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Interviewing Hourless Life on overlanding around the globe as a family- in a Jeep. · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady. My co host Matt Scott is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: actually bringing in a container filled of goodies from Australia,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: so he's not with us this morning. Today, I have
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a very cool couple and their son in the studio.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: We've got Eric and Brittany Hyland from The Hourless Life,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and their son Caspian is here in the studios as well.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You may join us at some point or in the recording,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: which is really fun. So it's great to have you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: guys with us today. Thank you so much for taking
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the time. I'm really excited to hear about the journeys
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that you guys have done since twenty fourteen, if I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: read that correctly, and the journey that you're about to undertake,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: which is just absolutely fascinating. So thank you both for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: being on the podcast today.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having us.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, Scott. We're huge fans of the podcast,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: so just to be here as a little surreal.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've been listening since episode one and I remember
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: putting up an article about the podcast when it first
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: came out because I was so excited about it. So
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: this is amazing.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's awesome. This week's episode is supported in part
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: by Rumpel Blankets. Rumpell started literally in the back of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a van. Their story is interesting. They were on a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: surf and ski trip through California and the founders of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Rumpel were sleeping in a van several miles up a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: dirt road near a secret hot springs. It woke up
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the next morning in sub zero temperatures in a car
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't start. They were outside of cell reception and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: confronted with the real possibility of a long walk into town.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So instead they decided to bundle up in their sleeping
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: bags and drink whiskey while they waited for someone else
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to show up. And that turned into hours, and the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: conversation extended on to the subject of bedding, and they
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: came up with Rumpel Blankets. Their most popular product is
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the original Puffy blanket. It is their flagship product and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it's available in a one person, a two person, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a junior size. I have used the two person for
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: many years. I keep it as part of my kit
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: at lives in the vehicle just in case I run
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: into a situation similar to what they did where I'm
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: stranded and need some additional warmth and insulation. It's also
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: really useful for around the campfire when you want that
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: little bit of extra comfort. I'll also use it when
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: sleeping in the vehicle, and then they are just the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: right size or a roof tent as well. So these
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: are really high quality blankets that are weather resistant. They're
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: made from recycled materials, they're washable, and they have very
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: durable fabrics in construction, which makes them ideal for overland travel.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Check out Rumpel or your Next Blanket. What I found
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: so cool is the fact that you guys are not
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: only traveling with your son Caspian, but he was actually
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: born during your travels. And I don't have children myself.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I have nephews that I'm so grateful for and I've
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: been able to be a part of their life since
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: they were born, but I don't have my own children.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So we want to have more of that on the podcast,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: so that way those that are listening with families they
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: can learn from those who have been traveling like you
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: two have with your son. So how how was it
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: like to have a newborn during your travels?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So we started traveling full time in February twenty fourteen,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: and Caspian was born in December of twenty sixteen, So
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: we had been traveling full time for a while, and
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: at the time it was very unique, very different. A
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: lot of our community thought we would stop traveling because
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I was pregnant and we were going to have a baby.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Of course you have to get off the road and
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: stop traveling, But we didn't believe that the two were
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: mutually exclusive, nor did we believe that we couldn't have
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a healthy family and a healthy child while traveling full time.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: And we had been traveling full time already for what
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: three years nearly age, yeah, almost three years just as
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: a couple, and so that wasn't new to us. So
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: the idea of bringing in our son into that lifestyle,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: it didn't really seem that overwhelming.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: We could picture how it was going to work because
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: we had such a good rhythm, and we did slow down.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: So we were still living in an RV at the time,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and we slowed down the last trimester of my pregnancy
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: and his first six months, when it felt like we
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: were at the doctor every other day during that time. Sure,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: but the second that he turned six months, we were
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: back on the road, traveling full time.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And that was the hardest part. His doctor wouldn't let
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: us leave for six months. He wanted to make sure that,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: you know, he had a good start to life.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: It makes sense.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: So we were kind of hold in Austin, Texas, and
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: we were chomping at the bit to get back on
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: the road.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: History certainly supports the idea that kids can be mobile
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: in that way. If you think about what an infant
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: would have endured that was born during a wagon trip
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: across the United States to the West coast, which happened
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis. They're quite durable. Again, I don't
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: have my own kids. I'm not trying to assume that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I know anything, because I don't know anything. They are
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: extremely durable. Yeah, but they're quite durable, and historically they
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: have been moved and carried, and you think about even
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: roaming bands and roaming tribes. Now even in current time,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: their kids are with them and they survive. I think
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: they just need their mom. Occasionally, they may need their dad,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: but they really need their mom. If they've got their mom,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: then they're going to be pretty safe and happy and healthy.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: So that's been our experience. The two words that I
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: always use to describe Caspian. Are friendly, I'm flexible, yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and really all he needs is us and if we're
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: there and we're okay, yeah, and rolling with the punches,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: so we might confront a challenge, but as long as
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: we take it in stride, he follows suits automatically.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: And I think there's something interesting about Caspian and that
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: he went directly from the birthing room of the hospital
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: to a lifestyle of full time travel. So he's never
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: known a life apart from this, and so he doesn't
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: have anything to compare it to sight. And so when
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Brittany says he's flexible, you know, we'll do a five
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: hour drive in the jeep and he'll say, that wasn't
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: very long, you know. And I remember him saying that at.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Three years old.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: What three year old says that a five hour trip
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: in a vehicle isn't long?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: The one kid in history that hasn't said are we
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: there yet? Right? Exactly? That's but how amazing is that?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And I also think about children are I think in
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: many cases they are taught well in school, but they're
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: also taught this two dimensional view of the world. So
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: there may be given a history lesson that has all
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: of this great information, but you can actually show them,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: show him that they can He can actually see not rushmore,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and he can actually see Mexico and Mexico City and Baha,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and it's not just this theoretical two dimensional place on
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: a map. For him, it is now filled with experience,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: including his toes in the sand and watching a turtle,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a baby turtle trying to get to the All of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: those things are now part of his memories.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I think for all of us, the more of our
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: five senses that we can engage, the more we'll remember it,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the more it'll be impressed upon us. And we all
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: feel that through travel, we're tasting the food, we're seeing,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: we're smelling all of those senses. And as a child,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: he will remember the history lessons because he's not just
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: reading it in a book.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And from our perspective his parents, there's nothing better than sitting.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: You know, you kind of told us about a little
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: area here in Prescott where we could stay out in
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the national forest. And just a couple of days ago,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Caspian was wearing a spiked helmet, a spike looks like
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: a stegosaurus is underwear, and he was crawling around in
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: the river building a dam, and you know, he's not
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: looking at a screen, he's not you know, doing watching
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: television or doing he's out there building it and he's barefoot. Yeah,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: and he's just walking around and doing this.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: That's so amazing.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And Britt was sewing rocks. He was throwing pine
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: cones and pieces of wood and seeing how they floated
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: or didn't. So there's lessons there in science.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And then he went out and gathered wood for our
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: fire because he wanted a fire, so he brought like
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: a sizeable bundle and he's crawling through the woods just
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: gathering this wood and telling us it's for the fire
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: this evening. And you know, just it's incredible.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: How old is he? He just turned for in December,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: in December. That's amazing because the interactions that I had
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: with him already this morning, I can tell that you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: treat him as a child, You treat him as another
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: human alone this journey with you. So when he was
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: asking me questions and interacting with me, he interacted with
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: me with confidence, and he expressed himself, you know, very
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: thoughtfully and talked about how fast his race car was.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And it was just so cool to see how comfortable
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: he was with me as a total stranger to communicate
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in a way that I thought looked more like a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: six or a seven year old.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that word, Scott, because
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: I want you to think about this. He doesn't know
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: a stranger. Yeah, everyone he's ever met has been a stranger,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: and so to him, they're just other human beings. And
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: he is no respector of persons, or of race, or
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: of size, or of age or any other thing that
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: we kind of have that in our head when we
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: prejudgment on someone, you know, like maybe I'm talking to
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: somebody who's elderly, I want to slow down. I don't
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: want to put that much. Or maybe I'm talking to
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: someone's young and I want to raise my voice and
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: be like, he doesn't know anything about that. So everyone
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: he meets to him, they're his friend.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: And we saw him when we were in Mexico. Brittany
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: and I were walking. He was walking about ten feet
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: in front of us, and there was about a I'm
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: guessing she was about twelve year old girl who had
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: just gotten out of school. She's carrying her books, she's
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: walking down the street. He ran up caught up to her,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: grabbed her by the hand, didn't even look at her,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: just grabbed her by the hand and kept walking down
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: the street. And her mother saw this happen and she's
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: looking at.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: This little kids.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: He was too, He was too, and he's walking down
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the street with this girl and she looked down and
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: she was just like happy that he was there. And
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: it was just one of those moments in time for
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: us as parents that we were like, Wow, something right.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Is happening here. You're giving him an opportunity for such
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: self confidence. What I have found confidence really is is
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: an accumulation of our experiences. We feel less confident when
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: we're less experienced about something. So you're giving him all
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of these genuine human experiences in ways that many children
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: don't have or in many ways are very encapsulated in
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: those experiences. So he has this broad spectrum now of
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: experiences that is going to give him so much confidence
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: for life. And that's just a really beautiful thing to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: see in the short time that I've spent with you guys.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And he's well traveled. I mean, like I said, he
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: just turned four. He's been to forty seven of the
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: lower forty eight states. He has been to thirty of
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: our sixty three national parks. He has been a little
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: bit in Canada, he's been over two thousand miles into
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: interior Mexico, and he's done the entirety of the Baja Peninsula.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: And like I said, he just turned for that's amazing.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: So he's got some experience behind him. I don't know
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: that he'll remember enviable passport already. Yeah, it's just awesome
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: to watch him take everything in it. We get to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: live it through his eyes and it's precious.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: And how does having Caspian change the way that you
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: plan or the way that you prepare your vehicle? I
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: think maybe in the more notable ways, there's probably some nuances.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: What are the more notable changes that you guys thought
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: about your travels and about preparing a vehicle and planning
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: for your trip with your son along as.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Far as planning our travels, hardly anything has changed along
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the whole way, even when he was a newborn. Like
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, we just through our experience we didn't
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: feel that we had to change that much. We certainly
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: don't have the night life that we used to have.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: That's one of the biggest differences, just schedule wise, sure,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: we do everything together and he's learned to go along
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: with that. And as far as the vehicle, it just
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: is a matter of geometry gets bigger.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: And it's been a learning process because in the vehicle
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: that we currently have, which we call our North American build,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: which we've made a lot of mistakes on, but we've
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: learned from, it's going to be a lot different from
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: the next vehicle that we'll be building out. The one
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: thing I will say about Caspiane is that we don't
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: have a babysitter that.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Goes along with us.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Sure, and so like you said, right now, he's sitting
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: in the studio kind of off and on a couch
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: off to the side. But we are taking applications for
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: a babysitter that would like to follow us around.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: The world, because you know, sometimes it's difficult.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: We don't have that time or that flexibility to go
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: out and just enjoy that little time together. But the
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: trade off is absolutely worth.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It, and maybe you'll encounter other families throughout your travels.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I remember, even through Central America, the number of French
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: families that I encountered in RV's traveling around, and maybe
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: they would look for a babysitter from you. The other
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: way around, you could trade some time. And also I
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: noticed that in places like in the Americas, in Latin
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: America in particular, having your kid with you for nightlife
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: is fairly common. It's fairly common to go into a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: restaurant or a dance club or whatever, and people have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: got their kids there because it's like, again, it's just
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: normal for family to be so deeply integrated in the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: daily activities.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he changes the dynamic for international travel. Certainly, we've
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: noticed that at border crossings where you know, they're just kinder.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: They're like your family, let's get you moving.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: We roll down the windows so they can meet Caspian
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: we're going through checkpoints.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: And he loves them, so he'll talk to them and
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: he'll say, oh lah, you know, he'll just talk to them.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It's great, that's wonderful. I have heard that, particularly in
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Latin America, is that they love the idea of and
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: obviously they do their very family oriented culture. Seeing you
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: with your child, I'm sure that is very endearing, even
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to the military checkpoint that they can relate a little
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: bit more or to you guys as a couple with
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: a child. And again, it probably makes them more mindful,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: whereas I've experienced as a solo male traveler, I've experienced
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: other side of it where maybe they're more suspicious of
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: my activities, like why are you all alone on this
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: motorcycle in the middle of Peru? Right, you know, we're
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: going to give this guy the full dressing down to
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: figure out why is he here. Whereas a family, they're
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: going to be a lot more understanding or maybe consider
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it or whatever. I think that that's a really beautiful
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: part of traveling as a family. And what are some
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of the things that you guys have noticed around your
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: planning or where even you guys want to go? Has
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it changed where you want to go? Not so much.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, that's awesome.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: He's just part of our journey, you know. Yeah, And
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: like I said, he doesn't know a life apart from it.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: We don't know anything different since twenty fourteen, And so
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: I think it's akin to people who bring a newborn
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: into their home. There's no significant changes. They're not going
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: to change the grocery store they go to or the
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: church that they go to, sure or whatever. This is
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: our lifestyle. Yeah, And so that's just hasn't changed for us.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: He's just assimilated into that and become a part of it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: It's so funny because it just shows how entirely ignorant
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I am of the subject. So what like, did horn
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: start cutting out of your head? When it just shows
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: how little I know about that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You're not the only one, though, Scott. I think there's
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: so many parents to be who automatically assume that they
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: can't go hiking anymore, they can't go backpacking or you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: go overlanding for that matter. I just met a mom
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: at a campground recently. She has three children, and the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: youngest was about six years old, and she told me
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: that when they first got married she loved camping. They
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: went all the time, and this was her first time camping.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: To me, that's so foreign because we just brought him
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: into it. But it's not true of everyone. And I
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: do want to empower other moms, especially that they can
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: do it. It's a beautiful thing. It's going to be
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: hard at first, but then it's so rewarding.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's all about what they know too. Because
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: we mentioned hiking, Caspian's actually quite an accomplished hiker. We
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: set a goal for him to hike a mile for
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: each year of his life. So in his first when
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: he was one, he hiked one mile. When he was two,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: he hiked two, when he was three, he hiked three.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And just the other day, literally just the other day,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: down here in table Mesa, he hiked four miles by himself. Now,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: when I say by himself, we're with him I unaided.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: We're not helping him scramble over anything, we're not helping
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: him climb up things or down things. He's doing it
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: all on his own. And he did four miles uninterrupted, unaided.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: That's that's amazing. It is. But he this is his life,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: this is what he knows. I feel accomplished if I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: do four miles. I just did that the other day
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and I still a little sore. So that's also that's amazing.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: That's great, that's very cool that he's able to do
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that with you. So now give the listener kind of
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a an overview of your experience as travelers and since
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, now that you may have done some now
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: because you were in the Coast Guard, was that correct?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: I'm retired from the United States Coast Guard. I served twenty.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Years and where did you travel in the coast guard
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: all over the world.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: I've actually been to Antarctica twice, Space I circumnavigated the
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: globe on a ship. I've been to the Arctic Ocean
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: three times. I've been to Australia eight times, Fiji, Hobart, Testmania,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: you named it. I've actually stepped foot on every continent
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: except for Africa. I've never been to Africa. It's the
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: one that's eluded me. So the day that Brittany and
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: I fly into Africa to meet our vehicle there will
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: be the very first.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Time I go.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I will then be able to say I've been on
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: all seven continents.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And how amazing to do that with your family and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: have that experience together. That's wonderful. So talk about Brittany,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: your travels before you guys started, before you started your
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: journey in twenty fourteen, Where did your travels take you
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in the world.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: So I was born in Canada, in Ontario, and my
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: father's from Ontario, my mother from Alberta. Her parents immigrated
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: from Poland after World War two and they met in Yellowknife,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Northwest Territories. And travel was a part of my dad's life, especially,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean he did the hitchhiking Europe thing in the sixties,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: and he had been all over Canada and the United States,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: so that was in my blood. We ended up relocating
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to Texas as a family, and we would overland, even
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: though I didn't consider it that at the time in
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: our minivan with no air conditioning from the Gulf of
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Mexico to the Northwest Territories for family vacation.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as a child, it's what you do
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: and you don't really think about it too much. But
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: we were homeschooled, So I homeschooled through twelfth grade before
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: going to university, and all the stops along the way
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: were part of our education. And so again that was
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: ingrained to me. Even though it ingrained into me as
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: an adult, I can appreciate that sure, and loved doing
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: that with Caspian and kind of replicating those experiences. Those
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: were my travel experiences, were those family vacations. And did
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: some study abroad in Europe, but not nearly as well
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: traveled as Eric.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So now give us the kind of the overview. Now
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: that you guys are a couple and twenty fourteen comes
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: around and you start traveling and overlanding together give us
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: an overview of where you guys went and how you traveled,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: what vehicle you used.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So we lived in an apartment in Austin and we
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: were starting our journey as business owners because we wanted
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the freedom to work together. Primarily was what we really
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: dreamed of doing. But then along the way we realized
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: if we build our business on the internet, then we
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: can travel anywhere where we have Internet. We don't need
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: to be working in our apartment, which is what we
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: were doing every day.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: This was back in twenty eleven, Scott when digital nomadism,
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know that it was a term. We had
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: just figured out that hey, if we can do everything
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: we need to do on the Internet, then that's going
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: to give us a measure of freedom. But we had
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: to build up that business for three years. So understand
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: that the idea of working together creating our own business
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: started back in twenty eleven, so we're talking about ten
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: years ago. Sure, and it was intentional. It was intentional
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: to build a business that we could work from online.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until still in the Coast Guard at this no.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I retired in twenty ten, so after Sure, and so
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: it was very intentional to build a business that we
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: could work from remotely before remote work was a thing before,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: and there were probably some people doing it, but you know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: we're not the trailblazers of it. But it wasn't it
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: wasn't a fat It wasn't a term where everybody's working remotely.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: It was difficult to do because even at that time
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of remote work in the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: software business that I was involved with for higher education,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and it was very difficult to find reliable Wi Fi,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: especially internationally. I can't remember the number of times that
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I would see a hotel that would have the Wi
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Fi symbol on the door, which meant that they did
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: have a Wi Fi connection, but it never it never
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: was connected to the internet, right, you know that those
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: two are not inclusive, that they So that was definitely
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the wild West when it came to working remotely, and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until like even Australia twenty eleven, very difficult
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to find reliable Wi Fi. I could only really find
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it at McDonald's, for example. Whereas since I go to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Australia on a regular basis, each time I've gone, I've
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: seen that infrastructure improve and now many parks in the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: city have Wi Fi and they have a much better
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: infrastructure now. But yeah, twenty eleven would have been very challenging.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Right, And so we intentionally built that business so that
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: the end of twenty thirteen we were able to have
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: worked with our clients for three years. And back then
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: all of our work was client based, so they had
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: a trust that we had built with them. We had
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: spent time at their homes and having dinners with them
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: or barbecues and gotten to know them, and we told
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: them about this crazy idea that we had that we
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: wanted to travel full time, and we asked them, would
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: you trust us enough to continue representing your business because
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: we were doing social media for various companies. If we
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: promised that you won't see any kind of decline in
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: the service or difference in the service that we provide,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: but we just won't physically be here. And they'd all
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: gotten to know us, so they trusted us, and that
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: was what allowed us in twenty fourteen to get on
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: the road, and we made it a priority, like our
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: priority was finding good, reliable internet to be able to
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: take care of our clients so that we had that
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: income stream still coming in. But all of a sudden
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: we were able to open the front door of O
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: RV and it was a new location every single time.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: What was the tempo of that? That's something that I
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: do like to ask for those that are working on
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the road. Did you work every other day or did
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: you work every morning, or did you work flat out
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: every third day? Or how did that work?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So at the time, it was more of a nine
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to five Monday through Friday commitment. We were very busy then,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and so we would watch the world out our window
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: eagerly waiting until the end of the workday. Then we
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: would go explore or at least go out to eat
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: it was already the end of the day. And eventually
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: we developed a rhythm where we actually stayed two weeks
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: in one spot because then we had a weekend in
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: between that we could do whatever we wanted to because
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: before that we were traveling every Saturday, and so it
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: was exhausting. We were traveling every Saturday, working Monday through Friday,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: forcing ourselves to go out on Sunday because it was
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: the only full day that we had to explore.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: At one point in time, I turned to Brittany and
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I said, if we're going to continue at this pace,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be done.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: This is not burnout, this is not going to work.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: So we instituted a two hundred and fifty mile two
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: week rule, which became very fascinate because what ended up
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: happening was when you limit yourself to two hundred and
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: fifty miles, you end up in towns like Lormon, Mississippi,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: or Appalachicola or soop Choppy, places you've never heard of
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: but that actually exist. And those have actually been some
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: of our greatest experiences of understanding the microcultures of the
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: area that we're in totally not yeah, totally, and finding
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: little local eateries and getting to know the local people
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: of the town. And we just really enjoyed that aspect
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: of it. But it also gave us that time, like
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Britney said, two weeks, gave us a full weekend in
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: between in which we could go explore. And so that
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: was our rhythm for the first I would say four years.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And I should clarify because I don't think we did that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: At the time. We didn't know what overlanding was. We
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: had never even heard that term, or just life on
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: the road, life on the road, and we were rving
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: so we considered ourselves full time our veers, which at
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that time we were on the very young side to
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: be doing that. There were others out there who we
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: quickly gravitated towards other working age our veers, but there
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: weren't too many of us out there, which is very
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: much changed in the past seven.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Years, past seven months. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Try to find
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a place to park a van near Sedona. I forget it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Oh we just tried that.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we came out of shelter in place, which
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: we did for six months in Seattle, and the world
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: it changed. We were still in an RV last August
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and places that we thought, oh, we can just roll in,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: we don't need a reservation, because that has been our
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: experience for six years. All of a sudden we were
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: at a tiny forest campground in West Virginia and it
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: was full on a Wednesday night, and we couldn't believe it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: But here's the progression, Scott, this is what happened, and
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: this is how we got kind of to where we
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: are today. So what happened was we had this big
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: forty foot bus. It was a big forty foot tiff
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: and Faton Diesel massive thing, right, And that's what we started.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It was small when we moved into it because.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: We thought it was small because we had moved out
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: of an apartment into it. But we thought we needed
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: all that space. And so for the first four and
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: a half years we used that platform. And then about
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: three and a half years into it, Brittany started getting
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: a little crazy. Now you got to understand. I was
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: driving the jeep, Brittany was driving the RV. So she's
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: driving this thing. And then she decided that she wanted
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: to start going off grid a little bit.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I wanted to do more wild campaign.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Sure, but she touch with nature a little more.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in touch with nature in a thirty thousand pound rectangle, okay,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: and she has no fear whatsoever. So she was taking
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: it off road on shelf roads, just trying to find
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: remote spots. Sure, and I was like, hey, we're going
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: to have to change this type of travel. Like people's
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: jaws would drop when they saw this. Behema just roll
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: into this area. And so we were in jacksonvill outside
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Jackson Hole in Upper Titan View, which was a great
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: little site up there, and she had taken this thing
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: all the way up there. There's like three ninety degree
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: turns a shelf road. It's rutted, and she had taken
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: this beast up there. And we were driving back into
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Jackson Hole to get some supplies, and unbeknownst to me,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Brittany had been listening to a podcast about a family.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: And I'll let her tell you about that, but this
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: is what happened from my perspective. Then you got to
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: hear it from Brittany. So, okay, we're driving back to
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Jackson Hole and Britney all of a sudden says, pull over,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: pull over, pull over. Now she Brittany is an introvert.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: She has conversations with herself in her head before she
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: ever brings an idea to the table to discuss with me.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: So for her to exclaim something like that, I thought
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I hit a squirrel. I didn't know what happened. So
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: I pulled over, and I pulled into this parking lot
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: and there was this big what now I know is
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: an overlanding box truck that was for sale. I don't
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: even think I stopped the jeep. She jumped out, ran
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: up next to it, pointed to it and said this,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: this is what I want to do.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't have clues to what she was talking about.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: That was the day Eric found out what overlanding was.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: This was in twenty eighteen.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So I had been listening to the overland podcast, which
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: is no more, but specifically they were interviewing the Snaith
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: family from the UK and they had two young daughters.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I believe they were four and six when they set
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: out from the UK and they did a four year
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: around the world tripped. I was just learning what overlanding was,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: but my automatic assumption was I have a one year old.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I would love to do that, but I can't do that.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: But I kept.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Listening and I was like, wait, well it's been done before.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I have no excuse, and if they can do it,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I can do it. And we had been our being
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: and traveling the United States. We were kind of starting
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: to feel like we knew that lifestyle. We were ready
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: for another challenge because even though we were going to
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: new places and loving that, the actual RV travel was
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: getting a little.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: It had become routine.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: So what I like to say is when we first
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: started back in twenty fourteen, there was this spark Scott,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: there was this spark that it was magical, you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: And then after about four and a half years of
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: doing it, the spark was gone. The magic wasn't gone,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: but the spark was gone.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: It wasn't that it was the new normal.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just our new normal life. And then
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: she had been listening to this podcast, but I had
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: no idea that she was listening to it, and so
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: she just burst it out and said, this is what
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I want to do. There's this family they drove around
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: the world. If they can do it with two daughters,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: I can do it with one son.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, okay, let's go, you know.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And so that's kind of what started this whole process.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: We weren't sure if it was for us, and so
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: we started with what we had, and I know, that's
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: something that we definitely would like to share about.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we had the Deep Wrangler already. It was
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: for off roading and rock crawling. But we weren't going
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: to go out and buy a new vehicle and start
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: all over again. We couldn't afford to, and we didn't
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: even know or do we even like international overlanding. So
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: we added a rooftop tent and a fridge and a
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: few other things, and we went into interior Mexico about
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: six months after we found out what overlanding was.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: And because we're just crazy like this, we sold our
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: RV so y.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: We literally jumping in the deep end.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, that's one of the things when
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: we dream, we take our dream seriously and we're not
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: afraid to pursue pursue those things. So we literally sold
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: our home, moved into the jeep Wrangler, and drove directly
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: into Mexico and that was our first experience perfect with
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: our two year old.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So that was the beginning of twenty nineteen.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And how was that, if I remember correctly, you were
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in Mexico for about six months? Right, No, it was it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Was almost three months.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Almost career there. It was two different trips to Mexico, yesh.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was a smashing success. Yeah. So at
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: that time we again we were still working. We had
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: even more work projects at that time, and we needed
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: internet Monday through Friday. So we were actually getting airbnbs
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: for about two weeks stints, and then in between we
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: would do more of what a lot of people consider overlanding,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: which now looking back, we were overlanding.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Full time for sure, but it was a trial Scott.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Keep in mind, we had come up with this idea.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: And I know Brittany doesn't like when I say we
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: made a decision to drive around the world, but we did.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: We had made a decision to drive around the world,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: but we hadn't explored what that actually looked like for us,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: or whether or not it was something that was going
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: to be a good fit for us, or if we
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: would even enjoy it. And so Mexico Interior, our first
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: trip in twenty nineteen, was literally a trial. It was
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: kind of all right, does this work? Can we do this?
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Can we still handle our clients? Can we explore what's
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: what's it going to be like with Caspian? Are we
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: going to drive each other?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: That's what's going to happen. And it was a smashing,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: smashing success.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: What was your favorite lace that you stayed in mainland Mexico?
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, man, my family's gonna kill me. So I have
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: family in Puebla, Mexico, and I got to meet like
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: thirty three of my cousins. They came together for a
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: family reunion.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: And my mom is one of seventeen.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Ye and I love my family, but Puebla is not
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: my favorite. I really enjoyed San Luis Potosi, which is
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the capital city of the state of San Luis Potosi,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: and there was just something magical about being in their
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: downtown square with the cathedral and the architecture that was there,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: and the food and the people that we met.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It was pretty amazing.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: But we also made friends there and that made a
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: huge difference.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It always does, right. We connected with.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Our friend Lilia, who was a member of a very
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: act of four x four club there and we ended
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: up getting to meet the whole club. They were doing
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: some volunteer work and a tiny little village that we
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: got to be a part of, and it was just
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: very enriching. Gave us an idea of what we wanted
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: it to look like more long term.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Right. I think Wuana Wata was one of my favorites
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in that area. I really like, I'm so blested. That's
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: where she wants to get us. That's where you'll go
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: now start, it's heading south, right, So yeah, that Hidalgo,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Juana Wato. San Miguel de Allende is very much occupied
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: now by expats, which.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Does English everywhere.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: You know, which isn't right, Which isn't a reason not
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to go. It's just a very different experience than like
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Juana Wato. And I remember I went into the Museo
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: de los Momias, which is the Museum of the Mummies,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: which is a very unique thing to that area. When
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: they when they bury their dead there because of the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: soil and the aridity of the area whatever, it basically
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: makes instant mummies. I was about halfway through this thing
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and I see this mummy of an infant that looks
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like it's screaming, and that was basically the face that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I made when I saw that. And then of course
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: it was like this this like maze, try to get
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to I think I got to get
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: out of this place. It's the only time in all
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: my travels that it was just it was too much.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: When you see the people who had been buried alive
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, their fingernails were filled with the wood
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: from the casket trying to call out. It was just
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: too much and I was like, get me out of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this place. But it's an amazing experience. And Wanawato is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: just stunningly beautiful, stunningly beautiful. Hopefully you guys get to go.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: We're looking forward to it and we're heading back into
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Mexico when we start our next trip, and we agreed
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: that we each get to pick one city to stay
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: in for a couple months in that area, and I
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: think Brittany's picked one Juato before this conversation, so we'll
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: see how that goes.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's incredible, really beautiful there, and there's a nice,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: big kind of camping spot just outside of town that's
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: very easy to get back into the village and stuff
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: like that. It's just, yeah, it's very special. So that
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: sounds that sounds like a lot of fun.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the things we learned from that first
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: trip in twenty nineteen is that we love the cities too.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Both enjoy being in the middle of a city and
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: just all the life going on around us. And then
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: we love being able to take our vehicle out into
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: the wild as far as we want to take it,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: which we could do with our wrangler and have the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: best of both worlds. And that was extremely influential in
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: helping us choose which vehicle we were going to drive
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: around the world.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: And then the second trip that you were talking about
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: was our trip into Baja Mexico that was at the
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: beginning of twenty twenty, when it was still a year
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: full of promise, right before COVID hit.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: We didn't know anything about it.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: It was at the beginning of February and we decided
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: to head all the way down to Cabo. And this
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: was going to be a different experience, as you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: from Interior Mexico, where Interior Mexico is rich with culture
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: and immersion and yeah, different cultures within the country and
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: you just you know, that whole immersive experience of actually
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: getting Mexico into your bloodstream.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Baja was more off road beaches, kind of like an
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: extension of southern California that speaks Spanish.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so has better food. I don't know about that, Scott.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: You know, come hang out with us. Mexico's got such
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: good food. I love Baja food.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: But we went into Baja at the beginning of twenty twenty,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: and we did go all the way down to Cabo.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: But that trip we actually spent, like Brittany said, in
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Interior Mexico, we spent some time in airbnbs. In the
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: entirety of the Baja trip, we only spent two nights
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: that were not in our rooftop tent, so the entire
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: time we were in Baja, we were popping the tent
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: every night and living off grid full time, so to speak.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: And so that was really important for us.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: As affirming that we could do that long term right.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: It had to do with the sustainability of this trip
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: that we're looking to undertake. Can we handle it, Can
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: we do that many nights back to back to back?
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: What does that look like? And one of the things
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: that we experienced was in moulayhe And in moulay Hay
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: there was a big box truck kind of like the
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: ones that we had been considering, and he was he
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: or she was trying to get into town.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Oh that's tough. Oh yeah, it's a small village.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: In small village and and tight corners and plaza, a
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: low power wires and trees. And they eventually just parked
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: outside the village and walked in. But like Brittany said,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: we also love exploring colonial era town, so we like
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: to be able to pull in right up to the
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: plaza and park. And so a lot of this gave
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: pause to the idea of getting a unimog or getting
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: some sort of big box truck, so we started looking
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: for other alternatives. And actually we were listening to the
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Overland Journal podcast. I think it was episode seven where
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: you and Matt were talking about his Gladiator when he
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: first got it. Sure, and we're jeep bands to begin with.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: At that point in time, we started considering that as
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: a platform, and yeah, that ended up becoming the platform
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: of our choice. It ticked all of our boxes. Oh sure,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: we were looking for for a global vehicle.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: So now that you're making the transition from the JK
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to the JT, what were some of the things that
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: you learned from the JK project. Now it makes a
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: lot more sense that it started off as as definitely
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a recreational vehicle. You guys were using it behind the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: RV to go have fun on the weekends. You wanted
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a high degree of capability. But what were some of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the things that you learned from that project that you
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't now incorporate into the Gladiator.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I think the big thing was payload capacity, I think,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: and I've stressed that ever since. I really learned that lesson.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: There were three limitations that the Jeep Wrangler had as
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: an overlanding platform that we learned, and that was cargo space,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: hayload capacity, and gas mileage, and I figured if we
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: could overcome those three things, then we could actually make
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: this platform work. And it does work if you do
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: it correctly. But we didn't, and we overloaded.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Well it's a frank and jeep. Yeah, so it started
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: for rock crawling, and then we didn't just scrap everything
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: start over. We built on what we already.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Had, which that makes a lot of sense if we
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: reserve as much of our resources as we can for
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the experience. Sometimes you start off with the wrong vehicle.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I certainly did that myself. I mean, my first travels
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: was in a nineteen fifty three M thirty eighty one
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: jeep with a V eight in it, which was the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: worst possible combination of everything. It would have been better
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: off walking everywhere, because I did a lot of that
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: as it broke down around southern Idaho. But yeah, you
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: definitely learn so much about the fact that the experience
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: is the goal, right, It would be easy for it
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: would have been very easier for you guys to have
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: taken months to like, all right, we're going to scrap
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: this jeep. We're going to start something new, and then
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you would have lost that trip to Mexico that you
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: did in the trip to Baja and it seems to
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: me that when you guys came back from those trips,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you really knew what you wanted. It wasn't an assumption
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of what you needed. You had a very clear idea,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: this is what we need.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: We're very confident.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: We were very confident in the decision, and we base
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: it on seven different factors. And Brittany's written an article
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: about that as to why we chose that.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Where is that article?
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: It's on our website and hourlesslife dot com. Yeah, it's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: called the vehicle.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: That It's called here's the vehicle we're going to drive
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: around the world.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, and she talks about just these seven things.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: She's talked about, the size of the vehicle, the sustainability
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: of the vehicle, the off road capability, the budget right,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: the payload capacity, the serviceability of the vehicle, and whether
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: it's gas or diesel. We started doing a lot of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: research and originally I wanted a diesel Rubicon on thirty
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: sevens with one tons and that's what I was going
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: to take around the world. And the more I started
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: researching that and listening to the podcast, I was like, well,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: that only has a twelve hundred pound payload capacity. Where
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: am I going to source thirty seven series tires in Zombia?
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: What if I can't find ultra losol for diesel? And
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: that all switched into what we're actually building out. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: it's been based on the information and expertise from folks
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: like yourself. Dan Grek has counseled us quite a bit on.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: His expend such a great resource on that he really is.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Paul May has given us some council up at Equipped
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Expedition Outfitters Man. Yeah, and so there's just a lot
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: of people that have invested their time and I can't
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: be thankful enough for these folks because it's really helped
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: to inform what we're doing. And we don't have all
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: the answers, and I think that that's part of the journey, right,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: We never will, Right, It's not just the mile per
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: mile journey. Whether it's on road or off road. This
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: is part of the journey. It's figuring out I don't
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: know what I'm doing with this, or I don't know
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: what that's going to look like. This lesson I think
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: we learned from the JK to the JT is that
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: you know, when we first when I first found out
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: what overlanding was, We like basically went into Mexico, came back,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: and immediately headed to Overland Expo East Sure, because we
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: wanted to see what is this all about. And we
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: get there and it's all very gear centric and at
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: the time you think, just like we thought we needed
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: that big forty foot RV, we thought we needed everything right,
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: and so we started saying, oh, well, we got to
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: have that, let's buy that over there, and all of
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: a sudden we looked like the uh, what are those
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: people called the Beverly Hillbilly clampics.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: We had the rig pack with everything. You know, we
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: were grossly overweight. It was not good.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: And then the more we.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Did this type of travel, the more we realized that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: we weren't using half the stuff that we had, and
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: we started getting rid of stuff like it was going
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: out of style, like we were selling stuff, giving stuff
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: a way to people, really slimming down everything on our
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: current build. And then with the new the new build,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: we actually started out with a spreadsheet with the payload
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: at the top of that spreadsheet. And I can tell
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: you that as of two days ago, I think we
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: were like eleven pounds.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Underweight, and it's with Caspian as a seventeen year old.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with his weight estimated at seventeen years old, we're
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: still eleven pounds underweight. And if that tells you anything
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: about how much we really learn from those experiences. But
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: we don't regret it, Scott, We don't regret having.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Those experience ever should because if they're formative, right for sure?
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to this week's supporting sponsor ARB.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: The latest episode of AARB Experiences stars land cruiser aficionado
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and my good friend Kurt Williams. The Baja one thousand
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: competitor has been a few places and seen a few things.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: His travels span Siberia, Greenland, and the Americas all the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: way down to Ushwaya, as well as several crossings of Australia.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Kurt says of his adventures, anything can happen out there.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Just one part not doing its job can ruin a
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: whole trip. Investments in quality components payback exponentially. You can
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: watch Kurt's full story at arbusa dot com. Brittany, when
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you wrote I haven't read that article, but when you
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: talk about sustainability as it relates to the Gladiator. What
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: comes to mind for you around that? What did you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: talk about with relationship to that. I'm curious it worked.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: My interest absolutely, So definitely one of the things, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: you hear this over and over, and I know you
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: all have talked about it on the podcast is interior
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: living space. And that's kind of the refrain that you
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: hear from people who do this type of travel. I
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: know Tim and Kelcey from Dirt Sunrise have talked about it.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I know Richard and Ashley from Dusk to Glory have
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: talked about it, and we all have changed our rigs
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to have a little bit more interior living space.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Because it rains. It rains, and it snows and it
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: gets coldly.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Well, and we didn't really realize going from r ving
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: to now we're living in our jeep Wrangler, you're living outside.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: You really are living outside, and so we're regulating our
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: temperature like reptiles. We're trying to find the warmth through
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: the cold. Sure we wake up and I've told Eric,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: find me somewhere that's warm, and we're going today because
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I can't do this another night. And so with our
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: deep Gladiator, we're geting the value cab canopy camper for
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the back, and it's not a lot of space, however,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: it is a place to retreat, be able to sit inside.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: We'll have a diesel heater in there. Take this a
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: little bit more climate control for me, that's what it
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: makes it sustainable. Because we're talking about a ten to
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: fifteen year trip. This is a very long time, but
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: we're looking to do this. We need to have some
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: comforts in order to continue doing it.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you even look at Graham and Luisa Bell
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: right their journey which was with both of their children,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: who started off very small and now they're very big
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: humans at the end of it, they eventually needed to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: make that shift, taking the one thirty crew cab and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: turning it into a camper along the way. And I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: think that if we want to make travel sustainable, like
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: you say, over the long haul, we do have to
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that more comfortable we make it without compromising the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: things that are most important to us, like if you
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: want to go to the very remote places or down
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: into these interiors of these of these old colonial villages,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and we do make compromises. But if we make it
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: a little more sustainable for travel, where we can live
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: comfortably and sleep comfortably and retreat when we need to
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: get away from people, or we're in a situation where
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: we want to be a little more stealthy. That does
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: make a big difference.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And we also have the added comfort of being
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: able to get into the cities to stay at an
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Airbnb for a hotel. Because we've been on the road
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: now for maybe a month and a half in the jeep,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: and I think two times I was quickly approaching burnout
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: and we just needed to go somewhere and have some
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: walls and refresh and feel like a human being again.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: And our Jeep Gladiator will allow us to do that.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: We will be able to get into most parking garages.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it depends on the mode of travel. Like
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: if I'm on a motorcycle, I need to find a
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: place usually every three days because I need to get
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: reconnected with my business and I need to take a
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: shower usually here. Just you have to find that rhythm
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that works for you. I remember I was in Leone, Nicaragua,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: when I had driven down to the Dairyen Gap. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: used a vehicle that was made by earth Romer that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: was a Jeep JK based camper and it had a
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: flip open top on it, very similar to what you
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: would see from at Overland and Earth. Romer was really
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the ones that pioneered a lot of that microcamper technology.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: So maximum capability Rubicon Wrangler that had been re certified
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to a higher gross vehicle weight rating. It had a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: shower built into it, a toilet built into it, It
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: had queen size bed on a very unique mattress frame,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: all composite construction. And I remember even trying to get
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: through Leone that jeep was too big because it was
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: a wide axle Rubicon, very very narrow street, so I'm
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: up on the curbs to get through. And so you're
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: right if you even a full size American pickup is
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: massive in most places of the world. So then you're
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: restricted to the routes that the commercial trucking route people
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: use for that which means it works. That's why it
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: works to go around the world in a unimogu. Sure,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: you just find out what are the trucking routes, and
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: that's what you're stuck on.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: But it's a trade off, and it was one we
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: weren't willing to make. And we could say that confidently
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: based on our experience in Mexico, where otherwise we would
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: not have known how important that was to us. Sure,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: if we hadn't gone out and experimented.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: First, you're going to have the aalue cab camper on
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the top. What are some other high points of what
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: your goals are around the project. We've been very.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Fortunate to work with some great brands on this build
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: that have gotten behind this trip so they know we're
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: doing a ten to fifteen year journey. So Brian Fulton
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: and the team at Goose Gear are going to build
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: out the entire back and also going to do a
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: sixty seat delete there. Andy and the team at Warren
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: have connected us with a twelve s zeon winch to
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: go on the front of there. We still don't know
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: what front bumper we're going to have on there, but
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: it looks like rock Hard four by four has an
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: aluminum bumper that is full length and weight, has a
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: lowered winch plate to allow for the airflow to come through. Sure,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: and it weighs thirty seven pounds if you can believe that,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: that's amazing. Yeah, So we're really.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Interest similar to the weight of the factory bumper.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: It's actually forty pounds lighter.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Than the factory rubber. No, no lastic plastic bumper. Yeah,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: it's actually yeah, I think that's what we found out.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Four pounds is the stock.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what we researched.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: And I could be wrong, Scott, I'll have to double
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: check on that, but I believe it was like thirty
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: forty pounds lighter than.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: The stock bumper. Wow.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: Obviously Redox is one of our sponsors, so they're hooking
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: us up with all the gear for that Blue Ridge,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Overland gear, cool clothing. I mean, so many great companies
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Equipped Expedition Outfitters, Paul May is getting this a national
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: lunar fridge.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: We just talked we're going.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: To go on the sixty seat delete so the fridge will.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Pull out, it'll slide out back seed and that makes
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense because it keeps the fridge in
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the HVAC of the cabin, so the fridge isn't working
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: as hard while you're driving right.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: And then Cascade of four by four is hooking us
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: up with some solar panels. I mean, there's just so
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: many great companies that have said, wow, we love what
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: you're doing. We captured our vision. They said, hey, we
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: want to partner with you. We want to get on
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: board Life Saver, who I know you just talked about
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: recently in a podcast. They're connecting us with one of
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: their units as well. And so, but what I was
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: going to say is that this is a lot of
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: cool gear and we're extremely thankful, but it's not even
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: about the gear. I mean that the gear is a
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: means to an end. It's what's allowing us to make
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: this type of travel. I guess you know. I share
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: all this because there is an excitement, there is something
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: neat to have these companies reach out and say, hey,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: we we think what you're doing is incredible and we
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: want to be involved in this journey with you, and
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: we're really appreciative of it. But it's really about the journey.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: It's really about, for sure, the people. And you know,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: we love interacting, engaging, immersing ourselves in different cultures. That's
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: something that both Brittany and I are very passionate about.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: And we want to be more concerned with the people
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: who are cooking our meal than the meal that we're having. Yeah,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, learn their story and that
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: type of thing, and show Caspy and this, I did
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: want to mention there are a lot of really cool
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: things happening with the build itself, and it's going to
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: be a really really neat vehicle.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Something so fun to showcase it. At some point it.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Will and it'll be fun to show to other people.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: But I guess, you know, the more we're doing this,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: the less gear centric it is for us. And I
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: just wanted to make sure philosophically that that was clear,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: because when we first started, when I went to that
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: first expo, it was all about the gear, Like you know,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: I had to have this everything that was out there.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: I wanted it at all. And now, like I said,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: we find ourselves getting rid of things more often than not.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Well, and I was so adamant that we weren't going
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: to take debt around the world with us, and so
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: we were considering a lot of vehicles that were not
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: within our budget, and we said, well, it's ten to
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: fifteen years, maybe we should, it'll all even out. But
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: in the end we decided that wasn't something that we
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: were willing to do. And so when we sold our
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: last RV, it's the first time we've been debt free
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: in our marriage, and it feels so good, and we're
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: reinvesting those funds from the RV.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Come here, baby, and we're going on. Caspian. Oh, we
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: we got an iPhone issue. All right, let's check this out.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks for saying high, Caspian. One of the things that
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: we have found in all of these conversations that is
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: a fairly consistent theme is that the people who have
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: been able to travel long term around the world, it
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: is almost always that they've done it debt free. My
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: life didn't truly change until I got rid of debt.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And it seems that any decision that we make at
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: where we're compromising to maybe get a new shiny thing,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: but then at the cost of going into debt to
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: do that, we should always ask ourselves, why can't we
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: afford it today? If we can't afford it today, we
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: really can't afford to pay for it for five years,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: or ten years, or twenty years or thirty years. I
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: do find that that is a very consistent theme, is
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that we shouldn't mortgage our future to try to have
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: a shinier object today, that we really don't need to
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: try to impress people that we don't really care about
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and they don't really care about what we own so
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: or don't own, or borrowing or renting in a way
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I can agree with you more Scott.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: And the good news is that we are we are
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: going to be debt free when we take off from
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: So the entire build that we're doing as well within
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: our means. Like Brittany said, there were certain vehicles that
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: we were looking at just thinking, look, this is a
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: massive trip. Maybe it's worth investing in this and making
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: some sort of payments. But at the end of the day,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: we decided now we're going to travel the world debt free.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So. And the risk too is if you leave
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: to go around the world and let's say a five
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars vehicle or a three hundred thousand dollars
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: vehicle that you're making payments on, it is common for
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: those vehicles to not make it to the other end, right,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: They end up in a river, they end up stolen.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: It is very difficult to get insurance on those kinds
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: of RVs Internationally. I have been able to secure insurance
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: at times, but it's very expensive. So even driving that
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Earthromer jeep down to Panama, it was a five thousand
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: dollars policy. It costs me five thousand dollars to protect
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: that asset. It definitely is something that if we can't
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: afford to lose the vehicle, which of course we don't
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: want to have happened, but if we can't afford to
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: lose the vehicle, then it could put us and our
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: family at great financial risk. I'm just really proud of
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: what you guys have done, and I think that that's
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: a very consistent theme. I have found very few sustained
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: around the world travelers that operate on a lot of
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: debt because it just doesn't seem to work at the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: end of the day. So that's great that you guys
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: are doing that. Thank you, Scott.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're well, we're really excited about that part of
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: it because for us, we want to be able to
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: have something leftover to actually enjoy the journey, right, and
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: so we're not at our cap And honestly, a lot
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: of those sponsors that I mentioned have really helped us
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: significantly at least get our foot out the door and
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: across the first border.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times that is the difference that
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: a sponsor can make is they can just give you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: that little bit of an edge around a project where
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you can get it closer to what you need it
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: to be. And it's interesting for those that are listening.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes it sounds like someone is getting something for free.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: There's never anything that comes for free in life. So
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: there's a great deal of responsibility that now comes with
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: using this person's product. You really can't speak about it
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: editorial because now there's a conflict of interest. So there's
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: all of these compromises that come with sponsorship, but they
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: can oftentimes be that one edge that gets you closer
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: to the quality of equipment that you need in order
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to complete your journey. So sponsors do have their place,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: but there it's never free, right right, agreed, agreed, And
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: we've been very fortunate. We have gotten a lot of
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: offers from folks that we've said, thank you for considering us,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: but the answers no, because for us, we don't have
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: a garage, we don't have a house.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: I don't have anywhere to store it. If I don't
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: like it, it's either going on our bodies, on the
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: vehicle or inside the vehicle. So I'm really thankful for
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: our list of sponsors that we're working with. They're very
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: hand selected and.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Curated We really told all of them, whether you sponsor
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: us or not, we're getting your product on our vehicle
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: because these are the ones that we wanted right.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: For example, we had another refrigerator company I won't mention
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: who reach out to us and say, hey, we're interested in,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: you know, connecting you with a fridge for your journey,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: But Brittany had already decided on a national lunar fridge
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: at that time. We had made decision we're taking a
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: national unafridge on this journey. And it wasn't until after
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: that point in time that somebody connected me with Paul
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: and said, hey, do you know Paul. He's the national
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: distributor And I said I don't. He said, let me
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: introduce you to him. It was actually Jim at Redox.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: I said, hey, let me introduce you to Paul. Yeah,
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: he's he's a good.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Friend of mine.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: And I talked to Paul for maybe an hour and
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: a half, didn't ask him for anything, and at the
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: end of the conversation he said, well, I'd like to
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: connect you with one of these fridges, so we would
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: have bought it. And Paul knows this. I told him,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: whether you give us this fridge or you don't. We're
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: taking a national unefridge on this journey because we had
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: already made that decision and that's that's held true for
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: all our sponsors. We're taking a Warren Winch. Whether the
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: team at Warren gave it to us or not. The
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Warren Winch was going on the front of our vehicle.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: So well, you've you've mentioned all high quality components, which
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: is a great place to start because it's very difficult
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: to replace this stuff in the middle of Africa.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we need it to last, we need it
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: to be durable, and we're going to put it to
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: the test. You know, We're going to put all all
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: this gear to the test.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Brittany, talk a little bit about your career that you
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: have to developed as a writer. What are some of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: your passions around writing and the things that you've learned
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: around writing, and maybe share that with the listeners of
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: how you've made that also another source of revenue for
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: you and your family.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: I think I wrote my first story when I was seven.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: It still exists. Eric has seen it. In my story,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: I was on a rowboat crossing the ocean with two
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: deckhands because I was the captain. Sure we encountered a
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: dragon and the refrain was as a captain, I have
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: to be brave. I love it and writing was a
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: way for me. I journaled like a fiend through my
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: preteen years and even my teen years, and it was
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: my way to make sense of my world. I could
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: have some kind of problem, something was bothering me, maybe
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know what it was, and I could
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: start putting it out on paper and by the end
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: I had solved the problem and come to peace with it,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: whatever it was. And so actually this format of being
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: on a podcast is very difficult for me because I
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: don't think on my fett thank you, thank you. But
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: I like to put it down on paper because I
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: can think about what I want to express and use
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: the right words. And so writing is a major passion
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: of mine. It was a source of heartache through many
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: of our years of self employment because it wasn't the
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: primary thing that I was doing. And actually, through our
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: social media marketing company, we started a blog about the
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: city of Austin, which is where we lived at the time.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: It was supposed to be a showcase for what we
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: could do through our business, building a client base in
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: a city that we had just moved to and so
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: we were writing a lot for the Austin not which
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: was the name of it. But when we got on
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: the road, we couldn't write anymore because we weren't there
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: to interview the business owners and talk about the event.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: So that was part of what we had to do
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: was build a team of writers. Well then I wasn't
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: writing anymore. I was the editor, sure, and we got
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: two thousand articles on that blog. It ended up being
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: a really large blog that we sold last year to
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: help bankroll this trip. But that was really hard to
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: be the editor. I want to be the writer, and
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: it was something that was lacking in my life that
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: as we started winding down a lot of our business
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: projects and anticipation of this global travel that I really evaluated,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: this is what I want to do. I want to write,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: and I started thinking about myself as a writer, describing
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: myself as a travel writer. I was so privileged when
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: I got to start writing for Expedition Portal and started
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: to share my experiences there.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: And win.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Winnebag of a lot as we were rving, and they
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: gave me a platform to talk about being a mom
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: on the road traveling full time, which was really important
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: to me, and that's definitely a responsibility that I feel
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: that we've talked about a little bit, but I really
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: do want to empower parents through my writings, share the
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: person who Caspian is and what travel has beaten for him,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: and how we've accomplished that, because it certainly doesn't happen
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: by accident, and to tell stories that inspire people and
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: show them that they can do it too.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Now, you do such a wonderful job with the writing,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: and we're so grateful that you've contributed as much as
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you have for Expedition Portal and Overland Journal and hopefully
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: more and more of that into the future. So thank
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: you for that time. And it's a flexible way to
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: earn some supportive income while you're traveling. Really, if you
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: have a combination of high quality imagery with the written word,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: it is certainly a way to augment some expenses.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: It is, and we've needed to go to more project
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: based work as we have moved away from internet connectivity
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: because before, like I said, it was nine to five
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: Monday through Friday. We had commitments our clients expected us
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: to be accessible and to be available during that time,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: and so as we started to evaluate what changes do
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: we need to make in order to do this travel.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: It was clear that we couldn't rely on the internet
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: like that anymore. We saw that in Baja, which oh
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I fought with internet the whole week's a challenge. I
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: was up at five before Caspian woke up, and I
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: was working, and I would work after he went to sleep,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: because the internet tended to be better on both those
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: ends of the day. And yeah, so writing is definitely
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: a way. It's more project based. You can do it
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: on your schedule. All you have to do is meet
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: a deadline. And that's so much more flexible than what
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: we were doing before.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Very very cool. Now. I always like to ask when
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I have guests on the podcast, what some of your
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: favorite books are. And I've been warned Rene that we
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: might need to have a separate podcast for you and
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: I just to discuss that alone. Maybe we'll start Eric
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: with you. What is your couple top favorite books that
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: you would recommend to others.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, we just read Into the Wild with
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: Christopher McCanless sure, and I think there's a lot of
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: fascinating information in there and just his mentality. It's described
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: by the author we just read that together. That was
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: really special.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Well, crack Hour is an incredible yeah writer, Yeah, I
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: want to drag him along with us.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: For me, I've actually been reading some of Dan's books,
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: Dan Greg's books just because these are the these are
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: the travels I want to take right now. So I
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: don't know, I mean, my my favorite writers tend to
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: be fiction writers and whatnot, and that's okay too, but
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: but but right right right now, I'm just I'm like
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: a fire hose. I'm like consuming information at just such
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: a rapid pace. And I actually find myself spending more
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: time on forums like Expedition Portal and just gathering information
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: or reaching out to people who have done this type
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: of travel to you know, pick their brain or just
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: get their insight on something.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: So right now, that's Dan's books are excellent for perspective.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: He does such a wonderful job of hating this optimistic
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: view of the places that he's been. He's been very remote,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and at the end of it, he just has all
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: these really beautiful insights.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: And he's such a regular guy too. If when you
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: meet him in person, you know, like, I think, really approachable,
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: just to really neat Canadians I think Australia.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe you started off in Australia. It's lived a lot
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: in Canada.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: But you know, I mean I in the military, I
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: read you know, Sun Too, Art of War and those
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: types of things Albert Spears spanned out. I mean, I
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: was really big into history and biographies and that type
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: of that type of work. But right now that's all
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: on the back burner right now, because I just feel like,
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, heck, it's what is it April right now?
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's recording this.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: It's April when we're recording this and we're leaving in August.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's quick.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: I have a very very small window. So my focus
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: is like laser focused right now and to what we're doing.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: That's great. Well, it's so rewarding too, right.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: So that's why when Britain, when we're driving, Brittany actually
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: reads to me from her tablet, which is why we
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: just read Into the Wild together.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: So, Brittany, what are some of your book that you
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: most often recommend or give to someone that you meet.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: That's a hard question. I really wanted to talk about
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: my Theodore Roosevelt books. I love Edmund Moore three part
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Biography of Theodore Roosevelt, and my high school government teacher
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: was the one who inspired me to start looking into
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt. And he was not a perfect man, which
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: for many years when I was younger, I thought he was.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: He was a hero to me, and now I appreciate that,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: like all of us, he had many parts to him,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: but he really leaps off the page. And Morris's series
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: because it's three parts, he's so in depth throughout the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: whole lifetime of Roosevelt. And one of the first books
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: I read to Eric out loud was called The River
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: of Doubt, and it was about Roosevelt's final expedition, and
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: it was an expedition in the truest sent No. This
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: was after Africa, it was just a few years before
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: his death, and he was exploring one of the tributaries
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: of the Amazon that had never been mapped before. So
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: they were doing the actual mapping as they went along
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: and curtaging. And I believe he was in his fifties
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: at the time, and he had lived a very difficult life,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: and so physically he was dealing with an accident that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: he had had previously in life, where his leg hadn't
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: healed properly and of course, all the bugs and the
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: disease were just laying them out, and he almost didn't
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: make it. His son was there with him. Roosevelt said,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: leave me here. He said, don't carry my body out,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: because I don't want to be a wait for the expedition.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: So it was at that point and he grew delirious,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: and he was reciting poetry and his delirium. And that's
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: an amazing book, is The River of Doubt. So that
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: if anyone wants to start getting into Roosevelt's story, that's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: actually one that I would recommend.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a beautiful recommendation. Well, let's see if we
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: can grab Caspian and have them come on to the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: last few minutes of the podcast here. If you guys
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: are okay with that.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, Mister Scott is going to ask you some questions
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to turn this down so you can talk,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to put this on you.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Oh thank you. Yeah, yeah, can you hear me? How
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: you doing? Caspian? Tell me about your truck. Well, it
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: droll in.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: We fits it, so we wanted some time to fix it.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I thought we can.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: Try and fit it to the thing that we're doing right.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really cramp in your style, isn't it. Well,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you know this adult stuff when we could be fixing
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: remote control cars. Yeah right, So does your remote control
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: car have a name?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: It tired.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Drive through oil, drive through oil.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: I like that. It sounds like a land Rover drive
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: it oil. Perfect. And what's what's the name of your
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: mom and dad's jeep? Gai Guardian? I like that you
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: know how it got the name?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Nope?
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for being on the on the podcast cast
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: being appreciate it.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: You're well, damn, I did stay on it.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Loanda, that's right. Well, I think you would be our
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: most interesting guest, no doubt, especially since you got this
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: awesome truck that's ready to go around the world. Right.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me, Scott what you're most excited about
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: driving around the world.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: I'm most decided about going to that meatball.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, So tell me about the meatball.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: Well, he's a little meatbook filled with ale who took
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: up balloon. But he has wheels that drive on the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: DROWND drove him no matter where when I drove him there.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, So a meatball with wheels.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: So this is a balloon animal. Okay, in Mexico. Okay,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: that does have wheels and it has a string. Okay,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: and Caspian got one when he was two. This is
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: very cool photoses.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: Then we gave it to another little boy.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was very nice of you to do that.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: That is awesome. Well, Caspian, I am so excited about
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: your journey that you're going to have over the next
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: couple decades. And Brittany and Eric, thank you both so
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: much for being on the podcast. I appreciate you and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: your family and all of the people that you're inspiring
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: with your journeys. Now tell us how people can find
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: out more about you. What's your Instagram and website and
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: all that.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: So we're ourless life.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that would aday say life.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: So it's h oh you are, It's h O. You
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: want l E S s our list l E S.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: That's perfect.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: We recently started our YouTube channel and so we are
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: total newbies, but it's really n it's really fun to
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: share there.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Well, again, thank you all so much for being on
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: and we thank all of you for listening, and we
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: will talk to you next time.