a
- 10:59Speaker 4: also a very small town, just a couple like less
- 11:02Speaker 4: than one hundred kilometers from where I spent my four months,
- 11:05Speaker 4: So it was really nice to connect on that. Yeah,
- 11:09Speaker 4: I love it.
- 11:10Speaker 2: I love it.
- 11:11Speaker 1: So lockdown's happening, you're here in Nelson, obviously, we have
- 11:17Speaker 1: to stay in one place for a while. And then
- 11:20Speaker 1: what was the first sort of trip that you decided
- 11:22Speaker 1: to go on together.
- 11:24Speaker 4: Well, then the big one was Australia the short term.
- 11:28Speaker 4: I think the first thing we did was go to
- 11:29Speaker 4: the Hot Springs pretty much like a couple of dates
- 11:33Speaker 4: and it was like, well, we're going to the Hot
- 11:34Speaker 4: Springs obviously, but yeah, it was Australia like that was
- 11:38Speaker 4: always kind of in well not always, but with the
- 11:40Speaker 4: lockdown happening and him being Australian that was in his cars,
- 11:43Speaker 4: it was one of the only places you could still
- 11:45Speaker 4: kind of travel without any restrictions once you got there.
- 11:49Speaker 4: So there was a two week hotel quarantine when you
- 11:52Speaker 4: got there, and especially at the beginning of COVID, there
- 11:55Speaker 4: was there were no cases they had, you know, matches
- 11:58Speaker 4: with thirty thousand footballer is in the same place and
- 12:01Speaker 4: weddings and whatever.
- 12:02Speaker 2: So we were like, off, we can.
- 12:03Speaker 4: Make it into Australia, like we don't have to worry
- 12:05Speaker 4: about anything.
- 12:06Speaker 2: And we can.
- 12:07Speaker 4: It's a huge country, there's so much to explore it.
- 12:09Speaker 4: He'd never really gone back to do that. They call
- 12:12Speaker 4: it the lap, you know.
- 12:13Speaker 1: Like going around the lap.
- 12:15Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course we went through the middle many times.
- 12:18Speaker 2: It's a little bit.
- 12:20Speaker 4: Not perfect circle, but a lot of the interesting stuffs
- 12:22Speaker 4: in the middle. So yeah, so that was that was
- 12:25Speaker 4: the plan, and we always kind of.
- 12:27Speaker 2: Knew that was where he was going to go.
- 12:30Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I just decided to resign and jump
- 12:33Speaker 4: on board.
- 12:34Speaker 2: Yeah cool.
- 12:35Speaker 1: What were you most looking forward to in Australia?
- 12:37Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I just wanted to be in I
- 12:41Speaker 4: could not think of a more different landscape than where
- 12:44Speaker 4: we live, Like we live in such a like lush, temperate,
- 12:49Speaker 4: voluptuous rainforest, and then I was going to like a flat,
- 12:53Speaker 4: dried desert like I think the average elevation of Australia's
- 12:56Speaker 4: fifty meters above sea level.
- 12:58Speaker 2: So yeah, and it totally is so different there. Yeah.
- 13:03Speaker 1: Cool. And the vehicle set up.
- 13:06Speaker 2: In Australia Yeah, oh yeah. We had a jeep Gladiator,
- 13:10Speaker 2: which shocked me.
- 13:12Speaker 4: I didn't even know what existed before this trip. And
- 13:15Speaker 4: we lived in a swag.
- 13:18Speaker 1: What's a Swag's everyone's favorite question.
- 13:21Speaker 4: I like to describe it as a cross between like
- 13:23Speaker 4: a body bag and a baby a body bag.
- 13:28Speaker 2: Have you seen one before?
- 13:29Speaker 4: It's like basically it's the sleeping bag with like a
- 13:32Speaker 4: little roof. Gotcha a sleeping bag built for two, you know,
- 13:35Speaker 4: like a bicycle you can get.
- 13:36Speaker 2: You can get little ones.
- 13:37Speaker 4: There'll be like whole families where you have like a
- 13:39Speaker 4: mama and a pop and little baby.
- 13:41Speaker 2: Ones who It's very cute.
- 13:43Speaker 4: And when I first got there, it was just like
- 13:44Speaker 4: it's like someone took the most poorly designed, like they
- 13:47Speaker 4: took a tent and then they just made everything about
- 13:49Speaker 4: it wrong. Like no, I think it's like my backpacking tent.
- 13:52Speaker 4: It's like it's light, it's like super waterproof. It's like compact,
- 13:57Speaker 4: it's breathable, and like the swag is like heavy.
- 13:59Speaker 2: It's made out of canvas. It is not waterproof at all.
- 14:02Speaker 4: There's like a huge foamy mattress that just did a
- 14:04Speaker 4: giant sponge and like absorbs so much water you can
- 14:06Speaker 4: like twist it out and like yeah, and it was massive.
- 14:10Speaker 4: It was like I could barely get it in and
- 14:12Speaker 4: out of the gladiator and it's like yeah, like my
- 14:15Speaker 4: arms would be like this big around it, and yeah,
- 14:19Speaker 4: so that's what we're in. But I have to say,
- 14:21Speaker 4: like after being in Australia in especially in the desert,
- 14:25Speaker 4: because in the beginning of our trip it rained so much,
- 14:28Speaker 4: like kept being like so.
- 14:29Speaker 2: Good, damn great plant because there's also.
- 14:32Speaker 4: Like nowhere to put your shoes, like it's like this
- 14:35Speaker 4: high so you can't even sit up and get changed
- 14:37Speaker 4: inside of it. Like it's it's not a living space.
- 14:39Speaker 4: It's literally just a sleeping bag with a fly screen
- 14:43Speaker 4: on top of it. But it is great in the
- 14:45Speaker 4: desert because it is comfortable, like there is bedding, and
- 14:49Speaker 4: it stands up to really hard conditions, like there's so
- 14:53Speaker 4: many sharp, pointy things in the desert, like huge things
- 14:57Speaker 4: that would like go through my broken stocks, you know,
- 14:59Speaker 4: like oh my god, yeah, so like my tent would
- 15:01Speaker 4: have been scrapped, and the sun is just so brutal.
- 15:03Speaker 4: So I think by the end of the trip I
- 15:05Speaker 4: was like, Okay, I understand why we did this swag.
- 15:06Speaker 4: But at the beginning it was like why do we
- 15:09Speaker 4: have this, like this is my whole tent like so uh, yes,
- 15:12Speaker 4: that made sense. And in longer we had a great slideout
- 15:15Speaker 4: kitchen set up, and we had some like a great
- 15:18Speaker 4: awning and you know, the chairs and water system well
- 15:21Speaker 4: then in the back but solar panels. But yeah, it
- 15:25Speaker 4: was very much like living outside setup, which was great
- 15:28Speaker 4: because once the rain stopped, it was mainly sunny.
- 15:32Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, incredible. What did you notice coming there for
- 15:36Speaker 1: the first time that you're just kind of blown away
- 15:39Speaker 1: or surprised or excited or interested about in Australia.
- 15:44Speaker 2: Yeah, good question.
- 15:48Speaker 1: Could be anything, could be scenery, food, interactions, hikes, driving overland,
- 15:55Speaker 1: called to anything.
- 15:56Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's a huge country, and I think
- 15:59Speaker 4: like coming from Canada, You're like, we live in a
- 16:01Speaker 4: big country. I'm not going to be like scared or
- 16:02Speaker 4: intimidated by how big Australia is. But Canadians live in
- 16:06Speaker 4: the bottom like you know, fifty kilometers or one hundred.
- 16:11Speaker 2: One hundred miles with border or whatever. It is, so.
- 16:15Speaker 4: Coming to Australia, like everyone lives around the outside and
- 16:17Speaker 4: then the very middle, So the distances are suddenly much
- 16:20Speaker 4: greater because you're not going just along the bottom of
- 16:22Speaker 4: the border, You're going all the way around the outside.
- 16:25Speaker 4: And so I think I was impressed by that, like
- 16:27Speaker 4: the vastness of Australia, like driving across the sinsin desert
- 16:32Speaker 4: and we did that. I was like, yes, we've done it,
- 16:35Speaker 4: We've finished the desert back to civilization. And then you
- 16:37Speaker 4: like leave Birdsville, which is this tiny little outpost at
- 16:40Speaker 4: the end of the desert with the other side of
- 16:43Speaker 4: the desert, and then it's like still like three thousand
- 16:46Speaker 4: or three and a half thousand kilometers and it's just
- 16:49Speaker 4: like the same dirt track.
- 16:50Speaker 2: It's just slightly flatter as.
- 16:52Speaker 4: You leave, and then it slowly becomes like slightly wider,
- 16:55Speaker 4: and then one track is paved and then it's you know,
- 16:58Speaker 4: but it was like still like fo or five days
- 17:01Speaker 4: of long days of driving on corrugations until you hit
- 17:05Speaker 4: like actual civilizations.
- 17:07Speaker 2: So I think that was pretty adjustment. Yeah.
- 17:11Speaker 4: And then and then I loved like it was cool
- 17:13Speaker 4: to see some of them more tropical places as well,
- 17:16Speaker 4: like the Castwerries and like I've never beenwhere really tropical before,
- 17:22Speaker 4: so just the lushness.
- 17:23Speaker 2: Of like oh, bananas and pineapples and.
- 17:25Speaker 4: Mangoes and yeah, that kind of like rainforest y stuff
- 17:28Speaker 4: was very cool.
- 17:29Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 17:29Speaker 4: An ocean, I mean, Australia is a lot going for it,
- 17:32Speaker 4: but the coral reefs are pretty cool.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible stuff.
- 17:38Speaker 1: I love that so much. What were some tough moments
- 17:42Speaker 1: in Australia. Yeah, well, we did get COVID like on
- 17:48Speaker 1: the first day of the sins the desert, which was
- 17:52Speaker 1: not ideal.
- 17:53Speaker 4: I would say that was probably a tough moment. It
- 17:56Speaker 4: also like rained in the middle of the desert and
- 17:58Speaker 4: there's just so many.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Flies, so that was really hard.
- 18:02Speaker 4: Yeah, just feeling pretty isolated and sick and like, yeah.
- 18:09Speaker 2: That was that was tough, tough moment.
- 18:12Speaker 4: But in some ways it was great because I mean
- 18:13Speaker 4: we had fourteen days worth of food with us and
- 18:15Speaker 4: water and like we weren't going to come in contact
- 18:18Speaker 4: with anybody else, so that was really a little bit stressful.
- 18:24Speaker 4: But that was definitely, yeah, a challenging moment for sure.
- 18:29Speaker 4: Definitely moments on Cape York, which is up the northern
- 18:33Speaker 4: most tip of Australia. I had no idea driving like
- 18:36Speaker 4: that existed, so that was definitely a bit challenging for
- 18:39Speaker 4: me to like get into it, and I yeah, I
- 18:43Speaker 4: normally do a lot of the driving, so that was
- 18:45Speaker 4: also like a bit like oh my god, like I'm
- 18:48Speaker 4: not driving that, so yeah, that was that was also challenging,
- 18:52Speaker 4: and then in the end awesome, like it was I
- 18:54Speaker 4: got into it and it was we met great people
- 18:56Speaker 4: and we had an incredible adventure up there.
- 18:58Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a great trip.
- 19:03Speaker 4: So yeah, sometimes the monotony of the longer days, but
- 19:06Speaker 4: we fall into the rhythm.
- 19:07Speaker 1: You know, it's totally Yeah, it works.
- 19:09Speaker 2: I got really into running, which was great.
- 19:11Speaker 1: Oh nice. Yeah, running in them out back.
- 19:14Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean sometimes you just want to get out
- 19:16Speaker 4: of the vehicle and like listen to your own music
- 19:19Speaker 4: and smell the air, like you know, it's really dusty,
- 19:21Speaker 4: can be really dusty on a lot of those roads.
- 19:23Speaker 2: So sometimes it's nice to just go out first.
- 19:24Speaker 4: Thing in the morning and it's so hot there that
- 19:26Speaker 4: I had to get up like as soon as the
- 19:27Speaker 4: sun came up or it was too hot.
- 19:29Speaker 2: So I really look back on a lot of those
- 19:32Speaker 2: memories really fondly, like just going for going for my
- 19:34Speaker 2: run every day.
- 19:35Speaker 1: So wonderful. Yeah. I had my first Aussie berger recently
- 19:41Speaker 1: and I it was fun because we were chatting about
- 19:45Speaker 1: like food culture in Australia and there are things that
- 19:47Speaker 1: are really interesting to me since I've never been there.
- 19:50Speaker 1: But yeah, tell me a little bit about the the
- 19:54Speaker 1: food tips.
- 19:55Speaker 4: Oh man, Yeah, it was that was also really surprising
- 19:58Speaker 4: to me. I always thought that Canada was or Australia
- 20:02Speaker 4: was kind of like, you know, a hot Canada or
- 20:04Speaker 4: like southern Canada, because you know, they're both red on
- 20:07Speaker 4: the globe British you know, colonies. For some reason, my
- 20:12Speaker 4: sense of geography was just really skewed, and I thought
- 20:13Speaker 4: we were at the same latitude, just they were south.
- 20:16Speaker 2: But they're like, really, they're way close to the equator,
- 20:20Speaker 2: Like I'm embarrassed by.
- 20:23Speaker 4: Like they're more like southern Mexico like in terms of
- 20:27Speaker 4: where they are relative the equator. So they have the
- 20:30Speaker 4: opportunity to grow some amazing fruit, but their culture is
- 20:35Speaker 4: still extremely British. So it's just like, yeah, I remember
- 20:38Speaker 4: saying that to Dan a few weeks after we got there.
- 20:41Speaker 4: It was just like, oh, like they could have amazing
- 20:43Speaker 4: like Mexican food or tie food, like based on the
- 20:45Speaker 4: things that grow, Like people literally throw away avocados because
- 20:48Speaker 4: so many of them are like lemons, limes, yeah, like
- 20:51Speaker 4: hot peppers, all this stuff.
- 20:53Speaker 2: And then everything's kind of like beige and deep fried.
- 20:56Speaker 4: You know, like we're having Christmas dinner and it's like
- 20:58Speaker 4: a roast and it's like thirty five degree and you're like,
- 21:01Speaker 4: what we have avo gottos, So that was definitely an adjustment.
- 21:06Speaker 4: Meat pies are a huge thing, right, Yeah, like almost
- 21:10Speaker 4: all the gas stations, like even in the middle of
- 21:11Speaker 4: nowhere will have like a pie warmer and like meat pies,
- 21:15Speaker 4: and these other things called Chico rolls, which are basically
- 21:18Speaker 4: like like basically just like an egg roll. For some reason,
- 21:23Speaker 4: that's super popular, kind of like the way you buy
- 21:24Speaker 4: like a hot dog at a gas station.
- 21:26Speaker 2: Yeah, they have Chico.
- 21:27Speaker 4: Rolls, and they have these other things called dim sims,
- 21:29Speaker 4: which again are just kind of like a dumpling, and
- 21:31Speaker 4: you can get like a bunch of dumplings in like
- 21:33Speaker 4: a plastic bag and just like eat that while you're.
- 21:35Speaker 2: Driving, which is quirky. And yeah, you kind of lean
- 21:38Speaker 2: into that.
- 21:39Speaker 4: And then when you're in the outback pubs or like
- 21:42Speaker 4: the stations, like the only two things you can maybe
- 21:44Speaker 4: you can order an Aussi burger if there's a good
- 21:46Speaker 4: one will be a good one. But the other thing
- 21:48Speaker 4: to order is a chicken parmi And so yeah, that's
- 21:51Speaker 4: that's pretty good. But I learned really early on that
- 21:53Speaker 4: even though there might be like the idea of other
- 21:56Speaker 4: things on the menu, you should.
- 21:57Speaker 2: Just stick to the chicken parmi or the ausie burger, because.
- 22:00Speaker 4: They're really the only two delicious things. Everything else is
- 22:05Speaker 4: very questionable and probably from the back.
- 22:07Speaker 2: Of a freezer.
- 22:07Speaker 1: So gotcha, and you're the ausie burger is an ausie
- 22:11Speaker 1: burger when it has it has to have like pineapple
- 22:14Speaker 1: and an egg and sometimes bacon and beetroots. Beetroot yeah,
- 22:18Speaker 1: pickled or not pickled?
- 22:19Speaker 2: Oh good, I think it's pickled.
- 22:21Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and pine pineapple ring often pickles baca.
- 22:25Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 22:25Speaker 4: It's delicious, and it's like it's quite a there's quite
- 22:28Speaker 4: a science behind the whole stacking it. And when you
- 22:30Speaker 4: pick it up, it's like you know, taco or something.
- 22:31Speaker 4: You can't put it back down again. So you're just
- 22:33Speaker 4: like committed to this giant.
- 22:34Speaker 1: You can't put it back down.
- 22:36Speaker 4: It's very difficult to put it back down because all
- 22:38Speaker 4: the layers like slip around, like yeah, cool.
- 22:43Speaker 1: And trick and parmi.
- 22:45Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like chicken parmesana.
- 22:47Speaker 4: Yeah, you can get it with all kinds of different toppings,
- 22:49Speaker 4: but and they like them to be like really big,
- 22:51Speaker 4: like hang over the edge of the plate.
- 22:52Speaker 2: If they can.
- 22:53Speaker 1: Oh that's the thing. Pint. Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah.
- 23:00Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got that kind of going for you.
- 23:01Speaker 1: Nice, so great, Love it Australia, Love it. How long
- 23:08Speaker 1: were you there for?
- 23:09Speaker 4: I think we were there for like damn, was there
- 23:11Speaker 4: for like over a year and a half two year close, yeah,
- 23:15Speaker 4: twenty months.
- 23:15Speaker 2: I was there for maybe sixteen or eighteen.
- 23:17Speaker 4: We did a lot of hiking also. That was the
- 23:19Speaker 4: other thing that I did conven stand to bring our
- 23:21Speaker 4: hiking here on that trip. And so we did a
- 23:23Speaker 4: ton of not a ton, but like probably six or
- 23:26Speaker 4: seven like multi day backpacking trips.
- 23:27Speaker 2: So nice, which is awesome.
- 23:29Speaker 4: Some involving like very crocodile laden like areas that we
- 23:33Speaker 4: had to like cross which was a new thing for me,
- 23:37Speaker 4: but yeah, it was that was great. Those were some
- 23:39Speaker 4: highlights also.
- 23:40Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible time. And then you returned to Canada, both
- 23:44Speaker 1: of you eventually, yeah.
- 23:45Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, came back to Nelson and then had a baby,
- 23:50Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, that was the thing. Yeah yeah. And
- 23:55Speaker 4: then and then in Canada we get quite a long
- 23:59Speaker 4: parental leaves, so I was going to be off for
- 24:01Speaker 4: eighteen months, so we decided after the first six months
- 24:03Speaker 4: that we would hit the road again.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Yeah, and then how did you decide when you were
- 24:09Speaker 1: ready to go, and how did you decide on the destinations?
- 24:14Speaker 2: Yeah, good question.
- 24:17Speaker 4: Well, I think from everything that we had heard, we
- 24:20Speaker 4: love skiing, we love winter, and so our daughter was
- 24:24Speaker 4: born in November, so we knew we wanted to be
- 24:26Speaker 4: here for like the winter season, which puts us already
- 24:29Speaker 4: at like March or April. And also we'd heard from people,
- 24:32Speaker 4: you know, those first couple months can be really hard.
- 24:35Speaker 4: They can be like really beautiful, but like you have
- 24:37Speaker 4: enough going on in your little tiny bubble, and we
- 24:39Speaker 4: wanted to feel supported by our community, and like we
- 24:44Speaker 4: had some family from Australia come over to help support us,
- 24:46Speaker 4: which was amazing, so we wanted to kind of like
- 24:49Speaker 4: live that out. And then yeah, it just felt like
- 24:51Speaker 4: the right timing. Also with the vehicle build to leave
- 24:55Speaker 4: in the springs, that was part of it, was just
- 24:57Speaker 4: like the seasonality.
- 24:59Speaker 2: And then the other thing was that we'd heard from
- 25:01Speaker 2: a lot of people.
- 25:03Speaker 4: It's so easy to travel with kids or like babies,
- 25:06Speaker 4: but then once they start walking, it gets a bit crazy.
- 25:10Speaker 4: So basically, like from I want to say, like four
- 25:13Speaker 4: or five months until eighteen months is like the golden
- 25:16Speaker 4: time for traveling.
- 25:17Speaker 2: Like they fly for free.
- 25:18Speaker 4: They're like amused by like a measuring cup or like
- 25:21Speaker 4: you know, the ticket from the grocery store receipt whatever.
- 25:25Speaker 4: And then as soon as they start walking, they just
- 25:27Speaker 4: want to be walking. And they also like start to
- 25:29Speaker 4: want to have friends, and they want to talk in English,
- 25:31Speaker 4: and they like want to do all those things. So
- 25:34Speaker 4: we kind of identified that as being a really good
- 25:36Speaker 4: time for us that we want to take advantage of.
- 25:38Speaker 4: And yeah, also like a great opportunity because I knew
- 25:41Speaker 4: I could come back and like have my.
- 25:43Speaker 2: Job back at the end of it, which is also great.
- 25:45Speaker 2: And ken be stressful when you're like overlanding for sure,
- 25:47Speaker 2: ending on your situation.
- 25:49Speaker 3: So yeah, and a special thanks to Nitto Tire for
- 25:54Speaker 3: supporting this week's podcast. At Overland Journal, we've trusted Nidto
- 25:59Speaker 3: tires around the globe and installed them on our long
- 26:03Speaker 3: term jeep Wrangler project. Their latest Tarra Grappler G three
- 26:07Speaker 3: All terrain light truck tire features a three P mountain
- 26:12Speaker 3: snowflake rating and a new rubber compound and tread pattern
- 26:16Speaker 3: that significantly enhances wet road and rock traction. The updated
- 26:21Speaker 3: tread design also reduces road noise and offers a seventy
- 26:26Speaker 3: thousand mile warranty for metric sizes and a fifty five
- 26:30Speaker 3: thousand mile warranty for light truck and flotation sizes. We
- 26:35Speaker 3: are also excited about their expansive new sizes, including the
- 26:39Speaker 3: first all terrain we found in the legendary two point
- 26:43Speaker 3: fifty five eighty R seventeen size. For more information, visit
- 26:50Speaker 3: nittotire dot com. Thanks again, Niddo.
- 26:55Speaker 1: A great overline vehicle. That is a jeep with a
- 26:58Speaker 1: camper attached. Yeah, up in the back, I can tell
- 27:00Speaker 1: you that top and back back yep.
- 27:02Speaker 4: So there's like almost a queen sized bed up top,
- 27:05Speaker 4: and then when it's up, like when the bed is
- 27:07Speaker 4: pushed up as well and the top is popped, there's
- 27:09Speaker 4: like a full kitchen with like induction cooktop and a fridge, freezer,
- 27:15Speaker 4: our little pantry, a bench. Yeah. So it was a
- 27:18Speaker 4: nice yeah, so different for us for having like indoor
- 27:20Speaker 4: living space also.
- 27:21Speaker 1: Right, that was awesome, Yeah nice, And especially because you
- 27:25Speaker 1: were headed to Iceland first, is that right?
- 27:27Speaker 4: Yeah?
- 27:28Speaker 1: Yeah, so in uh it was kind of shoulder season
- 27:33Speaker 1: or wintery we get heading into winter.
- 27:35Speaker 4: Uh yeah, well we got there at the beginning of August,
- 27:37Speaker 4: but we actually spent like two and a half months
- 27:39Speaker 4: there right, so by October they had like a foot
- 27:42Speaker 4: of snow, which was beautiful because we kind of got
- 27:44Speaker 4: to see like almost like three seasons. We got to
- 27:48Speaker 4: see all the colors changing, which is actually super beautiful.
- 27:51Speaker 4: I had no idea Iceland has almost no trees like
- 27:53Speaker 4: the Vikings capital town, except for one little area that
- 27:56Speaker 4: we got to see in the fall, which was beautiful.
- 27:58Speaker 4: But the hillside have like so many different mosses that
- 28:00Speaker 4: changed color. I don't know when you were there, but yeah,
- 28:02Speaker 4: it was really beautiful. And then the snow was amazing,
- 28:05Speaker 4: Like it was so fun driving the snow, and yeah,
- 28:09Speaker 4: Dan got to drive up on the glacier and that
- 28:12Speaker 4: was just it's it's a magic. We both loved Iceland.
- 28:14Speaker 4: It was really incredible.
- 28:15Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 28:16Speaker 1: Cool.
- 28:17Speaker 4: Yeah, and so we definitely wanted the indoor living space,
- 28:19Speaker 4: knowing how crazy the weather gets an Iceland and especially
- 28:22Speaker 4: the wind, like the wind and the rain, and then
- 28:24Speaker 4: having our baby, it was like, oh, we need somewhere
- 28:26Speaker 4: like consistent and dry and safe to sleep in.
- 28:29Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, tell me a little bit about traveling with
- 28:32Speaker 1: your daughter Aurora on that trip, because I'm assuming that's
- 28:36Speaker 1: the first time. Yeah, you had all ventured off on
- 28:40Speaker 1: an overline trip together, her as the new travel buddy.
- 28:44Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was great. It was so good.
- 28:46Speaker 4: And we actually we drove across the country birth to
- 28:49Speaker 4: get to Halifax, right, so.
- 28:50Speaker 2: That was kind of our introduction.
- 28:52Speaker 4: And at the beginning, the kids sleep so much when therefore,
- 28:57Speaker 4: like I think she was still taking straight up the day,
- 28:59Speaker 4: So at the beginning you just kind of like plan
- 29:01Speaker 4: your day around their NEPs and you drive when you
- 29:02Speaker 4: can to make that huge distance. But yeah, I was
- 29:06Speaker 4: really like, I don't want to say it was easy,
- 29:08Speaker 4: but it think it's a lot easier than people think
- 29:11Speaker 4: it's going to be.
- 29:11Speaker 2: Like people would be like.
- 29:12Speaker 4: Well, you're so brave traveling with the baby, but like
- 29:15Speaker 4: you're your own little unit. You get to spend so
- 29:17Speaker 4: much time together as a family. And then I think
- 29:19Speaker 4: so much of overlanding or traveling in general, it's like
- 29:23Speaker 4: about being like really present in different places and like
- 29:26Speaker 4: doing a lot of really simple things that like sometimes
- 29:29Speaker 4: it can be hard like to like appreciate the moment
- 29:33Speaker 4: when you're sharing with like this little human.
- 29:35Speaker 2: You know, you're like, oh, I'm here with the Aurora, Like
- 29:37Speaker 2: you know, so that was really and she's looking at
- 29:40Speaker 2: the world.
- 29:40Speaker 4: In this whole new way that like again that's a cliche,
- 29:43Speaker 4: but like with one like this type of wonder that
- 29:47Speaker 4: like I think you get to like lean into and
- 29:49Speaker 4: borrow and and also like you're gonna be tired wherever
- 29:53Speaker 4: you are, Like you might as well be tired somewhere beautiful. Like,
- 29:57Speaker 4: you know, I definitely had days where like, yeah, like
- 30:01Speaker 4: you know, you have those days where you're getting up
- 30:02Speaker 4: and you're just kind of surviving. But like if you're
- 30:04Speaker 4: doing that in Iceland and then at the end of
- 30:06Speaker 4: the day, you're like, ah, and then I you know,
- 30:08Speaker 4: saw a glacier in Iceland where it's like, you know,
- 30:11Speaker 4: you didn't really do very much, but yeah, you got
- 30:15Speaker 4: to experience this really awesome thing with your baby, and yeah,
- 30:19Speaker 4: and you get really creative and it's a great way
- 30:22Speaker 4: of connecting with other people. Went to story times, like
- 30:25Speaker 4: in all the countries we went to, if we could
- 30:27Speaker 4: find a story time, we'd go to a story time.
- 30:29Speaker 4: And because Roor doesn't speak English or Icelandic, so like yeah,
- 30:35Speaker 4: in all the public pools and like and people just
- 30:38Speaker 4: love kids, like they you know, love to chat with
- 30:40Speaker 4: you and love to bring special things up for your kid.
- 30:43Speaker 2: And yeah, that was really great. I love taking into
- 30:46Speaker 2: art galleries.
- 30:46Speaker 4: She probaously learned how to crawl in the art galleries
- 30:49Speaker 4: because they're like nice, clean, heated spaces where she could
- 30:52Speaker 4: just flop around, and yeah, it was.
- 30:55Speaker 1: It was really great, wonderful stuff. Yeah, Oh, I'm curious
- 31:00Speaker 1: about how because you're documenting the trip as well. Maybe
- 31:06Speaker 1: that isn't I don't know if that's the primary focus
- 31:08Speaker 1: of the trip or not, And maybe it is, maybe
- 31:11Speaker 1: it isn't, but yeah, I'd like to know a little
- 31:15Speaker 1: bit more about that, like how do you balance documenting
- 31:20Speaker 1: with living?
- 31:23Speaker 4: Yeah, good question, and they think something we're still trying
- 31:26Speaker 4: to figure out for sure. We definitely had days where
- 31:28Speaker 4: they're like kind of like more like work days or
- 31:30Speaker 4: days where we like knew it was more about the
- 31:32Speaker 4: vehicle and more about like overlanding, like overlanding, but that
- 31:35Speaker 4: kind of world driving, you know, days which over actually
- 31:39Speaker 4: sleeps really great on like rougher roads, which is awesome.
- 31:43Speaker 2: I like the swaying and the like sound of the gravel.
- 31:47Speaker 2: So that was, Yeah, that's obvious.
- 31:50Speaker 4: But yeah, definitely it's a tough, tough balance to like
- 31:52Speaker 4: figure figure that out and figure out Yeah, I think
- 31:59Speaker 4: it's hard to when you're documenting for an audience and
- 32:02Speaker 4: then also like to remember to document for yourselves. Yeah,
- 32:06Speaker 4: because like obviously, like I don't think everyone's as interested
- 32:08Speaker 4: in like aura.
- 32:09Speaker 2: Pictures as I am.
- 32:11Speaker 4: But if I've been taking photos of the deep all
- 32:13Speaker 4: day or like footage you're filming, then it's hard to
- 32:16Speaker 4: then turn the lens towards like.
- 32:17Speaker 2: What I want for myself.
- 32:19Speaker 4: Yes, and I don't do a lot of filming, but
- 32:22Speaker 4: it's still just that idea of like, yeah, like who's
- 32:26Speaker 4: how are we document and who are we documenting this for?
- 32:28Speaker 4: And do we even need to document this for ourselves
- 32:31Speaker 4: or anyway?
- 32:32Speaker 2: Yeah? Only, Yeah, that's that's a new thing that we're
- 32:34Speaker 2: still thinking about.
- 32:35Speaker 1: I think sure. And then I bet even from sort
- 32:38Speaker 1: of a logistical perspective, we're going through a specific area
- 32:41Speaker 1: and it's like we need drone.
- 32:43Speaker 5: Shots here, Yes, we have to have them, but what
- 32:45Speaker 5: if you know, is it naptip Like I have all
- 32:49Speaker 5: of the food or feeding or whatever, all the things
- 32:53Speaker 5: you have to balance, but also you have to like
- 32:55Speaker 5: do this drone thing right now, so like you have
- 32:57Speaker 5: to drive and yeah, it has to fly own and
- 33:00Speaker 5: like all.
- 33:00Speaker 4: Yeah, and now we have this other variable like having
- 33:02Speaker 4: this screaming child in the background. So like Aurora loves
- 33:05Speaker 4: Taylor Swift. Like I'm just gonna be totally transparent and
- 33:08Speaker 4: like if you could hear what we were listening to
- 33:11Speaker 4: for a lot of like really gnarly drunk footage, it's
- 33:13Speaker 4: Taylor Swift Champion Problems just unrepeat and I'm probably like
- 33:17Speaker 4: singing along as I am driving.
- 33:19Speaker 2: Yes, stands like drowning or whatever.
- 33:20Speaker 4: So yes, yeah, I was in the top zero point
- 33:23Speaker 4: three percent of her listeners this year on Spotify.
- 33:26Speaker 2: I'm not even a shame to a minute.
- 33:27Speaker 4: Whatever it takes, Thanks Taylor.
- 33:30Speaker 2: Yeah cool.
- 33:32Speaker 1: So Iceland, Yeah, did that and then moved on Yeah, took.
- 33:38Speaker 2: To Europe yep, great, yeah.
- 33:40Speaker 1: And then what was next?
- 33:44Speaker 4: We visited some friends Switzerland and then we actually walked
- 33:47Speaker 4: the Caninome, which was awesome.
- 33:49Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 33:50Speaker 4: So we left the vehicle behind, got a new vehicle
- 33:52Speaker 4: of three wheel variety, the stroller, and uh yeah, hit
- 33:57Speaker 4: that up.
- 33:58Speaker 2: That was great.
- 33:58Speaker 4: So it's like a six five hundred and six hundred.
- 34:02Speaker 2: Mile long walk.
- 34:04Speaker 4: I think it's like eight hundred kilometers and along the
- 34:07Speaker 4: north is Spin and we walked it for like six weeks.
- 34:12Speaker 1: Wow.
- 34:13Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was cool.
- 34:15Speaker 1: How did a Ora like that?
- 34:16Speaker 2: She loved it. Yeah, we're just like outside every day
- 34:19Speaker 2: all day.
- 34:21Speaker 4: We normally were walking for like six hours, and so
- 34:24Speaker 4: she'd be in the stroller for you know, two or
- 34:27Speaker 4: four of those I'd normally carry her for two of
- 34:30Speaker 4: those hours. And yeah, and then every night we were
- 34:33Speaker 4: somewhere different. I think we had like a couple of
- 34:36Speaker 4: rest nights, but it was almost like a new place
- 34:37Speaker 4: every night for six weeks, which was cool. It was
- 34:40Speaker 4: also really different because that's part of overlanding, right, you
- 34:42Speaker 4: always have your consistent home, and then this was like
- 34:45Speaker 4: the opposite, Like there was so much change every night.
- 34:48Speaker 2: You didn't know if our place was gonna be.
- 34:50Speaker 4: Freezing, what the size bed we were gonna have, Like
- 34:53Speaker 4: it was gonna be loud or cold or whatever. So yeah,
- 34:56Speaker 4: it was It really made us appreciate some of the
- 34:58Speaker 4: things about our vehicle when we got home, you know,
- 35:01Speaker 4: and yeah, sometimes you just need a change to appreciate
- 35:03Speaker 4: where you're at. So it was a great break and
- 35:06Speaker 4: it was so amazing to spend that much time outside
- 35:08Speaker 4: and together as a family and just like a really.
- 35:12Speaker 2: Simple, simple life for those six weeks. Simple pace.
- 35:17Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great because they're like, we just need to
- 35:19Speaker 1: figure out food, and then we need to walk, and
- 35:22Speaker 1: then we need to figure out where we're sleeping.
- 35:24Speaker 4: Yep, pretty much every day and like there's really only
- 35:26Speaker 4: a couple options every day. So we had a lot
- 35:29Speaker 4: of bread and cheese or started to walk on the communo,
- 35:32Speaker 4: which was also pretty cool. Wow, and you just have
- 35:36Speaker 4: a lot of picnics, Like if she's hungry, you just
- 35:38Speaker 4: pop out of the picnic blanket and sit down the
- 35:40Speaker 4: farmer's field and have your cheese and bread and.
- 35:44Speaker 2: Yeah, that was great.
- 35:46Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, and then you reunite with the vehicles.
- 35:50Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 35:51Speaker 4: We spent some time in the UK visiting family, like
- 35:53Speaker 4: just because we were we had to fly at some
- 35:56Speaker 4: point in time to get back to Switzerland where the
- 35:58Speaker 4: Deep bleaz and so we did that and then we
- 36:01Speaker 4: took the Deep to Sardinia and then from there we
- 36:04Speaker 4: went down to Tunisia.
- 36:05Speaker 1: Okay, great Tunisia. What was that?
- 36:09Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 36:09Speaker 1: How was that?
- 36:10Speaker 4: Like?
- 36:11Speaker 2: It was great?
- 36:11Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really nice, a totally different area I've
- 36:15Speaker 4: I've only been like I've been to Morocco and I've
- 36:17Speaker 4: been to Mali, which are very different, and it was
- 36:22Speaker 4: very like I feel like culturally it's more cohesive than
- 36:27Speaker 4: either of those places. In Mali, there's like some like
- 36:33Speaker 4: way more languages. Obviously, there's like ninety plus dialects in
- 36:36Speaker 4: Mali and many different languages, and there's like a lot
- 36:40Speaker 4: of different religious and spiritual traditions.
- 36:42Speaker 2: And similar with Morocco, like I think Marco.
- 36:44Speaker 4: Is so vibrant and also like geological, like the geography
- 36:48Speaker 4: so diverse, the elevation, the tobography, the history of all
- 36:51Speaker 4: the different you know, regimes and stuff like that.
- 36:54Speaker 2: That have been in Morocco. The food.
- 36:56Speaker 4: But Tunisia is also really lovely, like you know, it's
- 36:59Speaker 4: very Arabic. And we were there during Ramadan, which is
- 37:03Speaker 4: also really special and also challenging if you guys have
- 37:06Speaker 4: traveled in Muslim countries during Ramain, because everything is closed
- 37:10Speaker 4: until very late at night, which can be challenging if
- 37:13Speaker 4: you have.
- 37:14Speaker 2: A small child. But we got it, you know, we
- 37:16Speaker 2: got our rhythm down in the end. Yeah, and it
- 37:19Speaker 2: was really nice.
- 37:19Speaker 4: It was really refreshing, partially because I think continental Europe
- 37:24Speaker 4: is a bit challenging to overland in especially in the winter,
- 37:28Speaker 4: especially the way that we were kind of used to
- 37:30Speaker 4: overlanding in Australia, where it's like, wow, this looks nice,
- 37:33Speaker 4: we'll stop here, yes, and like we're overlanding really makes
- 37:37Speaker 4: a lot of sense in terms of like we have
- 37:39Speaker 4: everything we need, this is a beautiful place. We're very peaceful,
- 37:42Speaker 4: like just like Europe is just so busy that it
- 37:46Speaker 4: is busy Western continental Europe is so busy. And we
- 37:49Speaker 4: were there in the winter, so the weather was like
- 37:52Speaker 4: we were camping in the snow often or like rain caravan,
- 37:57Speaker 4: like these caravan parks is legal to stop a lot
- 37:59Speaker 4: of places. We had to pop the top everywhere, so
- 38:01Speaker 4: like we're not stealth camping places.
- 38:04Speaker 2: And then suddenly I get to Tunisia and it's just
- 38:06Speaker 2: like you.
- 38:06Speaker 4: And some shepherds in the middle of this field and
- 38:08Speaker 4: buy a salt pan. And we teamed up with a
- 38:11Speaker 4: wonderful couple from Finland that we traveled with, which was
- 38:14Speaker 4: so nice and they were happy to kind of go
- 38:16Speaker 4: at our speed because by then we could really only
- 38:18Speaker 4: drive a couple hours.
- 38:19Speaker 2: A day with Aurora and that was perfect. Tunisians love kids.
- 38:25Speaker 4: That was really nice. And I also speak French, like
- 38:27Speaker 4: pretty fluently. That was really great. Not everyone speaks French obviously,
- 38:32Speaker 4: but it was definitely enough to really connect with folks
- 38:35Speaker 4: and navigate anything we really needed to. So that was
- 38:39Speaker 4: really nice. Yeah, so much history.
- 38:40Speaker 2: There, so much history.
- 38:43Speaker 1: Yeah. What were some standout sort of interactions or experiences
- 38:47Speaker 1: with the Tunisians that you remember, appreciate and enjoy.
- 38:52Speaker 4: Yeah, the Bardo, like just culturally, like visiting the Bardow,
- 38:59Speaker 4: which is one of their guess museums. We're all like
- 39:02Speaker 4: basically all the mosaics from all of the ruins like
- 39:05Speaker 4: Carthage and everywhere. They've like taken those mosaics out of
- 39:08Speaker 4: their normal home and put them all in the same place.
- 39:11Speaker 4: And that was really mind blowing seeing like some of
- 39:14Speaker 4: those mosaics and rural loved it, which is funny because
- 39:18Speaker 4: they were like, you know, fishies and flowers like all
- 39:20Speaker 4: these things.
- 39:21Speaker 2: So that was really cool.
- 39:24Speaker 4: We were hosted by some people at a ranch which
- 39:27Speaker 4: was really like at their personal property from the Jeep
- 39:30Speaker 4: Club in Tunisia.
- 39:31Speaker 2: Oh wow, that was an incredible experience.
- 39:33Speaker 4: Yeah, that was really amazing, just like a beautiful, beautiful
- 39:38Speaker 4: property with like just so expansive and left like with
- 39:42Speaker 4: the olives and the grapes and they had tons of
- 39:45Speaker 4: like I don't know, they had like ponies and stuff
- 39:47Speaker 4: on their property, and it was just.
- 39:49Speaker 2: Nice to really connect with some local people.
- 39:51Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 39:52Speaker 4: Yeah, and then the Sahara like that was awesome. Yeah,
- 39:56Speaker 4: I'd visited when I was in Morocco, but then we
- 39:58Speaker 4: got to do Yeah, that was probab.
- 40:00Speaker 2: One of the most memorable things was there's kind of
- 40:02Speaker 2: like an.
- 40:02Speaker 4: Overlanding camp down in the south kind of at the
- 40:05Speaker 4: gateway of the Sahara, and so we stayed there and
- 40:08Speaker 4: we met up with quite a few other people, Like
- 40:11Speaker 4: it was the first time I feel like I was
- 40:12Speaker 4: really amongst like like overlanders again, or the first time
- 40:15Speaker 4: in a long time. Yeah, people traveling in like unimogs
- 40:19Speaker 4: and buses from like all over the world. But a
- 40:22Speaker 4: lot of Europeans, including some overlanding families, which was really
- 40:25Speaker 4: neat to meet.
- 40:26Speaker 1: Oh yeah, some.
- 40:27Speaker 4: Like families who'd just finished driving through Central Asia with
- 40:30Speaker 4: like their like kids, like a three and a five
- 40:32Speaker 4: year old little Germans. And I also really appreciate it
- 40:35Speaker 4: having the opportunity to connect with other families because we
- 40:37Speaker 4: didn't meet like other travelers. But it's not very often
- 40:39Speaker 4: you meet people with kids like and so that was
- 40:42Speaker 4: really nice to one of the mothers like chatting with
- 40:45Speaker 4: me and she was just like, oh, you must have
- 40:46Speaker 4: days when you're so tired.
- 40:48Speaker 2: She just like the way she looked at me was like, oh,
- 40:51Speaker 2: you get it, you see me.
- 40:53Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because that's definitely one of the harder things
- 40:55Speaker 4: when you're on the road is you don't have that.
- 40:57Speaker 4: I mean, it's just a different I think early parent
- 41:00Speaker 4: can be a bit isolating, but then when you're on
- 41:02Speaker 4: the road, you are literally you're a little island, right,
- 41:05Speaker 4: It can be isolating without kids. And so it was
- 41:07Speaker 4: really nice to like just be able to connect and
- 41:10Speaker 4: kind of swap some tips, and they gave us a
- 41:12Speaker 4: ro was growing out of some of her things. They
- 41:14Speaker 4: gave us like a sun hat and some toys, and
- 41:16Speaker 4: that was really fun. She loves she loves other kids.
- 41:19Speaker 4: The day they arrived, she was like, kids, She's asking
- 41:21Speaker 4: for kids. And then this mute mog pulled up with
- 41:23Speaker 4: these kids in it.
- 41:24Speaker 1: It was like a roar.
- 41:25Speaker 2: You manifested, and you manifested the kids.
- 41:27Speaker 4: So but yeah, So we spent a couple of deays
- 41:29Speaker 4: with them, driving through the desert, which was really beautifully
- 41:32Speaker 4: and there was like.
- 41:33Speaker 2: Six of us, six vehicles and fun, Yeah, having like
- 41:36Speaker 2: a big bonfire with everyone at night and.
- 41:38Speaker 4: Just yeah, just hanging out, like playing in the dunes,
- 41:41Speaker 4: and a lot of the vehicles like went and like
- 41:45Speaker 4: played in the dunes one evening and I just I
- 41:48Speaker 4: just hung out and.
- 41:49Speaker 2: Played with kids, which is also great and beautiful.
- 41:52Speaker 1: It's so important to have those moments of connection because
- 41:55Speaker 1: you're right, you are an island a lot of the time,
- 41:59Speaker 1: and you're in this little pod. Yeah, and it's you
- 42:04Speaker 1: and waving or speaking with some shepherds from time to
- 42:07Speaker 1: time sometimes, and then to be able to come together
- 42:10Speaker 1: like that, and especially like you were talking about, connecting
- 42:13Speaker 1: with other moms on the road is super important and
- 42:16Speaker 1: feeling supported and scene. Yeah you're like, yeah, I'm tired,
- 42:23Speaker 1: you know, you know the depth of my tired.
- 42:26Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the real thing. It's a real depth. Yeah.
- 42:30Speaker 1: Nice. Oh that's so great, wonderful stuff. Uh, Tunisia. When
- 42:36Speaker 1: you were done there, then what was next?
- 42:39Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of the end of our trip.
- 42:42Speaker 4: We surprised some friends in Switzerland for their fortieth birthday,
- 42:45Speaker 4: which is really great.
- 42:46Speaker 2: And then yeah, we and.
- 42:48Speaker 4: I flew home and Dan shipped back, so that was
- 42:52Speaker 4: kind of Yeah, that was kind of it.
- 42:54Speaker 1: And you had a specific amount of time off.
- 42:57Speaker 4: Right, So we're gone for almost exactly a year, so
- 43:00Speaker 4: we we had to come back. We ranted out our
- 43:02Speaker 4: house like uh so we yeah, we knew there was
- 43:05Speaker 4: an end date at the end, and we had to
- 43:07Speaker 4: line everything up. You know, vehicle shipping is always more
- 43:09Speaker 4: complicated than you think it's gonna be, right, Yeah, so
- 43:13Speaker 4: that was part of it.
- 43:14Speaker 2: But it was great.
- 43:15Speaker 4: It was an awesome trip and it was really nice
- 43:17Speaker 4: to get like all the different contrasts and yeah, we
- 43:21Speaker 4: spent a little bit of time like in Sardinia and
- 43:23Speaker 4: Italy also like on the way down and the way back,
- 43:25Speaker 4: and that was also wonderful.
- 43:28Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 43:28Speaker 4: The I'd like had never been to Italy before, and
- 43:30Speaker 4: I was like I don't understand, Like people go to
- 43:32Speaker 4: Italy and they're like a tomato changed my life.
- 43:34Speaker 2: And then I went and I was like, these tomatoes
- 43:37Speaker 2: are changing my life. So that was also great.
- 43:40Speaker 4: It was like Italian's also in our experience, like they
- 43:43Speaker 4: really really loved kids, Like they loved Aurora. They would
- 43:46Speaker 4: like whisk her away to the kitchen or like just
- 43:49Speaker 4: hold her the whole time. Dan and I would be
- 43:50Speaker 4: eating at a restaurant and we would just she would
- 43:53Speaker 4: just be like with the waitress or something the whole time,
- 43:55Speaker 4: which was awesome. Like, yeah, so we really appreciated those
- 43:59Speaker 4: kind of breaks in our long trip.
- 44:01Speaker 1: Wonderful. Yeah, I'm curious about, like, what were the changes
- 44:07Speaker 1: or in Aurora that you saw during that time, because
- 44:10Speaker 1: I'm sure that obviously she's growing and going from a
- 44:14Speaker 1: really young little wee baby to almost a year later. Yeah,
- 44:20Speaker 1: as a result of this experience.
- 44:22Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 44:23Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so hard because it's like one life
- 44:25Speaker 4: was no life, you know, in terms of like what
- 44:28Speaker 4: was the trip and what was sure. But she did
- 44:30Speaker 4: say like she could say thank you or goodbye, and
- 44:32Speaker 4: like six languages by the end of the trip, which
- 44:34Speaker 4: is pretty fun. Like she was saying like shock gum
- 44:37Speaker 4: in like Arabic which means thank you, and yeah, just
- 44:42Speaker 4: like I'm also in Italian and Spanish and French and
- 44:46Speaker 4: a little like in Iceland she got whatever it is
- 44:49Speaker 4: by bye, I think they say or hey hey.
- 44:51Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was really cool.
- 44:53Speaker 4: Yeah, she's really outgoing, super curious, like really independent.
- 44:58Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure probably she's always so excited to
- 45:03Speaker 2: be like where are we now?
- 45:04Speaker 4: Like even this is a really tiny baby, so yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
- 45:11Speaker 3: A special thanks to this week's sponsor, the Great American
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- 45:19Speaker 3: Overland fans waited all year for. It's the Great American
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- 46:01Speaker 3: fifteen dollars at the door. Again, that's March twelfth to
- 46:05Speaker 3: the fourteenth. Don't just dream it, build it and get dirty.
- 46:10Speaker 4: It's also crazy, just like how little we had for her,
- 46:14Speaker 4: Like we had one little box of toys, like with
- 46:17Speaker 4: like some blocks and a couple of books that got
- 46:20Speaker 4: so ready and torn up. But yeah, you really don't
- 46:24Speaker 4: need a lot because like every day or somewhere new
- 46:27Speaker 4: and kids find something new.
- 46:29Speaker 2: To play with every day, right, Like, oh yeah, she was.
- 46:31Speaker 4: Like picking up dates when we were in Tunisia and
- 46:33Speaker 4: like sea glass or whatever.
- 46:36Speaker 2: So yeah, it was, you know, sometimes a bit sketchy because.
- 46:39Speaker 4: You're like, where are we today? As a parent, like
- 46:42Speaker 4: what are you going to find on the ground? But yeah,
- 46:45Speaker 4: you're very present, so that's good.
- 46:48Speaker 1: And then what about you, Like what did you feel
- 46:50Speaker 1: did you feel like you came back with some learnings
- 46:52Speaker 1: from all of those experiences? I know it can be
- 46:55Speaker 1: hard to have like a tangible thing because you never
- 47:01Speaker 1: come back in the same way. You're always I always
- 47:04Speaker 1: feel like this when we're leaving. I'm like, oh my gosh,
- 47:05Speaker 1: when we get back, I'm gonna be a different person.
- 47:07Speaker 2: Yeah, but the same, Yeah totally.
- 47:11Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess any insights or lessons learned, Yeah,
- 47:15Speaker 1: I think.
- 47:17Speaker 4: Probably two big the biggest things. I think it kind
- 47:21Speaker 4: of maybe made us more relaxed as parents. Mmmm, because
- 47:25Speaker 4: I kind of just see the contrast with them of
- 47:27Speaker 4: my friends who spent that time here, which is like
- 47:30Speaker 4: not like that's what most people do. It's really nice,
- 47:33Speaker 4: Like I'm there are lots of beautiful things about staying
- 47:36Speaker 4: here too, But because we were our own little island,
- 47:38Speaker 4: like I did feel like we survived with like not much.
- 47:41Speaker 4: You know, she didn't have a special snow or like
- 47:45Speaker 4: special baby. We didn't even have a stroller other than
- 47:47Speaker 4: the communo for a lot of our trip. Like so
- 47:50Speaker 4: I think that someone said, like really earlier on they
- 47:53Speaker 4: were like, you are your baby's most important thing, which
- 47:55Speaker 4: is true, like that like they need us and that's
- 47:58Speaker 4: what they that's really like the most important things that
- 48:01Speaker 4: we're present and traveling like that, excuse me, forces you
- 48:04Speaker 4: to be so present, like so hyper present, and so yeah,
- 48:08Speaker 4: coming back that was just really liberating, like not to
- 48:11Speaker 4: have to and all those opinions, Like I think it
- 48:14Speaker 4: can be a really vulnerable time for a lot of
- 48:15Speaker 4: people in terms of like other people's opinions about how
- 48:19Speaker 4: you should be parenting and what you should have and
- 48:21Speaker 4: how you should be doing it in the milestone and whatever.
- 48:23Speaker 4: But we were just so switched off from that because
- 48:25Speaker 4: we were our own little unit and that was like
- 48:27Speaker 4: so grounding and so like that was amazing. So yeah,
- 48:32Speaker 4: I don't know if that was like a learning but
- 48:33Speaker 4: I think I appreciate it a lot more once I
- 48:35Speaker 4: came back, for sure, and we.
- 48:37Speaker 2: Always say this, but I think it's true too.
- 48:39Speaker 4: We were like so happy to go, but also so
- 48:41Speaker 4: happy to come home, right because for Aura, like she
- 48:45Speaker 4: definitely was just at this stage like eighteen months people
- 48:48Speaker 4: said that would happen, but like she wanted to be
- 48:51Speaker 4: way more independent. She was like ready to have more toys,
- 48:53Speaker 4: wants to be walking everywhere, does not want to be
- 48:55Speaker 4: in a car seat anymore.
- 48:57Speaker 2: And we have a great community here and a lot
- 48:59Speaker 2: of great reason.
- 49:00Speaker 4: And we came back at the beginning of summer, which
- 49:02Speaker 4: was like beautiful and luscious and just so that was
- 49:05Speaker 4: also really nice to come home and be like, Okay,
- 49:07Speaker 4: like we appreciate it not having all of this, we
- 49:10Speaker 4: also really appreciate having all of this and being part
- 49:12Speaker 4: of that community and having all those friends and people
- 49:15Speaker 4: and beautiful outdoor spaces for where to enjoy that are
- 49:17Speaker 4: like consistent. So yeah, I think those are kind of
- 49:20Speaker 4: the biggest things for us from that trip.
- 49:23Speaker 2: That was really, yeah, really nice.
- 49:27Speaker 1: I love what you're saying about coming home too, because
- 49:30Speaker 1: coming home can be such a weird thing because you're
- 49:33Speaker 1: kind of like, WHOA, this is a bit jarring sometimes
- 49:36Speaker 1: or you're trying to sort of like process the things
- 49:39Speaker 1: that you've seen and done. But it's so wonderful to
- 49:43Speaker 1: come back to a place where you feel that community
- 49:47Speaker 1: and you feel supported and it's familiar and you're happy
- 49:49Speaker 1: to be at home and you're like I had a
- 49:51Speaker 1: really good time, but I'm ready for this next chapter
- 49:53Speaker 1: at home, whatever that will be.
- 49:55Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, And I think like, yeah, I think too,
- 50:01Speaker 4: like people seeing us as a family, like they appreciated that,
- 50:03Speaker 4: like we were a family, and like a family exists
- 50:06Speaker 4: in this Yeah, it's just like our narrative, the narrative we.
- 50:10Speaker 2: Have about like existing in community. Like it was nice
- 50:12Speaker 2: to like.
- 50:13Speaker 4: Come back to it and like give back to it
- 50:15Speaker 4: and be like, oh yeah, this is kind of like
- 50:18Speaker 4: our home, like and it's where we're going to recharge
- 50:20Speaker 4: and also like give give back to you hopefully.
- 50:22Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, because.
- 50:23Speaker 4: There's so many people that like contribute to a community happening,
- 50:26Speaker 4: it's like nice to like, yeah, cross pollinate for sure.
- 50:31Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 50:31Speaker 1: Do you remember any moments when you got home where
- 50:34Speaker 1: you were like whoa coming back with different glasses on,
- 50:37Speaker 1: or things that maybe were have always been here or
- 50:42Speaker 1: you've done in certain ways, but then you came back
- 50:44Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, whoa, I forgot about this, or
- 50:47Speaker 1: I don't know, like the grocery stores are so boundiful here,
- 50:50Speaker 1: or the food's expensive here, or I don't know, the
- 50:54Speaker 1: mountains are bigger than I remember, or you know, it's
- 50:56Speaker 1: nice to speak with my friends and have a coffee
- 51:00Speaker 1: you know.
- 51:00Speaker 2: Yeah, things like that.
- 51:01Speaker 4: Yeah, totally, I mean all those things. That'sn't exactly no, no, no,
- 51:07Speaker 4: I think one thing.
- 51:08Speaker 2: Always coming home is just the space in Canada, like
- 51:12Speaker 2: the vastness. And I mean again, Australia is also fast,
- 51:14Speaker 2: but like.
- 51:17Speaker 4: Yeah, just like going to the Alps in Switzerland and
- 51:20Speaker 4: it's so.
- 51:21Speaker 2: I mean, it's so beautiful.
- 51:22Speaker 4: It's like a story brook but a story book, but
- 51:26Speaker 4: it is also so developed.
- 51:27Speaker 2: Like we're eating at.
- 51:28Speaker 4: A restaurant that's like nicer than any restaurant we have
- 51:31Speaker 4: in town. Like there's you know, the app ray, there's
- 51:34Speaker 4: like whatever, Like it's just and the same thing even
- 51:38Speaker 4: in Tunisia, like you're yeah, sure you're in the Sahara,
- 51:41Speaker 4: but like there are desert camps.
- 51:42Speaker 2: There's like hundreds of camels.
- 51:44Speaker 4: That are like actually all domesticated, which was also very
- 51:47Speaker 4: surprising to me, right, Like they're just yeah.
- 51:50Speaker 2: So it's I think appreciating how big.
- 51:53Speaker 4: Cand is and how sparsely populated it is, and how
- 51:57Speaker 4: like weezeourus rich it is. I'm always kind of shocked
- 52:01Speaker 4: and grateful for. Yeah, especially island has no trees, which
- 52:05Speaker 4: is also very weird.
- 52:06Speaker 2: Like that was another big thing. We camped in like
- 52:08Speaker 2: a plantation one night, and both then there.
- 52:11Speaker 4: Were like, oh, do you just feel more relaxed right now,
- 52:13Speaker 4: and it's like, yeah, it's the trees, Like we've not
- 52:15Speaker 4: seen trees in months, and then all of a sudden
- 52:18Speaker 4: you're like surrounded by trees and.
- 52:19Speaker 2: You're like, oh, I feel at home.
- 52:21Speaker 4: So yeah, I think those things. Yeah, I don't know
- 52:27Speaker 4: what's next for you guys.
- 52:30Speaker 2: Great question.
- 52:32Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, great question.
- 52:39Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's great. Yeah you don't have
- 52:43Speaker 1: to know.
- 52:44Speaker 4: Yeah, I think. Sorry, this is getting back to your
- 52:47Speaker 4: other question too. Make sure the other thing that was
- 52:49Speaker 4: confronting too for me is at the end, I also
- 52:51Speaker 4: had to go back to work, which is right heart,
- 52:56Speaker 4: and like you know, in this trip, I obviously have
- 52:59Speaker 4: a role to play with them and the road shows
- 53:01Speaker 4: me and like filming and content and all that stuff,
- 53:03Speaker 4: but like primarily I've got to be a parent and
- 53:05Speaker 4: a partner, like very full time for that whole trip,
- 53:08Speaker 4: and I did lots of logistics and whatever else, but
- 53:10Speaker 4: like that was really nice. And then suddenly to come
- 53:13Speaker 4: home and feel this divided attention all the time.
- 53:16Speaker 2: And I think especially.
- 53:17Speaker 4: Traveling, right, you get to be so present not all day,
- 53:20Speaker 4: but like a lot of the day.
- 53:22Speaker 2: You get to have presents, whereas I think, yeah, now
- 53:25Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I've got.
- 53:26Speaker 4: Work, and we've got daycare, and we've got friends, like
- 53:29Speaker 4: social stuff, we've got family stuff, we've got time, you know,
- 53:32Speaker 4: time differences with our families also and like all kinds
- 53:35Speaker 4: of different obligations in the community.
- 53:37Speaker 2: Which is which is great.
- 53:38Speaker 4: We love community, but also like it's a lot, it's
- 53:41Speaker 4: a lot, It's a lot. So yeah, definitely felt that
- 53:45Speaker 4: like transition energetically to coming home and just being like
- 53:48Speaker 4: what does balance even look like anymore?
- 53:51Speaker 2: Yeah? So that was a lot. Yeah, And so what's nice?
- 53:54Speaker 2: I don't know. I think we're really happy being here
- 53:57Speaker 2: right now, like for the.
- 53:58Speaker 4: Like immediate like next three months, let's or whatever you know,
- 54:02Speaker 4: for We're appreciating it. I think Aurora's really thriving, having
- 54:06Speaker 4: like some routine and just like she's just growing and
- 54:09Speaker 4: developing so much, and that's really nice and nice to support.
- 54:12Speaker 2: We still have so.
- 54:13Speaker 4: Much content to unpack and digest from our trip also,
- 54:18Speaker 4: so I think that that's really good and to save
- 54:20Speaker 4: up a little bit for our next trip, and we'll
- 54:22Speaker 4: probably try out a few shorter trips maybe like on
- 54:27Speaker 4: this content and then yeah.
- 54:28Speaker 2: Who knows, I love that.
- 54:30Speaker 1: Yeah, well see me. Yeah, And in the meantime, like
- 54:33Speaker 1: you guys went on some amazing paddling adventures up in
- 54:37Speaker 1: Oh Yeah, yeah, that was awesome.
- 54:39Speaker 4: That was like an eight day canoon trip with Aurora,
- 54:42Speaker 4: like right around when she was like one and a half.
- 54:45Speaker 2: That was awesome. That was great.
- 54:47Speaker 4: We're definitely gonna try to do some paddling and some
- 54:49Speaker 4: hiking this summer and yeah, maybe get up to higha
- 54:52Speaker 4: Guai who knows, Yeah, that would be cool. But yeah,
- 54:55Speaker 4: there's so much great stuff to do very close to home,
- 54:58Speaker 4: and so it's nice to kind of fill some of
- 55:01Speaker 4: our schedule up with just like those opportunities. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
- 55:06Speaker 4: we've got to take advantage of where we live.
- 55:07Speaker 2: That's where we live here, So yeah, good point.
- 55:12Speaker 1: I would like to know what some of your favorite
- 55:14Speaker 1: books are.
- 55:15Speaker 2: Oh, great question.
- 55:20Speaker 4: One of the ones that's just coming to mind right now.
- 55:23Speaker 4: I don't know it is the Top of Mind. Maybe
- 55:25Speaker 4: it's called Orbital.
- 55:27Speaker 2: I'm not going to run the author, but whatever.
- 55:30Speaker 4: I think it won the book or last year, and
- 55:32Speaker 4: it's great. It's it's fictional, but it's set in the
- 55:34Speaker 4: space station and so every chapter is one of the
- 55:37Speaker 4: rotations of Earth, and there's all these like really dreamy
- 55:41Speaker 4: descriptions of like looking at Earth from space woos with anyway,
- 55:46Speaker 4: interspersed with life on Earth from all the astronauts who
- 55:49Speaker 4: all have different backgrounds, and so oh neat that was
- 55:51Speaker 4: really beautiful and a nice.
- 55:53Speaker 2: Way of like thinking about the whole Earth. Yeah, we
- 55:57Speaker 2: were on the communo, I think.
- 55:59Speaker 4: Yeah. And I've always liked In the Shadow of the Sun.
- 56:02Speaker 4: I think it is called which is a collection of
- 56:05Speaker 4: essays by a Polish author who or Polish journalist who
- 56:09Speaker 4: lives in Africa from like the late nineteen fifties, I
- 56:13Speaker 4: want to say, like until recently. So he has like
- 56:16Speaker 4: you know, so many coooty tas and like independences and everything,
- 56:20Speaker 4: and he has a collection of his published and un Polish. Well,
- 56:23Speaker 4: you know, never been published before essays in that book
- 56:26Speaker 4: and I remember reading that when I was in Malli
- 56:28Speaker 4: and like loving it. Yeah, just do something about like
- 56:33Speaker 4: deeper appreciation where you are, like from learning about the
- 56:36Speaker 4: history and heritage. Yeah, those ones come to mind off
- 56:39Speaker 4: the top of my head.
- 56:41Speaker 1: Yeah, great stuff. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, where can
- 56:46Speaker 1: we find you online?
- 56:49Speaker 4: You can find me at the road chisne like to subscribe? Yeah,
- 56:55Speaker 4: I'm I'm often the one driving and a lot of
- 56:58Speaker 4: the photos probably listening to Siler now, but.
- 57:02Speaker 2: Yeah, I am there.
- 57:04Speaker 4: And I also I have an Instagram called Shade Sparrow
- 57:07Speaker 4: which I occasionally post.
- 57:08Speaker 2: You not very often, but yeah, you can find me
- 57:11Speaker 2: there too.
- 57:12Speaker 1: Very good. And also an Overland journal because you co
- 57:17Speaker 1: authored and also written articles. Yeah, and some photography credits
- 57:22Speaker 1: in there. And yeah you're a woman of all trades. Yeah,
- 57:26Speaker 1: many talents, publications.
- 57:28Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I always forget about that. My other world
- 57:31Speaker 2: is my other life.
- 57:32Speaker 1: Yeah cool. Well, thank you so much for joining me.
- 57:38Speaker 2: Such a pleasure podcast.
- 57:39Speaker 1: I so appreciate it. And yeah, we'll be following along
- 57:43Speaker 1: with you and Dan and that wait to see what
- 57:47Speaker 1: your next adventure is wherever.
- 57:49Speaker 2: That may be.
- 57:50Speaker 1: Meeting here or there or anywhere. So yeah, thanks for
- 57:53Speaker 1: taking the time to come chat with me.
- 57:55Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
- 57:57Speaker 1: Yay, thank you for tuning in to this episode of
- 58:00Speaker 1: the Overland Journal podcast. It's been great.
- 58:03Speaker 2: Hope to see you next time and hope you enjoyed
- 58:05Speaker 2: the episode.