Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Lessons Learned from Global Expeditions with Clay Croft

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Lessons Learned from Global Expeditions with Clay Croft · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I'm here with my good buddy, business
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: partner travel mate currently going through Africa, Clay Cross. Hello, everybody,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: thanks for being on the episode with Maclay.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Where are we at right now? Somewhere in central Let's
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: see at the map for hair. Yeah, you can say
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: we're in Central Republic of Congo.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we are recording this podcast from the Congo.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: From the Congo, which sounds awesome and it is awesome
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and totally appropriate to this conversation. So what I kind
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of You've been on the podcast quite a few times.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We've always talked about your trips are the things that
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: are coming up, and we did a great podcast with
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Rachelle and you, and then we did another one after
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you guys acquired Overland Journal and Expedition Portal. And so
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: it's either been about specific trips or it's been about
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Rachelle and you together. But I'd like to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the lessons that you've learned
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: on all of your expeditions, not only as a traveler
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: but also as a storyteller filmmaker. And then you also
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: have been integral in the components of preparing these vehicles
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: for these trips. So I think that there's a lot
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that people can take away on, like the philosophy of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: how and why ex Overland builds the vehicles the way
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that we that you do and that we do. Now,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: so maybe we'll just start off with a couple of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: your favorite adventures that you've been on. What are some
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: things when you look back, like this place was amazing.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Sent South America has always been one of my go
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to memories of fondness, and I think it was because
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of the diversity of the land. I'm a mountain guy.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I love mountains, big mountains, a yeah, and you go
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: through lots of different types of big mountains and ferent stages.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: So you would get jungle, then you get mountains, then
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: you get more jungle and some desert, and then more
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: mountains and then you know, So I think I like
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: that part of it. The culture. You know, I understand
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a very little amount of Espanol, but I know that's
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the second language that I know the most in so
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: like I think, you know, I was able to communicate
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a little bit more with others, not like I was
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: currently trying to speak French, which basically evolves be saying
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I don't speak French. I don't speak French, and I
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: have to remember all the time how to say I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: don't speak French. It just like does not program you
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: should you hear? That just sounds just gibberish. I don't
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: understand how that is a language. I could probably speak
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Swahili's faster than I could speak That would be cool
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: this week speak. I've got a lot of memory, is
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: of different of lots of trips. Like sometimes I go,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: holy caw, I can't keep them all straight anymore because
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: of the sometimes at the rate of which the trips
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: are coming, or the places that we've seen. But I think,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I have really fond memories of the Alaska trips.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: There's just something magical about Alaska. It's really low key.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You know, your danger is around, you know, grizzly bears
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and the weather and everything else is just a lot
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: of fun. And even the danger parts are fun, you know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: pretty pretty mild.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, unlikely, I guess that makes that makes a lot
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of sense. And you know you've you've crossed Asia through Russia,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you have spent a lot of time in South America.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, one of the first big trips that you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and I did was when we went all the way
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: down to Ashuaia together, and you scent have since gone
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: back to South America again. So thinking about the fact
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that you've crossed all these continents, you've done all these
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: big expeditions, and you're about ready to connect where you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: came north up through Namibia with where we're at in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the Congo, which will complete a circumnavigation of the planet
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: for you on the latitudes, which is an amazing feat.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: What are some things that you have taken away about
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: how you've changed as a traveler, or things maybe like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: words of advice or wisdom that you can share with
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the audience about things that you've learned, maybe things that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you've changed your mind on. You're like, oh, wow, I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: used to hold this opinion really tightly and now I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: think something different.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: That's a good question, because I've certainly changed over the years.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: When I was a young traveler, like twenty twenty one,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I was all about the adventure, of course, but then
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: trying to trying to soak into the culture really fast
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and try to get up to speed really quick on
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: wherever I was. I don't do that so much anymore.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I kind of let things come and go more on
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the on the culture side, And I think it's more
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: because trying to adapt yourself to a culture extremely fast
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: is really taxing on you. It's okay that you have
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: your ways and they have their ways. And I used
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: to feel guilty about that, you know, because you'll hear
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: you'll hear travelers say that, oh well, you should always
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: change your mind about the world as you travel. Well,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: sometimes not all the time. You know, sometimes you might
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: have it right and they've got it wrong, or your
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: way of doing it. Even when it comes down to
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: certain food or whatever. You might like yours more and
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: they might like, there's more, and I just leave it
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: at that, you know, instead of like, oh, yeah, maybe
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I should have to change with the way I think
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: all the time. Yeah. Now, on the flip side of that,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I have learned to change a lot of things, you know.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So there was always and still is in travel that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that push and pull of what you think and what
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: you're experiencing and what you're seeing and what you've previously thought.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: So I guess all that to say is I have
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: come let myself have a little more grace with how
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: all of that comes at me and the things that
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I feel inside and think, I just kind of let
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: it roll around versus like trying to solve it inside myself.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Like what a great example of that being the Congo,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Like it has been one of the highlights of the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: trip for me.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: The roads are incredible.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're recording a podcast on a great new
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: road in the in the Congo, We're able to report
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: record a podcast because we're not dodging potholes and you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: in four load digging through deep mud to try to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: get through the Congo.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: It's not that way anymore. It's changed.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And how friendly the people are and like it's just
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: not what I expected in.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: All of these positive ways.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Well, and also it kind of makes me think about,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact that you have seen so many
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: different parts of the world, do you now realize like
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: maybe what it is that is the biggest draw for
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you as travel? Like what what in travel keeps pulling
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you back?
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Like what about it?
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Is it the teamwork, is it the scenery, is it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the culture or what is it that really keeps pulling
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: you back to hopping into Toyota and go in some
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: crazy place on the planet.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I really just like moving. Even when I'm at home,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I get stir crazy pretty quick. So just the the
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: privilege of being able to move a lot is what
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I love about overlanding. I will I like to stay
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: at a campsite for a day or two, rarely three
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: have I ever stayed. I want to. I want to
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: move again and keep seeing stuff. So that always draws
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: me to the act of overlanding, getting in a truck
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and leaving and moving a lot of novelty. You're always
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: experiencing a new challenge. Yeah, and I like seeing new stuff.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It's pretty stimulating to like, oh, what's that, what's this?
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: You know, like this trip has been the windshield TV
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: is pretty fascinating. You know. It's like there's stuff coming
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: at you all the time, and that, you know, that's
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: kind of addicting that this to keep having that stimulation
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: curiosity drives me around. Now, like the trip right now
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: and where we are. We're driving through, you know, a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: small village right now. It's pretty it's pretty dirty, it's
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: run down. People are happy and all that, and life
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: goes on. But I mean, this isn't like the place
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: that I would come to hang out, you know. But
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: It is a great place to move through and experience
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: and see and and take from, learn from and get
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to somewhere else that is relaxing. This place is not
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: relaxing to me, yea.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Whereas like when we were in Mauritania and we went
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: out to Chinguetti and we went through the desert through
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the Sahara, like that was just like I felt alive
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: out in the desert because we're in these vehicles that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: are made for this. They're literally I'm trying not to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: run into a motorcyclist here right now in the town.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And all of that give and take of it, you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: like you kind of go through areas that you don't
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: like as much, but then you get to the sweet
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: spots like we were up there and then and then
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: it turns to magic and you've got to have the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: highs and the lows to make it all an amazing experience,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: you know, experience, a complete experience. And so when we
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: plan this trip and we knew that we were going
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to be going through the West in West Africa, we
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: knew what we were getting into. And we're in it
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: right now and I'm having a great time. But I
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want to be here forever.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, or maybe not even a place you'd
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: come back to necessarily.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would come back here with a mission of
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: some kind. It wouldn't come back here for other reasons,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: at least right now. You know. Of course, life might
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: change that. Who knows how this place will look in
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: twenty years or so. Absolutely well.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: That also leads me to the question of how do
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you feel like it's changed you as a person, Like,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: how has clay Croft changed because of all of these
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: experiences that you've had and the unique I think adventures
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: and challenges that you've overcome. How's that changed you as
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a leader? How's it changed you as a creative?
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: As a dad? May so, I think of travel as
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: what do they call you know, like when you get
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: thrown in what is it that? It's like a media.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: You put rocks in there and it polishes rocks. What
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: is that? What's that thing? Like a tumbler? Yeah, travel
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: is like a tumbler. You throw yourself in this thing
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and it rounds Travel just rounds out the corners of you.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It exposes your biases for good or bad. It exposes
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: your personal weaknesses and personal strengths too. And when when
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: those things are exposed. It helps you like double down
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: on something and say, oh, this is good about me,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: or it makes you say, oh, I need to work
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: on this, you know. Like one of the things that
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I was working on and still work on and it
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: probably will for the rest of my life, is just
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: trying not to be a passive aggressive person when I
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: get down. You know, when we were calling at the
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: dark ages of the visas in the north there, you know,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: that was a slow time, bureaucratic, and it was it
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: just wasn't fun, you know, necessary, but not the fun part.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And so I'm like, oh, man, as much as I
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: try not to do this, as much as I tell
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: my boys don't be passive aggressive, inside I am, you know.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And so all right, I got more work to do,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: you know, and I can't bring that to the guys
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and your or to myself. Yeah, get a little more
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: gentle on yourself.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I definitely have not been as gentle on myself as
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I should have been on this trip. I was just
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: felt like I was like, man, I should do this different,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: or I should be doing more of this, or why
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: am I feeling tired?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Same way? And I think that is the intensity of
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: this tumbler, you know, huge miles being close to each
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: other everybody for We're going to be pushing eighty five
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: days by the time we leave on this one. Sure,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: sleep has been interesting. We're getting pulled over for police
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: right now, police checkpoints.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: We might have to pause this little adventure for a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: second while we provide passports and everything else.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: So to that point, I've been patients. I feel like
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I'm a pretty patient person, but this has this has
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: pushed my patience on a few things, like the what
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: we might be experiencing right now. They take our passports
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: and they go and they write them in a book
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: for what they take pictures of it. Yeah, last time
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: we were at a police stationed giving passports and we
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: were there for an hour while he wrote things down
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and then took pictures of the passport. And you go,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: why can't you just take a picture of the passport?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Let us go and you write it all down later.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: That's right. Well, we sat there in the dark, corn
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: see if Kirks should make this happen. Yeah, you go, Kurt.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is a great example like of the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: like we kind of got to be like water.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: We've got to kind of flow with.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: The challenges that come out, and then you can also
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: hear the kids laughing and having fun in the background.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: That kind of makes it a little easier.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Looks like they just knock some fruit under the tree.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Kurt's in the back handle, and the police letting them
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: know where we're going, what we're doing.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I think that for me, travel has in the most cases,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it's taught me that like that internal calm and like
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to be at peace even when there's a lot of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: chaos around me. That's probably been one of my biggest
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: takeaways from travel, just not letting. And then you come
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: back home when things are a thousand times easier and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: what used to be a drama or chaos or whatever,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, whatever, it's fine.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And you know, we live in a world back in
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the United States. We live in a place where we
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: have built a lot of systems that allow us to
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: control our life down to the hour, down to the minute,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: as if we want. And you know, you've got Google calling,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Google alerts this and that here. That was an adjustment
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I think part of the West Africa, and you knew
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: you were going into it, and then it all happens.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Anything that you plan on wanting to do. You should
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: be held, like you said, with an absolute loose hands,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: because you have no idea if it's going to work,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: and most of the time it doesn't. We've been we've
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: been set back. See. We were saying that I think
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: you a couple of months ago that we are for
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: you to go. It's not that the worst case scenarios
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: have happened, thank goodness, they have not, but the hard
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: case scenario continue to have this right West Africa is tough.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I remember I remember Graham and Luisa Bell, you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and these are these people traveled for a decade, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and they're like.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: That's one of the hardest things they've ever done. So
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the tumblr of travel here is really rounded me out.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: This is the longest I've ever been gone. It's nice
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: to have Cyrus and all my best friends around me,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: but I've been away from Rochelle and then my other
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: two boys for the long almost the longest I've ever
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: been gone.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Where day like day fifty are managing that. What are
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: some things that you're doing that maybe other travelers can
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: learn from about, like how to stay connected with your
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: family and your with your kids because your sons are
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: so important to you, I see it the whole.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Time that I've known you. Yeah, I think we did
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of prep work on the front end of this.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: We talked a lot about being gone. We talked a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: lot about soaking up the moments and having the family
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: dinners and doing the family thing before we left. That
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: helped with this gap in time being away from each other.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: We were Cyrus and I both talked about being afraid
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of how homesick we might actually get, and I haven't
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: been homesick, And Cyrus told me yesterday is like, I
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: don't really think I've been homesick either, and he was
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: actually pretty pretty worried about it. So whatever that preparation
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that we did in the front end seems to have
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: helped a lot mentally prepped for it. That we're a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: band of brothers, so there is a sense of family.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Like you said, these are people that you've known, Like
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I've known you for fifteen years. You've known Kirk about
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that same length of time. Like these are really long
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: term relationships. So we know we've got each other's back
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and that that is something about you get from family,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: is that feeling like someone they know you, they know
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: all your they know all your faults, but they love
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you anyways.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: That's pretty nice. I also think I compartmentalize it, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I just tell myself, I like, right now, we still
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: have like three weeks to go, I don't even think
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: about home. I don't even think about going home. I
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: tried to do that, like the last day before I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: go home, you know. And I think over the years,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I've gotten better at that, and I've also recognized that
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: that is just part of my survival mentality a little bit.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: When we're out here doing it. If you're already inundated
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: by so many things, the stress of the road, working
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: on yourself, your friendships, and not great sleep, food, weirdness,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: sometimes being sick here and there, there's already so much
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: happening and going on, like to add the pressure of home,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I kind of shut it off. And I think we're
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: also a family that's very independent, So I think that
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: really helps. Shelley can run off for a month and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: exactly she's fine, you know.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: And I think it really helps that Rachelle is such
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a global traveler as well and a strong leader and independent,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: so she's just not she understands what you're going through.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: She knows exactly what you're doing. And like even in
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the conversations that I've had with her around work stuff,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it's like she gets it. She's like, it is so
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: hard to get any big projects done while you're traveling.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: You can keep up with emails and you know, send
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: responses or little pieces of information back to the team
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: or decisions or whatever, but anything else forget it so hard.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I think that's also part of why I've done so
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: well in that field of the travel right now, is
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: because the team back home is so capable of crushing
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: it that you know, the home base is good, you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: so it has allowed me to like mentally stay here
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: better than ever. Early days when we were doing well.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: The earliest days, it was kind of simple because the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: business was simple and we just we went and shot
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the movie, we put it out and that was it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Now it's way more complex, but there was a middle
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: ground in there where we were trying to grow business
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: and do all the things travel and it was really hairy.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: And I would say that was starting in like the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Nordic series and Africa won. That was the most intense
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: time to be away and also be doing business and
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: pulled in a hundred directions at once. Thankfully we're not
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: there anymore for now.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, businesses growing ebbs and flows, that's right. And it
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: is a difficult way to travel. I mean, I think
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: about when I was doing East Africa, I would need
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to stop every four days. I would stop for an
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: extra day so I could sit and work for about
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: twelve or fourteen hours for that one day, just to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: try to.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Get caught up with what I needed to do.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And because of the team that we have now and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're all under one house, I don't
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: have to worry about a lot of that stuff right now,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So it allows me to focus on the things that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I'm contributing to the expedition, and that's rare so and.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I feel so much less stressed.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I mean probably thirty to fifty percent less stress than
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I felt in any.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Other trip while you were with me on seven.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I was the CEO of the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: business and the expedition leader of a very fast moving
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: complex operation with very high expectations.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: So that was watched you work through that, and it
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: was a very intense time. You had to have everything
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: perfect all the time, and that that's just so taxing.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I felt like I held my breath for about three
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and a half years. But how blessed are we that, like,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that's not what we're dealing with right now, we're able
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to really be in it. And the reality is is
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that we've had some genuine, like even security issues through Nigeria.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: You know, there's those who are listening. You'll remember, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the posturing from President Trump around Nigeria and security there
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and possibly military action, and we were there right in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the middle of all of it. So we were really
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: had to be focused on where we traveled, how we traveled,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in the safety of the group, and that adds a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: lot to it. So I'm glad we didn't have all
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that other stuff to be worried about at the same time, we.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Would have had to say no to something like you
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: can't carry all of it, it would have just dropped
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: because you have to focus on the next priority, which
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: was our security and driving through Nigeria at that time, sure,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: which is a super intense place. It was.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: The traffic alone was one of the most insane that
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I've ever experienced. So well, So, how do you think
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: now that you've done how many series APEX series have
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you guys put out.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: To the World so far is this season seven? I
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: think this is season seven or season at seven.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: So this new one, the Milestones Expedition, which covers explain
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to the to the listener, like what is the milestone,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: what's the overall goal of the Milestones Expedition? Where it
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: was the general route for it?
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Sure? So the Milestones Expedition is based off of three
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: big factors, the primary being that X Overland will complete
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: a circumnavigation of the globe via the latitudes. The second
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: would be that we're testing a product from Mobile I
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: that will allow us to drive twenty five thousand miles
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: on a single oil change and where the proving ground
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: through the harshest conditions to make sure that that statement
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: is true. Third is testing the new Trail Hunter Ta
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: comas on a really large grand scale for their reliability
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: and durability, especially in the Trail Hunter. Yeah, and they're loaded.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I we have the expedition weight, expedition weight, bunch of water,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: YEP tools and spars.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Fully built out campter systems. Everything you need to do
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: long distance self sustained travel by vehicle is on these frames.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: The only thing that we've changed, uh, is in the
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: rear suspension we've got BP fifty ones in the rear.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: For the African section, we have a heavier sway bar
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: in the back and a heavier coil to manage the
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: weight of all the camper systems. The front is completely
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: bone stock and everything the cars bone and lift, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: it does have a thirty five inch tire. That's pretty cool. Yep.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: We added an auxiliary fuel tank because of the extreme
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: ranges that we needed, which has been the life saving.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: We needed it on this section alone. Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no fuel other than black market fuels
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of unknown quality.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So everything that we've done to the trucks is
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: because of a necessity to the travel environment, and we
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: kept everything off that we thought we didn't need. Like
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: there's no front bumpers on the front of the comas,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: there's no winches, there's it's as simple and streamlined and
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: stock as they can be while allowing us to do
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the mission that we got to do and live out
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: of the trucks. And they're doing great, they really are.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty impressed with the camper systems. Why don't you
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: give kind of the overview of there's a little bit
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of variation between the trucks, but how how are we
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: sleeping at night?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: What?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: What's because we're doing a lot of camping. Yeah, we're
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: camping more than we're staying in accommodation.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yep, which we're in the sweet spot. We
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: love to camp. We love being out. There's many styles
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: of overlanding. Some people stay in a lot of Airbnbs,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: like motorcyclists do that constantly, or they might sleep on
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: their tent at night here in the night there. But
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: then they're staying in little motels and stuff as they
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: move around. People and vehicles do that. And then some
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: people just wherever you are in the spectrum, you just
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: camp a lot. Well, we camp a lot because one
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: it's fun. We like being out on our own. We
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: like hiding, you know to a degree, because the trucks
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: are pretty flashy, lots of things that people would want
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to take off them, So we like chucking away, you know,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: and even being in town you just get so many
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: eyeballs and all that. We like. We like to stay out,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and so we're running camper systems. They're the Alucab systems
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: three three variants. Legion is the one in front of me,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: so I'll talk to that. That's a six foot bed
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: with the family camper top on it, and that allows
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you to sleep four people or in your case two people.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Extremely comfortable. So comfortable, yeah they are. There are more
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: work to full put up and fold, not as much
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: as a older rooftop tent was. It's still not at
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: that level of putting the bag back on and rating
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: them all down, and that's simpler than that.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Thirty seconds are done, yeah, thirty five seconds, and as
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: long as you've got a friend or another you know,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: we have a team of people, so they go down
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: really fast.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Family can of tux the material in on the side. Yeah,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: it's just tucking is all. And then that's got a
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Goose gear system in it. I think Legion is the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: best setup for what we're doing right now. Two people
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: living out of that with the Goose gear in the back,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: the six foot bed, the large tent on top, everything
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: about it is extremely livable. And you're you're in that one. Yeah,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: that one man.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I sleep as well in that as I've slept in
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: any other accommodation we've been in, and I look forward
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to it's like it's you know, Richard and I are
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: up in there and it's dark and you know, usually.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: We've been also very lucky with the weather. We've only
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: had maybe a handful of nights that were uncomfortable hot,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: but even then we've you know, made it work.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: We were able to sleep. Then if we were like
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: to roll back to the truck that we're in right now,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: we are in Roman, which is our brand new tundra,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: and it's our six six and a half foot bed.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: What is it? Yeah, the long bed. Math is hard,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: but it's a long bed. But we replaced it with
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: a Bowen customs tray that we then put an allucb
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: on top of with the family camper set up. So
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: this truck is massive inside we can put the entire
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: team in the back and sit and hang out. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: we call it the Ritz when we're all hanging in there,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: because that's a play from Shackleton's Ship when they would
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: go down in the bottom and into the ship when
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: they were stuck in the ice. It was like the
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: one little tight room that they'd all get into. They
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: called it the Ritz, so we called it there. We
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: called this truck the Ritz. And it's great and we
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: are working out of it. One side's got the galley.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Cyrus is always doing the d t in the middle
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: of the truck and then on the far passenger side.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: The boxes on that side are all the production gear.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: So camera guys are working on one side, cooking on
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the other, computer work in the middle. It's working great. Yeah,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: and it's like a spot. It's like a little office.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So like when Cyrus is doing all of the data
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: back up at the end of the day, he's sitting
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: at a desk and on a comfortable bench and he's.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Got his fans in there. You know. All the red lights,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: we've had a lot of bugs, so all the red
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: lights we're running King Lights, which have been amazing. They're
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: a fairly new company and we saw the inside and
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: the light quality is fantastic. So shout out to those guys.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: They hooked us up and I just want to support
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: them because I think it's the finest light that I've
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: seen come out for vehicle camping. The white is just right,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the red is just right. It looks like Star Wars.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: It's like so clean, it's amazing, so very nice to
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: live out and work out of. And then Spartan, which
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: is the third truck that is our traditional build for
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the most part. It is the short bed Tacoma with
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the Alue cab pop up topper on the back of
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the wedge style. It sleeps to people. And we built
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: that to be like the garage truck, so it's got
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: a freezer. I think everything that's in your garage is
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: kind of in that truck. There's a tool box in there,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: there's the freezer, the big chest freezers in there.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: That's where we keep our meat, you know, for cooking
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in camp, the.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Long term stuff that you know we're gonna cook something tonight,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: we'll pull things out of the freezer. And we've had
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: to do that because we knew that food and especially
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: meat would be hard to find that through this area
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that's not hanging off a hut somewhere with a bunch
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: of flies on it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I mean we saw monkey I mean literal bush meat
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: for big chunks of the last couple of countries where
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: you'd see a monkey hanging from a rafter for sale.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: On the side of it. Yea, come buy my monkey.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I just killed this monkey. If you want monkey meat tonight,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I'm my monkey.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So when
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: a year. It also gives you access to our digital archive,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous images
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe. So
• 32:51
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• 32:53
  Speaker 3: subscribe to the magazine, use the code Overland podcast and
• 32:58
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• 33:01
  Speaker 3: podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else, and then
• 33:04
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• 33:09
  Speaker 3: that we have been famous for, so it allows us
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another way you
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: can help out too. I produced a book last year
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one oh one. You
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades of
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures and
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: been distilled down into print form. With great lists and
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: beautiful imagery, so you can find that at your local bookstore.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Overlanding one on one and thank you all for listening
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: and for supporting us so much throughout these years.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got we're packing a lot of good stuff
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: in there, and then our oil samples are in there,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: are hard where bin is in there, all of our
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: spare bolts, nuts, hardware, just hardware in general for anything.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And we carry one spare front shock for the tacomas
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: and one spare rear shock VP fifty one in case
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: we had a failure somewhere and a little bit of
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: the hydrated food. And that's that's it. That's that's trucks now.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Every truck also has and I would say this is
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: one of the best things that we did, large water tanks.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And those water tanks are either the alue cab, a
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: headache rack tank that fits up against the kind of
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: uses that weird negative space in the front of the
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: headache rack or the front of the camper. There the
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: weight forward pretty well. Yeah it is a little high,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: but man it uses a space that is otherwise pretty unusable,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: so it works really well.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: How big are those tanks on the two tacomas twelve gallons.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we've put in they guzzle H two
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: O on demand water filters, so they're plumbed in to
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: the side of the truck there. So to get the
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: water out of the trucks, we have a switch run
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: on the back of the alluecap camper, flip it up,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: turns the pump on and that sends it through another
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: filtered filter and then a UV light, so we are
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: filtering water going in. You've been buying filtered water that
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: we filter again going into the tank again, that again
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: gets filtered going into our bottle on the way out.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: But it's so convenient because the spickets are on the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: back of the truck and you know, you run it
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: for a second just to you know, get whatever's you know,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: road debris in there out and then you know it's
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: we could fill up our water. But it's super convenient,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: like instant access to pressurized filtered water.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: That's pretty nice game changer. And we we used to
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: always run the gravity feed which works really well. Like
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: that's that's the other benefit of having that tank up
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: where it is because by the time you ran it
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: to the back to the spicket head, decent pressure, and
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: sure you could gravity feed it. Uh, having the pressurized
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: system is awesome. And we are carrying one spare UV light,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: one spare switch and we swapped the filters halfway through
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: because they had sat for Saints Rock. Yeah, so little maintenance,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: but it's.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Where Guzzle build a high flow yes system. To talk
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: about that a little bit, I mean, we're bringing up
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Guzzle and personally, I'm super impressed with this company. You know,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: they're not an advertiser and Overland Journal or anything. We
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: just really believe in their product and the quality of
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: engineering and the thoughtfulness that they have in the multi
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: stage system. So maybe let's talk a little bit about
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: how it filters water, Like that portable kit.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: How does that work? Yeah, so it came from a
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: system years ago that we bought. We took it to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Central America and it was a big thing. It was
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: called a Survivor, I believe, and it took this huge
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Pelican case and had glass bulbs in it at the time,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: glass UV lights because LEDs aren't really a thing, and
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: it was. It was huge and clunky, but what it
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: did was filter water extremely fast. So typically the systems
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that are out there right now are kind of built
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: for campers or backpackers or you know, people that aren't
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: really moving a lot of water.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Or like where they've got six people on a team
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: or seven people on a team.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: We got volume. We got volume. We're doing a lot
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: of dishes, we know, we just got volume. So those systems, though,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: they will work if you don't need to use them
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: that often or you have a lot of time. You
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: can trickle those things in. They were like like a
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: gallon a minute systems. Sure, the old Survivor one was
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: eighteen gallons a minute. We could practically wash a car
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: with this thing with the pressure that came out of it.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And that thing died, it got old, and you know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: it went away, and so we haven't had this system,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: so we went to other systems. We made it work,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: but it was never great. So this year we were
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: just like, let's just call the guys at Goszle and
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: see if they can build us one. We want this
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: type of performance from the old system in the new tech.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And they said, no problem, and they built us one.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: And it's in a case that's half the size of
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: our original one from twenty fifteen. I mean this is
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: ten years ago and it puts out all the water
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: that you could ever want it. What is it ten
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: gallons fifteen gallons of minutes? Yeah, twelve galls eight gallons
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: a minute. It's fast, like you almost don't want it
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: any faster because you know it'd be hard to manage
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: that much pressure.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: And it's going through a multi stage element filter, so
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: it's got and then it also as you'll be on
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: top of that.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: So we've been using it to pull the water out
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: of the jugs that you buy at the grocery store,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: like the big five gallon jokes that you would usually
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: have at home, like the Culligans or whatever. Yeah, so
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: we've just been using it as a pump to literally
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: fill our systems, which gets us another filtered round. Yeah.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So the system has been great. I like that it's portable.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: It's in a demo or a Nico case. It's not
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a Pelican that it's like Pelican. It works great. And
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: then we had it plumbed powered by the Anderson cables
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: that are in every one of our trucks. We run
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Anderson's between the trucks for jump starting, for powering all
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: kinds of different things. So we literally plug in Anderson
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: right into the side of the box and it powers
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: this thing up. It's been great.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's working really well. So the trucks,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: with all all of these people and all this equipment
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and stuff, they do get pretty heavy. What are some
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: things that you guys have done to the vehicles, either
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: in the past or currently to help address the weight.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that you guys have
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: found works really well to address the weight, like braking
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: systems or or what's your springs that you're using, or
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: how do you manage that weight cycling, you know, through
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a g out or whatever. What are some things that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you've found really helped manage the weight.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: The tacomas we haven't managed pretty well because we kept
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: them as stock as possible. We didn't add anything to them.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: It's all like the stock skid play stock slider, a
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: stock career bumper. We didn't add front bumper, didn't add winches.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: So the weight that we did add was manageable by
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: suspension systems, heavier coil, heavier sway bar just to there's
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: a lot when you get these like Valey cabs and
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: anything that moves the weight high. A Siffer sway bar
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: helps just keep the road manners together a little bit.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: We're dodging potholes all day. That's what we're doing, is
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: we're dodging potholes. So that's been really good. But beyond that,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the stock Tacoma brakes have been fantastic. Yeah, they haven't
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: been an issue. They got plenty of power yep, and
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: get around those hybrids. Just move these trucks around like
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: no problem. The driving driveability of the vehicles is the
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: best we've ever had. Like, I would never go back
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: to a non hybrid to coma after driving all these
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: hybrid systems. Now now the Tundra. The Tundra we specifically
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: built knowing that it would get heavy, and we wanted
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: to put the bulk of the weight. And if one
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: truck was going to be really heavy, we wanted to
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: be this one because we knew from past expeditions that
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: it could take the weight. It could toe a trailer
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: with weight. You know, we just knew what it's capable of.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: So we did everything we could to keep the weight down.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: But we knew that it was going to be a lot,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: so we added more water to this truck. We added
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: you know, heavy coils. I think these are running the
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: eighty series or two hundred series up armored reer coil
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and it's perfect. So that's just give you a scale
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: of what that weight is. And then we had worked
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: out this icon suspension on our previous truck that went
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: through two rounds of tuning and then was dialed on
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the last African trip, so we just said, rebuild that
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: one for this truck. We think it's going to be
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: very close in weight.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: That's really good, and it's like the stuff that we're
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: like right now, we're dodging giant potholes, basically running a
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: chit cane in a fully loaded undra and it handles
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: it great and it's so comfortable to drive. It's such
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: a long wheelbase, and yet somehow we still manage to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: get it through Nigerian traffic without any damage, although we
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: did have a we did have a motor boat cycle
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: run into the side of us. Like nobody was hurt,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: but like you're just sitting in traffic, you can't go
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: anywhere and you just like run. But even then like
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: it didn't didn't damage the trucks. These are pretty tough vehicles.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: And then on top of that, we we had in
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: every single thing that will help pad the hits. So
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: we ran a thirty five inch tire because it can
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: take potholes better, and it can you know, there's just
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of benefits more taller tire. And then on
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: the front of this truck we have the icon you know,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: lower control, our bump stopped. Uh the uh oh. The
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: hydraulics it's not this one's not hydraulic. It's just the
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: foam one. Okay. Sure. On the front here and then
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: in the rear of the truck is all the hydraulic
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: jounces to even help progressively slow these big hits more
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: and more. And then we also have you know, it's
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: got the cd EV, so we can tune the shock too,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: at least in the compression. Right now, we're running seven
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: in the front, eight in the rear, and then as
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: it lightens up, we might go to seven in the rear.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: And if we put a ton of water and all
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: the fuel on, like kind of running right now, we
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: might we might go up to nine. So yeah, you
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: can just kind of tune the ride and help preserve
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: the asset for as long as possible. So we spend
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of time and money and effort getting the
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: suspension right so that it can take all the abuse
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: for a long time. Think of it like a ballhall
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: race truck, Like, for sure, what do you do to
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: that thing to make it survive the baha? It's kind
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: of the same mentality within reason.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And let's talk a little bit about some of the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: ex series. So you did have some custom fuel tanks
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: made because you knew the vehicles were going to be
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: operating it. Here's a monkey for sale on the side
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: of the road right now, two monkeys pick on the
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: right side exactly, so bush meat for sale as we
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: move through the congo. So what are some of the
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: other accessories that you find that you really like? What
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: do you use for winches, recovery gear? You know, how
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: do you when we do get into trouble, how do
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: we get out of it?
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Historically ninety percent of the time MAX tracks will get
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: us out of whatever we get stuck in. Uh So
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: we every set of every truck has some built built
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: in redundancy. So every truck has MAX tracks, their own
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: tool small toolkit, their own first aid kits, et cetera.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: So if we do get separated or if we have
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: to leave a vehicle, the critical redundancies are there. So
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: those accessories cross all three trucks.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: And what are the bags that you use for the tools?
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Those are really nice how they're organized.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Those are the blue Ridge Overland gear tool bags that
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: un zipped. And then they have all their little special
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: car and they've worked really well. What are you using
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: for a winch on the tundra? The front is if
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: I got this right, it's the worn twelve ass We
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: like the slightly dumbed down platinums. Of course they've changed
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: all that this, you know they have. They used to
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: only have the wired remote and uh we kind of
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: we did go away from those over time. They had
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: a lot of cool functionality, but the problem was they
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: were never charged when you needed them. You just forget
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: about it. They forget about it, Like right now, we
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: had to remember to charge it at least two or
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: three times over the course of the trip to make
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: sure that it would be ready for an event if
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: it happened.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Or you're trying to pair as the tides coming in
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so a dumb system with the winching is really
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: where it's at for me. Uh So it has a yeah, yeah,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: and it has both now so it has the like
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: the smart app which if you've used the smart app,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: pretty impressive. Yeah, for sure. So there's redundancy there. So
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: if you do have the time, you can run it
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: off the app. Otherwise, you know, plug it in and
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: run off the normal hand controller and then the hand
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: controller disconnects and is it's pretty cool? How far all that? Yeah?
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, So we are only a one winch the twelve,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: and we we figured one winch was enough. So far
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: we've been correct. Yep. If we didn't need a winch,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: this truck had it. We're going to put the weight
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: on this truck anyway, put it on the tundra. And
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: if any truck's going to be stuck and mired because
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: of how heavy it is, it's going to be the tundra.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: So it needs to have the winch.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: It was the one that got you know, mired a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: little bit more in the sand and stuff.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: It's just the heavy vehicle. Yeah, and it's the one
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: to recover any of the smaller vehicles. Sure, so it
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: it got the winch. That was a no brainer. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: then it runs a nightline on it. Always do nightline
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: now I will never not do nightline. That was a
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: great solve that we needed for years and then now
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: it's available and describe what nightline is. Yeah, so the
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: nightline it is a synthetic spidera line from worn and
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: then it has a three m reflective ribbon that is
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: laced into the cable, so like when if cars were
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: to come across it from any angle in your headlamp
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: picks it up. You can always see the line in
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: the dark and this trip and so if you're in
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: the winter, you're probably going to be winching in the dark.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: And then on the equator it's dark twelve hours a day.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Chances of winching in the dark were quite high. So
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: we just always run the night line.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: And when you're spooling the cable back or the rope
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: back in, you can easily see it spooling across because
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of that reflective tape. I think that's it's such a
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: neat development.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Back in the day, I used to undo the line
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: and then buy reflective tape that you would like put
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: on the back of the vehicle and I'd find the
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: halfway point, I'd like smash it in and tape it
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: on there and it would last about I don't know,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: a year sure of using it. So that like if
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: you were pulling the winch line in the night. You
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: could see the halfway point on the line. Sure, and
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: we used to do that now now it's just throughout
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the whole thing.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about your personal kit, kind
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: of what's your everyday carry for this trip. What kind
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of things do you keep on your person?
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: The things that I'm my passport, my mag pull wallet
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: that carries cash in all the cards and it holds
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: up and it's it doesn't absorb water or sweat. It's
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: pretty minimalist to minimalist. It's it's worked really well and
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I've carried it for years so never had a feeling
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: to change that. And then I'm carrying the bench made
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: bugout knife. It's thinner, it's a little more low profile.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: The clip, the knife clip is really short, so it
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: doesn't look like you have this huge knife in your pocket.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: It it just has this little teeny clip and it's
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: light and it does it's great. Too expensive either, yeah,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: I think they're two hundred bucks, but compared to a
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: lot of knives, but it's the perfect, i would say,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: the perfect balance of quality knife size, blade strength, all this,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: you know, good coatings on it. It's been awesome. This
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: is a fantastic travel blade. It is longer than probably
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: most countries would accept, but I will take you a
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: little bit, only by a little bit. And over fifteen years,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: twenty years of traveling with pocket knives, I have not
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: had a problem. Not to say that you can't and
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: then other people have had problems. I just haven't.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: And so I think the key is just make sure
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: whatever knife you have on you doesn't have any kind
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of mechanical assists. That's the thing that will just end
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: you up in jail. If you've got one that can
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: flip open easily or you know, like with weight, or
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: or if if you've got one that is actually like
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the deployable blades, you're not good.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Stay away from the Stay away from that when you're traveling. Yeah,
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: not good. I yeah, I try not to get anything
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: camouflaged or any army looking thing and just just just
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: buy simple blades that look like, you know, a gentleman's
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: pocket knife. Sure.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: And it's like, and we're always looking for that innocent
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: explanation for something like I'm camping. It's like, this is
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: how I cut my steak at the end of the day.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Best thing that I carry and I think I use
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: it the most is the Surefire Stillettle Pro and it's
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: the one with the dual beams on the front. It
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: is such a weapon of a light. And I've gone
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: to this for three expeditions now, and in my first
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: African expedition, I basically determined that this was the best
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: tool of the trip. So if you're out there looking
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: to get a light, this Stiletto Pro. They're not cheap.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: This is like a four hundred dollars light, but it
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: is bulletproof, it's USB C, it's got a strobe function.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: The clip is long enough that you can clip it
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: to your hat, so like you can flip it around
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: and you've seen Kurt doing it a bunch and all
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: of a sudden you have a headline. You know, you
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: can do your thing. Ryan Erickson had a sweet mod
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: he uses his every day in his life, and he
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: put a heat shrink around the bottom of it so
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: when he had it in his teeth, it's not chipping
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: his teeth. I was like, that is so smart. I'm
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: gonna do that when I get home. So he had
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: a little key shrink around the bottom, because you inevitably
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: do that. Yeah, you know you shouldn't, but you do.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: So he he was smart. Did that a USBC rechargeable
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: which makes a key not a proprietary cable? Yeah, charges
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: all over the place in the last a long time.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, that's pretty cool. Let's talk about your
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: next little tool here. Yeah, this is what. I have
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: loved this thing, and I think I'll travel with it forever.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: I'm a gadget guy, though, I mean everyone's gonna be like,
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: you's got so much crap in your pocket. Got it
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: from the Jack Carr books, so Jack Carr had it
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: written in Its essentially a combat screwdriver. It looks like
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: a screwdriver. It's got a sweet little sheath to it.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm sorry, I can't think of the name right now,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: but you pull it out pry bar with a flathead
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: screwdriver on the end. But it is super strong, like
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: you can pry with it. And I have found myself
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: using this more than my knife, or as much as
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: my knife. And I've also found that it has preserved
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: my knife because you know, we always abuse our knives
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: by using them wrong, because it's the thing that's in
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: your pocket.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: So this, yeah, and with you being a filmmaker, I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: mean you're constantly needing a flathead screwdriver to put on
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: base plates or adjust things or yeah, I use.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: It all the time cameras stuff on the truck.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: And it is one heck of a weapon too, because
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: that I mean, everybody who's ever heard of a watch
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: a prison film, you know, it's like it's the sharp
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: and it's the sharp and screwdriver.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: So I believe this is the seven inch one. They
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: do make a six so I went with this one.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: And it's easy, like you can conceal it in your
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: beltline really easy. The sheath is great, it's like good
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: purchase and it clicks in. They're about three hundred dollars.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: They're also not cheap, but man, I consider this like
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: an essential tool for being out and about. Now. I
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: love it. It's been a great find. It was my splurge
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: on this trip, Like you know, I was trying to
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: try new things. Yeah, and this has been.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: A win now you and a lot of these questions
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: are just because I've found some of the things that
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: you're using.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: To be pretty cool.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: So you've got the boots that you're wearing on this trip.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: They're made by go Rock so and I think rucking
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is one of the best ways for an Overlander to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: train for a trip, to get yourself physically capable of
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: moving hauling equipment, pulling winchline, you know, get your back
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and good and good nick for sitting long hours behind
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: the seat.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: I agree. And so when I was thinking through my boots,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, if I was
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: to be taken for some re worst case scenario kidnapped, Yeah,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: kidnapped and I had to march and I had to
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: walk a long ways. For some reason, I want to
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: have the right footwear and I wanted it to be
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: the right footwear that I would want to wear it
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: every single day and I'd be like, I got to
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: put these on. So I tried four different types of
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: boots before I went on this trip, and I landed
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: on these. It's the Jungle, their Jungle version, so it
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: has the drain on the side, which I'm indifferent about.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: I almost think I'd rather not have it, because I
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: like this morning it was super muddy and it will
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: step so because the water will go in. It's designed
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: that if you flood your boots, it'll actually pump the
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: water out and help you dry your foot out. Sure,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: but that's not really how I'm using it in this case,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: so I'd go without the drain, though it may have
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: helped keep my feet cooler throughout the day. But it
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: looks like they're comfortable, so comfortable, so.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I'll buy them again. They're they're a neat company. I mean,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: they just do a good job.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: It did take a minute to get them broke into
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: my my feet on the tops with my feet, but
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: now that they're broke in, I love them.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: And then what do you what are most of your clothes?
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: What are you wearing for all Raven? Good travel clothing. Yeah,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: it's all we're in some amount of you're in.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: All fuel Raven. Now, of course we're expedition sponsored by
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: fuel Raven, but it has been a phenomenal company to
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: work with, Like I haven't I haven't really worked with
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: a company that is this well dialed into travel since
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: we worked with an ex officio ten years ago. Yeah,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Triple Lot design was also really good. They've all been good.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: But fior Raven has such a huge breadth of clothing,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Like they've got winter gear, summer gear, ladies, kids, dudes.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it's they have all of it, and there's a.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Lot of the Other thing I like about it is
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't look very tactical, like you're wearing this really
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: nice blue collared shirt that looks great coming up to
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: a border.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing this quick dry black t shirts just because
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I like. It's like my uniform I wear every day
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: of my life is a black shirt of some kind.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: But then the pants, they're not. They're not so frumpy
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: looking and baggy. They fit you a little bit better.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: They all have a little bit of a stretchy to them,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: which is nice because we're climbing up down on stuff,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: you know, or depending on how many snaps cause I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: had that day.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: In the lines, a little stretch here, yeah, exactly. And
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: they've all got a lot of.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Pockets, and like the ones I'm wearing right now, it
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: is like a cargo pant, but it isn't that like
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: really frumpy looking, loose fitting cargo pant like they like,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I can fit my passport wallet in there and my
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: phone if I need to. And then they don't have
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: back pockets, which or some of them do, but like,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: these don't have back pockets, so I don't find myself
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: putting my wallet in my back pocket like I would normally,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: which solves two things. I'm not sitting in the car
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: on my wallet, which does hurt my back after a
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: half a day of driving, yep. And the other thing
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: is I'm not putting my wallet in.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: My back pocket.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: In the likelihood that you're in a city and somebody
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: tries to pickpocket, you're always better off having it in
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: a side pocket.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: So I bet. And their stuff looks nice. It looks
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: it looks nice.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: And you know, I've used well their gear off and
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: on for years and I've just always been really impressed
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: with you know, the quality of it.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Africa is just amazing. It is. Everyone should come
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: to Africa.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Yeah, I mean it really. Yeah, it's for me.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most special places on the planet.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: And it feels like home to me as a person,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: as a traveler, and it's like I was made to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: be in Africa. So I do I do feel home
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: at home here.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: So like, maybe that'll be.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: The last question, Clay, So how do you feel like
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: these last your trips have become more and more ambitious,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: bigger and bigger. Ideas you know, you're putting more and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: more of your skills to work. You're demonstrating the capabilities
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: of X overland on big global you know, circumnavigations. Now,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: how do you think that that's changed you as a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: person as clay Croft, Like, now that you're, you know,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: fifteen plus years into expedition travel, how do you feel
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: like you're different. It's a pretty humbling thing to do. Big,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: big stuff makes you humble because it kicks your butt.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: And so I feel like I've gotten I think I've
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: gotten grittier. I can take I can take pressure, I
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: can take risk better. I can because I've worked incrementally
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: worked up to be able to do something like this.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the team.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: I realized that you can't. You cannot do any of
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: this stuff by yourself. This takes. This is a massive
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: teamwork thing to do. Like you don't drive around the
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: world and shoot a show and work with all these
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: great companies and by yourself, you know, And it's in fact,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: it's because of a lot of other people that I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: am here, not not because of what I've done, It's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: because of what other people are doing that have got
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: me here. So very thankful for that. I have come
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: to realize that, you know, big things are very very
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: doable as long as you break them down into achievable parts.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: The time will pass anyway. So you may as well
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: just get going on that big project, because if you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: start now, by the time that next year rolls around,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: you'll be ready. And the time was going to pass anyway.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: So get after it. Started taking on the little, the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: little bite sized things to achieve something, and you will
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: get stuff done. That's what That's what these have taught me.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: And even this trip right now, it's a mile at
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: a time, yeah, And if you just put the mile
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: at a time, pretty soon we're going to be driven
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: around the world, you know. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. So
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: I think you know, a lot of times, it's hard
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: to describe how you've personally grown because it's it's like
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: very incremental adjustments. I don't really have maybe necessarily big,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: massive aha moments, but I'm just I can tell you
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: that I'm constantly being refined by this lifestyle, and it's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: just something really well worth doing.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: It's awesome, man, And that's a reminder to all of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: us that big things take almost as much effort. When
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you look back on them as medium things, and people
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: oftentimes pick smaller goals or they cut short their dreams
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: because they're afraid of failure. But I found that the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: big ideas they take just about as much time. Like
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: this guy's walking across Africa clearly with a baby carriage,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: But big ideas take almost as much effort. And to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: your point, if you break them down into their individual
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: parts and you start as soon as possible, the next
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: thing you know, you've either reached the summit, you've traveled
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: around the world, you've started that business that you always
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to have, you've worked on your relationship where you
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: have a depth of quality and connection that you've always
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: wanted in your life. But those big ideas just take
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the first step. And I'm really proud of you, Clay.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I'm proud to know you. It's been an honor to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: be your friend and to now be crossing a continent
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: with you again. We've done that a few times together already,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: so this is a a joy for me. And I've
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: learned so much from you throughout the years, and I
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing all of your insights with our listeners.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: So thanks Scott, thank you, Clay, and we thank you
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.