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Selects: Desert Survival: Josh and Chuck Save Your Tookus · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's Select,
0:03
Speaker 1: I've chosen our episode from two thousand nineteen, where we
0:07
Speaker 1: cover an old House Stuff Works article Chuck had written
0:10
Speaker 1: years before, back when he was the Adventure section writer.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's a fun and interesting look at both how to
0:16
Speaker 1: stay alive in the desert, as well as an in
0:19
Speaker 1: depth look at some silly sentences that Chuck wrote. I
0:22
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
0:29
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:38
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry
0:42
Speaker 1: over there. You put the three of us together, and
0:44
Speaker 1: you've got stuff you should know just in case you
0:47
Speaker 1: ever get lost in a desert. Is what we're going
0:50
Speaker 1: to give as our gift to you. Tradition. You know
0:53
Speaker 1: what's funny, As I was reading a podcast newsletter today,
0:57
Speaker 1: like an industry newsletter, and I'm gonna buzz marketing now,
1:00
Speaker 1: all right? Uh? And I mean there's only one. Now,
1:03
Speaker 1: there's probably more than one. There's several, are there? I think?
1:06
Speaker 1: So all right? I should get on the at least two.
1:08
Speaker 1: Two can be several, right, isn't that the Biblical unit
1:12
Speaker 1: several is two. I thought the Biblical unit was a cubit, right,
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm glad we can laugh in this one. Um And
1:23
Speaker 1: it said there was an article specifically about podcaster burnout,
1:27
Speaker 1: and they interviewed someone that was like, you know, she
1:31
Speaker 1: started podcasting in two thousand seventeen and blah blah blah
1:34
Speaker 1: and experienced burnout. And I gotta laughed. I was like,
1:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it, like people burn out in
1:40
Speaker 1: different ways, and they may have a it's tougher workload
1:43
Speaker 1: than nuts. But I just sort of snickered that after
1:46
Speaker 1: eleven or click going on eleven years, very soon do
1:49
Speaker 1: you have this April eleven years? Like we we have
1:53
Speaker 1: moments of not burnout, like we get a little warm,
1:58
Speaker 1: kind of like this again, but that quickly passes very quickly.
2:02
Speaker 1: You know. I'm never like, uh, I've never burned out.
2:07
Speaker 1: I would say that where I don't want to do
2:09
Speaker 1: this or anything. No, I know, I would say there's
2:11
Speaker 1: probably been like literally five times. I'm sorry to use
2:14
Speaker 1: the word literally, but I literally mean literally in this sense. Yes,
2:17
Speaker 1: because you've built a statue of paper machee after each
2:20
Speaker 1: time represent each burnout, right, right, And they're they're on
2:24
Speaker 1: my desk, so you can count them. There's five. But
2:27
Speaker 1: it comes in like just digging into a topic at
2:31
Speaker 1: a time when there's like a bunch of other stuff
2:33
Speaker 1: going on or whatever. It's just been a really long
2:36
Speaker 1: stretch where maybe we're recording more than usual, and then
2:39
Speaker 1: when we get in here to record, it's gone agreed.
2:42
Speaker 1: That's when it doesn't happen. I don't think I've ever
2:45
Speaker 1: been and let me knock on wood, I don't think
2:47
Speaker 1: I've ever been in a recording session with you and
2:49
Speaker 1: been like not wanted to do it, my friend, And weirdly,
2:54
Speaker 1: I'm more burnout with movie crush at times, like it sounds,
2:59
Speaker 1: trust me, I'm seriously complaining. But ask Emily how many
3:02
Speaker 1: times I've been like, I gotta watch this movie tonight
3:06
Speaker 1: notes on because it takes long, and like I have
3:09
Speaker 1: to pause to take the notes because I don't want
3:11
Speaker 1: to miss anything. So it takes like three and a
3:13
Speaker 1: half hours to watch a movie and take notes. And
3:15
Speaker 1: that's how I guess you're you're fundamentally not able to
3:18
Speaker 1: enjoy the movie. It's not like enjoying a movie right,
3:21
Speaker 1: You're quite analyzing DNTs. It a little bit, and it's
3:25
Speaker 1: at night. Kind I guess, yeah, you're right, kind of,
3:28
Speaker 1: but and it's at night, so it's like I'm technically
3:31
Speaker 1: not at work, and sometimes it's just like I don't
3:33
Speaker 1: want to watch whatever. Yeah, don't point Break. Who's who's
3:37
Speaker 1: his point Break? Jordan Morris of Bubble and Jordan Jesse go, Okay, yeah,
3:42
Speaker 1: point Break is a good one. No, no, no, it was.
3:45
Speaker 1: It was really kind of fun watching that. Actually, I
3:47
Speaker 1: don't know why I pulled that one up, okay, because
3:50
Speaker 1: it was the most recent one I watched. But to
3:52
Speaker 1: take notes on Point Break, it can be a little tedious,
3:55
Speaker 1: right bra. There's that one great part where they do
4:00
Speaker 1: the midnight surf and Kiano has just learned, you know,
4:04
Speaker 1: and you just hear this because it's obviously a d
4:07
Speaker 1: R like recorded afterwards, and you just hear him yell
4:10
Speaker 1: m E and surfing. Man. It's just such a great line.
4:14
Speaker 1: Does he say F or the F word? Well, he
4:16
Speaker 1: says the F word. That would have been better if
4:18
Speaker 1: you have said maybe on T N T. That's how
4:21
Speaker 1: it says, oh boy, oh there's one. Oh have you
4:26
Speaker 1: seen that's sorry? I know we haven't even started yet.
4:30
Speaker 1: Out of the way. Have you seen that video of
4:32
Speaker 1: Keanu on the New York I believe subway giving a
4:36
Speaker 1: seat up to a lady who's standing. No, but he
4:39
Speaker 1: is a legendary good guy, yes, who's been through some
4:43
Speaker 1: horrible stuff. Yeah. Um, and I just want to be
4:46
Speaker 1: his friend, Keanu Reeves. If you're listening, friends, okay, well
4:51
Speaker 1: he's your friend first, because you asked, well, we could
4:53
Speaker 1: share him, Okay, all right, I get him on Tuesdays
4:56
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. That's fine, so we can learn together. Yeah, okay,
5:02
Speaker 1: all right, that's fair. You can have him. We'll alternate weekends, okay,
5:06
Speaker 1: because you know Canada on the weekends, that's that's a party.
5:09
Speaker 1: He think he's a good guy on Monday through Thursday.
5:12
Speaker 1: To see how many seats he gives up on a Saturday. Alright, wait,
5:16
Speaker 1: hold on, one more thing. Can you imagine Keanu Reason
5:19
Speaker 1: listening to this conversation at first, kind of chuckling himself,
5:21
Speaker 1: and it's getting like weirder and weird rights finally, president
5:24
Speaker 1: stop and maybe it never listens again. We just blew
5:27
Speaker 1: our chance. Chuck alright, one more thing, and then I
5:30
Speaker 1: swear I'm done. I meant to tell you that I
5:33
Speaker 1: did some l A sessions recently for movie Crush and
5:36
Speaker 1: UH the Great Show High Maintenance on HBO. It's one
5:39
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites. The dude on there, Ben
5:41
Speaker 1: Sinclair as the guy, the WE delivery guy, UH is
5:46
Speaker 1: just like. One of the main reasons I went there
5:49
Speaker 1: in person was just so I can meet him. I
5:51
Speaker 1: meet him and the first thing he said was is, hey, man,
5:54
Speaker 1: I used to listen to you and Josh when I
5:57
Speaker 1: UH was a shusher at this lesbian poetry bar. And
6:02
Speaker 1: I was like what I was like, first of all,
6:03
Speaker 1: it's a suure. He's like, it's a poetry bar, you know.
6:05
Speaker 1: I said, there and shush people, and He's like, but
6:08
Speaker 1: I ustill listen to you you. Guys always wonder what you
6:09
Speaker 1: look like. Did Josh quit smoking? And I was like,
6:12
Speaker 1: why don't you people ever reach out right, like do
6:15
Speaker 1: you know what that would admit to me? Which he
6:18
Speaker 1: was just a suture at the time maybe, but now
6:21
Speaker 1: he's made it. Yeah. So anyway, I told him that
6:22
Speaker 1: you quit smoking, You're doing great. I don't think he's
6:24
Speaker 1: listening for a bit, but do you think he's listening now?
6:27
Speaker 1: I don't know if he got back on the train
6:29
Speaker 1: or not. But if he did, do you think he's
6:31
Speaker 1: friends with Ken Rees? Maybe? But Ben Claire gives up
6:35
Speaker 1: his seat for no person got that's his And if
6:39
Speaker 1: you if you say, like maybe you should stand up,
6:41
Speaker 1: he goes. Now he would give up his seat. Okay, anyway,
6:46
Speaker 1: let's talk about desert survival. Imagine Chuck, Ben Sinclair is
6:50
Speaker 1: making his way through the desert in his car, priest
6:54
Speaker 1: will say, and he runs out of not just gas
6:58
Speaker 1: but electricity as well, which he might he has a
7:00
Speaker 1: big RV. Actually that's worked into the show. Okay, he's
7:04
Speaker 1: in his RV, so he just straight up runs out
7:06
Speaker 1: of gas, which probably happens a couple of times a
7:09
Speaker 1: day in a big old r V. I would imagine. Okay, Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: Ben's in trouble because Ben was not expecting to have
7:17
Speaker 1: this extended stop and unexpected stop in the desert, so
7:20
Speaker 1: he did not bring a few things. Okay, if Ben
7:24
Speaker 1: were paying a little less attention to whether people were
7:27
Speaker 1: talking you need to be shushed or not, and more
7:29
Speaker 1: attention to his desert survival, what would he have packed
7:33
Speaker 1: in that RV? Chuck, Well, Ben Sinclair would have had
7:36
Speaker 1: probably a pound of weed, Okay, so he's got a
7:38
Speaker 1: good start there because he could burn that for a
7:40
Speaker 1: signal fire or for comfort and warmth. Um. Well, I
7:45
Speaker 1: mean I wrote this dumb article. This is a great article.
7:48
Speaker 1: Did you notice my stupid thing I did with the
7:50
Speaker 1: music titles? Sure, the Oasis thing and all of them
7:53
Speaker 1: are song titles. All the sidebars are song titles. And
7:56
Speaker 1: that was back when I was like, oh man, I
7:58
Speaker 1: am the most clever person alive. So I got the
8:02
Speaker 1: wonder Wall one um, rescue me. Okay, I gotta excuse me,
8:06
Speaker 1: but I was thinking more of the TV show than
8:08
Speaker 1: the song. There's also, so everybody, if you go onto
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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com right now and look up
8:14
Speaker 1: how Desert Survival Works. Each page, almost every page has
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Speaker 1: a a a sidebar, and the title of the sidebars
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Speaker 1: are song titles. Rescue me? After all, you're my wonder wall.
8:24
Speaker 1: What's what could it be? It's a mirage? What could
8:27
Speaker 1: it be? It's a mirrage? What is that? I'm telling y'all,
8:30
Speaker 1: it's sabotage. Okay, that's a good one. And then finally
8:34
Speaker 1: a little shout out to uh Annie food, glorious food. Okay,
8:40
Speaker 1: So that was that was what used to make me
8:42
Speaker 1: happy at work. Yeah, I remember those days. Yeah you too.
8:46
Speaker 1: When you do like a clever photo caption and that
8:48
Speaker 1: would be that would get you through the week. We
8:50
Speaker 1: would stand up and like share it over the cubicle.
8:52
Speaker 1: Halloo caption. Yeah, this is gonna blow everybody's mind. All right,
8:58
Speaker 1: So you're in the desert, you want to have uh, well,
9:03
Speaker 1: let's just let's just talk about this stuff. Okay, Yeah?
9:06
Speaker 1: What what should be in your kid? Water? A mirror?
9:10
Speaker 1: That's a big one. Way to start a fire. Yeah,
9:12
Speaker 1: that's a big one too. Basically, just a lighter, food, water.
9:15
Speaker 1: If you're gonna cross the desert, have a lighter, which
9:17
Speaker 1: seems counterintuitive because it's hot in the desert, but no,
9:19
Speaker 1: trust us. Well you'll see you want a lighter on
9:22
Speaker 1: you a mirror which you'll see too. Yeah, that's what
9:25
Speaker 1: we'll do. We'll see what's supposed to be in the
9:27
Speaker 1: pack and in the r V, and then we'll go
9:29
Speaker 1: back and we'll Okay, I'm suddenly burned out. Should we
9:35
Speaker 1: take a break? Yeah, all right, let's take a break
9:37
Speaker 1: and let's start the podcast in earnest. All right, everybody,
10:05
Speaker 1: welcome to stuff. You should know. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
10:08
Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there, and we're talking desert survival. So
10:10
Speaker 1: let's get to it. And so this is all due
10:12
Speaker 1: to the fact that we just recorded a very tough episode,
10:14
Speaker 1: so we're clearly just goofing off now. Um, so we're
10:19
Speaker 1: talking about deserts, and we did a desert episode and
10:22
Speaker 1: a desertification episode two and I think one on the
10:25
Speaker 1: dust Bowl. But something that all deserts have in common
10:29
Speaker 1: is not sand, is not even heat. It's a lack
10:33
Speaker 1: of water. Yes, technically Antarctica is the largest desert on
10:37
Speaker 1: the world, in the world, Um, and there's lots of water,
10:40
Speaker 1: but it's all locked up as ice. There's no available
10:43
Speaker 1: water in exactly the same way as there's basically no
10:46
Speaker 1: available water in Death Valley in California. Um, deserts have.
10:52
Speaker 1: The next thing that they have most frequently in common
10:55
Speaker 1: is again not sand, but exposed bedrock. All of those
10:59
Speaker 1: cool for nations or whatever, that's actually the bottom of
11:02
Speaker 1: the earth you're seeing exposed. All the soil has been
11:05
Speaker 1: dried out for so long because down basically it's been pants. Um.
11:11
Speaker 1: We've got some good pants stories by the way, coming soon. Yeah. Um.
11:15
Speaker 1: The soil is so dry that it can't be held
11:18
Speaker 1: in place. The wind is blown it away, and so
11:20
Speaker 1: what you're seeing is the exposed bedrock sand only makes
11:23
Speaker 1: up something like of the world's deserts. Yeah, I mean
11:27
Speaker 1: you got pebbles, desert soil. Sometimes that bed rock you're
11:33
Speaker 1: talking about. We're gonna talk about o acs. So I
11:37
Speaker 1: think Antarctic is Survivor or Antarctic Survival or even Arctic
11:40
Speaker 1: Survival deserves its own episode short day. So we're just
11:43
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about hot deserts and all of that
11:47
Speaker 1: sand and exposed bedrock and pebbles bakes in the sun
11:53
Speaker 1: and shoots that heat back out and it's just super hot. Okay. Yeah,
11:59
Speaker 1: So her is the biggest obviously the biggest, biggest problem.
12:02
Speaker 1: If you get trapped in the desert on foot or
12:05
Speaker 1: in a car, uh, and you think about, like, never
12:08
Speaker 1: go desert hiking. I don't need to worry about this.
12:10
Speaker 1: But have you ever been like, oh, I'm gonna take
12:12
Speaker 1: the long route through from Texas to California because it's
12:17
Speaker 1: more scenic, uh, And then your car breaks down and
12:20
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble if you don't know what you're doing. Um,
12:23
Speaker 1: that happened to a woman. I can't find her name
12:25
Speaker 1: right now, but she is a She was a grandmother.
12:27
Speaker 1: I believe she's seventy two, who was driving in her
12:30
Speaker 1: Prius and it ran out of gas and electricity on
12:34
Speaker 1: the way. I believe to Phoenix and um, she had
12:37
Speaker 1: an unexpected trip with her dog for nine days in
12:42
Speaker 1: the desert and survived. Yeah. Did she eat her dog? No? Okay,
12:47
Speaker 1: luckily she did not have to eat her dog. Did
12:49
Speaker 1: she survive on the saliva of her dog? Yeah? They well,
12:52
Speaker 1: they spit one another's mouth, so it was kind of
12:55
Speaker 1: but they did that an it was a wash. So
12:58
Speaker 1: dehydration is obviously the kind of um physical symptom you
13:02
Speaker 1: might experience if you run out of water, uh, decreased
13:07
Speaker 1: frequency of urine. Of course, if your urine is very
13:10
Speaker 1: smelly or very deep yellow, your mouth is going to
13:14
Speaker 1: be dry, your you know, as things increase dehydration wise,
13:19
Speaker 1: you're gonna get sunken eyes. Your heartbeat is gonna increase.
13:22
Speaker 1: And if you get to the stage where you literally
13:24
Speaker 1: have no urine, or if you're vomiting and have diarrhea,
13:28
Speaker 1: then you're pretty bad shape. Yeah, so vomiting and diarrhea
13:31
Speaker 1: is like that last thing you want to do while
13:33
Speaker 1: you're dehydrated, because all it is is just getting rid
13:36
Speaker 1: of any remaining hydration you have. It's not good. That's
13:40
Speaker 1: that's a bad reaction to dehydration. Um. And we'll talk
13:44
Speaker 1: about heat casualty coming up. But um kind of psyched
13:48
Speaker 1: about that bit. Oh yeah. But when we talk about
13:51
Speaker 1: water and rationing water, there's an old saying ration sweat
13:56
Speaker 1: not water, meaning, um, don't like drink all your water once,
14:01
Speaker 1: but rash and your sweat. Like they say not to
14:04
Speaker 1: you know, if you are lost like this, like don't
14:06
Speaker 1: go hiking to find civilization during the peak of day.
14:10
Speaker 1: You want to ration how much output, how much you're sweating. Um,
14:14
Speaker 1: but you you do have to take in that water. Yeah,
14:17
Speaker 1: so when you're in the desert, you you recommend, or
14:22
Speaker 1: to say, the experts recommend, because it's obviously a very
14:25
Speaker 1: well researched article, um that that somebody drink a gallon
14:30
Speaker 1: of water a day. Well, I mean that's what they say.
14:33
Speaker 1: If you've got like a you know, unlimited amounts of
14:36
Speaker 1: water a gallon a day, you need a rashtion it
14:39
Speaker 1: somewhat if you have very limited water obviously, But what
14:42
Speaker 1: you don't want to do, which happens a lot of times,
14:45
Speaker 1: is to be found dead with water in your canteen. Yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: which is God, it's haunting sure. And um and like
14:52
Speaker 1: you said, I mean you want to you want to
14:54
Speaker 1: rashtion your sweat, not your water, but you do kind
14:56
Speaker 1: of want to rash in your water, like you know,
14:58
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a little water piggy right
15:00
Speaker 1: out of the gate. But you also you recommend um
15:04
Speaker 1: via the experts that you that you don't just wait
15:09
Speaker 1: until you're thirsty, because you'll only get about two thirds
15:12
Speaker 1: of the amount of water you actually need just by
15:15
Speaker 1: going by thirst. You want to actually stop and like
15:17
Speaker 1: drink more water than you think you need. Yeah. And
15:21
Speaker 1: if you're hiking around again, we we talked about morning
15:23
Speaker 1: and evenings or the best time to go look for help. Um,
15:27
Speaker 1: if you see a trail, go down that trail because
15:30
Speaker 1: you have a better chance of finding someone there. Um.
15:33
Speaker 1: Follow the birds. Birds generally and animals go towards water. Yeah.
15:38
Speaker 1: Apparently if they're circling in the morning or the evening,
15:41
Speaker 1: they're probably circling around water. Try and get some groundwater going.
15:45
Speaker 1: But very wisely, you point out through the experts that
15:51
Speaker 1: if there's like a little, you know, small mountain in
15:54
Speaker 1: between you and those birds, in a longer way around
15:58
Speaker 1: the mountain that's flat, take the longer way that's flat,
16:01
Speaker 1: because even though you might cut off a couple of
16:03
Speaker 1: hours between you and the birds, you're gonna really exert
16:07
Speaker 1: yourself going up that mountain, whereas instead you want to
16:11
Speaker 1: you want to take the longer but slower, less exerting
16:14
Speaker 1: path to get to that water where the birds are circling.
16:17
Speaker 1: For sure, if you're with someone, um, don't talk. I mean,
16:22
Speaker 1: you know, you can talk some, but don't just chat
16:25
Speaker 1: about your day. Try to conserve your words. Try and
16:28
Speaker 1: breathe through your nose. What do you think about grace jump.
16:33
Speaker 1: If you happen to see any wet sand or standing
16:36
Speaker 1: water anywhere, then you're in luck because you can dig
16:39
Speaker 1: down in there and you will probably find more water
16:42
Speaker 1: under you know, this groundwater underneath it, which is that's
16:46
Speaker 1: a benaan. If you find like a groundwater in the desert,
16:52
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be okay. Yeah, If you don't find
16:56
Speaker 1: any water and you run out of water, you're probably
16:59
Speaker 1: not going to be Okay. No, you also want to fire,
17:02
Speaker 1: which you said isn't very intuitive. But uh, if you've
17:05
Speaker 1: ever spending time in the desert, the temperature swings are huge.
17:08
Speaker 1: You can get cold in the desert at night, and
17:11
Speaker 1: then fire allows you to purify water. There's that whole
17:13
Speaker 1: safety feeling. It keeps mountain lions away, right, Sure. I
17:20
Speaker 1: would guess just about any critters don't go near fire
17:23
Speaker 1: because they associated with wildfires in the desert. Brush fires,
17:28
Speaker 1: rescue signal you can, you can do that, I'll trick.
17:31
Speaker 1: I think we even did a show on smoke signals
17:32
Speaker 1: early on. No, I don't think so. No, No, And
17:36
Speaker 1: I wanted to I keep forgetting to write. Are you sure?
17:38
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was like an early, early early
17:41
Speaker 1: to go listen to it, Yeah, because I wanted to
17:43
Speaker 1: do that. It's probably not very good. Um, but your
17:46
Speaker 1: whole point of all this is to find people and
17:48
Speaker 1: to get rescued. Yeah. You make a great point about that. Yeah, Like,
17:52
Speaker 1: like the point of being lost in the desert is
17:54
Speaker 1: to make yourself visible. Yeah. The point of not being
17:57
Speaker 1: lost rather or being lost in finding rescue the key
18:00
Speaker 1: to being found, how about that? Right? So, if you
18:04
Speaker 1: are in a car. If your car is not working anymore,
18:06
Speaker 1: it's out of gas or whatever, flat tire, um, blow
18:10
Speaker 1: it up. Basically, stick a hanky in the gas tank
18:15
Speaker 1: and just blow it up. So you want to stick
18:17
Speaker 1: the hanky in the gas tank. You want to fashion
18:19
Speaker 1: a bow and arrow, light the arrow, stand back and
18:23
Speaker 1: shoot the cars gas tank. That's what you want to know.
18:27
Speaker 1: You want to open your hood, entiere rag to it,
18:29
Speaker 1: or a bandanna around your antenna or something, anything like
18:32
Speaker 1: a typical sign of distress. Um, if anything to make
18:36
Speaker 1: it like something's up here. Sure. Yeah, like even if
18:39
Speaker 1: the hood is fine, like you raise a hood as
18:41
Speaker 1: an indicator. Yeah, like if there's no engine trouble, right,
18:44
Speaker 1: you can still raise the hood. It's all right. Nobody's
18:47
Speaker 1: gonna like arrest you when they rescue you. Uh, if
18:51
Speaker 1: you can spell out UM S O S or something
18:54
Speaker 1: like that with help clothing or help on the ground,
18:57
Speaker 1: for if a helicopter or plane is nearby. Yeah, it's that.
19:00
Speaker 1: That woman in Arizona was rescued by writing help. I
19:04
Speaker 1: think that's actually how they found her. She wrote help
19:06
Speaker 1: in sticks. Oh really yep, nice her dog told her
19:10
Speaker 1: to do that. Stuff works. Uh, if you are in
19:14
Speaker 1: your car. You've got a leg up because you have
19:18
Speaker 1: your rear view mirror or your side view mirror that
19:21
Speaker 1: just just go ahead and break that thing off and
19:24
Speaker 1: use it. Yeah. I think we said in the first
19:27
Speaker 1: few minutes that we're trying to forget about now that
19:30
Speaker 1: you want to have a mirror in your survival pack
19:32
Speaker 1: no matter where wherever you're going hiking. Yeah, but a
19:35
Speaker 1: lot of people don't have survival packs in their car,
19:38
Speaker 1: like most people, I think. I mean, I don't know,
19:41
Speaker 1: I think about it. I've got like jumper cables and
19:43
Speaker 1: some rain cks. Does that you know after that last
19:49
Speaker 1: stupid Atlanta ice storm a few years ago that stranded
19:51
Speaker 1: people snow apocalypse? Yeah, I um, I think I had
19:57
Speaker 1: something in my car after that, but I have a
19:58
Speaker 1: different car now. It wasn't my but it was like
20:00
Speaker 1: some water and a blanket and some granola bars. I
20:03
Speaker 1: need to like stock up minded Emily's car with that stuff. Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: for sure, you never know. I think they just remember
20:09
Speaker 1: when we had some tornadoes in Atlanta a few years ago.
20:12
Speaker 1: You me and I were like, we really need like
20:13
Speaker 1: a crank radio and like all this stuff. We started together,
20:16
Speaker 1: and You're like, I wonder what's on TV before you're
20:21
Speaker 1: not you're watching the Japanese game shows. He'd forgotten, like
20:24
Speaker 1: eight hours go by. But a signal mirror is important,
20:28
Speaker 1: you know, you just uh flash that thing. It says
20:30
Speaker 1: here too. I was about to make fun of it,
20:32
Speaker 1: but I realized I wrote it. But practice on a
20:35
Speaker 1: nearby rock. I thought that was a good advice. I mean,
20:38
Speaker 1: you don't want your first attempt at signaling somebody with
20:41
Speaker 1: the mirror to be while you're trying to signal somebody
20:43
Speaker 1: in a passing aircraft. Probably so. And I mean like,
20:46
Speaker 1: if there's no cloud cover, you can get somebody at
20:49
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand feet if you do it right. So heck, yeah,
20:53
Speaker 1: practice on a rock. What else you're gonna do while
20:54
Speaker 1: you're sitting around in the shade. Nothing? Yeah, there might
20:57
Speaker 1: be a Delta pilot up there that's like, oh God,
20:59
Speaker 1: what is that? That's so annoying. You should have a
21:03
Speaker 1: whistle in your survival kit so you can blow it
21:05
Speaker 1: if you see someone from far away. And um, they
21:09
Speaker 1: recommend that if you honk your horn for help, to
21:13
Speaker 1: be like hunk, hunk honk, and then wait and honk
21:17
Speaker 1: honk honk, because if you just lay on it like
21:19
Speaker 1: you're if you're in traffic, someone might hear that and
21:22
Speaker 1: just think this car has this horn stuck. Yeah, there'll
21:24
Speaker 1: be like that's so annoying. I'm gonna continue on past
21:27
Speaker 1: this weird um path and death valley that no one
21:30
Speaker 1: should be down. So let's say horn is Let's say
21:35
Speaker 1: you are in your car, your car is is jacked
21:38
Speaker 1: up um, and you're like, all right, I've exhausted my resources. Here,
21:43
Speaker 1: screw this, i gotta go take a hike. Leave a
21:45
Speaker 1: note on your car and say like, hey, I'm broken
21:48
Speaker 1: down and I've gone northwest on at two a pm
21:52
Speaker 1: on Tuesday. Also, I'm Chuck Bryant, who hopefully you're looking
21:55
Speaker 1: for you found him. Check out my podcast Stuff you
21:57
Speaker 1: Should Know and a movie crush. Yeah, never miss an
22:02
Speaker 1: advertising opportunity. But if you do, stay with your car, Yeah, like,
22:07
Speaker 1: just don't sit around in your car, like sit in
22:08
Speaker 1: the shade. They even say to sit on a blanket. Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 1: The reason being is because there can be something like
22:13
Speaker 1: a thirty degree height temperature difference between the ground and
22:18
Speaker 1: the air above the ground. That's that's how barren and
22:21
Speaker 1: hot the ground gets, and it's It's not like the
22:24
Speaker 1: air above the ground is cool. It's still hot because
22:27
Speaker 1: the ground is heating it. But the ground itself is
22:29
Speaker 1: taking in all of that unbroken, unfiltered sunlight directly into it,
22:34
Speaker 1: holding as much as it can, and then shooting it
22:37
Speaker 1: back out is basically infrared heat um back into space
22:41
Speaker 1: through you. And if your butt is touching the ground
22:45
Speaker 1: through conduction, it's going to transfer directly to you, or
22:48
Speaker 1: is through the air, be going through convection from the
22:50
Speaker 1: air to your butt, which is not nearly as efficient
22:54
Speaker 1: as conduction. So don't sit directly on the ground. Even
22:57
Speaker 1: sitting on a rock is better than sitting on the ground.
23:00
Speaker 1: But ideally you want to find the shade that your
23:03
Speaker 1: car is producing, sure whether it's the hood that's up
23:06
Speaker 1: or or just the car itself or whatever, and sit
23:09
Speaker 1: in that shade as best you can. Get your feet
23:12
Speaker 1: off the ground, like you said, I think too, Yeah,
23:15
Speaker 1: and take off your shoes and socks, especially if you're
23:17
Speaker 1: hiking around um during your breaks. Uh. They also say
23:22
Speaker 1: to not to take off your clothes. Your instinct might
23:25
Speaker 1: be to take your clothes off, but um, those clothes
23:29
Speaker 1: you want them soaking up sweat because that'll cool you down. Um.
23:33
Speaker 1: And also you know you don't want to be you
23:35
Speaker 1: don't want to take your shirt off and also have
23:38
Speaker 1: like a third degree sunburn after day one either. I
23:41
Speaker 1: thought about that too. It's like that's I mean that
23:43
Speaker 1: that clothes that situation worse. Right, it's doing something to
23:47
Speaker 1: protect you from the UV, you know, I think it
23:49
Speaker 1: teases The average T shirt has like a SPF of
23:52
Speaker 1: four or something like that. That's better than nothing, better
23:55
Speaker 1: than nothing. Um. Also, chuck, if you are right, and
23:59
Speaker 1: I guess if like you're actually using this information we're
24:02
Speaker 1: giving you right now. First of all, good luck, we're
24:05
Speaker 1: pulling for you. Secondly, um, if you are going to
24:08
Speaker 1: take off your shoes, don't do it in the sun
24:10
Speaker 1: because just that exposure of your bare feet to the
24:12
Speaker 1: sunlight for that short of a time can make your
24:14
Speaker 1: feet swell and you might not be able to get
24:16
Speaker 1: your shoes back on, which if you do end up
24:19
Speaker 1: having to hoof it out of there, you want your shoes,
24:22
Speaker 1: You want your feet all swoll up. No, so take
24:25
Speaker 1: take your shoes off and let your dogs air out
24:27
Speaker 1: in the shade. Only make a little hat if you
24:30
Speaker 1: don't have one. Out of whatever you've got something in
24:33
Speaker 1: your car or something whatever. Like if you have a
24:36
Speaker 1: piece of cardboard, put it on your head. This is
24:39
Speaker 1: the greatest sentence. No, I love it? Are you really
24:44
Speaker 1: you didn't like this this article? Huh? I don't know.
24:47
Speaker 1: It's just sort of a reminder of darker days at
24:49
Speaker 1: this job. So may I read this? Sure, if you
24:53
Speaker 1: don't have a hat to wear, fashion a head covering
24:55
Speaker 1: with what you have on hand. You may look silly
24:57
Speaker 1: wearing a cardboard hat, but your goal is to vive,
25:00
Speaker 1: not win a beauty contest. And Lord, drink a liter
25:05
Speaker 1: of water per hour to stay properly. Know we cut
25:07
Speaker 1: out that part earlier because it didn't sound right. I mean,
25:09
Speaker 1: maybe that's if you have all the water in the world,
25:12
Speaker 1: but that just sounds like that's a lot of water.
25:14
Speaker 1: How you burn through your water? Uh? If your car
25:19
Speaker 1: is stuck and this actually happened to me once. I
25:22
Speaker 1: got a car stuck in the desert one time in
25:23
Speaker 1: the middle of the night with my friend when yeah,
25:27
Speaker 1: I got it out without deflating my tires. But they
25:30
Speaker 1: say if you're stuck in the sand, to deflate your
25:32
Speaker 1: tires just a little bit. Um. Don't like start goosing
25:36
Speaker 1: it because you're gonna dig yourself in more. Just apply
25:38
Speaker 1: like steady accelerator pressure and turn your wheels kind of
25:43
Speaker 1: back and forth a little bit, let a little bit
25:45
Speaker 1: of air and you might be able to get out
25:46
Speaker 1: of there. Yeah. Again, don't let a lot of air
25:48
Speaker 1: out because if you do get out, you still need
25:50
Speaker 1: to drive back home, and you don't want to do
25:53
Speaker 1: that on overly deflated tires. No, okay, Um, so if
26:00
Speaker 1: you're going to should we should we take a break?
26:02
Speaker 1: Now you think? Why not? Okay, We're gonna take a
26:05
Speaker 1: break everybody. There's there's a lot more to come. You're
26:07
Speaker 1: not toast yet because we have more stuff to tell
26:09
Speaker 1: you how to survive in the desert right after this.
26:37
Speaker 1: I really do love that sentence. That was a great sentence.
26:41
Speaker 1: There's one more in here. I can't wait to call out.
26:43
Speaker 1: So I'm sure I know what it is. Uh, should
26:46
Speaker 1: we talk about oaces? Sure? I mean it depends on
26:50
Speaker 1: where you are. But you know, the an oasis is
26:53
Speaker 1: just when wind has blown away enough sand that you
26:57
Speaker 1: get down to that groundwater. It's all in oasis is yeah,
27:01
Speaker 1: you know, like an aquifer. Yeah, imagine if there's nothing
27:03
Speaker 1: above the aquifer. Now you've got a lake boom. That's
27:07
Speaker 1: an oasis. Yeah, but they can they can be big
27:10
Speaker 1: enough and exposed enough that you can have this like
27:13
Speaker 1: lush oasis in the middle of the desert. There's really
27:16
Speaker 1: no better word for it. Yeah. And then you know, um,
27:20
Speaker 1: if you're in the Sahara Desert, like the communities form
27:23
Speaker 1: around these oases. There's one very large one called the
27:29
Speaker 1: Cargo Oasis that is a hundred miles long and depending
27:34
Speaker 1: on where you are, twelve to fifty miles wide. There's
27:37
Speaker 1: plenty big to hold small towns. Plenty big. It is,
27:44
Speaker 1: it is. I'm just laughing at this article. I can't
27:46
Speaker 1: believe I wrote this thing. I I really I value
27:49
Speaker 1: this laticle. This It was great, well written, well researched.
27:53
Speaker 1: This is when I was assigned, you know, your survival guy,
27:56
Speaker 1: and I wrote a lot of these. You know, we've
27:59
Speaker 1: covered a few of him on the show, but still
28:01
Speaker 1: plenty left. I thought these days were over. Uh. If
28:04
Speaker 1: you are hiking, the first thing they say is to
28:07
Speaker 1: walk slowly. You may your instinct maybe to get out
28:11
Speaker 1: of there fast and find help fast. Very good advice,
28:13
Speaker 1: but that's no good no, not only do you want
28:16
Speaker 1: to remind yourself to slow down, because that's what it takes.
28:20
Speaker 1: You're not gonna just walk slowly automatically. You're gonna be
28:24
Speaker 1: freaked out. So you have to stay calm and say
28:27
Speaker 1: I've got to walk slow and just take breaks every
28:30
Speaker 1: about ten minutes out of every hour, I think. Um,
28:33
Speaker 1: but if you're with a group you want to walk, Um,
28:37
Speaker 1: you want to set your pace by the slowest and
28:39
Speaker 1: least fit person in the group. Just everybody walk that slow.
28:43
Speaker 1: That person will help pace everybody else. Um, and it
28:46
Speaker 1: will keep that person from just dying trying to keep up,
28:50
Speaker 1: like literally dying trying to keep up. I mean everyone
28:52
Speaker 1: else has to be like cheez, Big Larry in the
28:54
Speaker 1: back is really holding us back. But Big Larry is
28:57
Speaker 1: probably walking at the right speed, right, which is slow. Yeah,
29:01
Speaker 1: at least for you, he's walking slow enough for you
29:04
Speaker 1: to slow you down. That's right. That's not a T shirt,
29:08
Speaker 1: but it's still true. Should we get to your favorite
29:10
Speaker 1: part of this, which is heat casualty. Yes, I know
29:14
Speaker 1: you've got some science on this, right, yes. Well, the
29:17
Speaker 1: three major categories are heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and then
29:21
Speaker 1: heat stroke in that order. Yeah, and heat cramps, or
29:25
Speaker 1: you know, you can get those on a hot afternoon
29:27
Speaker 1: if you're out playing frisbee, you can. And all of
29:30
Speaker 1: it comes down to it's just basically an escalating um
29:34
Speaker 1: imbalance between water and heat salt loss. So so like
29:39
Speaker 1: the electrical conduction in your muscles and all that from
29:43
Speaker 1: your heart to your legs is out of whack because
29:46
Speaker 1: you have lost a lot of water and you still
29:48
Speaker 1: have a higher salt concentration, or else you've lost a
29:50
Speaker 1: lot of salt and there's still enough water that you're
29:53
Speaker 1: you're just not your muscles aren't aren't working quite right,
29:55
Speaker 1: so they can cramp. Right if that happens, you say,
29:58
Speaker 1: drink like a power raid. If you got it, what
30:01
Speaker 1: are you sitting there holding onto it for in the
30:03
Speaker 1: first place. For if you're lost in the desert with
30:05
Speaker 1: a power aid, I mean fire it down. It's like
30:09
Speaker 1: I don't like blue purple. That's true. Um, So that's
30:14
Speaker 1: step one. If you have a power eid. If not,
30:17
Speaker 1: if you have some water, drink the water. The cramps
30:19
Speaker 1: are gonna go away. You can overcome um heat cramps
30:23
Speaker 1: pretty easily, it sounds like, But you want to stop rest,
30:25
Speaker 1: getting some shade stop moving, and a ten to the
30:28
Speaker 1: heat cramps for sure. Yeah, that may lead to heat
30:31
Speaker 1: exhaustion if you don't have water and this, like you said,
30:34
Speaker 1: it's just an escalation of that imbalance. Um, you may
30:38
Speaker 1: be irritable or feel weak or have a headache, or
30:42
Speaker 1: if you're vomiting and have nausea or clammy skin, then
30:45
Speaker 1: that's like heat exhaustion is seriously setting in. It is UM.
30:49
Speaker 1: And so again, like salt and electrolytes are really important
30:54
Speaker 1: to the electrical conduction in your body, and your body
30:57
Speaker 1: moves through electrical conduction. It's a big, big components. So
31:00
Speaker 1: if that's off, your body's off. But then if you're
31:03
Speaker 1: really in trouble, you're you enter into heat stroke. And
31:07
Speaker 1: this is the point where your body's system at getting
31:11
Speaker 1: rid of heat has been overwhelmed by the heat it's
31:14
Speaker 1: taking on and you're in big trouble. When that happens, basically,
31:18
Speaker 1: on a cellular level, your body is failing systemically because
31:24
Speaker 1: proteins aren't folding correctly in Proteins do just about everything
31:27
Speaker 1: there is to do in a cell. They're starting to
31:29
Speaker 1: clump up and get weird, and then cells are suddenly
31:31
Speaker 1: dying um. One of your body's main tricks at getting
31:37
Speaker 1: rid of heat is through convection, sending your hot blood
31:41
Speaker 1: to the surface of your skin, which is why if
31:44
Speaker 1: you go into a sauna, your your skin gets flushed.
31:47
Speaker 1: But also if you'll notice your heart is pumping, is
31:50
Speaker 1: beating really hard, even though you're just sitting there, you're
31:52
Speaker 1: in the heat. And the reason why it's your heart
31:54
Speaker 1: is working overtime shooting blood out to your skin to
31:58
Speaker 1: get rid of heat so that your body can cool down.
32:01
Speaker 1: It's using your blood is a heat transfer mechanism, amazing,
32:05
Speaker 1: and your heart actually speeds up. You're actually pumping out
32:08
Speaker 1: up to eight leads a minute of blood, more than
32:12
Speaker 1: your heart usually pumps out when you're starting to enter
32:15
Speaker 1: heat strokes. So it's a big deal. Yeah, I would
32:18
Speaker 1: imagine that would put you in danger of cardiac arrest. Yes,
32:21
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the results of that whole
32:23
Speaker 1: thing of severe heat stroke, so bad headaches, very dizzy, nausea, vomiting,
32:30
Speaker 1: your muscles might be spasm ing. That heart rate like
32:33
Speaker 1: you were talking about, is way high, and you may
32:35
Speaker 1: be full on hallucinating at this point, or you may
32:39
Speaker 1: fall unconscious like heat stroke is no joke. Um, so
32:43
Speaker 1: you gotta find shade fast, which is I mean, that's
32:45
Speaker 1: the biggest part of our biggest challenge in desert survival
32:48
Speaker 1: is finding shade. You know, there's just nowhere, but the
32:52
Speaker 1: big rock can be your shade exactly, like whatever, it
32:55
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, just fine shade because the difference between shade
32:58
Speaker 1: and sunlight in the desert is substantial. Yeah, and they
33:02
Speaker 1: like if you have any water, like, now is the time.
33:05
Speaker 1: This is when you're found dead with your canteen full
33:07
Speaker 1: of half full of water because you're like, no, like,
33:10
Speaker 1: I still I'm a day away from finding help. Right,
33:12
Speaker 1: you have no idea how far you're Yeah, like, this
33:14
Speaker 1: is go time to save your life. But also, if
33:17
Speaker 1: you have any cool compresses, put them in your armpits,
33:20
Speaker 1: put them in your groin. Yeah, um, do whatever you
33:23
Speaker 1: can do cool cool yourself down. If you have any
33:27
Speaker 1: cool compresses left over from the party around the campfire
33:29
Speaker 1: the night before apparently, yeah, you're like, if I can
33:32
Speaker 1: only cool down, Oh wait a minute, I have a
33:34
Speaker 1: frozen compress I can put in my crutch. Um. They
33:39
Speaker 1: are all kinds of animals in the desert that can
33:41
Speaker 1: be dangerous. Um. Whether it's spiders, um tran Chillas are
33:47
Speaker 1: scary looking, but they're probably not gonna kill you. Yeah,
33:50
Speaker 1: they don't really care about you. They don't want to
33:52
Speaker 1: bite you and knew what they do bite you. It's
33:53
Speaker 1: like a stupid tranchila. Yeah, I mean, none of these
33:55
Speaker 1: things wanna find you like you will find these brown
33:59
Speaker 1: reclue is in black widows, under rocks or under brush
34:03
Speaker 1: or something like that. So don't go reaching in there.
34:06
Speaker 1: Don't go reaching in some hole like Timothy Dalton and
34:09
Speaker 1: Flash Gordon. You know what hole did he reach into?
34:13
Speaker 1: You saw Flash Gordon? Right? No, the old one. No,
34:16
Speaker 1: you should probably enjoy that. I didn't realize that was
34:18
Speaker 1: Timothy Dalton in there. I thought it was a blonde guy. Well,
34:21
Speaker 1: he played Flash Gordon, but Timothy Dalton played the bad guy,
34:25
Speaker 1: one of the bad guys. But there was a challenge
34:28
Speaker 1: where they had to stick their hand in this big
34:29
Speaker 1: hole and there was a stinging creature inside this blob.
34:34
Speaker 1: It sounds like that Joe Rogan show. What was they called,
34:38
Speaker 1: You mean the Joe Rogan podcast. No, No, it's the
34:41
Speaker 1: Fear Factor. Remember Fear Factor. I used to like that show.
34:44
Speaker 1: That was a good show. I could never have done
34:46
Speaker 1: that show though, because of the stuff you eat. Yeah,
34:49
Speaker 1: there was some gross stuff. That's where I just I
34:51
Speaker 1: was like, I can do all that stuff, but I
34:53
Speaker 1: can't eat that. I can't eat gross things. You could
34:55
Speaker 1: have done everything else though, well, I mean to a
34:57
Speaker 1: certain degree, but yeah, there's no way I could eat
35:01
Speaker 1: eat those nasty things. Yeah, you'd probably have an easier
35:04
Speaker 1: time with that than me. Um. I don't know, man,
35:06
Speaker 1: I think that would be pretty disgusting. On top of
35:09
Speaker 1: that though, like doing things like sticking my hand in something,
35:12
Speaker 1: or having like a box full of like spiders put
35:15
Speaker 1: over my head or scorpions or whatever, I could do
35:17
Speaker 1: that I would not. I mean, like for what to
35:22
Speaker 1: be on TV? Well, exactly, all right, beat on TV?
35:26
Speaker 1: Is it so great everybody? No, it's not. It's cracked
35:28
Speaker 1: up to be certainly not where the box of scorpions
35:30
Speaker 1: on your head? Speaking of scorpions, there are thirty different types,
35:34
Speaker 1: more than thirty different types of scorpions and just Arizona,
35:38
Speaker 1: so uh, and they're all over the place, you know,
35:41
Speaker 1: They're in Georgia and in the mountains in the woods
35:44
Speaker 1: of Georgia have very few of them are poisonous. Nah,
35:47
Speaker 1: not very many at all. I think a couple of
35:49
Speaker 1: them can actually kill a person with their venom um
35:52
Speaker 1: by stinging you with that tail. They'll still hurt you though,
35:55
Speaker 1: Just don't go near the scorpions. Yeah, I mean you
35:57
Speaker 1: can get sick from any of these. Is like, a
36:00
Speaker 1: black widow is probably not gonna kill you either. No,
36:02
Speaker 1: but if you're already like in danger of something like
36:05
Speaker 1: he stroke exactly, a black widow bite is not going
36:09
Speaker 1: to help, and it's going to be exacerbated tremendously. No.
36:14
Speaker 1: But if you do get stung or bitten by something
36:16
Speaker 1: like that, and if you don't have that cool compress
36:20
Speaker 1: and your crutch, use that cool compress around the biters sting. Ye,
36:24
Speaker 1: don't elevate it. Yeah, that's a big one. Sure. You
36:28
Speaker 1: also want to put it kind of a loose turning
36:29
Speaker 1: kid around it. You want to be able to fit
36:31
Speaker 1: one finger in the turnikud so tight ish, I guess
36:34
Speaker 1: there's a way to put it. Yeah, and again get
36:36
Speaker 1: in the shade, wash it off with some soap and
36:38
Speaker 1: water if you have it, and then just dump that
36:40
Speaker 1: water all over the ground. This is used up. Uh,
36:46
Speaker 1: And then we have snakes rattle snakes and coral snakes
36:51
Speaker 1: are going to be your biggest danger. And remember coral
36:54
Speaker 1: snakes are red, yellow and black. And there's a very
36:57
Speaker 1: helpful saying, red touches yellow and harm a fellow, red
37:02
Speaker 1: touches black. Make it a snack. No red touches black.
37:09
Speaker 1: It's okay for Jack. And this raises my second favorite sentence.
37:13
Speaker 1: Oh no, just remember you're Jack in this scenario. It's
37:18
Speaker 1: okay for Jack now. And then finally, I think we
37:28
Speaker 1: sound drunk. We're not. Um. There are lizards, um, specifically
37:37
Speaker 1: the do you say HeLa monster or Gila monster? I
37:40
Speaker 1: think it's Heila. I think it's a British sayguila and
37:43
Speaker 1: the wrong right they say aluminum. Um. So the Gila
37:47
Speaker 1: monster and the Mexican beaded lizard um the beat. It
37:52
Speaker 1: is only in Mexico and Guatemala, but you can find
37:56
Speaker 1: those gilas in the in the US of A. Those
37:59
Speaker 1: are big, daddy though. Yeah, they get up to like
38:02
Speaker 1: two feet I think. And this is actually my favorite sentence.
38:06
Speaker 1: So I'm talking here about the Mexican beaded white to
38:09
Speaker 1: yellow spots and stripes on their raised scales. It's about
38:12
Speaker 1: a foot long. I described the Geela monster, and they say, however,
38:15
Speaker 1: if you see a two foot long lizard coming in
38:16
Speaker 1: your direction, maybe you should just walk the other way.
38:20
Speaker 1: Sound advice. I thought you were joking when you picked
38:24
Speaker 1: this article. No, I think it's a good article. I
38:27
Speaker 1: don't understand why you're being so hard on yourself. All right,
38:30
Speaker 1: this last part is legitimately interesting. I think the fact
38:34
Speaker 1: of the podcast is contained in here, like the uncontented
38:39
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, no, it's your fact, it's not my fact.
38:44
Speaker 1: All right. Two big other dangers to other big dangers
38:47
Speaker 1: or sandstorms and flash floods. Sandstorms can be very fast
38:53
Speaker 1: or they can last for a long time. They can
38:56
Speaker 1: last weeks in the Middle East. But if you're driving,
38:58
Speaker 1: you don't want to drive through a stands to pull
39:00
Speaker 1: over and like put on your hazards, roll up your windows. Yeah,
39:03
Speaker 1: why did you say turn off your headlights? Do you
39:04
Speaker 1: remember that? I get why you put on your hazards,
39:07
Speaker 1: But why turn off your headlights? Is it because you
39:08
Speaker 1: don't want to wear your battery out? Maybe? I think so, Okay, yeah,
39:12
Speaker 1: that would be my guess, because I didn't know if
39:13
Speaker 1: maybe that created an electrical conductivity or something, and lead
39:18
Speaker 1: to lightning maybe, And if you're hiking around and there's
39:21
Speaker 1: a sandstorm, then try and tie something or pull your
39:24
Speaker 1: shirt up over your face. But on those sunnies, um,
39:28
Speaker 1: they say, if you have spare water, wet the cloth
39:31
Speaker 1: before you put it over your face, and then I'm
39:34
Speaker 1: granting you the fact of the pith. Let's talk about
39:37
Speaker 1: flash flooding. Flash floods because the desert does not absorb
39:41
Speaker 1: water very easily. Um, because it's basically bedrock, and water
39:45
Speaker 1: doesn't go into bedrock easy. Um. Like, if it rains,
39:49
Speaker 1: it rains hard, and it rains fast, and a substantial
39:52
Speaker 1: amount comes down and it collects very quickly because it
39:55
Speaker 1: has nowhere to go and can create what are known
39:57
Speaker 1: as flash floods. Because of this, more people drown in
40:02
Speaker 1: the desert than die of thirst. That's what they say.
40:06
Speaker 1: That is an amazing fact. That's one of the most
40:09
Speaker 1: amazing facts I've ever heard in my life. It really is. Um.
40:12
Speaker 1: And then what was the James Franco movie The True
40:15
Speaker 1: Story where he was, yeah, like there was a flash
40:18
Speaker 1: flight in that right, I don't remember, I think so.
40:20
Speaker 1: I feel like he was it rained and he was like,
40:22
Speaker 1: oh thank god, it's raining and then the water just
40:24
Speaker 1: started rising really fast around because he was in a gully.
40:27
Speaker 1: But if you like, don't camp out overnight in a
40:30
Speaker 1: dry creek bed, because it is no joke. It can
40:33
Speaker 1: it can happen really fast. And I was driving through
40:36
Speaker 1: New Mexico once on my big out west trip post college,
40:40
Speaker 1: and my friend and I drove through the most lacious
40:44
Speaker 1: storm I've ever seen in my life. Um, and we
40:48
Speaker 1: literally saw water running flowing uphill and I was like,
40:55
Speaker 1: am I seeing things? And he's like, no, dude, He's like,
40:57
Speaker 1: that is definitely uphill. Water was flowing up hill some how. Yeah,
41:02
Speaker 1: I guess it was just so much of it. But
41:04
Speaker 1: we drove through it until we saw um in front
41:08
Speaker 1: of us, uh, telephone polls like down in the on
41:12
Speaker 1: the highway, like all in front of us were like,
41:14
Speaker 1: I think we should probably pull over at this point, right,
41:17
Speaker 1: And we waited out, but they're usually pretty quick. It's
41:19
Speaker 1: not like it does this for like days like it
41:21
Speaker 1: does in Atlanta. It was like like thirty minutes of rain, right,
41:24
Speaker 1: But but it can be inches and inches of water
41:28
Speaker 1: and again, like six inches can pick up a car
41:31
Speaker 1: and carry it away. It can certainly pick you up
41:34
Speaker 1: off of your feet. And there's plenty of stories about
41:37
Speaker 1: people being drowned in canyons and Petra Jordan's the very
41:41
Speaker 1: famous archaeological site. People like every ten twelve years, like
41:46
Speaker 1: a couple of dozen people will suddenly drown in a
41:49
Speaker 1: flash flood because they were totally unprepared and in the
41:52
Speaker 1: wrong place when it just the sky just opened up
41:54
Speaker 1: on them. So it definitely does happen, for sure. Yeah,
41:57
Speaker 1: the good The plus thing about the desert with understorm says, uh,
42:01
Speaker 1: you see it coming from a long way away, like
42:03
Speaker 1: it's they happened fast, but it's just so wide open
42:06
Speaker 1: out there. Like we remember driving for like an hour
42:09
Speaker 1: and a half towards this storm. I was like, man,
42:11
Speaker 1: that looks pretty bad up there. And the closer we
42:13
Speaker 1: got and then it was just like, you know, hell
42:17
Speaker 1: had been unleashed on us. So what do you do?
42:19
Speaker 1: Did you like drive to higher ground or now we
42:21
Speaker 1: we just kind of just pulled off to the side
42:23
Speaker 1: of the road and waited like half an hour and
42:26
Speaker 1: then it lightened up. But it was crazy. Yeah, it
42:28
Speaker 1: was pretty scary. I mean not being in a car,
42:30
Speaker 1: but just seeing how like the debt it went from
42:33
Speaker 1: sand to feeling like we were in a river in
42:35
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes. That's crazy. Glad you made it, Chuck,
42:39
Speaker 1: you survived to write this article, which was a good article. UM.
42:44
Speaker 1: If you want to see this article yourself in person,
42:46
Speaker 1: go to house stuff works dot com and type in
42:48
Speaker 1: Desert Survival by one Chuck Bryant and you will agree
42:52
Speaker 1: with me. It's a good article. And since I said
42:54
Speaker 1: that it's time for listener mail, hey, guys, listen to
42:59
Speaker 1: Central Park episode and really enjoyed it. The content was
43:02
Speaker 1: spot on as always, But Josh made a comment about
43:04
Speaker 1: the podcast being too conversational. I think this is a
43:08
Speaker 1: really appropriate listener mail. What funny is that? Um? I
43:12
Speaker 1: think the conversational aspect is one of the most special
43:14
Speaker 1: things about it. Guys. The banter between you two makes
43:16
Speaker 1: me pause for thought and oftentimes laugh. As an educational podcast,
43:21
Speaker 1: I think having dialogue and debate about these subjects is
43:23
Speaker 1: important in my own household. Stuff you should know is
43:25
Speaker 1: very important part of our lives. UM. I introduced it
43:28
Speaker 1: to my boyfriend almost three years ago and it has
43:30
Speaker 1: taken a special place in our relationship. For two years
43:33
Speaker 1: we were long distance, myself in Canada and him in Sweden. Wow. Uh,
43:38
Speaker 1: And we would download episodes when traveling. It always gives
43:42
Speaker 1: us something to talk about and keep the conversation going.
43:44
Speaker 1: Makes this laugh together, and we even sing the jingles. Uh.
43:48
Speaker 1: My favorite is the opera version, much to his dismay. Uh,
43:52
Speaker 1: my favorite episode is the Golden Age of Gray rob
43:55
Speaker 1: Grave Robbing, which makes me laugh so much that I
43:59
Speaker 1: had to put it on that. I still like to
44:00
Speaker 1: put it on when I'm having a bad day. That
44:03
Speaker 1: was great. I loved hearing that was the live one
44:05
Speaker 1: right from London. That's right. I once joked that I
44:08
Speaker 1: would sell my dog, my first dog, for a ticket
44:11
Speaker 1: to one of your live shows. You don't have to
44:13
Speaker 1: do that. You can exchange money instead, That's right. Or Stacy,
44:17
Speaker 1: if we're coming to a town near you, give us
44:20
Speaker 1: an email. Yeah, I'll put you on the old list.
44:23
Speaker 1: Just threatened to sell your dog and we'll get you
44:25
Speaker 1: in for free. Guys, thanks so much for giving us
44:29
Speaker 1: a jumping off point for more conversation and debate. Please
44:32
Speaker 1: give a shout out to my boyfriend Jeff Um. Sorry
44:35
Speaker 1: Jeff that I got on listener mail before you. Yeah
44:38
Speaker 1: take that, Jeff. Yeah, that is Stacy Coombs The only
44:41
Speaker 1: way that that could get any more appropriate is if
44:46
Speaker 1: this episode comes out and Jeff is lost in the debtsert.
44:49
Speaker 1: I hope that didn't happen. I hope so too, But
44:51
Speaker 1: I mean that that would really round out this episode,
44:53
Speaker 1: don't you think. Yeah, but Jeff, if you're out there
44:56
Speaker 1: to look for an RV, Ben Sinclair might be inside,
44:59
Speaker 1: I'll probably give you some weet uh thank you, Jeff
45:03
Speaker 1: and Stacy and Stacy's unnamed dog who's not for sale.
45:07
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, you
45:08
Speaker 1: can go to our website stuff you Should Know dot
45:10
Speaker 1: com and check out all of our social links there,
45:13
Speaker 1: and you can also send us an email to stuff
45:15
Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. Stuff you Should
45:21
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
45:23
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,