Latest / Privycast / Ep. 186 America's Best Restroom 2025 WINNER

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Ep. 186 America's Best Restroom 2025 WINNER · Privycast

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win this and I choose to believe the beautiful Charmin Bears helped as well and I would rather have them be the winners of this great prize over some stinkin' airport again.
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Thank God it's not an airport.
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I can't take it anymore.
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I'm sick of airports winning the thing.
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Welcome back to Privy.
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Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
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I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
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Thank you all for being here.
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Welcome back.
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And we're, almost there.
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And I, I have to admit this year's, um, festive holiday cheer really, it, it, it's like looming a bit for me.
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And what I mean by that is I feel like the Thanksgiving creep really snooked up on me.
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And I think it's because Thanksgiving is so far into the calendar year in November this year.
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Actually, listener, if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, you're staring down just two days away from American Thanksgiving.
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You're going to gobble your turkey.
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You're going to gobble your taters.
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gobble something.
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They call me the gobble wobbler.
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You know what saying?
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But normally, and I must confess, like I don't know.
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It's tough because, you know, we have this American Thanksgiving and then right around the corner, old St.
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Nick and his Jolly Roger reindeer are just looming afoot.
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And I feel like this year more so than others, you know, I'm
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I'm one where I usually feel that Christmas cheer pretty early on.
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I'm what you call an early adopter for Christmas, a Christmas early adopter.
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But even like this year, I feel like everybody has kind of like done the early adopter thing.
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I feel like I was seeing Christmas stuff in stores as far back as September even, which is baffling to me because, you know, and I've got to confess something.
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I've got to confess something.
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Maybe I'm having like a real Grinch reversal situation going on, but like the interior of my the interior of my halls are fully decked.
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And that's at large part due to my children just being psyched to get the Christmas spirit going.
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But
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You know, my exterior still has got pumpkins.
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I've still got blumpkins floating around the exterior of my home.
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My house lights are still set to fall.
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And I'm still sipping pumpkin spice.
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Like I haven't fully committed to the peppermint for the season.
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I'm not there yet.
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I haven't emotionally embraced the season.
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And what's, think part of the problem for me is, is something that for, for this year, 2025 has been a long time coming.
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And normally we cover this prior to spooky season here on the pod.
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The Cintas Corp dropped the news of America's Best Restroom 2025 right at the onset of Spooky Season.
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And again, this is, this is an mostly made up online voting competition wherein people go online and they vote for what they feel is America's Best Restroom at
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americasbestrestroom.com.
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And right now you can already go on there and nominate your 2026 America's best restrooms.
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And again, it's, it's an online poll and it's as simple as hitting enter tally column.
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it just brrrr the column and you would have your winner for the year.
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But every year the Cintas corporation drags this crap out and they make it take forever.
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Why?
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Why?
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Oh, we got to wait till fall.
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Well, it was fully fall for two weeks, Cintas, before you released this information.
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And by that time I'm fully into twist season.
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So if you want me to cover this crap, you're going to have to get it together because by the time we get out of spooky season, it's festive holiday poop yourself after the big
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turkey, turkey surprise season.
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And then we're right into privy Christmas.
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So Cintas Corp, if you want like you put
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The winner out in September, please.
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The winner is tallied by the end of August.
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Don't tell me they're not.
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Just put it out in September.
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End of September, fine.
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Middle of September, preferable.
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Beginning of the September month, wake me up before September ends or whatever he said.
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I don't know, but put the dang thing out in September.
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It's not hard.
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Please, for the love of all that is good, Cintas, put this information out to the public prior to the month of October.
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It's not hard.
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You hit enter.
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End of rant.
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But so this, isn't news.
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You know, I'm, technically lying when I say I'm presenting news today on, the show because this is old hat.
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Like the American public has fully known about this information almost two months at point of episode release and almost a month and a half at point of episode recording.
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But that never stopped me before.
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I just would like the Cintas Corp to get their act together.
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To review the finalists for America's Best Restroom 2025 were Tecolote Shores in San Diego, California, Tatsu in Dallas, Texas, Rosebrook Lodge in Bretton Woods, New
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Hampshire, the rooftop at Pier 7 in New York, New York,
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Modern Bar Orlando in Orlando, Florida.
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Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Footprints in Lawrence, Kansas.
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City of Fruscia, Colorado.
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In Fruscia, Colorado.
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This is like a city bathroom.
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And Bearhead Lake State Park in Minnesota.
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And so the winner of this year's
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best restroom America's best restroom 2025 comes to us via a special segment of who in the news.
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While there are many places where you can find this poo in the news, this will be taken from Fox 9 out of Minnesota titled Minnesota Restroom Named America's Best Restroom.
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And again, this article was written by a Fox 9 staff, would love to know their name, and was published October 7th, 2025.
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God bless.
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God bless.
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Like we're into twist season, brother.
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We got to get it together.
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The winner of America's Best Restroom 2025 is none other than Bearhead Lake State Park in Minnesota.
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Bearhead Lake State Park is near Eli, Minnesota.
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It was up against these other bathrooms.
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They say that they're looking for the, this is the 24th annual competition.
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Next year is the 25th annual competition of America's Best Restroom.
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Let's see if we can pop this bad boy off.
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The restroom was named the winner.
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on Tuesday, along with the title and a spot in America's best restroom hall of fame.
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The State Park restroom earned a cleaning service from Cintas and $2,500 worth of products, a press release noted.
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Cintas said the winning restroom is, quote, nestled in one of Minnesota's most beloved parks.
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The restroom and shower building at Bearhead Lake State Park provides more than just function.
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It offers thoughtful design in a stunning setting.
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With a fully accessible layout that meets all ADA guidelines, because it legally has to.
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That was my editorial there.
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This facility ensures comfort for all visitors.
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The exterior dishwashing sinks are camper friendly.
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touch providing a convenient space to clean up without trekking back to a waterless site surrounded by the serene beauty that earns Bearhead Lake State Park the title of America's
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favorite state park in 2010.
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More on that in just a moment.
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The restroom is proof that practicality and natural beauty can go hand in hand.
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The writer of this article also notes that this is not the first time that a Minnesota or a local
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to Minnesota.
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Bathroom has won America's best restroom.
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Minneapolis St.
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Paul Airport won the contest in 2016 and the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis won in 2013.
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Much of these sources were taken from the Cintas Corp.
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can check out our links down in the ding dong below.
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For more information, this has been an installment of Poo in the Noon.
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Now, as they noted in our news there, Bearhead Lake State Park is located in northeastern Minnesota between the cities of Tower and Eli in what is St.
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Louis County.
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The State Park, Bearhead Lake, is 5,600 acres of mostly undeveloped forest, lakes, and rocky terrain.
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And it's been shaped, according to Minnesota history record, by primarily glacial activity.
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This is like when
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Allegedly the glaciers run off and like cut up the rocks and stuff like that.
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I'm not a scientist.
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I've said it a few times on the show listeners of the show we're getting ready to start our sixth year of privy and Keen ears to the show will note this I'm not a scientist never
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claimed to be I barely even think it's
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Parts of this 5600 acres have been inhabited, however, and as is always the case when we discuss the winner of America's Best Restroom, we need to discuss the development and
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history of the winner.
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Make a meal of it, if you know what I'm saying.
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And first, God made all this stuff, so go ahead and write that down.
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But after God did that, as the story goes, the Native Americans habitating the area are dated probably
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with some level of Arab by archaeology to about 4,000 years ago.
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And who knows how many times one tribe killed off and ran out another until the 18th century when European fur traders came to the area which began to be known as the
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Arrowhead region.
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Shortly thereafter, they began to log the area along the south shore of Bearhead Lake.
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Though they thought there would be gold in them hills,
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which is what they say of me now that I'm eating more veggies.
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By the way, so I went to the doctor.
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We're all good.
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Routine checkup.
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But one of the things that came up in the middle of my barehead late conversation, I need to air a grievance here.
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I went in and did the thing and we were going over diet.
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He's like, what's your diet like?
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I was like, oh, standard Midwestern.
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He goes, okay, what does that mean?
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was like, meat and potatoes, that type stuff.
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And he's like, all right.
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Well, how many servings of vegetables do you eat a day?
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And I went, hmm, servings implies that you think it should be more than one and it is not.
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And so serving, usually one per day.
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on a good day.
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At which point he informed me that I should be eating seven servings of vegetables.
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Seven.
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Seven.
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And I will say, doctor, if you're listening, first of all, help me.
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How did you get here?
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Also, thanks for listening.
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I've been doing it.
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Call your bluff, including at this episode's record, I have fully housed seven servings of vegetables.
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Yes, today.
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Yes, me.
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The meat and potatoes champion.
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has housed upwards of 35 to 40 servings of vegetables this week.
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You got it.
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I did it.
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I've been eating salads like woofy, just gobbling up some Q's.
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I've even taken on celery carrots.
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It's like a challenge.
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And you know what I'm going to say?
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Here's the bummer of the whole thing.
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I'm starting to not hate vegetables as much.
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Like I'm not a fan, but like,
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I've found that like if you force yourself to do a thing that you hate long enough, eventually your body's just like, yeah, you know what, actually that's a good point.
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It's not bad.
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But to say that there's gold in them hills, I got some gold brewing because that fiber buddies, you're the one.
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I'm not going to sing this song.
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But they began to log the area and they thought there was gold in the hills of barehead Lake.
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And turns out there wasn't really any gold.
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There was logs.
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slam full of logs in their natural state, which is known as kids' trees.
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That's right.
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The first sawmill was created on the south shore of Bearhead Lake and a railroad was installed in the turn of the 1900s to serve the sawmill in transporting those logs away
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from the mill.
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In 1959, officials from the Division of Forestry were impressed at the areas
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potential for a new state park and local support started to build and became the beginnings of a reality of a uh state park in 1961 when the bill was introduced to
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Minnesota State Congress.
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This is where we cut to Schoolhouse Rock to remind us how a bill becomes a law.
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Just kidding.
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But still, the bill passed and the park was dedicated in 1962.
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Over the next 40 years, the park would change very little, adding small acquisitions of land to the park here and there.
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And while we're here to celebrate Bearhead Lake State Parks winning the America's Best Restroom 2025.
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We need to talk about something.
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This isn't the first time Barehead Lake has taken an arbitrary internet prize.
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In September, 2010, Coca-Cola company put on a campaign under their live positively charitable campaign, as well as the National Park Foundation.
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The campaign was a call to the people of America to vote for their favorite national park.
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Barehead Lake to bury the lead won this online competition.
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But until this episode of the podcast, and by the way, I'm glad you're here.
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Thanks for listening.
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But before this episode and before today, my guess is you didn't even know about Bearhead Lake.
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Lord knows I hadn't.
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And that is because it receives only about a hundred thousand visitors every year as of 2009.
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Now, while that's significant, the attendance hasn't boomed to the point where they have needed to track this more closely.
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To give you a feel.
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In 2013, the closest data we have to Bearhead Lake, the country's most popular state park was Watkin Glen's Park in New York's Finger Lakes, which saw over 500,000 visitors in a
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year.
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That's five times as many.
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In 2024, Watkin's Glen saw more than a million.
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They didn't even track Bearhead Lake State Park.
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In 2024, the last time they even counted it was 2009.
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And so there is a distinct difference in attendance of these parks and other, I would argue, larger state and national parks throughout our country.
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How in the world then did the David named Barehead Lake State Park best and toppled the giants in Coke's online competition?
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giants like Watkins Glen and New York's Finger Lakes?
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Well, the answer, in short,
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is Lily in Hope.
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In 2010, Lynn Rogers from the North American Bear Center placed a webcam in a bear den near Eli, Minnesota, where a mother black bear would soon give birth to her cub, really
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shove one out there.
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This camera, known as the Lily Black Bear Cam, became an online sensation and phenomenon.
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Things popped off when Lily gave birth to her cub in 2010.
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This was like
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before the idea of live streaming.
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Like this bear was like Twitch streaming before Twitch was even Twitch.
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Bears got him again.
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It's all about the bears, the beautiful bears.
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The popularity that Lily and her new cub Hope brought to Bearhead Lake State Park, not just to Minnesota locals, but to online communities caused the park to win almost a
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quarter.
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of the total votes in Coca-Cola's online competition, even though the park, Bearhead Lake State Park, saw a fraction of the visitors year to year.
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It's the power of the internet.
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And so, in 2010, Bearhead Lake State Park was named America's favorite park and received a $100,000 prize for doing so.
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That's pretty neat.
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You can tell it's an Aspen because of the way it is.
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And you can tell Bearhead Lake State Park by the way that it's bears win it competitions.
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Lily would go on to have more cubs, twins even, and the bear cam is still a thing.
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They actually boosted nearby Soudan Underground Mine State Park to second place win in 2011.
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These beautiful bears, probably friends and right at home with our pals over at Charmin.
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worry folks.
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I'm staring at the forever roll.
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More on that to come.
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But like I said, these webcams continue today and there is motion on these cameras as of July and August of this year.
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So that's cool.
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Kept them going.
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But it makes me wonder.
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It's almost certain that Lillian Hope, these beautiful B airs won the best America's best favorite park by Coca-Cola in 2010.
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But did they 15 years later win Barehead Lake State Park, a second online arbitrary title?
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The Wikipedia page for Barehead Lake State Park.
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It mixes the northwoods scenery of the Boundary Waters canoe area with more wooded axis and modern amenities.
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There's a lot of boat ramps for lake use as well as fishing for northern pike, walleye, bass, crappie, and panfish.
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Other lakes in the area are stocked with brookies, brook trout.
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So, like, there's good fishing in them, lakes.
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And it'd be a shame for your park to be called Barehead Lake State Park and your fishing access to suck.
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Like, that'd just be dang unfortunate.
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The park has a number of overnight options that have good lakeshore access.
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There's about a 70 plus site drive-in campground with over half having electrical hookups.
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So that's cool.
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They have five camper cabins and showering facilities as well as flush toilets.
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There they are.
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Them toilets.
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That's what we've been waiting to talk about here on the pod.
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There is this sense of trail system.
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17 miles provide access to the other back country capping spots.
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For goodness sake, it's a state park, not Disney World people.
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But this bathroom, Bearhead Lake State Park bathrooms beat out some good bathrooms to win America's best restroom.
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As I noted, my pick for America's best restroom was Footprints or Tatsu.
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I really like the Footprints bathroom.
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So it beat out these bathrooms.
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And I'm curious, did Bearhead Lake State Park win because of the bathrooms or because of the bears?
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An online blog called The Big Wild weighed in on this back in 2022 before the park was ever even consideration for the running of the bathrooms.
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They noted the 10 reasons why the park is the best state park in all of Minnesota.
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And I'm sitting here going, why didn't you read the winner from 2010's Coca Cola's best flippin'
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America's best old park because I could have doubt was Bev told you why But this blogist which is what you call a blogger bloggers notes stunning hiking trails kayaking canoeing
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options fishing swimming wildlife enjoyment stargazing Picnicking enjoying nearby small towns and I'm gonna be honest That sounds a lot like what draws every wooded camp
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associated location in the entire
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United States of these beloved Americas.
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If only, if only the Cintas Corp had any sort of transparency.
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If only the Cintas Corp would publish how many votes each bathroom got, but they don't do that.
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They just wait forever and then say, here's the winner.
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Here you go.
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Publish the numbers, Cintas Corp.
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Tell us how many votes each one got so that way we can see it.
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And I've seen these other bathrooms.
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I went exploring because naturally the three pictures that Sintas provides for these bathrooms, he didn't do it for me.
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It wasn't really enough to whet my bathroom inspection whistle.
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So I went exploring on this lovely thing we call the internet because naturally three pictures isn't enough and I've seen them.
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I've seen the bathrooms and they are very nice.
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But so are all the other restrooms.
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I think this is the problem.
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These are really new and modern restrooms, but what is it about them that says that they're the best?
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What does it mean that something is the best restroom?
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Does it mean that they're the cleanest?
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Does it mean that they fit the need of the area the best?
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Does it mean that they fit the vibe or have their own artistic appeal?
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Does it mean that people arbitrarily voted for this bathroom more online?
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with or without the help of some beautiful Biers that live nearby.
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They're nice, but I think that the bears were carrying some weight again here 15 years later, and that's okay.
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Because if I'm honest with you, I'm gonna tell you something, while I'm bummed that footprints didn't win it, I would rather have the beautiful bathrooms at Bearhead Lake
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State Park, home of Lily and Hope, win this and I choose to believe the beautiful charm in bears
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helped as well and I would rather have them be the winners of this great prize over some stinking airport again.
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Thank God it's not an airport.
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I can't take it anymore.
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I'm sick of airports winning the thing.
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So yes, I'm psyched.
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Bearhead Lake State Park, congratulations.
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We're looking for the little guy to take it and here he is.
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There's a lot of energy at end of this episode.
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I think I want to close out this season of thankfulness with a special impromptu segment of Hunter's Anecdotes to keep you afloat.
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This hunter's anecdotes is called Lights Out.
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So to describe, set the stage for this, this Hunter's Anecdotes.
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The staff bathroom where I work at a public high school, the men's room is but one cabin stall.
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What I mean by that, it has a door that closes with a sit down job seat.
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And right on the other side of it is a stand up urinal where you can stand to pee.
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And on the other side of that is a divider with a hand washing station.
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There's not a lot of room in the bathroom and you can really like...
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You can really like fully loaded is four to five men deep, one pooping, one stand to pee, one washing hands and two waiting in the winds.
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Like that's fully loaded.
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So it's not a big space.
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And I went in and I sat down and I did my job and I'm doing my thing and somebody comes in, peas, and they go out and I'm sitting there and then I'm doing my thing and then the
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door opens up.
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and the person who is entering the bathroom turned the light off.
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And you're thinking, oh, somebody just noticed that the light was on and opened it and turned it on.
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But that is not the case because I thought that was the case.
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And then, so I called out like, Hey, somebody's in here thinking that they had walked off.
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And the person was fully in the bathroom, like not just sitting outside, but they, they came in, turned the light off and proceeded to walk further into the bathroom and were
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standing to pee.
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And when I called out, actually spooked him.
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And then they turn around, turn the light back on.
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like, that's my bad.
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And I'm sitting here pooping thinking.
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Yeah, kinda.
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Like, why are you turning the light off when you enter the bathroom, my dude?
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Like, what, do you pee?
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Do you regularly make a practice of peeing in the dark?
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Like, what is that?
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And so, normally I don't get like in my own head about these things, but I got in my own head about this one.
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I'm like, there's not a chance that I'm wiping, flushing, and completing this job before this guy gets out of here.
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There's no way I'm coming face to face with the lights out, lights out.
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And so I just kind of putzed around and what was unfortunate, it took him forever to pee.
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And I want to note, he did not shut the lights off on the way out when he was done.
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It was just weird.
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Weird lights out experience at the work bathroom.
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And this has been another segment of Hunter's Anecdotes to keep you afloat.
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And this will bring us to the end of another episode of Privy.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Thank you.
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In the season of thankfulness, as you get ready to celebrate American Thanksgiving, take time and reflect on all you have to be thankful for.
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Toilets, showers, hot water, what have you.
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We have much to be thankful for in this day and age.
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As our way of saying thank you, if you leave us a rating or review, we'll donate a dollar to Wounded Warriors and Living Water International.
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As a reminder to keep pooping in the free world, this free world was not always free.
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And in pursuit of cleaner water for all, everybody should have it, but not everybody does.
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Follow us on social media.
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We're at privycast.
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Follow me at al at seven.
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can email us privycast at gmail.com.
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We'd love to hear from you.
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Episode comments, feedback, concerns, whatever you have.
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We would love to hear it.
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If you're interested in playing a role and being on the show, hit me up.
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I'd love to figure that out with you.
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Everybody's got a bathroom story.
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This can be your way to share it with others.
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As always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod and Pondington Bear for the use of their music.
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Thanks, Kevin and Pondington.
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You can check their music out at the links below at incompetech.org and pictureofsound.com or .org.
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You can also just Google Kevin McLeod and Pondington Bear and you can find links to their music in the search bar.
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This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Keep pooping in the free world, own your stank, and be thankful for the porcelain job.
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We love you all.
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We'll see you soon.
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And now, as always, don't forget to flush.