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The Rogue Wanderers on 100 Countries in a Toyota Tacoma and Four Wheel Camper · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Ashley Jordano, and today I'm joined by American Overlanders Andy
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and don Elsbrey, who are on a grand tour of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the world. Welcome you too, so happy to have you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: here on the podcast today.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having us here.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yay, So let me know where are you now and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: what have you been up to?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: John, do you want to answer that?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Which are currently taking a little break in Bend, Oregon,
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: which we've decided will be our future home when we're
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: finished traveling. And we're in the process of building a
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: house here.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Oh nice, a little place to come back to while
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you travel and then a home to come back to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: after you're finished up. Are you from Bend originally or
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is this a special place for you?
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: This is a place that our family has been coming to. Wells,
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: I've been coming here since nineteen seventy six, so it's
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: a special place for us for the skiing and for
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: the outdoors.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's just a wonderful place.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Great. So you guys have been gone for a few
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: years now, quite a few years, six six years.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I'm with a little trips back to visit family. Et
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: cetera through hopefully I get this right US Europe, Africa,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Arabian Peninsula to Israel, Greece, through to Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: into Central Asia, China, Tibet, Southeast Asia to Taiwan and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: then shift to Chile.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Wowr Yeah, that's and currently our truck is parked in
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Monte Video, Uruguay right now.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Awesome. I have to say I've really enjoyed your website
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and your blog, and we've used it for a lot
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of different reasons for our own travels. So your blog
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: is the Rogue Wanderers and your trip sort of right
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: up of the Premiere Highway helped us a lot when
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: planning our own and looking into the future to see
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: what we need for logistics. So you have a great
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: blend of storytelling history what you're experiencing on the road,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: but also those kind of logistics details that for some
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of those more difficult countries are really useful. So yeah,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: that's been great.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: We've learned a long time ago when we were traveling
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: in England that we need to document our journal simply
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: because we almost went to visit the same city twice.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: So then we realize that we need to start being
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: more formal about it and start writing about these places,
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: and so we do it for ourselves, but we also
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: do it really to help out fellow travelers.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, and you've been successful. It does kind of
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: go in a blur, doesn't it. You're like, where am I?
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: What day is it? So that's great. I wanted to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: ask you about your life before you left six years
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: ago and what that looked like.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So we started.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: We were living in Ashland, Oregon, and Don worked for
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and I worked for a private
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: timber company in Klimath Falls and commuted over from Ashland
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: every day. We had successfully raised three children who are
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: now in working in great fields, and so we started
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: to realize that we had hit the pinnacle of our
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: careers and we were super happy. But we now wanted
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: I needed to fulfill a marital obligation of thirty six
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: years ago of promising Don that we would travel the world,
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: and so we started in twenty eighteen to decide on
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: a vehicle build and it took us a year to
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: do that, and so by the time COVID was just
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: starting to rise its head, we had our truck parked
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: ready to go, and that was February of I think
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty, and the world collapsed about two weeks after
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: we announced our retirement.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: No.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it really kind of messed up our situation
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: because we're planning to ship to Europe.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And we couldn't do that because the world was closed, and.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: So instead we traveled around the US in our COVID
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: quarantine vehicle and also went to Baja Mexico during COVID
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: as well.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I mean you had an opportunity for a significant shakedown
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: run in that vehicle.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: It was perfect, and it was in San Diego. We
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: had our first repairs on the truck to alleviate some
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: of the excessive weight that's in it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Ooh, I love talking about alleviating excess vehicle weight. That's great.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Well, we did everything possible, from a synthetic line in
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: our winch to an aluminum bumper to removing the back
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: seats of our extra cab Toyota Tacoma. We did everything
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: we could there and still there was some slight growing
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: pains in Baja that we experienced there, and we've experienced
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: jumping ahead into Africa when we Europe was super easy.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: The roads are great, that people were wonderful. But then
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: going into West Africa, driving from Morocco down to South Africa,
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: the roads started to pound us pretty hard and so
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: we had some moderate.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Repairs there on the pieces of the suspension.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So gotcha, And your build is a twenty nineteen Tacoma
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: tierty sport long bed access cab within nor world flatbed
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and four world camper. I love this setup so much.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: We have a lot of similar aftermarket accessories. You have
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: ome oh many, you BP fifty one shocks, front in
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: real rear, total chaos, upper control, upper control arms, airb cnircle,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: worn witch and a long range automotive tank just a
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: few things in a longer list of modifications. But how
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: did you decide to go with this platform? And yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: what were the decision What was the decision process like
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: for these editions, it.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Was really tough.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: In twenty eighteen, we were trying to figure out the
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: size of the build, what we would happily live in
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: for the next six or seven years, although I told
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: her it was only supposed to be three maybe five years,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: but or we're kind of stretching it out. But we
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: decided we looked at vans, We looked at full sized
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: vehicles because of their greater much greater payload, But the
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: key thing for us being expending spending much time overseas
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: on small roads. We wanted to try to copy the
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: High Lucks. We would have loved to have had a Highlux,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: but they're as as everybody knows, they're not available in
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the US. But so we wanted one similar to that
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: because we had experience driving a larger vehicle in Botswana
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: on a self drive in twenty seventeen, where because the
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: vehicle was bigger, it didn't fit in the ruts and
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: therefore we would get stuck more often, and so a
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: full sized vehicle fifty fifty would.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Have been great.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: I think it is one of the pinnacle vehicles for
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: North America roads. I just don't think it was right
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: for us, especially driving in Europe and Africa and as
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, every place except for North and South America.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: That Toyota Tacoma mid size truck with its legendary reliability
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: was important for us. We went with the flatbed version
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: of the four wheel camper because of the extra storage
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: that we really like in there, as opposed to the
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: slide in version, it's a little bit heavier, but for
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: us that was the big concern. We've thought about going
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: with a diesel motor in like a sprinter van. But
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: the problem with the diesels, the modern day diesels now
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: is that they required soil emission fluid and that is
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: not available, and neither is the ultra little sulfur diesel available,
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: for example, in Africa. It's available in Morocco and South Africa.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: That's about it. So in between there, how do you
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: deal with your modern day diesel with putting in what
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: they call today is now a dirty diesel mixture in there.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: You can't do it, or you can do it, but
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: it's going to destroy the emissions. So diesel, unfortunately for us,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: was out, and so we focused on gas. And gas
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: doesn't get as good as gas mileage, but at least
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: it's mostly readily available throughout the world for sure.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And done. Did you have anything that you wanted included
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in the build specifically or are you like whatever? I'm
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: just happy to go.
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: I was pretty focused on the shower and the toilet.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Which it's fair.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: We haven't used either as much as we thought we
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: initially would because we tend to you know, every four
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to five days we might find a campground or a
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: campsite or access to water so that we can take
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: a shower without taking a shower inside the truck, which
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: is possible, but it's not the most comfortable or easy situation.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: You kind of in the little dinette area with a
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: shower curtain around you so you don't get the whole inside.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Went and then the toilet felt really important, but it
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: actually hasn't been as important in the long run as
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I thought it would be.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: But in driving in West Africa, there are people everywhere,
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: so if you're thinking that you're alone, you'll be very
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: surprised when all of a sudden someone will just pop
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: up out of the bushes and be very friendly and
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: come up and hopefully sometimes you even see them doing
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: their their own business, and it's like, that's just the
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: way Africa is, but it's not the way that we are.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the toilet, I imagine, came in pretty handy
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: at that point.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It did. It did nice.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: How what is the truck doing now? How's it going
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: so far? Is there anything you would change? Are there
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: things you love?
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: We were laughing because of our very most recent experience,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: but up until our adventures in Argentina and Chile. Going
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: through Europe, Africa and Asia, the Toyota Tacoma has lived
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: up to its legendary reliability. One hundred and thirty thousand
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: miles on it. We have the manual transmission and it's
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: been it has been great.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: We've done a.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Little bit of welding on some pieces on the side
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: of the frame, not the frame itself that had to
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: get welded because either I drove on I drove too fast,
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: or the roads are too bad, or the truck was
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: too heavy. You can do two out of three of those,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: but three out of three. Occasionally you hit enough ten
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: inch potholes that you're going to damage something. And we
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: had a little bit of problems with that a couple
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: of times in Africa. For that, we actually broke a
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: custom leaf spring that we special ordered for our weight.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: We broke that in Uganda and had to limp our
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: way to Nairobi, Kenya.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: But I don't know why that broke.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Because it wasn't supposed to. It was designed to handle
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: the weight on that side of the vehicle. So other
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: than that, there's we've had some a few electronic gizmos
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: like our emergency braking system. We'll sit there and say, oh,
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: there's a vehicle ahead, break immediately, and sometimes you'll go,
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: there's no problem. So there's been minor, minor glitches like that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: So everything was been great up until we hit Chile
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: when we started to feel some softness in our brake pedal.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: And I have been driving with this since where was
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: it in the Nepal? We noticed it when Dawn and
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: our son Trevor came with us to cross over the
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: China through Tibet and into Laos. They started driving it
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: and they went, WHOA, wait a minute, the brakes are
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: way soft. You don't have any brakes in this thing.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: And it's like, what do you mean. I've been this
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: thing for a long time, so it's kind of snuck
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: up on us, this little spongy brake pedal thing. So
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: that was a problem that we addressed, we thought. In Chili.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: We replaced one piece of it and that didn't work,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: and so now we're going to be flying back with
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: a master brake cylinder to hopefully repair it this on
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: this go around, we've also had some problems.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Holy Toledo, what else have we all broken?
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Our fuel tanking, our fuel pump. All of a sudden,
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: we have a check engine light come on, and the
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: check engine light in Chili says that, hey, you have
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: low fuel pressure. And so we pull into a Toyota dealership,
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: which is the other reason why we chose a Toyota
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Tacoma because they may not understand what they've heard of
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: a Tacoma. But many of the parts that are available
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: for the Highlux are also at the same part for
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: the Tacoma. So we pulled in there. Sure it was
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: a low pressure fuel and so here we are heading
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: up into the Ata Kama Desert in northern Chile and
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: we're thinking, what are we going to do. There isn't
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: a fuel pump, so this time the fuel pump is
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: not the same as a highlux, So we elected to
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: wait about six weeks for our sun to meet with us.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: He's flying down with a fuel pump, and now he's
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: bringing a boost, a break booster, which we were going
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: to stick in in Santiago. So we've brought those parts in,
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: replaced the fuel pump, and then our problems began.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, it's like oh six years that yeah,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: now our problems.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: So all of a sudden, I'm noticing that we're we're smelling.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: We're out in the middle of the Argentinian pump us
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: visiting a national park and we smell gasoline and we're like, oh,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: and I look, crawl underneath the truck and look at
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: the fuel tank and there's gasoline pouring out. Not just leaking,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: it's like pouring and making a big puddle about eighteen
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: inches across. We're like, holy, Toledo. We're fifty miles from
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: the nest two thousand person town. So we scadadle into
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: town and we drive into We look on Ioverlander, which
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: is a fabulous resource people for finding things like mechanics.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Or grocery stores or.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Any kind of needed item. And we rolled into our
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: first of I think six mechanics where he replaced the
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: fuel line. He brings it out, shows us it's ruptured.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: We're like, what is going on? And so we drive
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: the next day another rupture. We drive for a week
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: and had six broken fuel lines and these are rubber
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: designed for fuel, and we finally realized that what people
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: were installing were diesel fuel lines. And we have, of course,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: our gasoline, and gasoline is a solvent and it dissolves
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: fuel lines, so that yeah, And so I think it
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: was between fix four and fix or breakdown four or
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: break down five. All of a sudden, the cut started
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: feeling funny. And now we're out on the again. We're
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: at a marine reserve looking at orcas and sea lions
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: and penguins, and all of a sudden, the clutch is
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: not work, is not working.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: There's a problem. And so now I'm learning how to.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Shift clutchless shift, which can be done, believe it or not,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: even in a modern day vehicle. I haven't done it
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: in like twenty years. But I'm shifting without the clutch.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: And we rolled into a town with our leaky gas
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: tank and are now clutch that doesn't work, and we
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: had our truck repaired in a backyard of a somebody's house.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: He tears it apart. He doesn't speak English, he's tearing
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: it apart. We're not sure what's going on, and it
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: ends up being not the clutch plates, but it's the
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: throwout bearing, which is part of the clutch. But at
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: least it's just a throwout bearing, and that part, oh yes,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: thank you. High lux is the same as a high lux.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: So we put that in and we're driving along. We're
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: doing great, and so now when we fly back, we
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: have to fix our spongy brake pedal. We also have
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: to fix there's four other things that have in the meantime.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: When we're replacing the clutch.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: In between gasoline fuel line break number four and five,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: a radiator starts leaking and it dumps all the radiator
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: fluid out. And so now he says, and typical this
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: is the typical third world wonderful fix is the he says, Oh,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: no problem. We go to the store and they bought
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: some pimienta, and pimienta is red pepper flakes and you
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: just put them in the radiator and it plugs. It's like,
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: stop leak. It plugs the radiator and it plugged it
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: for like almost a thousand miles until it didn't.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Wow, Oh my gosh.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: So we're going to fly a new radiator and that
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: master brake cylinder. We also have to fly some some
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: frame bushing because our truck is.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Squeaking a lot. The bushings have shot.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: We also have to fly some some thirods because those
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: are wearing out. So we have four and do you
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: call these repairs or do you call them maintenance. It's like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, the radiator's plastic and it just they say
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: it breaks after one hundred thousand miles, and so I'd
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: call them repairs. But still we're still saying that the
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: truck is reliable, but it's not like it's kind of
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: not living up to its legend. But maybe after one
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: hundred and forty thousand miles, maybe these type things are
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: part of it.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So could be. What was it like in your mind?
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Because you've gone from traveling for years and years with
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: this vehicle that's hardly given you any issues, and you're like,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: this is great. You probably think about it a little
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: bit less at that point, and then you start to
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: have all these issues. How does that affect you mentally
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: as your traveling along?
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: It was hard.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: It was really hard because we weren't used to it,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: and we were in places where it was difficult for
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: us to communicate. We speak a little bit of Spanish,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: but when you start to get into mechanical issues, you
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: know we're not competent there and we just did not
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: know what was happening. I mean, in our minds, we
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: replaced the fuel pump, the problem should have been fixed,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: and yet every single day we were losing our fuel,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: and it's just we just felt a little lost, like
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: what do we do. We keep going mechanics and they
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: keep doing the same thing, and the same thing keeps happening.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: We didn't feel like we had the resources or information
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to really solve the problem, which was difficult. But it's
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: also you know, like so many other places that we travel,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: it's like the people are incredible. Every single time we're
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: broken down on the side of the road, somebody stops.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: They're bringing us water, they're giving andy rides into the
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: next mechanic, they're making phone calls for us, people are
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: calling us tow trucks. I mean, we never were in
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: a situation where we felt like we don't have the
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: help we need to get out of this. Somehow, we
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: slept one night in our tow truck driver's backyard because
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: he offered it to us, and it was great.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: You know, we spent the night there and then the
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: mechanics came.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: The next day.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: That's a totally different type of adventure.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the reason why we bought a brand new vehicle,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: and the reason why we bought a brand new Toyota
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: is that we wanted to go we just didn't want
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: to break down and have those breakdown what people.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Like to call adventures, and so now we're having it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: And so at one point I was telling down, I said,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: don I want to sell this thing. I'm done because
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: and when we say we have a fuel leak, that
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: means with our long range America fuel tank in there,
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: it's thirty three gallons, we'll go sixty miles and the
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: fuel's empty. So that's how much gasoline is pour it's
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: pouring out. And it's one point the fuel line just
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: broke and it's like it was just dumping on the ground.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: And luckily we didn't have a fire. That's the one
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: thing that I was really I was really worried about.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point to safety, safety concerns
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: with all that I love. I bet the land Rover
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: listeners are like, well, you ain't seen nothing, my friends,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: welcome to the club. But yeah, yeah, I totally respect that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: You know, choose the vehicle that is going to get
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you there.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: Don't reach out to ask how they can help support
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: the podcast. We are supported entirely by Overland Journal, the magazine.
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: So when you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: print magazine. You get this beautiful book that comes in
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: five times a year. It also gives you access to
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: our digital archive and it's well over one hundred pages
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: of gorgeous images and detailed testing and adventures from around
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: the globe. So if you go to Overland Journal dot
• 20:51
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• 20:54
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• 20:58
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• 21:01
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• 21:05
  Speaker 6: employee owned journalism that we have been famous for, so
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: it allows us to conduct those tests without any advertorial
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: Another way you can help out too. I produced a
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: book last year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: oh one. You can find it on Amazon or Barnes
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: and Noble or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: my decades of travel around the world, all my mistakes
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: and failures, and the lessons that I've learned in traveling
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: around the globe. Many of those that you hear on
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: the podcast have been distilled down into print form with
• 21:39
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• 21:43
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• 21:46
  Speaker 6: you all for listening and for supporting us so much
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: throughout these years.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And some people choose vehicles that they're going to have
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a wonderful different type of adventure with, and I think
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it's all all great, it's all individual preference. So hopefully
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that'll all get sorted out on the other side after
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you fly all those things down.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: One last thing about our build is that what we
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: really wanted were naturally introverts, and so we really wanted
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: to drive the world and have a place for us
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: to get into.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: And the four World Camper provides.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: That having a wedge tent or a pop up tent
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: is great, but we're in our sixties and we like
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: a nice soft mattress that our four World Camper has,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: And it also gives us that refuge because like in
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: West Africa, we would sometimes we'd wake up, we'd hide
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: find this road that didn't go to a village, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: we'd camp on it and we'd be really quiet, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: we'd wake up and there'd be a dozen people staring
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: at us outside. And if we had a camping situation
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: where we would be we'd have to cook outside, it
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: would be impossible to do that, and so that's why
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: we like this, but we're also paying for it with
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: the truck weighs about sixty eight hundred pounds empty without
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: us in there, so it's heavy, but that's the trade
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: offs we have. We certainly could go with a wedge
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: type tent and stay within our gross vehicle weight rating.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: But we wouldn't be able to escape.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: The malaria mosquitos, for example, is another big thing. Don't
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: want to be cooking outside in the dark in Africa.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It's just not worth it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one percent, Yes, I hear you. And it's important
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to have that recharge as an intro for it because
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of stuff coming at you every day,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of scenery, a lot of people, conversations, new things,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and like you're saying, weather, there's another factor too that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: so nice to escape to that inside living space. Great.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So you've been to over one hundred countries.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: We just hit a hundred.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, is it possible to tell me what
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: your favorite five have been? So far?
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: We've We've had answers that have changed over time alone
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: little bit, but we always say it really depends on
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: what your interest is. Like we think for people in culture,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Morocco was amazing. If we're looking at geography, Iceland was
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: incredible in all time highlight for animals. I don't know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: it's hard to choose between Botswana and and Tanzania.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: They were both highlights.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And then I think recently, you know, driving across Tibet
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: was just extraordinary. And also Tajikistan in the Premier Highway.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: I think that's more than five.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter other ones that come into there.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: The runner ups are like the little country West Africa,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: country of ben In.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Benin as they call it. It's the home of Voodu.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: So you get to learn like a totally different culture
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: and for once the police there are honest and they're
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: not harassing you. So that was a highlight for us
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: as well. Chile has turned turn out to be. Chile
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: was our recent It was like we're still getting wowed
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: by all these that Southern Chile and northern Chile with
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the Ata Kama Desert was.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Like, was amazing, phenomenal. I wanted to ask you about
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that going through China and you went through more than
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: once and what the experience was like was it different
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: each time? I know you were going through different regions,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: so obviously there would be some changes, But what were
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: your experiences like there?
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: Do you want me to do it? We have slightly
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: different opinions.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Ooh, I like that. We'll hear both of them.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: You go ahead.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: I find that we've driven twice now from Uzbekistan into
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: Pakistan via the Kunarab Pass, which is about fifteen thousand feet,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: so we drove through the Weiger region of extreme western
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: China where they're suppressing the Muslim minority.
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: There.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: I felt China it spooped me, the amount of cameras,
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: the amount of fakery, Like they have fake villages that
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: are like set up kind of like Disneyland where they
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: in the Weiger region, they'll have a downtown that has
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: been completely destroyed rebuilt in so that the majority Chinese
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: people can come there and they'll go, oh wow, this
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: is what it's like and it's really not. And so
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: it kind of spooked me there. But go ahead, don
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: you tell me what you're say, what you're thinking.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Well, there's also I mean, this is like the Great
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: political debate, right, there's a certain level of uniform prosperity,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: so you don't see the income disparities everybody seems to
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: have enough.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: Everybody is.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Living their lives, are gracious and friendly. There are aspects
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: that feel like a police state, but I also feel
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: like as a tourist we were welcomed by the people there,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: and just the scenery in the Tibet region especially and
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: going over the Caracoorn Pass, It's just those mountains are
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: so beautiful. Going into the small villages in Tibet and
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: meeting the people there and seeing how they live, it
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: was just a lifelong dream really, and a travel highlight.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Totally. And you can go through China independently. Now, were
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: you surprised to hear that, based on your experiences there,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that they would open it up so that you can
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: drive yourself.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Without a guide. We haven't heard that.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: It's just yeah, it's just switching.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I feel like when we were there, the guide service
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: that we went with, they were just starting to branch
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: out and say, okay, we can sponsor people and you can.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: Drive on your own. And they even did.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I mean like we would drive for the day by ourselves.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: You know, they would kind of tell us how to
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: navigate the different police stop. But I think it felt
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: very safe. I'm not surprised that it's opening up. I
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: think it makes it easier for people because if you
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: don't have to pay the cost for a daily guide,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: it makes it more accessible for travelers and overlanders.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, the infrastructure is really super well built. You know,
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: there's gas everywhere, the roads are orange and white lines. Wow,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: that's pretty amazing to have that. But some of the
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: drivers are the worst in the world. They're absolutely I
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: mean the recks. Like one of the ten most dangerous
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: roads that we've ever driven in was the major highway
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: sixty six through western China through Tibet. There's a highway
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: there that is famous that people drive and they I
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: don't know, maybe it's because they've never driven on mountainous
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: roads before. And there it's like you're out in the
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: middle of the Most of China's flat, but they drive
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: crazy in there. There's all sorts of accidents that happen.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: So there's this conundrum of different things that are happening there.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Like in the Weiger region, you can't even pull into
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: a gas station without the gas stations are all locked up,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: so it's interesting they weren't in Tibet. But it's so
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: it's like there's there's it just spooks me is what
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: it does. But that's but yes, Tibet. Tibet was like
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: a wonderful place.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: What were the differences in terms of like scenery or
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: food or culture that you noticed in the different regions
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that you went through in China.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Well, the first region we went through, it was all
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: about the hot pot.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice yak meat, a.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: Lot of yak meat in Tibet, which was good.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Overall, the food was like compared to Tajikistan, wholy, Toledo,
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Tajikistan has the worst food in the world.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but it has.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: China overall had some amazingly good food. But in terms
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: of differences, there wasn't a whole lot of difference between
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: the foods that I can recall.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was what you would expect, lot
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: of kind of rice and noodle dishes, stir fried with
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: different vegetables and meat if you wanted it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: Kind of.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Nice. And then the landscape, as you said, was very
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: mountainous obviously going through Tibet and from Tijikistan into China,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I imagine that section was quite mountaous as well and beautiful.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Tibet almost every day, I would say four or
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: five or six days in a row. We'd hit a
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: mountain pass that was fifteen thousand feet plus what and
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: we were traveling. We were traveling in a group of
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: about twelve vehicles what was it, roughly four motorcycles and
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: eight eight four wheel drive or four wheel vehicles, And
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: even with our loaded weight, there was only one or
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: two cars that would outrun besides the motorcycles that would
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: outrun the Toyota to comet fifteen thousand feet overweed.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. What was it like traveling with a
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: gri after being solo for so long with that many
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: vehicles or were you kind of allowed to branch out
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and go on your own but you have to meet
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: up in the same place at the end of the day.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were allowed to branch off, although we ended
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: up pretty much staying with most of the group and
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: meeting up for lunch.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: And it was very sweet.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: I think there's a kind of person who chooses to
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: travel overland is somebody that we're automatically going to want
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: to have conversations with and want to spend time with.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And people were from all over well, mostly Europe. We
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: were the only Americans, which is typical. We rarely see.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: Other Americans overlanding.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: We're seeing more now in South America, but definitely not
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: throughout Africa and Asia at all. We did have one
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: challenging couple on the trip.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: They were challenging.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: They were older than us, they were in their eighties,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: and they had a very large vehicle that was challenging
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: for them, and they were kind of angry and they
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: took out their anger on a lot of the younger
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: people in the group, which was disturbing. So they ended
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: up kind of splitting off on their own as much
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: as possible, which was a strange dynamic.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: But so we would be doing forty five miles an
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: hour up the mountain passes, and they would be doing
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: about twenty five in their unimogu with a huge black
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: soot cloud coming out the back of it as they're
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: they're lumbering their way up and yet another mountain pass.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: So it's like they got frustrated because they wanted to
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: stay with the group and they were doing twenty five
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: miles an hour and everybody else was averaging thirty five
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: to forty five.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: And the motorcycles needed to go faster because they were cold,
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: so they couldn't go slowly. They needed to get their
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: ride done, you know.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: As much in the short time possible in the day.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: So the guy did well kind of navigating all of
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: that and trying to make everybody happy. But that's the
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: only time, I mean, there's that was our second time
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: that we've had to hire a guide and do a
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: cross and the first time we didn't have that situation
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: at all. It was just a fantastic group and everybody
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: got along nice.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: And how are the guides in that experience? Did you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: get to have some good conversation and learn some things
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: or what was that like it?
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: They started off being very you know, stand offish a bit,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: I would.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: Say they were.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't really share, like their job was to portray
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: a certain view of the national government and what was
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: going on, especially in Tibet. But over time, as we
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: got to know our guide, there was more sharing and
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: more information that came as we built trust.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: For example, we asked him, what do you feel first,
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: are you first Tibetan or are you first Chinese? And
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: he said initially he said Chinese, and then later on
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: in the trip it.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Was like he's Tibetan is what he is.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: So but that's you can see there's this party line
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: that they have to follow, or they're expected to follow,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: but then after a while it kind of breaks down.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: Your friendship is created and there's more trust on generated,
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: but it's it's sad to see.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, what about you have a female guide as well.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: Yes, in the.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: First part of our first Chinese crossing, she was much
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: more just kind of cut and dry professional. We didn't
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: get to as well.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Right, interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing about that. I want
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: to take you on some rapid fire questions, which they're
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: like not rapid, but it's just basically I'll say a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: word and you answer and it's gonna be great. So
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: my first one is most ingenious repair, which I feel
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: like you've kind of touched on already. But what's been
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: your most ingenious repair so far?
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: You have to take this?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Oh well, you tell me.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Well, there was the Pimiento.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the Pimiento was definitely that. I was amazing,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: thousand mile repair.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: That, yeah, I love it. Best food.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: Turkey, yes, Turkey, We love the food in Turkey.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I love the food in Turkey too.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Worst illness COVID in Saudi Arabia.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh no, we had to be in your camper.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, we were in the camper and luckily we had
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: COVID tests, so we just took ourselves off into the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: desert for a.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Week and very luckily it was wintertime so it was
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: only about seventy Thank goodness.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't imagine having COVID in a camper and
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: it's like summer or you know, super hot, that'd be awful.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Next up, Highest High.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: Maybe the mountain gorillas, Yes, the mountain gorillas in Uganda.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: What made that so special?
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: I think the whole experience of you're hiking into the
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: jungle with the guide for hours and then you come
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: upon there's these magnificent animals and looking into their eyes
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: and just being able to sit and watch them and
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: they're watching you. It's like who's who's Who's who's more
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: interested in who?
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: But they're so beautiful.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: They just they're so close to us, right in terms
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: of DNA, they're they're one of the closest animals and
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: you can just feel.
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: That when you're with them.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Definitely you see it in their face.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, incredible. Okay, we're going to go to the other
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: end here. Lowest Low.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Definitely the fifth breakdown on our fuel tank.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: I would say the other time was when we were
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: stuck in Cambodia trying to figure out how to get
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: our truck across Thailand, because we happened to hit right
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: at the time that Thailand was really coming down and
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: forcing the rule about no foreign camper trucks without a
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: very expensive permitting process that was you know, at the time,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: about two thousand dollars and took six to eight weeks,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: so that did not fit into our plans. We had
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: shipping buddies that we were meeting up with in Malaysia
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: to ship to South America.
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: So luckily we had about four to five weeks slot.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: But we basically spent that in Cambodia, spending day upon
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: day just emailing shippers, emailing freight forwarders, emailing whoever we
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: could to see how we could get ourselves across the border.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: And you know, literally we'd spend days just waiting for
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: the last fifteen emails to be answered and the uncertainty.
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: Of and it was hot, you know, we were hot,
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: and we were in cities that we were like, you know,
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: like Sinoopol is not our favorite place, and we were
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: there because we were trying to visit the port.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: That was a hard time.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: How did you get through that?
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: We actually ran into an Australian couple at the border.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: We had made multiple attempts just to talk our way
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: across the border, which is what people had always done
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: in the past, and they had found a woman who
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: agreed to take their truck on a flatbed across Thailand.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: So they gave us the contact information and we reached
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: out to her and she took care of it for us.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: They drove our truck across Thailand to Malaysia and then
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: we met it at the border in Malaysia.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Well, they put it on a flatbed and they drove it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: They drove the flatbed across and that is not possible
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: now because there was a border con There is still
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: a border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, so that borders
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: now are shut. And so now people who are trying
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: to get to a port other than seeing Ukville or Vietnam,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: we've heard that that's not a great port to ship
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: out of either. Oh you can't drive your private vehicle
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: there either, from what we understand, so it's a pretty
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: limiting shipping out of India. We've heard is also pretty
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: pretty challenging doing the logistics out of that as well.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Hmm. I'm like, where are we going to ship out home?
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I wonder maybe one of the next podcasts in six
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: months or so will be me coming back with the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: next version of this story through Southeast Asia. We'll have
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: to see best budget tip.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: A best budget.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a minor thing, but I love the
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: fact that we filter all our own water so we
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: never have to buy water. That saves a lot of
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: time and effort, and also all the plastic bottles.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: The other thing that we also do is even though
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: we get about fourteen miles per gallon in our truck,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: that's only a drop of about from eighteen to fourteen.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: With all that extra weight.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: And so what we do is we I drive slow
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: forty five fifty miles an hour on the freeway unless
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: it's unless I'm in the auto bona, which I would
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: try to avoid, but we try to believe it or not.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Gas is our biggest expense, and just driving slow, shifting,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: shifting in the low RPMs, just trying to economize that
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: is the other way to do it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: The other thing that just popped into my mind is that,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: And to be honest, we don't always do this, but
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: to the extent that you can eat like the locals.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Like if you're trying to find your special food from
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: back home, it's going to cost you five times as
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: much as if you're just shopping in the local markets,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: especially eating the fresh fruits and vegetables and the foods
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: that local people are eating, rather than trying to eat
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: like you eat back home.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good tip, really good tip.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: And when in India, eat Indian food, it's wonderful. It's
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: do not try to cook in India. It's just not
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: worth it. The food that you can buy food, I
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: mean you can go to a sit down restaurant for
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: what three dollars and.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: You get enough food to eat for three meals.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like and it's amazing. It's just like North
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: American Indian food. It's really really good.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bring your little tupperware container, take it away. Love
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: that last rapid fire question is current favorite piece of gear?
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: Oh it's you. What's your favorite piece of gear?
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Favorite piece of gear? Our Max track?
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Nice? Nice?
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Those have saved us, saved us probably about three times
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: out in there. The winch has worked has saved us
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: and some other people a couple of times. But the
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: max tracks being able to just use them as a
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: shovel and just you know, we I don't try to
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: air down first, and so I drive on the beach
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: and sometimes you get in a soft spot and oops.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: Then it's just dig them out and ten minutes we're
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: out and we're traveling again. So it's like, I think
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: that's a good one.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Perfect. I love that. So your kids come to visit you,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: seems like pretty frequently, which is amazing. How does that
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: change the dynamic of your trip.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: Well, there's two different ways that they come. Sometimes we
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: all meet.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Up as a family and then we just kind of
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: honestly discard the truck at that point and it just
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: becomes like any other traveler where we're staying in.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: Hotels and airbnbs.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: But then we have the trips where one of them
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: will come and travel with us for a few weeks,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: and that's just it's so sweet, and it's honestly something
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: that we don't think we could do with anybody that
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: wasn't one of our children, because it's a very intimate experience.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, one of the three.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Of us is wedged in our little half seat in
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: the cab during the day and then you know, we
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: all sit and we eat and then typically what they've
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: done is they bring a tent and sleep outside.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: But sometimes when the weather's rough, they're sleeping inside with us.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: But you know, we love our children and having that
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: time with them as adults is really precious and special,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: and so we're up for it whenever they want to come.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: That's so fun. Where have your kids come to visit you?
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: So our oldest son went through the Premier Highway with
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: us and then through into Pakistan, across China into Pakistan,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: and our middle son has come twice. He came to
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Oman and then he came and went from Nepal through
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: China with us, and then our daughter came when we
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: were in Spain and Portugal.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Cool, very cool, and it's nice that you have enough
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: space that you can kind of cram into the camper
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: if you need to, but then also escape into the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: tent ground tent in some situations.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so you got to be about about five ten
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: is about the maximum size to sleep on our dynetes.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: And how tall tell you are your boys or daughter? Yeah?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Exploited in six one and a half or six twos.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Yet, that's so great. I love that they come busy.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: You and you have that shared experience of travel, and yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: that's a really fun, fun dynamic. And it's probably nice
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: for you two to have a familiar face drop in
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: once in a while and have a chat, and yeah,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: spend that time together. So I'm curious. I want to
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: take it back to before you left, and you're talking
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: about what you were doing before you embarked on this journey,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and you went about your life. You had your career
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and kids and a house. When you remove the structures
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of career home ownership routine, what parts of your identity
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: disappeared and which ones emerged.
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: That's a good one for me.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: My career was always wanting to be a forester.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: I ended up being a vice president general manager of
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: a private forest, so I hit what I really wanted
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: to do. But I knew that the job was not
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: my identity, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being the
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: boss and that was a good challenge.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: It was great. But what I want to go back, No,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go back.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: I'm enjoying doing what we're our travels and building a house.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Actually we're going to build two houses. But I don't
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: miss the I don't have an identity problem because I
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: have lots of work.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: To do and how about you done?
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: I would say what I miss is not so much
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: the specifics of a job, but that sense of I
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: always worked in the nonprofit and in the arts communities,
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: and for me, it was always important to be doing
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: something where I felt like I was contrue. So there's
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: a piece of that that is missing for me right now,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: and we've talked about it and thinking about different ways
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: for me to fill that void of how I can
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm still somehow contributing to the world. And
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: we've talked about volunteering different places. But you know, a
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: little bit of as that is, like how we're introverts
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: and also how we've just kind of been on this path,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: like we're going to drive around the world, and so
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: we just keep going, going, going, And maybe that's something
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: we'll get back to in the future, is to find
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: somewhere to go back to and volunteer. But I think
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: what's interesting as a couple, you know, we've been married
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: thirty and yet being on the road together in this
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: intense experience, we've learned more, and we've learned how to
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: build on each other's strengths and skills.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: So you know, I am not a mechanic. I'm never
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: going going to be a mechanic.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Like Andy can show me how to do something and
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: I've forgotten it the next day.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: But I can like figure.
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: Out how to make a meal out of you know,
• 47:02
  Speaker 8: rice and whatever we can find, and you know that's
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: no problem. So we each have we bring our own
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: skills to the table and they're very complimentary.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: I think it works.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: You know, Andy does the macro planning, like okay, we're
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: going to hit West Africa when it's not monsoon season,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: and by Will say, okay, we're going to go to
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: this voodoo festival in Benin on this date and we'll
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: figure out how to make that happen.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: So nice.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you noticed that certain skills have developed from
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: this lifestyle that you were unexpected?
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: It takes an amazing amount of planning.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: That's I think that's really a big surprise.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: I mean how every day.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, because we tend to just keep moving every day,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: we have to figure out where are we going to sleep,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: where are we gonna where are we going to get food,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: what are we going to do? And if there's some
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: key tourist attraction, do we need to book that. You know,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: some things you need to book months in advance, and
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: we have missed out.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: We didn't get to do the.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Exact trails we wanted to do in Torres Deale Piney
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: because we only thought about it five months in advance,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: not seven months in advance.
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: And movement, you know, so things like that you have
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: to stay on top of that. And I think that
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: we've developed that ability.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: And also learned how to like, oh well, it didn't work,
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: you know, that's too bad. And sometimes we forget and
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: we get over confident. We got stuck in Uruguay because
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: we didn't research the fact that we needed to apply
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: for our Brazilian visas ten days in advance. We thought
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: we could just apply online and get it the next day,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: and that's not the case. So sometimes there's reminders about
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: how we need to get maybe more fine tuned in
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: our planning.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's a work in progress every day.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we were over confident once we arrived in South America,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: thinking this is going to be easy compared to Africa.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: Africa and the visas are so challenging. In Asia, the
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: visas where we had to fly from Kazistan to India
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: to Delhi, get our visas stamped in our passports, fly
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: back to Kasastan, and then drive into the country with
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: the multi entry visa in the passport Already, those type
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: of planning were super complicated. Going into Nigeria, the visas
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: where they almost were basically the same.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: We had to get a.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: Police escort from the from the border all the way
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: to the airport, and so then you get tripped up
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: when you relax a little bit.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Unlike with Brazil, we almost missed Carnival.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you're like, well, I don't want to
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: plan too farign events because things could all change. But
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: then you don't want to not plan too farign events.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: It's definitely a dance, that is for sure.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, we probably are we I probably planned
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: too far in advance.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: So right now I have us planned.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: All the way through Ecuador, and that is about a
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: five month journey through Brazil and Paraguay and Peru and Bolivia.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: And so we plan that out like that, and I
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: plan out every day of what we're going to, where
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: we're going, what city we're going to do and how
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: much time. And Cusco we're going to spend four days
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: hiking the Inca Trail. But I do that so that
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: we can so that we can see for things like
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: the West Africa monsoon season. We really didn't want to dry.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to drive through two feet of mud.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: We already experienced eighteen inches of mud in there, so
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: we didn't want to hit the bad season. And we
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: also don't want to hit the bad season going through
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: Peru and Ecuador in terms of the rainy season. So
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: it's like we do those planning, realize that things are
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: going to change, and so we just changed this spreadsheet
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: that I use.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I love it such great insight. And what is next?
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: You're talking about going up to Ecuador. Are you planning
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: on heading up through Central America, Mexico into the US
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: back home or what's coming up?
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: So our next leg of our journey is to spend
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: a couple of months in Brazil and then head back
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: south to hit Paraguay and Bolivia and Peru, and that'll
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: be about a four month adventure there. We will fly
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: back this November to pour the foundation on our main house,
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: spend a little bit of time there and Christmas here,
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: and then we fly back to Ecuador in the first
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: of January and start heading north to Colombia and ship
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: around the Darien Gap and do Central America.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: We are slowing down a tiny bit. When we first started,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: we would just like we didn't come back. For the
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: first couple of years, we were just going, you know,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: so we felt like we needed to just drive around
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: the world without stopping. And then we kind of took
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: a pause and said, well, why, like why can't we stop?
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: So over time we've spent more time coming back seeing
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: family and friends and then going back, so it's a
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: bit more of a balance than just the full time, full,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: full time overlanding.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: We find ourselves different than most overlanders where we'll read
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: on I Overlander where someone will just be camping wild
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: camping at a spot and they'll say that they stayed
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: there for three or four days, and we're like, are
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: you kidding me?
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Why would you spend three or four days here? It's
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: just a dusty bowl, there's nothing here, It's.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: Like so it's like we are we realize that ourselves,
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: that we're kind of unique, and that we like to
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: just push on.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: The next day and so always on.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: The move, always on the move, and gas is our
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: biggest expense. I mean, we spend We've been tracking our
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: expenses throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, and each one of
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: those continents we spend about one hundred dollars a day
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: three thousand dollars a month, and our biggest expense usually
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: is gasoline because we travel so much and we could
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: save a bunch of money if we just learned to
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: slow down.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: But it's like, I guess that's not who.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: We are, fair enough. And it's been six years, so
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Over one hundred countries, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: very good. My last question is what are your favorite
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: books each of you?
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, my favorite book is fourteen ninety one, which is
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: about the day before Christopher Columbus happened in North America
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: and what changed over the period of time.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Donald's yours.
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: It's so hard for me. I read a lot, so.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: You can suggest more than one.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: My most recent books are the ones that I just
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: I think of, like I recently read and Splendid Sons Sons, Yes,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: which is a beautiful book. Right now, I'm reading a
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: book I love called James, which is a rewrite of
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: the Tom Sawyer, a Verry Thinn story from the perspective
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: of James, the black slave in the story.
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: So, I mean, my favorite books would change every month,
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: So it's I don't I don't look back and say, oh,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: but those are my current favorites.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: That's fair.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: All done on the kindle.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love. I don't know if you guys have
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the Libby app. It's like the library app that you get. Yeah,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: of course, it's like. My favorite overland accessory is the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Libby app because it's just so easy to get all
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the books that you could ever want and more and
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: you can free you.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Can and you can access it throughout the world.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's just amazing that we can download these
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: books and wow.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, an incredible, incredible thing to be able to
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: do when you're traveling. So so great. Yay, Well, thank
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you guys so much for chatting with me on the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: podcast today and bringing us into your overland world. It's
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: been it's been a ride, it's been great. So yeah,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: thank you.
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: Again, thank you, thank you for asking us.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Of course, also i'd like to give you guys a
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: shout out. You were talking about trip planning earlier, and
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I wrote a trip planning collective article in Overland Journal
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Fall twenty twenty five, and you shared a lot of
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: your tips on trip planning in that article, so we'll
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: share the link below. It's also on Expedition Portal, so
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: readers can be super jazzed about that. But yeah, thanks
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: again so much, and I look forward to seeing where
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: you guys go next and I'm sure we'll have you
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: back on to chat more.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: Thank you, I have a good rest of your day.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and shout out to the Overland Journal podcast
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: listeners for tuning into today's episode. I hope you enjoyed
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: it and we'll catch you next time.