Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Road Tripping America in Barbara Toy’s 1950 Series 1 Land Rover

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Road Tripping America in Barbara Toy’s 1950 Series 1 Land Rover · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Ashley Jordano, and today I'm joined by a full stack
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of guests, Bill Cooper, Greg Fitzgerald, Amy Johnson, Tom Pickford,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and Laura Stacy, a crew who recently retraced part of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Barbara Tooy's route across America in none other than her
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: very own nineteen fifty Series one land rover, Pollyanna.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Pollyanna is the.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Very vehicle that Barbara Tooy used to complete the journey
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty seven during her Round the World expedition.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll dive into who Barbara Toy was
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and why she is such an important but overlooked figure
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of overland history, how her seventy six year old land
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: rover tackled the freeways of America in twenty twenty six,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and the significance of finishing the trip at the Texas
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Rovers Scar event for the annual Barbara Toy Tribute Run.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I was very.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Fortunate too in the team for the New Orleans, Texas
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: section of the trip, and I must say it was
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: incredibly special to be in Barbaratois vehicle through many of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the places you drove through, so.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Many years ago.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Ah well, I hope you enjoy this episode and thanks
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: for tuning in, and a.
• 1:15
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• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks nidto welcome everyone. So we're making Overland Journal podcast
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: history today with five guests spending multiple time zones, and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: this is a reunion of sorts as we last saw
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: all of each other in Texas. So let's start with
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: some introductions. Tom, would you like to start?
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: I am Tom Pickfit, I am Pollyanna and I'll show
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: hear more about me.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Lisa perfect, and you're calling in from somewhere in the UK.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm coding from Besta near Oxford in oxford Shire
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: from the UK and Amy your next.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: Hello, Hello everybody. So I'm Tom Pickford's sister. So I
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: grew up with landrovers. I have since my career and
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: my adult lives to take me away from landrovers. But
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: what we're going to talk about today is taken me
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: straight back into the landrover world and reminisced loads.
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: So more about that in a few moments.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yay, thank you for joining. And where are you coming
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: from today?
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: From Minorca, which is where I am with my mum
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: on holiday for a week.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Well let's go to another time zone in America. Greg
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: fitz Gerald, please introduce yourself.
• 3:39
  Speaker 6: My name is Greg Fitzgerald. I'm a quote unquote Barbara
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: Toy scholar, also an overland writer. You might have seen
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: a byline from Every now and then before. And I
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: am calling in from Warren Township.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: New Jersey.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 3:52
  Speaker 7: Up next to Bill, Bill, I'm Bill Cooper. I'm not
• 3:56
  Speaker 7: Tom's sister, and I'm calling in from New Jersey as
• 3:59
  Speaker 7: well in the US.
• 4:00
  Speaker 8: And I guess that's it.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And that's it. Thank you Bill. We'll talk to you
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit later as well. And last up is Laura.
• 4:09
  Speaker 9: Hello. I'm Marisjacy and I am the tag along of
• 4:13
  Speaker 9: the group. We'll hear more about that soon. And I
• 4:15
  Speaker 9: am calling him from the city of brotherly love of Philadelphia.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for making the time to
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: chat with me on the podcast.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And I'm really.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Excited to dive into this trip that we all did
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: together in a nineteen fifties land rover, and we'll get
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: into all of that, the route, why it's important, who
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Barbara Toy is, why she was important, and yeah, some
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: other little tidbits like the power of saying yes at
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the last minute. And Bill's run similar trip, so we'll
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: chat with him about that, yeah, and big moments, big
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: events and the Barbara Toy Tribute run. Tom will start
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: with you, let's chat about the history and your connection
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to Barbara Toy and Pollyanna.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, Barbara Pollyanna back in Christmas nineteen fifty and then
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: pretty much decided at that moment that she was going
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: to go off and travel through the Middle East, through
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: North Africa in the Middle East to Bagdad, and then
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: she continued. She kept Pollyanna basically till nineteen fifty eight
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: when she was given the opportunity to get a new
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: land rover from from the Rover company, although she didn't
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: really ever want to do that, but you know, you
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: can't stop progress. So Barbara carried on traveling till the seventies,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: and then in the early eighties she was informed by
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: the present owner of Pollyanna that Pollyanna was still around,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: which she had no idea she couldn't she wasn't allowed
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: to buy it back then. Basically, long story short, but
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: the guy that had had Pollyanna in the eighties he
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: died by eighty eight eighty nine, and Miss Toy Barbara
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: got the opportunity to buy Pollyanna back from the estate.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: She subsequently then decided to go to a local land
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: rover dialer to see whether they would fix up the
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: thirty eight year old land rover, but obviously they're only
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: really interested in newcast so she was directed to go
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: into a club which existed called the nineteen forty seven
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: to fifty one land Rover Register, which my father was
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: a part of. Because of our locality, like we're in
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: Oxfordshire and Barbara lived in Oxfordshire as well at the time,
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: my father was well placed with his land rover workshop
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: to help put Pollyanna back on the road.
• 6:39
  Speaker 10: So this sort of happened in.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Late eighty nine and into the night into nineteen nine,
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: So that's where our family connection started back then and
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: then and then yeah, we just continued to look after
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: Pollyanna induced Pollyanna as well. I drove Pollyanna to Switzerland
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety eight for the fiftieth anniversary with permission
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: from Barbara. And then Barbara, as we know, passed away
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: in two thousand and one, and her the only close
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: family she really had, we two nephews who who basically
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: said to me and my father that we'd like Pollyanna
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: to stay with you. From two thousand and one till
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: present day, Pollyanna's carried on staying with us at I
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: like to think being used in the similar way that
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Barbara intended back in nineteen fifty when she wanted to
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: buy a vehicle to go over landing with. That's that's
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: the story so far.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: And you have quite the experience with land rovers yourself,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and so she's in very good hands. But you have
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a shop and you take care of and restore land
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: rivers as well.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all sort of become a way of life
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: because I mean I was born in nineteen seventy six
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: and my dad from the start was taking me on
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: a Saturday afternoon to the workshop, to my dad's workshop.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: So I grew up going to work as we called
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: it in our house. And then you know, as time
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: goes on, you get interested. And I used to start
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: the engines for my dad when he was servicing and
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: repairing cart land rovers and so on.
• 8:32
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: So but what I've always had my dad really we
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: just always had an interested in the older land rovers
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: A Series one principally. Now I just decided to specialize
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: on only series one.
• 8:46
  Speaker 10: Lamb rovers.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: A workshop full of work and plenty to be doing.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: If I'm not rebuilding engines, there's vehicles to be working on.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: And restorations to be doing. So it's sort of somewhat
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: a way of life now.
• 9:00
  Speaker 10: Really I love that.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And then so for the listeners that aren't familiar with
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Barbara Toy, she wrote a bunch of travelogus documenting her adventures,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and one of those books is called Columbus Was Right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So, Greg, could.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You tell us how the route that she undertook in
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the US in that book inspired this trip and how
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it came to fruition.
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, the first catalyst for this trip was that Pollyanna
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: came to the US last summer for the Pebble Beach
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: Concord Elegance, where we had a display or Land River
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: had a display of ten expedition vehicles throughout their history,
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: and the thesis of the display was that they were
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: celebrating seventy five years of exploration. The anchor point of
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: that display of that seventy five years was Pollyanna, which
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: undertook Barbara's first expedition, departing in December of nineteen fifty.
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: Her fourth expedition, or at least the fourth expedition that
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: resulted in a book, Columbus Was Right, was around the
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: world trip, so it was across Europe, through Greece, through
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: the Middle East, India down to Singapore, only a couple
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: of months behind the famous first overland trip that did
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: it in fifty five to fifty six. She left in
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: fifty six. From Singapore, she took a boat to Australia.
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: She was Australian by birth, so it was kind of
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: a return home, and spent a significant amount of nineteen
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: fifty seven in Australia. In the autumn of nineteen fifty seven,
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: she took a boat to America and arrived in San
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: Francisco around the end of October. And kind of the
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: problem with that is that I don't want to call
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: it the best way to cross America, but perhaps the
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: most iconic way across America. Would you mean to go
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: across the Rockies, across Utah, Colorado, you know, across the
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: Great Plains. Keep in mind, this is nineteen fifty seven,
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: No I seventy, No Eisenhower passed, none of that, So
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: you're relegated to more traditional backroads, federal highways and smaller passes.
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: And by late November early December, that was a no go.
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: So she ended up taking a very southern route that
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: brought her to the edge of the country. So she
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: went from San Francisco to Los Angeles and then across Arizona,
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: New Mexico. She was already by the time she got there.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: She wanted to go to the Toast Playblow, she was
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: already snowed out of that by the time she got there.
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: And then she went to Lubbock, Texas, down to Houston,
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: across the Gulf Coast to Jacksonville. At Jacksonville, she drove
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: Pollyanna on the beach and by hitting the Atlantic at
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: that point, became the first person to drive a land
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: rover around the world, possibly a bit by accident, but
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: she ended up doing it. From there, she drove up
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: to New York and then after a bit of time
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: in New York, shipped herself and the vehicle back on
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: an ocean liner back to the UK, finishing the circle.
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: So we kind of have two things.
• 12:13
  Speaker 11: We have this this American road trip that's documented in
• 12:19
  Speaker 11: her book, and we happened to have for the first
• 12:22
  Speaker 11: time in many decades.
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: Pollyanna is in America. We have Tomas at this point,
• 12:26
  Speaker 6: putting piece A and PCE B of the puzzle together.
• 12:30
  Speaker 6: P C is that the Texas Rovers Club has an
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: event that they hold in April called SCAR the South
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: Central Area Rover Rally, and at that event, for the
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: past ten years they've been holding a women's only off
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: road run during the rally, which we'll talk more about later,
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: called the Barbara Toy Tribute Run in tribute to Barbara
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: and her pioneering role and adventure as a woman. So
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: we had AB and now we have C and so
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: it all came together to bring the vehicle back on
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: the classical route that Barbara had driven in fifty seven
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: in reverse as far as Texas. So we started in
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: New Jersey at jaguarland Rovers North American headquarters in mahwa
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: And after some diversions, you know, because half of us
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: are from New Jersey here, so we had to do
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: some service calls, headed down the Atlantic Coast through northern Virginia,
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: eastern North Carolina coastal areas of South Carolina, and Georgia
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: down to Jacksonville, where we were able to arrange special
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: permission actually thanks to Laura and her connections, to replicate
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: that driving on the beach moment from nineteen fifty seven.
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: From there, we then headed west along the Gulf Coast
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: to New Orleans, where actually joined us. Yay yay that,
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: and then we drove across to Louisiana, where she had
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: left quite a number of anchors for us to retrace
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: in the boat down to Galveston, which was also an
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: anchor in the book. From there, we started to diverge
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: from the route to rout ourselves toward Dallas and Gilmer, Texas,
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: where this event was, and we took about three days
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: to get there, not following the historic route, so we
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: think that we probably did about as well as we could.
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: We only touched about fifteen miles of interstate, and when
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: we touched interstate, it was only out of necessity. There's
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: a couple areas, especially on the Gulf Coast, where you
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: need to use the interstate to cross a bayou or
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: a river or something. Either there are no US highways
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: left anymore because they got merged into the interstate to
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: consolidate infrastructure or just something like that. That was the
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: only time we used an interstate between New Jersey and Texas.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And it was nice because the book has some specific
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: spots or hotspots where you could definitely get in and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you know that she was there for sure. You were
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: all coming together for this trip and at the beginning
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you met at Bill's place and Laura you were a
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: last minute edition.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Tell me more.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: About the power and significance of saying yes to something
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: unexpectedly and at the last minute.
• 15:16
  Speaker 7: Well, I'm pretty sure they're going to have to clean
• 15:18
  Speaker 7: her before she's ships. I don't think Customs is going.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: They went out, they were well, Customs wouldn't let her
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: out like normally, they don't care in Australia what they export.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: And then it's the receiving country that designates as to
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: how clean they want, and we will take anything.
• 15:38
  Speaker 10: Anyway.
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: Actually that before where they don't. We've had problems in
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: both directions.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Anyway, wouldn't even charge our camper when we sent it over.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: No one even looked inside.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: In the UK.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Bill, this was not the.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: First time that you've run the Barbara Toy route in
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the US. Can you tell me a little bit more
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: about the trip that you did in the past and
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: how it was different from this one.
• 16:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: So, back in twenty twenty two, my wife and I
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: decided we had known about Barbara for several years, decided
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: more people should really know about her. I had the
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: brainstorm of taking my nineteen fifty one eighty inch land
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: rover very similar to Pollyanna, and to recreate her North
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: American drivers best I could, as Greg alluded to, the
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: original route. First off, Barbara was not overly clear in
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: her books. They weren't travelogues in the sense of oh,
• 16:42
  Speaker 7: take this road, go to this town, go do this.
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: Her books were more about her experiences the people she met,
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: so you sort of have to infer. Well, Okay, she
• 16:53
  Speaker 7: was in San Francisco and then she went here she
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: most likely in nineteen fifty seven, and these roads, so
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: she most likely took this route, and same across the
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: whole thing. So using some maps that I had, we
• 17:07
  Speaker 7: more or less laid out as best we could the
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: route she took across North America. As Greg said, she
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: went San Francisco, down to LA, across the south, and
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: then up to New York. Now, for logistical reasons, because
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: I am based in the northeast, we did the route
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: the reverse, so we went New York, Jacksonville across to
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: LA and then up to San Francisco. The main difference
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: is in this route with Pollyanna, we stopped in Texas,
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: whereas I continued all the way across through the Southwest
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: and up up the California Coast. Beautiful moments was on
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: the California Coast, going up the Pacific Coast Highway, we
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: met up with the some of the California rover enthusiasts.
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: So it was quite a sight to see three or
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: four Series ones, at least one two a completely holding
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: up traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway, making lots of
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: friends in about a mile of back up.
• 17:59
  Speaker 8: But they got over it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And then on this trip, how did it differ?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: You're with quite a few more people in a different vehicle,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: you're in Barbaratoy's.
• 18:09
  Speaker 7: Actual The biggest difference was obviously having Pollyanna herself, which
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: which sort of made the whole trip a little more special.
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: You know, there's those moments and I'm sure you know
• 18:19
  Speaker 7: Greg had several on what he was driving where you
• 18:22
  Speaker 7: sort of have that impression, especially going along the Gulf
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: Coast in some of the stretches where things haven't changed drastically.
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: Or Ashley, you were with me when we were running
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: past the oil wells, Tom didn't see you had those
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: glimpses of okay, this.
• 18:37
  Speaker 8: Is really not horribly different from what she saw.
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: Another special point came in actually was after the main trip,
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: when Greg, Laura, myself, and my wife we took Pollyanna
• 18:48
  Speaker 7: into New York to sort of recreate the very ending
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: of Columbus. Was right where we drove her down Fifth Avenue,
• 18:55
  Speaker 7: up Park Avenue, past the Park. Mike Bishop pointed out that,
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: you know, I'd probably the only person was besides Barber
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: herself to have driven Pollyanna down Fifth Avenue, So that
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: was sort of a special point, and Greg got some
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: great pictures. I haven't seen the finals, but we saw
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: the previews. Greg got some great photos from the whole trip.
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: So anything other than that, the trip itself was pretty similar,
• 19:19
  Speaker 7: and you're traveling at Series one speeds and you're more
• 19:22
  Speaker 7: or less sticking to back roads. We've jumped on a
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: couple more interstates when we did the trip, partly because
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: we hit some closed roads and a closed bridge we
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: hadn't anticipated, and so it had no choice but to
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: jump on interstates in several spots. Other than that, it
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: was actually a very similar, similar sort of trip.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: What did it mean to you to do parts of
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the trip and drive in Pollyanna.
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: Well, it did make it a little more special knowing
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: that you know, you're you're sitting in a vehicle that
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: you know, Barbara drove that she covered tens of thousands
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: of miles in it did add something. I mean, I've
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: got years of driving Series truck experience and probably put
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: one hundred and fifty thousand miles on driving Series trucks
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: in various spots and all over the place. So the
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: magic was in something a vehicle like Pollyanna, which is
• 20:14
  Speaker 7: probably one of the most iconic land rovers, or should
• 20:18
  Speaker 7: be one of the most iconic land rovers out there.
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: More people should know about Barbara and Pollyanna, Ifield and
• 20:24
  Speaker 7: Oxford and some of the rest of these things.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: But agreed, Yeah, and also I love how you're the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: og bill. You were doing this before it was cool.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: You were doing this trip a long time ago, before
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: we all got involved with almost We.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: Did this particular trip before. Although Barbara beat me by
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: about sixty years. But I've been driving I've owned land
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: Rovers for forty something years now and been driving Series
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: trucks for forty something years, which is probably long for
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: a US based person. You guys in the UK that
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: grew up with them, Yeah, you've got me beat.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: But Laura at the beginning of the trip. You joined
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the crew on a whim. Tell me more of the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: power and significance of saying yes at the last minute.
• 21:03
  Speaker 9: It was, well, it was very last minute, obviously, you know.
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: I met with the guys, been told by Tom that
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: I could write in Pollyann exciting. That kind of set
• 21:15
  Speaker 9: the stage for me to say yes. I think it
• 21:18
  Speaker 9: planted the seed as they asked a couple more times,
• 21:21
  Speaker 9: and it was hard. As much as we're taught to
• 21:25
  Speaker 9: say no and create that boundary and say no, saying
• 21:30
  Speaker 9: yes is hard a lot of times too, And in
• 21:32
  Speaker 9: this case it was very hard for me. I had
• 21:34
  Speaker 9: my daughter with me, I had no clothes, well, I
• 21:38
  Speaker 9: had a few items of clothing because it was a
• 21:40
  Speaker 9: overnight maybe two in Richmond. I wasn't prepared for this,
• 21:44
  Speaker 9: so saying yes was very difficult. It was very difficult,
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: But once I did, it was amazing. It empowered me,
• 21:53
  Speaker 9: if that made any sense. Saying yes was probably the
• 21:56
  Speaker 9: best thing I've done in a long time. Not an
• 21:58
  Speaker 9: easy yes, but it was really the best yes I
• 22:02
  Speaker 9: could have done. It was, as my daughter had said,
• 22:04
  Speaker 9: and I've stated before, it was a blessing. I didn't
• 22:07
  Speaker 9: know I needed, and.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You were driving the land rover that you competed within
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the Rebel rally last year.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I tell us a little bit about that truck.
• 22:16
  Speaker 9: Salty is probably the love of my life, my first
• 22:19
  Speaker 9: land rover. I think everybody loves their first land rover.
• 22:22
  Speaker 9: He is a two thousand Discovery two that we had.
• 22:26
  Speaker 9: He's been built out for a couple of years. We
• 22:28
  Speaker 9: just as any land rover person does, you just keep
• 22:31
  Speaker 9: adding and tinkering and wrenching and doing so. We had
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: built him out last year and done a complete body
• 22:38
  Speaker 9: swap on him, as I say, I took him to
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: the SPA and gave him a makeover and rebuilt him
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: and rebuilt his air lockers and all for the Rebel
• 22:49
  Speaker 9: to be able to handle the dunes and the territories
• 22:52
  Speaker 9: that we were going to go through out on the
• 22:54
  Speaker 9: West coast. We're not necessarily used to here. I used
• 22:58
  Speaker 9: the airlockers a lot on this, but he definitely enjoyed
• 23:02
  Speaker 9: the West better than East. Believe it or not. He
• 23:05
  Speaker 9: performs much better out there than he does over here.
• 23:09
  Speaker 9: That was interesting to figure out.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Were there some additions or modifications that you had made
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: for the Rebel that came in particularly handy for this trip,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: like the fridge or anything else.
• 23:19
  Speaker 9: My refrigerator goes everywhere with me. I couldn't live without
• 23:23
  Speaker 9: my Dometic refrigerator that had been with Salty for a
• 23:26
  Speaker 9: long time. I'm a creature of comfort. I like my
• 23:30
  Speaker 9: little comforts, and yeah, I always make sure I have
• 23:34
  Speaker 9: my refrigerator. I did remove the back seats for the
• 23:37
  Speaker 9: same reason. I'm not a camper, intense and whatnot, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 9: I've been sleeping in the back seat for many years
• 23:44
  Speaker 9: and we finally decided that I was just going to
• 23:46
  Speaker 9: remove the back seats, and they've stayed out because I've
• 23:50
  Speaker 9: got a platform bed back there, my refrigerator, and it
• 23:54
  Speaker 9: just makes overlanding in life so much easier. That way
• 23:58
  Speaker 9: more comfortable for sure. There weren't a ton of modifications.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, great message.
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 9: The only other thing I added on to him that
• 24:06
  Speaker 9: made life easy at the Rebel was a golden Rovers
• 24:10
  Speaker 9: aluminum table in the gate and that became our map table,
• 24:15
  Speaker 9: which actually worked out really well for us. So there
• 24:19
  Speaker 9: weren't a ton of modifications.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: And how was it joining a crew of people?
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know you were familiar with Bill, Did
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: you know Greg Amy or Tom.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Before you came on this trip.
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: I did not Greg and I had talked briefly during
• 24:32
  Speaker 9: an interview for The Rebel. I had not met Tom,
• 24:36
  Speaker 9: I knew of Tom, and I did not even know
• 24:39
  Speaker 9: about Amy until we were on the road in Tom
• 24:41
  Speaker 9: infor me that she would be joining us, which was
• 24:44
  Speaker 9: really fun. But as a trip went along, we all
• 24:48
  Speaker 9: just became what I called the Fab four, and then
• 24:51
  Speaker 9: the Fab five when you joined us in Nola, Polly's Patrol,
• 24:57
  Speaker 9: as I'd like to say. And then of course we
• 24:59
  Speaker 9: grabbed Amy in Texas, which just rounded us out. And
• 25:03
  Speaker 9: I didn't know what I was getting into. You never know.
• 25:07
  Speaker 9: That's a long trip to take with people close quarters.
• 25:11
  Speaker 9: And I don't think we had one fight the whole
• 25:14
  Speaker 9: time or disagreement or crossword with each other. We all
• 25:19
  Speaker 9: just blended and did really well. I think there was
• 25:22
  Speaker 9: one time I snapped at you and Bill in Galveston,
• 25:26
  Speaker 9: and that was more due to traffic than it was
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: us as a group. But other than that, I don't
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: think there was ever a crossword or anybody was cranky
• 25:36
  Speaker 9: the whole trip, which was amazing.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a lot of fun and what a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: great way for a bunch of I would say, like
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: mostly strangers to come together and go road tripping together.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a lot of fun. And on
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that note, Amy, you came over from the UK to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: join this trip, and we had some other fun things
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: going on in the US while you were in the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: United States. But what made you want to join this trip?
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I run a wellness and a training business
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: and partner with a global brand and the conference was
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: in the state, so brilliant, exactly great and absolutely perfect
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: timing to be able to join this crew, And I mean,
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: I love traveling, and it was just too big an
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: opportunity to acclimatize with the world of landrovers, spend some
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: quality time with my brother, who you know as adults
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: and life you know, we don't we haven't spent a
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: lot of time together for years and years and years.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: And the connection back to nineteen fifty seven that you
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: know we've heard about was incredible, and obviously the landrover
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: theme resonating my childhood, so all in all, it was
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: just a really kind of special way to circle back
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: to that and on hearing and learning about the connection
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: with the scar Rover event, and of course of Barbara
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: tribute run that's.
• 27:01
  Speaker 8: Been run running for ten years.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: Amazing, So to kind of hear about that, but to
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: actually have the opportunity to experience all that was absolutely brilliant.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: So yeah, and obviously having Pollyanna there and there was
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: just so much There were so many reasons to be there.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: There really really was, and like you're just saying, then
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: bringing you know, like a bunch of strangers together, but
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: there was reason and purpose for everybody to be there,
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: like there was over the years, people have connected to
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: the Barbara Toy story, all of you in so many
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: in different stages and different times, and then this event
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: it was like this event brought everybody together. Yeah, amazing
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: and bought everyone together to do the road trip and
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: you know what we got left is friends for life.
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: So yeah, it's amazing.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So when
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: a year. It also gives you access to our digital
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: archive and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous
• 28:19
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• 28:23
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• 28:26
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• 28:30
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• 28:33
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• 28:37
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• 28:40
  Speaker 3: owned journalism that we have been famous for, so it
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: allows us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: way you can help out too. I produced a book
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: last year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one oh one.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: or even your local bookstore that encompasses my decades of
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures and
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
• 29:09
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• 29:11
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• 29:14
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• 29:18
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• 29:21
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• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Very cool.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering what surprised you along the way during the journey,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: whether it was the actual physical driving of Pollyanna, whether
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: it was the event of scar or the things you
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: were seeing and doing along the way.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: What were the surprises?
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: The first surprise, which all of you that are very
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: familiar with thereies ones, you know, I get into a
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: series one landover once a year every August mank Holaday
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: with my dad and we do a bit of road
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: tripping and that's the thing. But like, yeah, it got
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh my goodness, it is so loud.
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: How on earth can we talk above this noise?
• 29:58
  Speaker 9: For that?
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: You just get so used to the noise, don't you.
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: You just it becomes second nature. But I hope I
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: drive electric car, so it's so quiet by comparison. That
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: was the first surprise. But yeah, I think, oh gosh,
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: there was just so much. I mean, I guess in
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: terms of kind of the actual America, you know, driving
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: you know, such an old land Rover on such modern roads,
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: you know, is so tiny compared to like the big
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: trucks and the stop signs, which are really hard to
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: navigate if you're.
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: Not familiar with those. Yeah, and then the.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: Kind of and getting into kind of the rock and
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: roll of you know, the the nature of kind of
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: you know, the food stops, the fuel stops, that getting
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: out in the morning, you know, getting ourselves to bed
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: at night. Like you're saying, living living in amongst each other,
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: close approximity for you know, a few days and stuff.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it was I think the surprise was the
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: biggest surprise was just you say, just being with strangers
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: coming together through a meaningful connection and purpose between us.
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: All that I had then really quite profound. Yeah, in
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: like experience and impact for all of us.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: A beautiful thing to say. Yeah, lots of fun, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Barbara would be very stoked.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: And was maybe above looking down be like, what are
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: these crazy people doing? I think so cool.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the noise, I'm so glad you brought that up, because, yeah,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: it was so loud and I haven't spent too much
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: time in a series one. On that note, Tom, how
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: did Pollyanna fair on the American freeways and how did
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: she run?
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Give us some statistics and some insight.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Well, on the whole, I think she performed pretty well.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: Like there's always the milestones that you go through on
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: a journey, and the first milestone is just getting to
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: the first gas station, so that was a mile or
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: two down the road from the Jaguar lamb Ra of
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: North America HQ. So we did first fuel and then
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: and then we drove to Greg's. To Greg's house was
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: our first stop that night. You know, she hadn't been
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: used for six months, being just sat in a showroom.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: She coughed and spluttered a little bit, but then then
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: then ran pretty pretty normally. As I would say the
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: overall trip was was was going to be around three
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: thousand miles, which we which we covered in in two weeks,
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: with one I'm going to say at least one day
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: where we didn't drive her at all, So that was
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: the sort of an average of two hundred and thirty
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: five miles a day. Problems that we incurred driving a
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: seventy five year old land Rover just.
• 32:49
  Speaker 10: Just covering the miles.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: You're going to have a few technical issues, which I was.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I was pretty proud to say that I felt that
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: my instinct kicked in very quickly on a couple of
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: it occasions. We fitted North American Spec indicators to Pollyanna
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: last year, so flashing break inside lights and unfortunately.
• 33:11
  Speaker 10: We got a.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Wire trapped on the rear light, which caused a short
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: and damaged one of the wires. But I was pretty
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: quick on that, so hopefully it hasn't caused too much
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: damage there. And then the most as when I when
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: I first met Bill, I said to him, within ten
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: minutes of betting with him, I said, the only the
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: only thing I think I'm going to have a problem
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: with on this trip is the fan belt because Pollyanna
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: has a capstan winch which drives directly off the front
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: of the engine, so it makes it quite difficult to
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: put a.
• 33:52
  Speaker 10: Fan belt on him.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: And my father and I have been discussing doing this
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: job for approximately I'm going to say five to take years,
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: because we were just like, one day, we're going to
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: have to do this. So we had about with us,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: which is half the battle. Anyway, we were on one
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: of the dreaded Interstate free ways, which which Greg alluded
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: to earlier, and we were going we were.
• 34:16
  Speaker 10: Heading into New Orleans.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: We were still i would say a good half an
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: hour outside of New Orleans, but we could only go
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: on the Interstate and we just got into I'm going
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: to be correct with my geography here state side for Louisiana.
• 34:33
  Speaker 10: Yeah, and we'd.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: Always stopped to take a picture of all the state
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: state borders and with Pollyanna sat by them.
• 34:43
  Speaker 10: So we pulled up.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Greg was driving, and I was just like, again, my
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: instinct was I just wanted to look under the bonnet,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: looked under the bonnet, and then there was just no
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: fan out there, and so I was like, oh, well
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: that's that's.
• 34:58
  Speaker 10: That's that then.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: So we weren't with everybody else, but everyone has sort
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: of accumulated around us.
• 35:07
  Speaker 10: But it was on a day.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: Pollyanna is a very I like to think she's quite
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: a cautious, caring land driver, and so it happened to
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: be a day where we only covered one hundred and
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: sixty miles. That day, we had a bit of spare time,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: and the next day we were going to have a
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: day off. So the van belt snapped probably on the
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: best day that it could have done, because it didn't
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: affect us scheduling too much.
• 35:32
  Speaker 10: But it did take.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Three hours of Bill and myself removing the front capstan
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: winch and then wrestling with the new fan belt, which.
• 35:43
  Speaker 10: Is ever so slightly thicker.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Than the original ones, and to try and get them
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: past the mounts, not to bore people too much, but
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: it basically it took us. I think we spent forty
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: five minutes. Bill didn't really really just trying to get
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: the belt to sit in the right place. And yeah,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: anyway we got there. That was the worst thing that
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: had happened really on on on the twenty eight hundred
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: and fifty mile journey was that which was expected. So
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: you know, if you expect trouble, then you're usually covered.
• 36:16
  Speaker 10: You've covered yourself.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: And then I think we I think we fueled up
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: sixteen times. I'm going to say, roughly speaking, we probably
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: averaged about twenty miles per gap per US gallon, because
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: you've got to remember the US gallon smaller than in
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: an Imperial gallon in the UK.
• 36:35
  Speaker 10: And we consumed I'm going to say.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: Fourteen liters. I think fourteen liters of oil over that
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: on an engine as far as I know, if not.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: I was talking, we were talking on another podcast, and
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: I said, we've never done anything to this engine, and
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: then obviously the queue is that the queue is that
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: something will go wrong. You never talk about your engine
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: when you're overlanding, do you, you know, because it's the
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: most important thing so I did. And then but as
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: I say, we were covered. So yeah, we we burnt
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: a bit of oil. But as I say, that engine
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: is a remarkable engine in Pollyanna, as far as I
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: know is nothing's ever really been done with it since
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: since the sixties. So yeah, so I think on the
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: whole we've done Pollyanna, and obviously the preparation for the trip.
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: We did very well.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Agreed, Agreed.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: It was so fun when we filled up with fuel.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar obviously with a Series one land before this,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and I didn't realize that the fuel tank was like
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: right under the driver's seat. But that was kind of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: a fun little experience of the fuel station, watching how
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: one fills up a Series one Land rover a fuel
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: tank and where all field obviously.
• 37:52
  Speaker 10: And obviously everybody else is observing you around. This is
• 37:56
  Speaker 10: just not a normal thing.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: So yeah, we didn't have a lot of interaction, but
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: the people do quite often ask, especially that it's always
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: the attended service stations when you get out and they
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: want to fill up, and then you get out, take
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: the seat outlift the flap and then you know you
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: fuel underneath, and they're like, that's when you usually get
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: the comments.
• 38:19
  Speaker 10: Yeah, for sure, I.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Want to shoot it over to Greg. Now, so this
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: was your first time driving Pollyanna. You there's personal significance
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: for all of us, but I think for you as well,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: So I'd like you to speak to the impact of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: this trip on you based on your experience looking into
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the history of Barbaratoy and Pollyanna.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: Absolutely so. The other half of my career, behind the
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: beyond the automotive and overland writing side, is historic preservation.
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: I've always been a history nerd kind of in whatever
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: field I find myself in, I latch myself onto the
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: historic side of it. So I've always been very into
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: Barbara Toy. My prior career in life was also in
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: the publishing business in New York, so I've also always
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: had a diffinity for books. So Barbara Toy, bringing land rovers,
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: books and historic adventure together was always something that really
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: drew me. And the one thing that drove me nuts
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: ever since I found out about her fifteen years ago
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: was that you were never able to really access the books.
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: Barbara was a prolific writer. She was not exactly smashing
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: the top of the New York Times bestseller list, and
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: most of her books have been out of print. They
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: maybe had one printing in the fifties and sixties and
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: have been out of print ever since. When I came
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: across her, there had only been one book republished, which
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: was this one, Traveling the Incense her Oute. This was
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: a two thousand and nine reprint of this book, The
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: Highway of the Three Kings, and that was pretty much
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: all that was accessible. It is not a Polly on
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: a book. It's actually one of her latest books. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: everything else. When you see a Barbara Toy book come
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: for sale, if you even see them come for sale,
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: especially the earlier ones, you're talking four five hundred dollars.
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: And quite frankly, as I'm about to get to we've
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: done a lot of work to elevate her over the
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: past couple of years. It has dried up the market
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: for the earliest books. And I haven't gotten a good
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: price barometer in a few years on these earliest books
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: because since we've elevated this story, they really haven't come.
• 40:23
  Speaker 8: Up for sale.
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: So I think there were a lot of personal things too.
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: Barbara has really become a part of my life since
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: about twenty nineteen. In trying to reproduce these books, and
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: probably the person who knows that on this podcast better
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: than anybody is Ashley, because she and I have worked
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: together for many of these years trying to get these
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: books republished, and we were successful in twenty twenty three
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: by getting In Search of Sheba, her trip across East
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: Africa in the late nineteen fifties, republished by John Murray Press,
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: the original publisher. This was an incredible lift. To have
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: this book back in print and back in the public
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: conscious is incredible. Unfortunately, this is also not a Pollyanna book.
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: This was undertaken in the series two that replaced Pollyanna.
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: So we're still working on getting more books republished. So
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: personal significance obviously just having Pollyanna here in the country.
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: I flew out to Pebble Beach last year just to
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: see the vehicle, not realizing at that point but Tom
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: and I would really hit it off that weekend, and
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: how this would build another thing which will kind of
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: pap into it the end, I think, maybe a little more.
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: We started a website, Barbara toy dot com, which is
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: going to talk about the history of Barbara, but we'll
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: touch on that later. So being able to drive Pollyanna
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: to drive it across America, a country which I'm obviously
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: living in love having been on a lot of these roads,
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: to experience them at this pace, to be forced into
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: a slow road trip across the country, I've always wanted
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: to do a as William Leased to heat Moon called it,
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: Blue Highways trip across America. But if I take my
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: LR III, it's really just skipped the first four hundred
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: miles close to home, and I think it was really
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: you know, this is gonna get really sappy, but it
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: was really special to me to have Ashley there for
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: the last week and a half. Through this Barbara Toy thing.
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: We've become very good friends, and we you know, talk
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: almost every day on WhatsApp and stuff, but we never
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: get to hang out because Ashley's always living in a
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: camper in Kirjikstan or something, so we've really gotten to
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: hang out very little for how much we talk. So
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: we got to spend the week and a half together
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: in Pollyanna. There was one day that you and I
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: were driving across Akadiana, the southwestern Cajun part of Louisiana,
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: which is one of the more documented parts of the book,
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: and we just finished visiting what's called the Evangeline Oak,
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: which is a Kadian cultural touch point in Louisiana and
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: Saint Martinville, and we're driving on roads that we're really
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: starting to realize were part of the book. These were
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: almost certainly rose that Barber had been on, unchanged territory,
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: you know, incredible places. You and I are driving there,
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: the sun is setting, and I'm like, we made it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: We made this all come together, elevating this story, and
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: it was just such a special moment for me, having
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: put a lot of work into elevating this story.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I want to take it back over to Laura because
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: I want to talk more about the funny moments and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: some of the highlights of the trip and the biggest laughs,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: because we all, if I can speak for everybody, I
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: personally had so many laughs on this trip and it
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: was so much fun.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: So what were some of the most hilarious moments, Laura.
• 43:34
  Speaker 9: We laughed. I think that was one of the biggest
• 43:36
  Speaker 9: highlights of this trip. I just we laughed constantly. I
• 43:41
  Speaker 9: think one of the funniest parts was, you know, the
• 43:44
  Speaker 9: four of us in New Orleans and it's Greg's favorite part.
• 43:48
  Speaker 9: I mean, I actually had to bring the monogram poncho
• 43:52
  Speaker 9: to New York City is the first night we were,
• 43:56
  Speaker 9: you know, in New Orleans, and we decided to go
• 43:59
  Speaker 9: to dinner. Were walking down the street towards Canal Street
• 44:02
  Speaker 9: and I'm like, well, thank god I had my monogram
• 44:05
  Speaker 9: poncho with me. I didn't think twice about it, and
• 44:08
  Speaker 9: the guys just about died. They lost it. And I
• 44:12
  Speaker 9: was just like, doesn't everybody carry their monogram poncho with them?
• 44:17
  Speaker 9: And from that point on, I mean, Greg just he
• 44:20
  Speaker 9: constantly it hasn't died yet. Greg as me, you have
• 44:23
  Speaker 9: the monogram poncho, and it came to New York City
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: with us. It will show up in a photo with
• 44:28
  Speaker 9: Poullyanna in New York City. It had to come along.
• 44:32
  Speaker 9: I think. Another one that cracks me up, and I
• 44:34
  Speaker 9: repeat it constantly. I'm sorry, ash Is, It's okay. I'm
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: forty years old. I can do this. And that was
• 44:42
  Speaker 9: you doing your laundry. I was you would come up
• 44:46
  Speaker 9: and ask Greg and I for change. You didn't want
• 44:49
  Speaker 9: to go to the front desk and ask her for
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: quarters when we were in New Orleans and You're finally like,
• 44:55
  Speaker 9: it's okay, I'm forty years old. I can do this.
• 44:59
  Speaker 9: That's another the one that I just die on. And
• 45:02
  Speaker 9: then the following morning, you know, Greg and I went
• 45:04
  Speaker 9: had this great Michelin breakfast and I get back and I,
• 45:08
  Speaker 9: what'sapp Tom like, I'm doing my laundry. I'm like, oh,
• 45:12
  Speaker 9: I need to do laundry. Where are you? He goes,
• 45:14
  Speaker 9: I'm at the bar and it's got washing machines in it,
• 45:17
  Speaker 9: and I was just like, you got to be kidding me.
• 45:21
  Speaker 9: I mean, so the next thing I know, I'm in
• 45:23
  Speaker 9: an uber going to a bar, having a beer and
• 45:26
  Speaker 9: doing my laundry with Tom. I mean, these things just
• 45:30
  Speaker 9: went on through the whole trip. I mean they were
• 45:34
  Speaker 9: just every day it was something else to laugh about.
• 45:38
  Speaker 9: I got to experience a lot. I think New Orleans
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: was probably the funniest.
• 45:43
  Speaker 11: Though.
• 45:44
  Speaker 9: It made me realize how old I am and naive,
• 45:47
  Speaker 9: you know, when I went and checked on Pollyanna. Just
• 45:51
  Speaker 9: these instances happened over and over again. I think people
• 45:55
  Speaker 9: thought we were crazy. Every restaurant we went into and
• 46:00
  Speaker 9: Ashley you documenting our meals before we could eat. It
• 46:04
  Speaker 9: just was on and on. I mean, I've never laughed
• 46:07
  Speaker 9: so much. I don't know about the rest of you. Guys,
• 46:10
  Speaker 9: but I definitely had a lot of laughs.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a sign you're having fun. It's a good
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: road trip and you're with the right people for sure. Yeah,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Greg and I had an armadillo experience. And there are
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: just other funny things like the guys getting reprimanded by you.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I think, Laura, when I was taking a picture above
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of our breakfast and I was standing on a chair,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and You're like, how dare you not give her a
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: hand down? But it's all good because I don't need
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: a hand because I'm forty and I could do it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: So yeah, to be fair, I'm scared of asking for
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: change sometimes, but I've done a lot harder things than laundry.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Good times. Thank you Laura for sharing that. I loved it,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: And we're gonna head over to Amy.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Now let's talk more about the scar and the Barbara
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Tooy Tribute run. And we have a few ladies that
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: started the Barbaratoid Tribute run about a decade ago, and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear more about the impact on the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: event on you and also the women around you. You
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: were chatting with a lot of ladies on that event,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and I think that it's really important to them and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: seeing Pollyanna was important and getting out on the trail.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So I'd love to hear from you about that.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's amazing how this had been running for for like,
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: say a decade, and I've i suppose more in kind
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: of recent years, been really passionate about female empowerment and
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: about positive psychology and the positive mindset, and those are
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: all things that of course Barbara her story brings all
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: of that to the forefront, and it was just such
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: a powerful reminder of you know, what legacy and inspiration
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: and impact on that one life and one vehicle can have,
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: and the influence that it can have on so many individuals.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: Let me talk about the tribute run itself. Women were
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: saying so over the last ten years, obviously having a
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: female only tribute run, it's like only women behind the
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: full bike, behind the driver's seat, in the driver's seat,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: behind the behind the wheel, and they were saying, you know,
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: some of them were saying, you know, well, I've always
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: just got in the passenger seat because that's.
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: What we do there, as you know.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: And actually it was like, oh, I can have a go,
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: and yeah, why not I should have a go, And
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: then it was a bit like you know people, I mean,
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: some of the women talked about you know, nervousness and
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: fear of that, of wanting to do it, but then
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: feeling a bit like oh, particularly because some of the
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: you know, the trails are quite hairy as well. I'm
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: not used to those the trails they were. I was
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: gripping on for dear life at times, only because in
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: my head totally a mindset is Sue did not feel unsafe,
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: but just me just thinking, you know, oh, anyway, that aside,
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: but yeah, they were talked about, you know, facing kind
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: of their fears and actually then.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: Really really enjoying it and loving you.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Know, the off roading and how some of them had
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: gone on to buy their own trucks now and you know,
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: all saying that, you know, the ones that spoke to
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: supported by their by their partners to do so. And yeah,
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: so I think, yeah, the kind of legacy and impact
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: of Barbaratoid.
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: It really just she just it just still really.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: Really impacts because obviously having events like that has kept
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: her her so much meaning of her life alive. And
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: it's not I think, you know, it's not. It goes
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: far beyond Also just the four by four it's you know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: it's can relate to so many different women's lives, and
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: you know, it's the one of her classic quotes from
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: her life is life is gloriously free and if you
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: really want to do something, nothing and no one can
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: stop you, which is so true. But there's so many
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: barriers often and a lot of the time it's in
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: our mindset, of course, but there are also you know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: we know we don't all live in completely equal societies yet,
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera. So you know, that message that
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: just can be given to women to remember that we,
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: you know, we are free. It's an incredible legacy to
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: leave behind and a message that can inspire women to
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: pursue whatever they want to in life.
• 50:25
  Speaker 8: And that face, that fear.
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: So the road trip and the tribute run, I think
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: really did symbolize so much of that, and it was
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: just really so special.
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: To be a part of it.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to Laura Shacklett and Sarah Caldwell for
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: starting the Barbatoy Tribute event ten years ago and welcoming
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: us warmly to that event. And it wouldn't have been
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: possible without them starting it and the look on their
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: faces when they saw Pollyanna for the first time.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Was pretty special. Cheers.
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: And the story goes back, doesn't it, because they have
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: they again how they found out about Barbara just looking
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: for a name on the internet for a landro but
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: basically and up popped her story and we know, putting
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: her name in now you know, Greg's articles come up
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: and and you know other media that yourselves have all written,
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: which is you know, so it's all it's there. But yes,
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: you know they again kind of everyone all these kind
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: of different connections that have bought everyone together for this,
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: you know, one event for this tenth anniversary amazing.
• 51:32
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was my first land rubber event as well,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and I felt very welcomed and everybody's super friendly.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I had some delicious moonshine and I think it was
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: some other pasta dish that was delicious, And yeah, I
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: had a great time. I would love to go back. Yeah,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: so I want to shoot it over now to Bill
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: And I know that you visited some other Barbara Toy
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: spots in the world.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Can you share a little bit more about your trips
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: and experiences in other places that Barbara Towy's been, Uh?
• 52:06
  Speaker 8: Sure, I guess there's two main pieces.
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: Unfortunately, with this particular trip that we were kind of
• 52:13
  Speaker 7: short on time and things, so we could only do
• 52:16
  Speaker 7: about half. It would have been nice to get out
• 52:19
  Speaker 7: to the western part of the US where Barbara drove.
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: As I said, we had done it in twenty twenty two,
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: and there's some locations that Barbara does describe. There's even
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: photos of her driving through the West in the Wigwam Hotel,
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: which is basically giant concrete teepees that were hotel rooms
• 52:40
  Speaker 7: back in the fifties, the Grand Canyon and things like that.
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: It would have been nice to be able to get
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: Pollyanna out there. Who knows, if Tom gets adventurous, maybe
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: something will happen in time. The other big one, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: one that was actually a special one, was in twenty
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: twenty my wife and I took a trip to Gibraltar.
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: Now when Barbara started her adventures, and she details this
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: in her first book, Full on Wheels, she actually, right
• 53:08
  Speaker 7: after buying Pollyanna and getting her ready, she shipped Pollyanna
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: to Gibraltar to get ready for her drive across North Africa,
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: and she wound up being held up because of the rains.
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: You get flooding in Morocco and across ten Algeria and whatnot,
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: so she had to delay for a week or two
• 53:26
  Speaker 7: and she wound up staying in the Rock Hotel.
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: Well, when my wife and I went.
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: To Gibraltar, we stayed in the Rock Hotel, which doesn't
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: look any different than it did back in the feast.
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: It is an absolute art It's a gorgeous Art deco,
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: great food. You sit on the little balconies, you'll overlook
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: the harbor. There's Morocco in the distance. But in any case,
• 53:46
  Speaker 7: when we pulled up, we were actually in our camel
• 53:49
  Speaker 7: trophy freelander. The bellman, who is an expat Britt loved
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: the truck and insisted we park it right in front
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: of the hotel, which in a fool on wheels is
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: where Barbara was sitting with Pollyanna and she was checking
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: the oil or doing a tinkering with a few things,
• 54:07
  Speaker 7: when a gentleman who was living in the hotel they
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: referred to him as Brigadier Firebrand, strode up to her
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: and said, what's this? I hear about you driving off
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: alone across North Africa. And she's started to answer, well
• 54:23
  Speaker 7: I and he immediately jumped on her, You're nothing but
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: a fool, a full on wheels, and he stormed off.
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: So I think that sort of set the tone of
• 54:33
  Speaker 7: her next several books, and it also helps illustrate I
• 54:36
  Speaker 7: think some of what several people who knew Barbara referred
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: to her as tenacious.
• 54:42
  Speaker 8: She was one of these people that when she.
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: Had an idea, she set her mind to it, she
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: was going to do it. Very little was going to
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: stop her authorities or anything. So being in this spot
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: roughly where that occurred, staying in this hotel was kind
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: of a special thing. I think there are future plans
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: for Pollyanna.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, we're definitely going to get into that. Next one
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: more question for you, Bill. So we're talking about places
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: and how they're tied to Barbara Toy in her history.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about things. So there's some
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: things that are in Pollyanna that are mentioned.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Specifically in her books and have some history tied in
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: with them as well.
• 55:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, the two main when you first look in Pollyanna,
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: you'll see that there's this wooden stick hanging from them
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: from the bar and the dashboard, and then there's a
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: little pair of red shoes hanging from the rear view mirror,
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: and she actually does mention both of those in the
• 55:34
  Speaker 7: beginning of Columbus is right. But the stick is actually
• 55:37
  Speaker 7: an Algerian policeman's truncheon that she was given, and I
• 55:41
  Speaker 7: think it may have even been on this first trip
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: across where the policeman thought she should have something to
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: protect herself, and she was given this Algerian policeman truncheon
• 55:51
  Speaker 7: which stayed in PolyAm and pressed that it's still there.
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: And the same is true for the shoes. They were
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: Greek greg.
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: If I remember correctly, a souvenir she picked up earlier
• 55:59
  Speaker 7: on and she mentions them in. So we don't know
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: for certain when they wound up in Pollyanna, but we're
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: fairly certain that was fairly early on.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was just a.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: Token of Barbera's and they meant something to her. And
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: again it's another piece that it's amazing that they've stayed
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: with her. Another thing you'll see in there is a
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: little first aid kit that she mounted and that's been there. Again,
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: we don't know exactly when that went in. I know, Tom,
• 56:25
  Speaker 7: if you know for sure, but I think it was
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: fairly early on. Yeah, I mean the wooden box that
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: sits in there. Again at the beginning of Columbus was right,
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: she described because she was asked several times. She described
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: some of the things she carried along with her, and
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: all of these items are in there. She describes the
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: wooden box in between the seats that she did for safety,
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: with the little latch on it.
• 56:48
  Speaker 8: The wooden box. You put a wooden cover across the.
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: Back of Pollyanna so she could hide things underneath. Ironically,
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: we had done the same thing with our eighty inch
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: before we did the trip, and it was before I'd
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: actually read that part of the book. We had put
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: the wooden box in the back because the same thing.
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: When you're driving a soft top land rover, there is
• 57:05
  Speaker 7: no such thing as security. So we bolted in a
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: lock box between the seats in the front, and we
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: put a wooden cover with a hasp on it in
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: the back for the exact same reasons. Yeah, I'm blanking
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: if there may be anything else in there. From the
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: modifications she did for the doors, the passenger door could
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: only be opened from the inside, which stymied a few
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: people when they wanted to hop in the truck and
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: they realized there was no way to open the open
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: the passenger door. The little furniture key latch on the
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: driver's side with its big old skeleton key. It looks
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: to be actually it's an old furniture like a dresser
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: drawer latch. Again, just a practical solution to what's normally
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: not an issue. Yeah, Greg, Tom, I can't think of
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: the bad oh, the bat, the calto or the excuse.
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: Me, the Hammett Cavalcators.
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: One of the sort of neat souvenirs that Pollyanna carries
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: is on the front right now there's a large enameled
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: badge for the Hemmet Cavalcators jeep club.
• 58:06
  Speaker 8: And this was a jeep club she ran into.
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: It was actually the Calico ghost Town in California. She
• 58:12
  Speaker 7: ran into this club and she wound up spending a
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: little bit of time with them, and they were so
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: impressed by this woman driving across now that they gave
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: her one of the club badges off of one of
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: their trucks. Now, this was sort of special because the
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: Cavalcators had a club policy that those badges were never
• 58:28
  Speaker 7: to be handed out to anybody non club members, and
• 58:31
  Speaker 7: they were always turned in if you left the club.
• 58:33
  Speaker 8: You had to give back the badge.
• 58:35
  Speaker 7: The fact that they gave one out was actually quite impressive,
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: and it's also quite impressive that it's still with Pollyanna.
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: I think it's been mounted in a couple of different
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: spots on Pollyanna over the years. It was originally on
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: the wing, then it was on the side, and then
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: now currently tom AzID on on the jerry can holder,
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: which was not there originally.
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: Yep, go ahead, Tart.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: It's such a testament to Tom. And you're fathered for
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: keeping the vehicle in the original. You know what I
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: mean by original, like keeping the important sentimental things intact
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: for people to enjoy.
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, realistically, Pollyanna is still Pollyanna. I mean she's been maintained,
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: she's stayed running where parts have been replaced, but for
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: the most part, Pollyanna is Pollyanna.
• 59:26
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: I love that so much.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit more Tom about next steps.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Bill alluded a little bit to the future and what
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: would you like to see happen next.
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, obviously, we having successfully done this little trip, my
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: head gets thinking about what we should do next, because
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: it's when it was at success the whole trip, and
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: so looking moving forwards, we thought next year in twenty
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: twenty seven, we'd like to make we go to Gibraltar
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: and to the Rock Hotel to take Pollyanna there, so
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: we will ferry her down to Spain. Obviously this wasn't
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: what happened in nineteen fifty Barbara. Barbara ferry Pollyanna all
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: the way around to Gibraltar, whereas we're going to go
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: into probably Santander and then go across the Barcelona as
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: a land drover party that happens there every October, which
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: is a fantastic event.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 10: And I'm talking.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: These are ideas at the moment, so we will be
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: working on these in the next few months.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 10: You know.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Possibly we would like to do a Barbara Toy tribute
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: run in Spain and then and then drive down to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: Gibraltar and take up residents for a weekend in the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Rock Hotel and then we'll we'll see what goes on
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: from there.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 10: So that's twenty twenty seven. Eight.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: I'm working with the people in Australia because it's the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: eightieth anniversary of Landrova being launched and we will look
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: to probably take Pollyanna. I would like to think back
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: to Cuma, New South Wales where since the fortieth anniversary
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: they've been having a land rover gathering there in Kuma
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: in the Snowy Mountains. The nice thing about that town
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: is is Barbara mentions going through Kuma in nineteen fifty
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: six in when she started, when she was in Australia.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: There's a connection there with Pollyanna historically. So that's twenty
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: twenty eight, we're see in twenty twenty nine. Maybe that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: could be scoped to do the other half of the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: the other half of the American Journey, maybe ending up
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: back at sca in in twenty twenty nine. But yeah,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: it's goods, have some it's goods, have some plans, plans
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: and dreams. If you haven't got ave, then what have
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: you got?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: And a special thanks to Hancook Tire for supporting this
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: week's podcast. With Summer Underway, head over to Expeditionportal dot
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: com for Jeepbeach Vibe inspiration. Our team spent the weekend
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: with handcook Dina pro Tire at this year's twenty twenty
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: six Jeep Beachweak in Daytona, Florida, and took a look
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: at their Wrangler three ninety two look for jeep Beach
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. When you go to Expedition Portal dot.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Com, we'll see fantastic.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: So glad to hear there are some future plans for
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Paullyanna and she's not sitting around idly waiting for something.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know what, but she's gonna be ready for
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: the next adventure. So that's quite exciting.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Greg, I'd love you to share where can we
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: find every everybody online? What are resources if you want
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: to learn more about Pollyanna or you want to learn
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: more about Barbara Toy?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Where should people go on the interwebs?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: The first resource that Tom and I are starting to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: develop is going to be a website, the Barbara Toy
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: Archive at Barbara Toy dot com. We have, through various
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: places the research that Tom and Ashley and myself and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: others have done, a lot of information about Barbara, a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: lot of information about her books, a lot of information
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: about her life. Beyond the books. There has been a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: biography published called Which Way Now by a woman named
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 6: Leslie Wildman, who befriended Barbara's nephew who ended up moving
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: into her house after she passed, and when he passed,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: she helped his widow clean out the house and discovered
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: Barbara's story at that point and kind of was able
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: to salvage as much as she possibly could out of
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: the house of Barbara's writings, possessions, everything that she could.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: So if you want to read the books, as I said,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 6: there's two that are pretty accessible. This is Traveling the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: Incense Route, a reprint of The Highway of the Three
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: Kings is out of print but easily available on used bookstores.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: And then In Search of Shiba is still available new
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: only in the UK, but easy to either get international ship.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: There's down some used copies in America. You know, wherever
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: you are, it's pretty easy to find that online somewhere
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 6: and relative very affordable. Our goal with the website is
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: going to be to summarize some of the earlier books
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 6: that are just completely inaccessible. Ashley and I continue to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 6: be on this major quest to get them republished, but
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 6: until then we want to tell the stories and how
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 6: where she went, how she went. There kind of a
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: cliffs notes of the entire story of each of these books,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: so people can understand the breadth and the scope of
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 6: what Barbara did. If you're looking for a little more
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: Ashley has a couple articles that you can find on
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: Barbara on Expedition Portal from over the years if you
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: go on Expedition Portal and search the archives, and if
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: you do a Google on Barbara. I've written a few
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 6: things that come up. But I think this website is
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 6: going to really start to That's our big goal for
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: the rest of this year is to start to tell
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: the story in a digital way. You know, we're in
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: a new area. You look at how these stories have
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: evolved from print books sold only in one part of
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 6: the world to early Internet to you know, now being
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: deeply ingrained in a multimedia digital environment is what we're
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 6: working on next.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: All very exciting stuff. Thank you, Greg, and also thank
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: you guys for joining me on the Overland Journal podcast today.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: I will put all those links in the show notes,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and also everybody's bios and Instagram handles and any websites.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Please feel free to check those out in the show
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: notes we've listed them. I guess I'm busted.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: Go join the group of kids outside the camper playing
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: an intensecape of football and uh yeah.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Laura, Thank you Greg, thank you Amy,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Bill and Tom for joining me. It's such a pleasure
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: to connect with you Asie again after the trip, and
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I'm stoked, stoked for the next one.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: Thank you Ashley.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 9: Really love YEP.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you Ashley.