Latest / Go Wildly Podcast / Ep. 12 | How a Rebel Artist Built a Life Around Adventure with a Goat Named Frankie & Corn Dog

Transcript

Ep. 12 | How a Rebel Artist Built a Life Around Adventure with a Goat Named Frankie & Corn Dog · Go Wildly Podcast

• 0:03
  Howdy friends, it's Heather. Long time no podcast.
• 0:06
  You may have noticed that we've been on a little bit of a summer
• 0:09
  break. And by summer break, I mean
• 0:11
  Emily's been living her best absolute dream life out on the
• 0:14
  wild and scenic Rogue River, working with an incredible non
• 0:17
  profit called First Descents, who's partnered with Sundance
• 0:20
  Kayaks to put on these amazing cancer kayak clinics.
• 0:25
  And she's just been loving life out there.
• 0:28
  She's also been doing a lot of epic recording stories of some
• 0:33
  incredible guide interviews, which will be coming your way
• 0:37
  very soon. Meanwhile, I've been, you know,
• 0:39
  holding down the port here in town, juggling a few jobs now.
• 0:43
  And I made some big life moves recently.
• 0:45
  I casually became a real estate agent.
• 0:49
  So yeah, I've just been trying to, like, incorporate new
• 0:51
  schedules, figure out how everything's fitting in.
• 0:54
  I can be your adventure buddy and your home buying buddy if
• 0:57
  you so want. Anywho, so we decided to call
• 1:00
  this our official summer break so we could both adjust our
• 1:03
  schedules and honestly, maybe just catch our breath a little
• 1:05
  bit. Summer is a very special time
• 1:08
  here and we did not want to, how do you say it, Like we didn't
• 1:12
  want to like, have too much pressure on ourselves because we
• 1:14
  have a lot going on. So we're also reformatting the
• 1:17
  show a little bit to make it more sustainable in production
• 1:20
  for me and Emily because we love this podcast and we want to do
• 1:25
  it all in our lives and with this podcast.
• 1:27
  So this is still very much our passion project.
• 1:30
  We're just figuring out where all the pieces fit in.
• 1:33
  And we would also just love your feedback on it on this new
• 1:36
  format. So drop a comment on our
• 1:38
  YouTube, our socials, or wherever you're listening.
• 1:40
  And that's that. For that, we're going to get
• 1:43
  into our episode now. So here we go.
• 1:46
  Should I say hello from the river?
• 1:48
  You'll notice we're at the river.
• 1:49
  This is our first, I think our first like a rafting river
• 1:52
  podcast. The wind is also kind of playing
• 1:55
  a little bit of DJ here in our recording day.
• 1:57
  So bear with us on that and let us know your feedback again on
• 2:01
  kind of the wind and being more adventure based podcast, because
• 2:05
  this is also how we're reformatting is we're just going
• 2:07
  to put all of our recording. On the pod.
• 2:10
  So today on the river we have the amazing Kate Battles,
• 2:13
  Artist, muralist, creative force, small business owner,
• 2:17
  tiny house dweller, animal lover extraordinaire, travel vlogger
• 2:21
  and a savant when it comes to social media of content of our
• 2:26
  beloved region. Chances are you've already been
• 2:29
  following her work or the work that she manages.
• 2:31
  She's that good. I'm I'm telling you, you'll love
• 2:33
  her. She also starred in a docu
• 2:35
  series called The Bond On and Discovery Plus, featuring her
• 2:39
  life with her goat Frankie, travelling the country in an
• 2:42
  Airstream with her then partner Chad.
• 2:45
  And so yeah, we have an incredible adventure laid out
• 2:48
  for you. So sit tight, paddle along and
• 2:50
  enjoy the ride. Here we go.
• 2:59
  Watch your step as you board. The boat is probably hot.
• 3:05
  When I come up your. Things are slippery.
• 3:08
  Good. Boy.
• 3:09
  Hi, Corny. Awesome.
• 3:14
  Yeah, we're launching from. Hi, everybody.
• 3:20
  I'm Emily. We and I'm Heather.
• 3:24
  And together we're I'm Kate and this is Corn.
• 3:26
  Dog. This is corn dog.
• 3:28
  And together we're. Go wildly.
• 3:34
  The car goes wild and today we are floating with our dear
• 3:40
  friend Kate Battles. We're launching from Hog Creek
• 3:43
  boat ramp on the Rogue River in Josephine County, and we're
• 3:47
  going to take a leisurely little float through Hellgate Gant,
• 3:51
  Hellgate Canyon, a lot of tongue twisters, and we're going to go
• 3:55
  through a couple of Class 2 plus Rapids and then find a nice
• 3:58
  little spot to sit down and have a little chat.
• 4:03
  Sound good? Can't wait.
• 4:04
  Awesome. You want to do a little wind?
• 4:07
  Disclaimer I. Can do it there may We don't say
• 4:11
  that word when we're on the river.
• 4:14
  The wretched W word. We may encounter it, but we're
• 4:19
  fairly early in the day. Usually it comes up later in the
• 4:21
  afternoon, but we may encounter some wind and we'll try to be
• 4:26
  mind as mindful as we can with how it's going to affect our
• 4:29
  microphones. There with us.
• 4:32
  Stay, stay attuned. It's nature, man.
• 4:36
  We're in the wild. Nature, it's not a whole lot we
• 4:40
  can do, but we're going to try our bestest we're.
• 4:44
  Going to do everything we can. Oh.
• 4:46
  What is that? Oh gosh.
• 4:47
  We have a kind of a, this is our, well, technically third but
• 4:51
  second official recording on the river.
• 4:54
  And we had one on Tuesday and noticed that there the wind was,
• 5:00
  oh, the wind was a little brutal.
• 5:04
  So we're going to kind of shift how we do things on this one and
• 5:09
  see if it doesn't help or just make a better listening
• 5:13
  experience for our peeps, baby. So yeah, we'll figure it out.
• 5:18
  Yeah, who knows what. Tuesday will mean by the time
• 5:20
  this episode comes out, right? But we're here.
• 5:27
  We're floating. It's a beautiful day.
• 5:30
  It's a. Gorgeous day.
• 5:31
  It's like mid 70s probably. Little teeny, tiny, like muslin.
• 5:40
  Layer of clouds over the sun giving us a little bit of
• 5:43
  reprieve from the hot. It's just supposed to be heating
• 5:47
  up into the weekend. What you think Corndog?
• 6:04
  It's fun. We are like we said, we are
• 6:06
  joined today with by Kate Battles.
• 6:10
  Kate is a phenomenal nature inspired artist based here in
• 6:15
  Grants Pass. When she's not painting
• 6:20
  exquisite murals or oil canvases, she's a phenomenal
• 6:25
  photographer, a social media wizard, an outdoor adventurer,
• 6:31
  camper, backpacker, hiker, canoeur.
• 6:35
  What doesn't she do? She'll tell us.
• 6:38
  That is an amazing introduction. Wow.
• 6:42
  We're we are so lucky to have Kate here with us today,
• 6:45
  especially on this particular stretch of river, because this
• 6:50
  is where Kate and I met at that at Hog Creek boat launch maybe
• 6:57
  at at least 10 years ago. Oh, I think it was less than
• 7:01
  that. Really.
• 7:01
  Yeah. I think you know what it was?
• 7:04
  It was during COVID. It was a COVID.
• 7:06
  Float where everyone was social distancing and we were all kind
• 7:10
  of waving each other high from afar.
• 7:12
  But we all met up just so we could have, you know, a little
• 7:14
  bit of friend time. And you, you were with your dad
• 7:19
  and I had known Gab for several years at that point.
• 7:24
  And I was going with, with Wade and Karen.
• 7:28
  And that's the day that I met you.
• 7:31
  I love that. And we floated, yeah, we, we put
• 7:33
  in a hog and then I think we took out it, you know, like
• 7:36
  Almeida or, you know, I think it was Almeida.
• 7:42
  So pretty much yeah, doing a similar float.
• 7:54
  Back to where it all began. Now that we're in getting into
• 7:59
  the Canyon, hopefully that'll be a little bit better listening as
• 8:01
  well. And this way we got to introduce
• 8:05
  Corny and. Then we have corn dog, Also corn
• 8:08
  dog. Cornelius Oliver battles the
• 8:11
  third affectionately known as corn Dog, also known as Corn
• 8:15
  Dog, a horn dog, Sweet, Cron and Corny.
• 8:20
  And a good boy. And he's a very good boy.
• 8:22
  Good boy. He's and he's such a great.
• 8:25
  Size. And he came from the Rogue
• 8:27
  Valley Humane Society. Woop woop.
• 8:29
  Shout out. Shout out, they're doing good
• 8:32
  work over there. They're doing amazing work.
• 8:34
  I love those guys. We just.
• 8:38
  Entered Hellgate Canyon, which is also a special place for Kate
• 8:44
  and I, I will say because shortly before my dad died, he
• 8:50
  commissioned Kate to paint a mural for me that included him
• 8:57
  and my also dead dog and incorporated images and memories
• 9:05
  and aspects of life that my dad and I shared.
• 9:09
  And the kind of central image of the mural, aside from my dad and
• 9:15
  dead dog, is Hellgate Canyon. And there's a little raft that I
• 9:20
  believe is me and my dad floating on, floating through
• 9:25
  this Canyon. And that mural hangs over my
• 9:28
  fireplace and is a central piece to my home.
• 9:32
  And I'm so grateful that Kate is the artist that painted it and
• 9:36
  that my dad commissioned her to do so.
• 9:39
  And now I get to share Hellgate Canyon with her today.
• 9:42
  Yay. That's cool.
• 9:44
  Yeah, that. I think that's one of my
• 9:45
  favorite paintings I've ever done because I remember, you
• 9:48
  know, you and I didn't really know each other.
• 9:51
  And one day I came over and the three of us sat on your back
• 9:55
  porch overlooking the river, and you guys kind of just shared
• 9:59
  your life with me. I was like, tell me all about
• 10:01
  your life together, you know, every little detail, like any
• 10:04
  detail about your dog, any favorite memory, anything that
• 10:07
  holds, you know, significance. And it was really fun kind of
• 10:12
  hiding all these little Easter eggs and the painting, you know,
• 10:14
  stuff that no one else would pick up on except for the two of
• 10:17
  you. So that was that was a really
• 10:19
  fun painting. That's special.
• 10:21
  That's going to get me crying if we go deeper.
• 10:25
  Maybe we'll in in editing. Maybe we can splice A splice a
• 10:29
  clip in? Quick crier, is it all like?
• 10:34
  It it is a pretty tear invoking painting, so we'll we'll try to
• 10:39
  give the audience a clip of it. I just love shit like that.
• 10:42
  It's just so beautiful and I know the painting that you speak
• 10:47
  of and it's beautiful and the story.
• 10:51
  I love a good story behind anything and shit just hits me
• 10:55
  kind of hard these days because, you know, getting all
• 10:58
  middle-aged and shit we love. Sentimentality.
• 11:04
  I'm trying to keep us backwards so that the wind isn't blowing
• 11:07
  straight into our microphones. That's a good idea.
• 11:10
  There may still be some wind noise and water noise, but at
• 11:15
  least with our backs to the wind, 'cause it's always an
• 11:19
  upstream wind. It's until it's down now it's
• 11:22
  the waves, it's the wind, it's nature.
• 11:29
  That's a good suckiness right there.
• 11:36
  What are you working on these days, Kate?
• 11:38
  Well, I am gearing up to start a big mural downtown.
• 11:42
  Oh. That's.
• 11:43
  Yeah, yes, absolutely. So do you guys know where the
• 11:47
  owl lot is? Oh yeah, the corner of H and
• 11:50
  5th. Yeah, so.
• 11:51
  From The Horny Goat. Yes, yeah.
• 11:53
  So that's like, yeah, it's right, right next to the Horny
• 11:55
  Goat. So the building I'm doing, it's
• 11:57
  called the the Kindling Harbeck Building.
• 11:59
  It's the one, it's on G Street. It's the one with the big, you
• 12:03
  know, Victorian tower. Yeah, right next to like, you
• 12:06
  know, Holiday Square where they have the Christmas tree and it's
• 12:10
  going to be the backside facing the owl lot, and it's going to
• 12:14
  be a mural of an owl. Oh, that's cool.
• 12:16
  Yeah. So I think next week is when the
• 12:19
  historic Commission has their their final approval.
• 12:23
  So I'll be going to that meeting and then I'll be starting the
• 12:26
  next. Day.
• 12:26
  That's so exciting. Yeah, I'm super excited.
• 12:28
  I'm always curious on how much do you get paid to do those big
• 12:33
  murals because I know we have so many murals in Southern Oregon
• 12:36
  like Medford. Medford has a ton of them.
• 12:38
  We're starting to get, well, not starting.
• 12:39
  We have a ton as well, but I'm always like, Dang, how much are
• 12:43
  they paying? Like how much of those things
• 12:44
  cost? Yeah, I mean, you know, murals,
• 12:47
  I mean, the, the cost of paint alone is pretty pricey, you
• 12:49
  know, because you have to use commercial, commercial grade
• 12:52
  paint, you know, you have to think about other costs like,
• 12:54
  you know, getting lifts, you know, so I mean, you could
• 12:59
  definitely buy a car, you know, with that amount of money.
• 13:02
  So it's, it's, it's a chunk of change.
• 13:04
  So I try to set up, you know, a mural or two every year.
• 13:07
  You know, I was like one of my big projects, so cool.
• 13:10
  Last year I did a really big mural in Cave Junction at the
• 13:13
  city Commission. And that one, it was like, like
• 13:17
  almost, I think it was 145 feet long.
• 13:19
  Oh my God, it wasn't tall. It was only 8 feet tall.
• 13:21
  So it's really, really wide, but you know, it was kind of similar
• 13:25
  to another one I did in Grants Pass.
• 13:27
  So it was like, you know, welcome to Cave Junction mural.
• 13:30
  And if you're driving along Redwood Hwy. from the coast
• 13:34
  towards Grants Pass, you'll see it on the left right next to.
• 13:38
  Just after the shop. Smart, right?
• 13:40
  Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:42
  What's that of just a welcome in?
• 13:44
  Yeah, it's like it's a welcome, you know, welcome into Cave
• 13:46
  Junction, like the one I did in Grants Pass.
• 13:49
  It's, you know, all the letters have a different theme that
• 13:52
  incorporate the Illinois Valley. Is that one right there?
• 13:54
  The Grants Pass with all the. By mimosas it has by.
• 13:57
  Mimosas. Yep, Yep.
• 13:58
  So it's just like, you know, wineries like Salmac, Oregon
• 14:03
  Caves, you know, kind of everything that it incorporates.
• 14:07
  Illinois Valley and then I think.
• 14:10
  Darlingtonia. Darlingtonia, I snuck in like
• 14:16
  the smoke jumpers and I snuck in the Rough and ready Botanical
• 14:22
  Wayside because they have just amazing wildflowers in the
• 14:25
  spring. So that's a really neat place.
• 14:29
  But yeah, that was a fun, fun project and I look forward to
• 14:32
  doing the other one downtown. Grants Pass hopefully.
• 14:35
  Hopefully I don't have to deal with 100 degree days, but we'll
• 14:39
  see. Yeah, that was crazy.
• 14:42
  A little known fact. Kate and I were living together
• 14:44
  for a while while she was painting that Cave Junction
• 14:47
  mural and how she was managing her day and time.
• 14:51
  To be able to be painting when it wasn't 117° S facing wall,
• 14:57
  being blasted by heat, but then also in managing the rain when
• 15:03
  the fall came in and having to not paint while then the rain
• 15:07
  was going to wash the paint away was very impressive.
• 15:10
  Yeah, it's, it's it's. Driving an hour round trip every
• 15:13
  day to go get out there and put time into it while you could.
• 15:17
  Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it could be a little time intensive.
• 15:22
  You know, I've done murals, you know, big murals that only took
• 15:25
  me 6 days to do because the conditions were right.
• 15:28
  But the ones like the one I did in Grants Pass, I think it was
• 15:32
  started in October. So you got to think about, you
• 15:36
  know, is there a chance of rain? And even if it doesn't rain,
• 15:38
  what's the humidity going to be? Is it going to just, is it not
• 15:41
  going to dry off the wall? You know, so yeah, it's kind of
• 15:45
  a tricky game. I mean, really the best time to
• 15:47
  do murals is, you know, springtime or early fall for
• 15:51
  before you deal with really hot weather or precipitation.
• 15:56
  How do you get do you apply for these permits or for these
• 16:00
  murals and like submit an idea or do they put out a request for
• 16:04
  proposals and you respond to it? How do you get selected for
• 16:08
  these large city mural projects? I guess I've been really
• 16:13
  fortunate. I don't think I've, I don't
• 16:15
  think any of the murals I've actually had to apply for
• 16:17
  they've, they've actually kind of come to me.
• 16:19
  I've been commissioned to do them.
• 16:21
  So some of them have been, you know, like the one in Cave
• 16:23
  Junction was the city of Cave Junction and.
• 16:26
  They said we want you, Yeah. The other want you exactly and
• 16:29
  then and then some of the other ones have been like the building
• 16:32
  owners, like the owl one is the building owners.
• 16:34
  So welcome to Grants Pass. One is word Warren commissioned,
• 16:38
  and he owns that building. I was going to say though,
• 16:40
  you're pretty connected into GP and like Southern Oregon as a
• 16:43
  whole, so people know you. So people know that you're doing
• 16:46
  murals. That's also a thing.
• 16:49
  Yeah. Yeah, I've been doing, I mean,
• 16:51
  I've been doing art my whole life.
• 16:52
  I, I was an art major in college and even when I was a little kid
• 16:56
  I was in like art classes, art camps.
• 17:00
  So it's kind of been something ingrained my entire life.
• 17:04
  So and. But that's how the city
• 17:08
  officials, they like, oh, we know Kate.
• 17:10
  We know Kate does murals. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm super, I'm
• 17:14
  super fortunate. It's crazy that like I don't
• 17:16
  have to apply to a lot of jobs. They kind of just, they just
• 17:20
  come to me. It's just.
• 17:23
  Crazy. It's good karma it.
• 17:25
  Is really good karma I put. Good karma out there and you're.
• 17:27
  Living in You're living in alignment with your true soul's
• 17:31
  purpose, and so projects that light you up keep falling in
• 17:36
  your lap. Absolutely.
• 17:37
  And I kind of feel like, you know, everyone has a gift and I
• 17:40
  think my gift is or my offering to the world is I want to make
• 17:44
  the world a prettier place. Like I want to show off the
• 17:47
  beauty in the world, you know, whether it's whether it's, you
• 17:50
  know, like go outside and take this hike, you know, like go see
• 17:54
  this waterfall, go check out this mural.
• 17:59
  Go, you know, I just try to, you know, I guess show off, show off
• 18:08
  a world that a lot of people focus on the negative things.
• 18:12
  And I want to remind people that there's always beauty.
• 18:16
  I can find beauty in a puddle. I could find beauty and a
• 18:21
  shadow, you know? And it's just, you know, trying
• 18:25
  to focus on the good and the beauty of the world is something
• 18:29
  that's really important to me. And I want to share that with
• 18:32
  other people. Just you.
• 18:33
  Know. Because it's everywhere, it's
• 18:36
  all about perspective and your perspective sees it.
• 18:40
  And that's that's why I love your art, because it is so
• 18:46
  nature influenced and nature in and of itself is inherently
• 18:49
  beautiful and you let nature speak for itself through your
• 18:53
  art. Absolutely.
• 18:57
  I mean nature. Nature is the best piece of art,
• 19:00
  you know. I mean, you can't, as much as
• 19:02
  you want to try to recreate what you see.
• 19:04
  I mean, this is, this is the best painting out there.
• 19:09
  Just being in it. It's just it's, you know, fully.
• 19:14
  You get all the senses, you get the smell, you get the sight,
• 19:17
  you get to hear the noises, the sense, you know.
• 19:21
  I love that. This is this is the best kind of
• 19:24
  painting for me being out here. So you gotta have balance with
• 19:28
  the both doing the work, making that money so you can go out and
• 19:30
  play in it. Exactly love that yeah, I feel
• 19:34
  like my mantras, you know, work hard, play harder.
• 19:38
  You know, I and I think, you know, I've, I try to find a job
• 19:43
  that I, I get to enjoy my job, you know, yeah.
• 19:46
  Absolutely. I as much as I work, and I work
• 19:49
  probably like seven days a week in some capacity.
• 19:55
  I also like hiking. You know, I kind of get paid for
• 19:58
  that. I kind of get for my social
• 20:00
  media work. It's like I get paid to do these
• 20:02
  things. So that's that's pretty neat.
• 20:05
  That's rad. We're about to enter our first
• 20:08
  rapid, so there's going to be a lot of.
• 20:10
  Noise, rapid noise. We'll put a pin in this and
• 20:13
  we'll watch the rapid. The Hog Creek Rapid.
• 20:19
  I need some water. Got to remember the water.
• 20:22
  Because I drink water every time you hear water.
• 20:30
  Watch your phone, Heather. Oh, thank you for that, Vasia
• 20:36
  Senorita. Corn.
• 20:40
  Corn. Corn Holio is the best.
• 20:45
  Corn holio I. Could guarantee a dog like
• 20:48
  cornhole. I would get another dog but you
• 20:52
  just can't guarantee them. No, you can't.
• 20:54
  It's, it's a little tricky. I spent, you know, after my, my
• 20:57
  last dog, Maggie died, she died in 2019.
• 21:00
  I mean, I was in mourning for about 3 years.
• 21:02
  I couldn't really, I was like that there's no dog I could
• 21:05
  replace my dog. I mean, she was a soulmate for
• 21:08
  me. So I waited long and hard.
• 21:10
  And about three years later after she died, I was like, OK,
• 21:12
  now I'm ready. So for the next year or two, I
• 21:15
  was like on the hunt, you know, like I followed all different
• 21:18
  kinds of rescue pages on Facebook and Instagram.
• 21:22
  And, you know, I was checking to see what dogs are coming
• 21:24
  through, like the Rogue Valley Humane Society.
• 21:27
  And then one day on Facebook, I saw a corn dog and they posted
• 21:31
  his picture. And as soon as I saw it, I'm
• 21:33
  like, that's my dog. And then I was the first one.
• 21:36
  I, I was like, I got to get there.
• 21:37
  Everyone else there, there's like 100 comments on those
• 21:39
  pictures. So everyone's like, I want him.
• 21:41
  I'll be there. And so I made sure to get there
• 21:43
  like 20 minutes early before they opened, waited in front of
• 21:46
  their gate. So I was the first one to see
• 21:48
  him Monday morning. Wow, this looks amazing.
• 21:57
  It's not that worthy. Oh yeah.
• 22:01
  Is it good they said that that salami was from?
• 22:06
  Butchering this Yum. That's really good tasting
• 22:14
  salami. Where'd you get that?
• 22:16
  Albertson's in the refrigerated section.
• 22:22
  Looks good. I know this Jelly is big, he was
• 22:27
  at some last night. Does that look good from where
• 22:41
  you are? Can you see it?
• 22:43
  Can you tell? No?
• 22:45
  I feel like that's OK. Let me go up and look at it.
• 22:49
  It's got all of us passed the boat.
• 22:55
  Yeah, hopefully we might end up in the sun and not too long.
• 22:59
  We may have to shift, but we've got this for.
• 23:03
  Oh, it's kind of. A little while.
• 23:06
  Dark. OK.
• 23:18
  Well then, teach Emily how to set up a chair.
• 23:25
  They're nice. Yeah, these are Heather's soccer
• 23:27
  mom chairs. The middle, The middle ones.
• 23:31
  You know is based in Asheville. Really.
• 23:33
  Yep. You know anybody who works
• 23:36
  there? Not anymore, I did.
• 23:38
  Oh darn, I know they have awesome hammocks.
• 23:42
  Yeah, they're great outdoor gear.
• 23:44
  Yeah, all around. It might get us a little closer.
• 23:47
  OK, I'll angle it so we can still get the.
• 23:52
  Yeah. Get the whole scene.
• 23:54
  Cory, hey, sweet boy, He's so chill.
• 24:00
  He is so chill. He's such a good at.
• 24:03
  Least when you're around. Oh yeah, he's a little hellion
• 24:07
  when I'm gone. A little neurotic when you're
• 24:09
  gone, A little searching for mom.
• 24:13
  Remember one time he jumped the the porch and he, I, I was
• 24:16
  driving home and he was just out there on the sidewalk on that
• 24:20
  busy St. and I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe he jumped
• 24:24
  off the deck. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:25
  And like, jumped down 15 feet. I know.
• 24:30
  On to on to uneven terrain. Just looking for mom.
• 24:34
  Yep, yeah. Has Jim ever done that?
• 24:37
  Has he ever gone away looking for you?
• 24:39
  No, he's never. I'm going to sneeze.
• 24:41
  Hang on the only time Jimmy has left he he got off the deck one
• 24:47
  time when my brother and sister-in-law were dog sitting a
• 24:54
  friend of mine's dog who's. There, that dog.
• 24:59
  Is more anxious than any human I've ever met and just sit
• 25:03
  inside and howl and pace and whine and Jimmy was like, fuck
• 25:10
  this, I got to get out of here, Yeah.
• 25:11
  Annoying. So he snuck off the deck when
• 25:15
  that dog was there and then and he pretty much just like went
• 25:20
  and sat at the front door and waited for somebody to get home.
• 25:23
  He's such a sweet boy. He's so good.
• 25:26
  And then when he was when he had his intestinal blockage a few
• 25:29
  weeks ago, I caught him sneaking off the deck at like 3:00 AM and
• 25:35
  that alerted me to that something's really not right.
• 25:38
  He's he's trying to get somewhere.
• 25:43
  I don't know where he's trying to go, but he's so
• 25:45
  uncomfortable. He's needing more space to work
• 25:50
  out whatever's inside of him was.
• 25:52
  He trying to eat grass, was he, what did he do any of that?
• 25:54
  Because corn dogs done that when he's had a upset stomach.
• 25:57
  Yeah. Well, he was.
• 25:59
  There isn't any on the deck, so he wasn't.
• 26:01
  But I think that that's what what he was trying to go do was
• 26:03
  get off the deck and go find some grass to eat.
• 26:06
  But he couldn't, he couldn't digest anything.
• 26:09
  He couldn't eat anything. So that was when he was doing
• 26:13
  that in the middle of the night. I was like, OK, well, first
• 26:15
  thing in the morning we're we're going to the ER.
• 26:17
  Yeah. Did you, did you have an idea
• 26:19
  that he ate something like Did you know?
• 26:21
  I knew he'd eaten something, but I didn't know what.
• 26:23
  But I knew it was something in his stomach because he wasn't
• 26:26
  laying down and he wasn't eating and he wasn't.
• 26:31
  He was was drinking a ton of water, but he was still so
• 26:35
  thirsty. Like I had three water bowls out
• 26:38
  and he was emptying all of them. That's scary.
• 26:40
  I'm actually, I'm actually surprised that hasn't happened
• 26:43
  yet with all the crazy shit he's eating.
• 26:45
  Like, I remember. I remember he pooped out like a
• 26:49
  garden glove. Yeah, a leather garden glove
• 26:51
  once. I was like, how did you do that?
• 26:53
  Yeah. The same Mike.
• 26:55
  Why? Everything else has moved
• 26:57
  through him just fine, but this he didn't.
• 27:01
  He took all the stuffing out of it, but he didn't break down the
• 27:05
  toy itself. Like even the glove, he chewed
• 27:07
  off a finger and it was kind of in parts and you could tell it
• 27:11
  was a glove, but it had kind of been dismantled.
• 27:14
  But this toy was still a whole toy.
• 27:16
  Cranberry sauce. Yeah.
• 27:19
  Oh, I got a. White pen.
• 27:21
  I think maybe he just has reached the age where his
• 27:25
  intestines aren't as green and they're not.
• 27:29
  Yeah, They're not letting the weird things move through.
• 27:32
  He's eating a wooden spoon. He's eating a hair brush like.
• 27:36
  He's eating a hair brush. Uh huh.
• 27:38
  That is a really weird thing for a dog to eat, yeah.
• 27:41
  When when my friends were fostering him between when he
• 27:47
  was adoptable at the shelter and when I could get back home, he
• 27:50
  ate a hair brush while he was at their house.
• 27:53
  Was it like a wooden wooden I? Don't know.
• 27:56
  I don't. OK, because I mean maybe you
• 27:58
  know dog eat sticks so maybe it was like wood, maybe he would
• 28:01
  gnaw on that. But.
• 28:02
  Like the wooden? Plastic one, That would be
• 28:04
  weird. Yeah, exactly.
• 28:06
  Yeah. What a what a goofball that was.
• 28:09
  Yeah, he's an expensive. Dog now, yeah, two years ago, I
• 28:13
  think it was two years ago, he got salmon poisoning and that
• 28:16
  was like an $8000 vet situation. Trash.
• 28:21
  No, we'd gone rafting. It was the first time I'd taken
• 28:24
  him down the lower Rogue, and I didn't see him.
• 28:29
  I mean, he was drinking out of the river, but I didn't see him,
• 28:31
  like in any water that appeared nasty.
• 28:35
  But then maybe a week, a week or so later, he started acting
• 28:39
  really lethargic and. Wow.
• 28:42
  Took him to the ER event and he had salmon poisoning.
• 28:45
  Because there was like a salmon carcass somewhere and he ate it,
• 28:48
  Yeah. It was late September, so.
• 28:51
  How do they know? Like is there a?
• 28:53
  Blood test. Yeah, it was a blood test.
• 28:54
  Wow. And there's apparently two kinds
• 28:56
  of salmon poisoning. One that if they get it, they'll
• 29:00
  never get salmon poisoning again, and another one that they
• 29:03
  could continue to get it and the test to find out which strain of
• 29:07
  salmon poisoning they got is like $20,000 or something
• 29:11
  outrageous so he could get it again.
• 29:14
  And so that was part of our concern.
• 29:16
  You just hope. That he doesn't, Yeah.
• 29:18
  We just hope that he doesn't. And.
• 29:21
  That's the. Best we can.
• 29:22
  When they get their new dog, because, you know, they had
• 29:25
  quite a few dogs for the course of how Pat Murray owned Muriel.
• 29:30
  Pat was always like first year, I'd let the dog get eat a go eat
• 29:34
  a salmon and get that over with every time new dog came in.
• 29:37
  Yeah. And you just want to know, like,
• 29:39
  are they going to survive it or are they going to go down?
• 29:43
  Survival of the fittest of the dogs out there?
• 29:45
  Absolutely. Are we all set?
• 29:48
  Yeah, I think so. It might be a little funky
• 29:52
  exposure wise, but I'll fix it and editing.
• 29:54
  OK, sweet. We're here.
• 29:57
  We're seated. We're charcuterin.
• 30:01
  We're we're, we are cooterin. We are the cooters.
• 30:04
  We are the three wise women here today is.
• 30:06
  That your favorite cheese? It's my favorite cheese.
• 30:12
  Is it spicy? No.
• 30:13
  OK. It's jerky, right?
• 30:16
  Yeah. Turk Spices.
• 30:18
  Which is. Flavorful, maybe a bite of it,
• 30:22
  but not spicy. That is really good.
• 30:26
  My dad loved jerk flavor. He'd probably like that.
• 30:30
  You want a bite, Dad? I.
• 30:31
  Was going to say let's give him a bite OOP.
• 30:35
  One for the homies. There you go.
• 30:36
  Oh, I'll eat it. OK, Consuming.
• 30:41
  He's probably like, wow, Emily, you eat cheese now?
• 30:43
  Why would you give me a bite? Did your dad eat everything?
• 30:46
  Pretty much anything. He was a big life connoisseur.
• 30:49
  Yeah, yeah, So awesome. I mean, there were definitely
• 30:52
  things that he preferred over other things, but he like he'd
• 30:55
  eat anything. Every time I'd go to church
• 31:00
  mimosas, he always would order the salad with salmon.
• 31:05
  I want to say that was like his go to thing the hot.
• 31:08
  Steak salad, but with salmon. Yeah.
• 31:09
  And so I started ordering that. Yeah, so, so good.
• 31:13
  So good. Yeah, we were.
• 31:15
  He inspired me a lot to to do that.
• 31:17
  So I liked the Oregon salad, and I'd like salmon.
• 31:20
  Yeah, I like their cob. Add tinga chicken.
• 31:23
  Yeah. Take out the bacon, because the
• 31:26
  bacon bits I don't. Like the lard on?
• 31:28
  Yeah, I don't really like how big they are.
• 31:30
  And sometimes I'd get a bacon on the side, like real good thick
• 31:33
  the. Yum, the good stuff.
• 31:36
  Not their chunk. Not the fatty.
• 31:38
  Add extra pickled onions. Oh, right, the pickled onions
• 31:43
  make it. You know, I, I never was really
• 31:46
  into pickled onions, you know, before mimosas, and now I add it
• 31:50
  to everything. It just elevates the flavor, you
• 31:53
  know? It's much better than just
• 31:54
  normal onions. My new go to dish at mimosas so
• 31:58
  I do everything custom there because I've had so many dietary
• 32:02
  restrictions that I've had to customize everything.
• 32:04
  But now my go to is a biscuits and gravy with mushroom gravy.
• 32:10
  Add fried chicken and avocado. Wow, that sounds amazing.
• 32:14
  I would have to try that all the time.
• 32:15
  Cool, it sounds really good. Wait.
• 32:17
  Say that one more time. Biscuits and gravy with the
• 32:20
  mushroom gravy. Add fried chicken and avocado.
• 32:27
  Oh. Yeah, it's bomb.
• 32:28
  That's like almost like shit on a shingle vibes.
• 32:31
  Is it? Have you ever had a shit on the
• 32:33
  no? I'd never had, I just heard a
• 32:35
  gravy until like a year ago when I came up with this.
• 32:39
  I think I was. I think that I'd been camping
• 32:41
  with Jeff and Nan up on the Mackenzie and I was driving back
• 32:45
  home and I was starving. I was like, I'm gonna fucking go
• 32:48
  to mimosas. What do I want?
• 32:49
  What do I want? I'd never had a biscuits and
• 32:53
  gravy before, but what came to mind was biscuits and gravy with
• 32:56
  fried chicken. I mean, that's just home
• 32:58
  cooking. There's just something
• 32:59
  comforting about that. Decadent, hearty, flavorful, and
• 33:06
  like the combination of flavors that it's all very savory,
• 33:10
  salty, but there's something sweet in that biscuit and the
• 33:14
  creamy of the avocado mixed with the creamy of the gravy and the
• 33:18
  crunchy of the fried chicken skin and.
• 33:21
  I love mimosa. Maybe I have to go there today.
• 33:24
  Oh no, they're not open on Thursday.
• 33:25
  It's Thursday through the day. They're closed, Yeah.
• 33:28
  Thursday's always the day that I can and want to go there, and
• 33:31
  they're not open. It's a pretty good day.
• 33:34
  I mean, there's not a lot of places closed on Thursdays here,
• 33:37
  so it's nice that they're open on Mondays.
• 33:39
  Open on Sundays. It's been, it's been a minute
• 33:44
  since I was there, so it's. That's where Frankie, you know,
• 33:46
  Frankie is staying at Jody and Jason's farm, so I try to go
• 33:50
  there like every other week to take her out or see her I miss.
• 33:54
  Her she doing good. She's good.
• 33:56
  Yeah. She, you know, she gets to hang
• 33:59
  out with her, her goat friends. And the plan is I'm looking for
• 34:03
  property to buy. And once that happens, I'll
• 34:06
  bring her to the property and get more goats.
• 34:08
  I want miniature donkeys. Yeah, my dream.
• 34:11
  So I want mini donkeys. I want chickens.
• 34:14
  So. Yeah.
• 34:15
  How many goats is the right amount of goats?
• 34:17
  You know, I think, you know, to start off, maybe I'll just get a
• 34:23
  few more goats, but, you know, maybe like having like 6 or 7
• 34:27
  goats would be nice. Cool.
• 34:28
  Yeah. A little hobby farm, Yeah.
• 34:30
  Would you rent them out for weed?
• 34:33
  Weed. Control, absolutely, absolutely.
• 34:36
  You know, the go the thing about goats is you have to be a little
• 34:38
  careful about like what kind of landscaping is around.
• 34:40
  Like goats are highly susceptible to like
• 34:45
  rhododendrons, azaleas. You have to be careful about
• 34:48
  that because I could kill them. Totally.
• 34:50
  Yeah, yeah, that's mountain Laurel.
• 34:52
  Yeah. There's a few few things you got
• 34:54
  to watch out for, but. I just have a bunch of invasives
• 34:57
  in the in the backyard that I was polling yesterday, but it'd
• 35:01
  be nice to have a goat munch down.
• 35:04
  As your lawn, as your maintenance.
• 35:05
  Yeah, absolutely. Subject of the goat.
• 35:10
  Kate had a television. Television special show or it
• 35:14
  was on a show? A special.
• 35:16
  Can you tell us about that? Like, I don't even know.
• 35:18
  Like was it a whole show? Was it just a segment of a show
• 35:21
  or? OK, so it was a four part docu
• 35:25
  series called The Bond. It was a Discovery Channel show.
• 35:30
  The blonde like blonde. Hair, the bond, like the bond
• 35:33
  you have with an animal. OK, cool.
• 35:35
  And it was produced by Robert Downey Junior and his wife.
• 35:39
  Wow. And basically they had one of
• 35:44
  their people on the team kind of scouting for for unique animal
• 35:49
  stories on Instagram. And they came upon our travel
• 35:53
  blog, Argosy Odyssey. And I remember I was actually on
• 35:56
  a road trip with Chad and his kids around the Southwest.
• 36:04
  I think it was like January of 2000 and 2021 maybe.
• 36:10
  And I got this message on Instagram, and it's like, hey,
• 36:16
  we're doing a show. Would you be interested?
• 36:18
  And I thought, there's no way that they're gonna pick us.
• 36:21
  They're like, talking to like, you know, like, dozens, if not
• 36:24
  like, 100 different people. And I kind of just said sure,
• 36:27
  But yeah, we'll touch base when we get back in a month, you
• 36:30
  know? When did you also write it off
• 36:32
  as like is this scam? Are we getting scammed or is it
• 36:35
  a little? Like that, that crossed my mind.
• 36:37
  I was like, it could be a scam, but I just like, I thought it
• 36:40
  was so far fetched that like that would even happen.
• 36:43
  So I kind of just said yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:44
  Well, we'll talk. We'll talk when I get back in
• 36:46
  town. And sure enough, they followed
• 36:48
  up, you know, when I said we were going to be back.
• 36:50
  And it just went on and on. And then they had, you know,
• 36:53
  like producers fly out to Grants Pass.
• 36:56
  They had, you know, the director fly out and have these
• 36:58
  preliminary meetings to make sure everything would work.
• 37:02
  And basically the show was they had a a film crew follow us
• 37:10
  around the West for a month. So this is a road trip we were
• 37:13
  already going to take. And nothing was like staged at
• 37:18
  all. It was a docu series versus like
• 37:20
  a reality show, you know, so it's not like we have to create
• 37:23
  drama or anything like that. They they pretty much said,
• 37:27
  what's your plan for today? What's your plan for this week?
• 37:30
  You know, where, you know, they sent us, you know, like a little
• 37:33
  map, you know, I'm like, yeah, we're going to be camping here.
• 37:35
  We're going to be camping here. We're going to be doing this
• 37:38
  hike, you know, and so, and they just had a film crew follow us
• 37:43
  around and we probably only did about 15 minutes a day of
• 37:46
  filming. You know, it's like we're we
• 37:48
  need to get a segment of you guys like cooking dinner,
• 37:51
  sitting around the campfire, going on a hike, you know, maybe
• 37:54
  seeing like some cool iconic scenes around the country.
• 37:58
  So we started in Oregon, We went to we went to Idaho and we went
• 38:05
  to the North American Pack Goat Association meet up, which
• 38:08
  happens every year. And those are huh, what is that?
• 38:12
  It's called? OK, so it's like Napka and it's
• 38:16
  a bunch of people that are pat goat owners.
• 38:19
  So they they raise pat goats, you know, for, you know, hiking,
• 38:23
  hunting, whatever. And the organization is they're
• 38:28
  advocates for for goat owners, you know, so they are very
• 38:33
  knowledgeable about like current legislation about goats on
• 38:36
  public lands, because you do have to be very careful
• 38:39
  introducing domesticated animals into the wild.
• 38:42
  Like you don't want to have any crossover between wild animals
• 38:45
  because then you could transfer diseases.
• 38:47
  So, but they also, they kind of fight for your rights too, you
• 38:50
  know, because a lot of national forests will be like, you know
• 38:54
  what, we had this really isolated incidents of, you know,
• 38:57
  goats getting sick here. So we're going to shut down the
• 39:00
  entire National Forest. But then they're like, whoa,
• 39:03
  whoa, whoa, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 39:05
  The goats don't even live over here.
• 39:06
  This is their habitat. So let us hang out over here.
• 39:09
  Don't shut the whole forest down.
• 39:11
  You know, just like, let's be smart about it.
• 39:12
  Let's be reasonable about it. So they're really great assets.
• 39:16
  So that was one of our first stops along the trip and you
• 39:20
  know, we got to make all kinds of goat friends.
• 39:22
  It was really awesome. We I still talk to him.
• 39:23
  That was. I don't think you said.
• 39:25
  Like they call it Gochella. That's cool.
• 39:29
  I don't think you mentioned Like what?
• 39:31
  Why were they attracted to you? Oh, yeah.
• 39:34
  So. So back in Asheville, Chad, my
• 39:39
  ex-husband and I, we had a bar on the river.
• 39:43
  And the person that used to own the property where the bar was
• 39:48
  always knew that I wanted goats. So one day he picked me up and
• 39:53
  he's like, get my car. I'm taking you up to Tennessee
• 39:55
  to pick out a goat. So yeah, his name was Ronnie
• 39:57
  Ray. Sweet, sweet man.
• 40:00
  And so, yeah, so I picked up Frankie and brought her home
• 40:04
  and, you know, she would come to work with us.
• 40:06
  Everyone, you know, all of our patrons loved her.
• 40:09
  We had an acre and 1/2 on the river, so it was like a park
• 40:12
  atmosphere. So she'd hang out.
• 40:14
  Did. She get to live at the bar.
• 40:17
  I mean, no, no, she lived at home.
• 40:19
  OK, Yeah, she lived at home. But, you know, wouldn't get like
• 40:21
  a dog, you know? And my neighbor, our neighbors
• 40:24
  had had a goat, so they'd have little play dates.
• 40:27
  And we take her like tent camping.
• 40:29
  This is all before we had the Airstream.
• 40:31
  So, so when it was time to, you know, sell the bar, Kepler, my
• 40:41
  stepson, he was gearing up to graduate high school.
• 40:45
  And we knew that once he was out of the house and we were empty
• 40:48
  nesters, we wanted to travel and we wanted to explore the country
• 40:52
  and pick out a new town. So when it was time to leave,
• 40:55
  this was back in 2016, we were like, well, you know, we've got
• 41:00
  we've got a dog and we've got a goat.
• 41:02
  And like, the idea of leaving Frankie behind and rehoming her
• 41:05
  was like, not an option. You know, like, she's my child.
• 41:08
  So we're like, we're going to have to make it work.
• 41:10
  We're going to have to take her across the country, you know,
• 41:12
  and, you know, hopefully she's OK with this lifestyle.
• 41:17
  And sure enough, she took right to it.
• 41:18
  She loved it. So, you know, she's, she did
• 41:21
  about 60,000 miles around the country.
• 41:23
  And this Airstream we refurbished, I painted an
• 41:26
  awesome year all around the outside.
• 41:28
  And yeah, we did like, you know, 25 states, 60,000 miles.
• 41:33
  We went all all over the Midwest, all over, you know, out
• 41:38
  West, you know, and so our blog is called Argosy Odyssey and a
• 41:43
  kind of chronicled Frankie's adventures around the country.
• 41:48
  You know, that's so cool. Yeah, Yeah.
• 41:50
  It was a lot of it was a lot of fun.
• 41:52
  And so I think so I, I don't know how they, they found us
• 41:59
  did. You have the big follower base
• 42:00
  at that time. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:03
  I mean. Started to really flourish.
• 42:04
  Yeah, cuz it's like I'm actually surprisingly enough, something a
• 42:08
  lot of people don't realize about me.
• 42:09
  I'm a very private person. So even though I have this like,
• 42:12
  you know, online presence, it's it's very selective and it's
• 42:17
  normally not so much about me. It's about Corn dog or Frankie
• 42:22
  or nature or something. So not you, not me.
• 42:27
  Going through your daily. Yeah, I don't share anything
• 42:30
  super, super personal relationship stuff.
• 42:34
  And I'm super shy. I'm like, I don't do a lot of
• 42:38
  like talking in front of a camera, so.
• 42:43
  So yeah. What an honor that you've come
• 42:46
  to share yourself with. Yes, I was just gonna say lucky.
• 42:49
  Well. I mean, you guys are friends.
• 42:50
  I feel it's awesome that you guys even invited me.
• 42:54
  Thanks for thinking of me. And is there a better way to
• 42:59
  spend a day than be on the river?
• 43:00
  Right. And eating charcuterie?
• 43:02
  Yeah. With girlfriends or girlfriends
• 43:05
  a. Dog, I mean, it's like we are
• 43:07
  living the life, yeah. Like this is our job.
• 43:12
  One day it'll pay us. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:14
  Yeah, I hope so. You're.
• 43:15
  Kind of getting, I mean essentially you took a few
• 43:17
  videos, that's your job. Yeah.
• 43:20
  That's so nice, yeah. Great, this is work.
• 43:22
  This is, yeah, this is work. I'll be able to use this for my
• 43:24
  different social media accounts for sure, that I manage.
• 43:28
  So yeah, it's fun. That's awesome.
• 43:32
  Well, let's take, let's kind of reverse and go back and kind of
• 43:36
  tell us about you can get as detailed or as vague as you
• 43:39
  want, but kind of give us a rundown of where you grew up and
• 43:43
  like kind of that dynamic of so we can get to know you a little
• 43:46
  deeper before we get into some other questions.
• 43:49
  OK, cool, awesome. Well, I have lived every,
• 43:53
  everyone's like where are you from?
• 43:54
  And it's kind of hard for me to describe that because I've lived
• 43:56
  everywhere. Like I was born in Connecticut.
• 44:00
  When I was three, I moved to Indiana.
• 44:03
  I was in Indiana from three to about 15 or 16.
• 44:10
  And I was one of those bad kids where my my parents sent me off
• 44:16
  to a boarding school. It was kind of like a cross
• 44:19
  between a military school and a therapeutic school.
• 44:23
  So I moved back to Connecticut to go to this wakadoo.
• 44:27
  School. And after that I graduated and I
• 44:32
  went to college at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and I
• 44:36
  absolutely, I love the classes, but I hated the vibe there.
• 44:41
  So I moved to Asheville, NC and went to UNC Asheville and I was
• 44:49
  there for 12 years. And Asheville is a pretty big
• 44:52
  like artist vibe town here. It's a lot like Ashland in a lot
• 44:56
  of ways. Like it's.
• 44:56
  It's a big version of Ashland, so it has the population of
• 44:59
  Medford, but it's like Ashland cool, super liberal.
• 45:04
  I think it has one of the biggest, the the highest like
• 45:07
  gay populations per capita. Very, very artsy.
• 45:10
  So I actually had an art studio on the it's they call it the
• 45:13
  Rad, the river arts district there.
• 45:16
  So you. Went to school for art.
• 45:18
  I went to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:19
  I have a yeah, I have an art degree.
• 45:22
  And yeah, I was there for 12 years and loved it and made tons
• 45:26
  of friends and and it's always going to be a special place to
• 45:31
  me. I mean, it's magical.
• 45:33
  The Blue Ridge Mountains and the food scene there, the art scene,
• 45:38
  the music scenes. Killer.
• 45:39
  I love bluegrass music, so I do. I miss.
• 45:43
  The the the. Culture of Asheville, but it
• 45:47
  also became such a tourist Mecca where the influx of people
• 45:54
  coming in it was too much for the infrastructure of the town,
• 46:00
  you know what I mean? There wasn't there were there
• 46:03
  weren't like ways to extend the road because there were
• 46:07
  buildings there like you couldn't make anything bigger.
• 46:09
  Everything was getting really clogged and it was kind of, you
• 46:12
  know, gentrification. It was forcing the artist out,
• 46:15
  you know, it was forcing, you know, a lot of people that work
• 46:19
  there year round, you know, the people that are working the
• 46:21
  restaurants and all that. So you want, you want this all
• 46:25
  of course, I don't think you're going to like it, but you can
• 46:26
  try. So as much as I loved my time
• 46:31
  there, we were, you know, my ex and I were both really ready to
• 46:34
  leave and Explorer, you know, it's like we're empty nesters.
• 46:38
  You know, when we had the bar, you know, that's like a around
• 46:41
  the clock job because even if you have a day off, you might
• 46:45
  be, it might be a date night and you're in a movie theater and
• 46:48
  you get a phone call. 0 our credit card machines not
• 46:51
  working. We'd have to drop everything we
• 46:53
  were doing and come there or it'd be 3:00 in the morning and
• 46:57
  the police would call us, you know, and they're like, hey,
• 46:59
  your alarms going off, you're going to have to come meet us
• 47:01
  down here. You know, so it's like work,
• 47:04
  work, work all the time. So when it was when we sold the
• 47:07
  bar and moved, it was like, we want to go explore now.
• 47:11
  We need, we need a little bit of a break and we want to, we're
• 47:14
  going to take six months to travel and pick out a new town,
• 47:17
  you know, start a fresh chapter in our lives.
• 47:20
  So after travelling for six months, we kind of narrowed it
• 47:24
  down to Salida Co, Stevenson, WA and Grants Pass.
• 47:29
  And we had zero connection to Grants Pass.
• 47:31
  Like none, like didn't know a single person here, had never
• 47:35
  been here before, never been here ever before.
• 47:36
  Didn't have any kind of job offer here.
• 47:39
  Anything little memo grants. Pass is that good?
• 47:43
  It is that good. It is a little hidden treasure
• 47:45
  for sure. And I think, yeah, the reason I
• 47:48
  fell in love with it, like, right away was, you know, within
• 47:52
  two hours you could be hiking in the redwoods, you could be
• 47:55
  exploring the coast, You could be rafting, you could be skiing,
• 47:59
  You could be, you know, dining and wining through wine country.
• 48:05
  It's just, it's a really, really great place.
• 48:08
  And if you're an outdoor lover, it's just one gigantic outdoor
• 48:13
  playground, you know, so I feel. Do we know?
• 48:17
  I know, I know. It's just like I Can't Sing
• 48:20
  enough praises for for Southern Oregon.
• 48:22
  It's just like, and I travel all around Oregon all the time, you
• 48:25
  know, like every weekend I'm in bed or I go up to Portland and I
• 48:28
  go to Eastern Oregon. And I like it down here because
• 48:32
  you just don't have the crowds. It's so quiet.
• 48:35
  Like you could go on a hiking trail.
• 48:37
  Maybe you'll see one or two people, you know, and I feel
• 48:41
  like someone who's a very private person where I'm kind of
• 48:45
  a my, I'm kind of like a hermit, you know?
• 48:48
  It's like, it could be a very overwhelming and off putting to
• 48:51
  go to like the Columbia River Gorge and hike.
• 48:53
  And it's just like, you see the parking lot and it's just like
• 48:58
  full of cars. And you're like, Oh my God, my
• 49:00
  anxiety is going crazy right now.
• 49:01
  You have to wait your turn to enter the trails.
• 49:04
  Yeah. There's crowds of people.
• 49:05
  So it's just like, look at this. I mean, it's like no one is
• 49:08
  here. We've got it to ourself.
• 49:11
  So, so I love that. And I just thought, you know,
• 49:14
  everyone is so friendly here, you know, even though, you know,
• 49:18
  the politics are very different than what I was used to.
• 49:23
  I've made friends with everyone across the board.
• 49:26
  It doesn't matter. You know who you vote for you
• 49:30
  more than likely you're going to find people that also love
• 49:33
  nature. So you could find ways to
• 49:35
  connect with people, you know, without, you know, living like a
• 49:39
  polarized life like other places I've lived.
• 49:42
  You know, I feel like you could, you can make connections and you
• 49:46
  could still be friends with people and have a good time with
• 49:48
  people even though you might have different religions, so
• 49:51
  diverse. Friends are, yeah.
• 49:53
  Yeah, for sure. The outdoors is the common
• 49:55
  ground. Exactly, it is or.
• 49:57
  Grants Pass as a whole. Like, I love it here.
• 49:59
  You love it here. OK, awesome.
• 50:01
  Yeah, Like let's go do something.
• 50:03
  Yeah, show me what you love about this place.
• 50:05
  Whoa, crazy. It's the same thing I love about
• 50:07
  this place. Yeah.
• 50:08
  So I just think, I think this whole, this whole region and
• 50:12
  whole is very, is very special and just like biologically, like
• 50:19
  it's so diverse, you know, the geology is amazing, the flora is
• 50:24
  amazing, the wildlife is amazing.
• 50:28
  I just, I just Can't Sing enough praises for it.
• 50:30
  So I feel really fortunate that, you know, one of my jobs is
• 50:35
  working for visit Grants Pass as a social media manager and
• 50:40
  content creator is I get AI get paid to go explore here and
• 50:44
  share it with the world. You know, I think that's, I feel
• 50:48
  blessed to have that job and I've been doing that since I
• 50:51
  think like 2019. I know as you were talking, I
• 50:54
  was just thinking to myself, like sometimes the people that
• 50:58
  move here are our biggest advocates of the place.
• 51:01
  Like they're the like they're the most ones praising it the
• 51:05
  most, you know, when really being like come here, like just
• 51:08
  they've. Seen other places and they can
• 51:10
  compare and say wow base compared to the other places
• 51:13
  I've been, this place is phenomenal.
• 51:15
  This place is better. This has more natural amenities,
• 51:19
  more friendly people, more community than other places I've
• 51:23
  been. But when you're in it all the
• 51:24
  time and you've grown up here and you've lived here for 30
• 51:28
  years or whatever, it's really easy to.
• 51:30
  You lose that. Perspective, I think, I think
• 51:33
  it's a really important thing to, I think travel is one of the
• 51:36
  most important things people should prioritize in their life
• 51:39
  because you, you never know how good you have it.
• 51:42
  Absolutely leave the nest, go see other places, meet other
• 51:47
  cultures, experience life outside of your own bubble.
• 51:51
  Because then you come back to your home and you're like, you
• 51:54
  know what? I'm very fortunate, you know?
• 51:57
  Yep, I was. I did a study abroad in Europe
• 52:00
  when I was 20. And when I was trying to figure
• 52:04
  out if I was going to come back or if I was going to extend my
• 52:06
  stay, I realized, you know, I live in a big, beautiful state
• 52:11
  that I've barely seen any of. Why am I on another continent
• 52:16
  exploring all these other countries?
• 52:18
  I should go home and explore where I live.
• 52:21
  And now, 15 years later, I'm finally doing that.
• 52:25
  Yeah, better late than never. Yeah.
• 52:26
  You know, and we're just, and we're just fortunate to live in
• 52:29
  Oregon. I mean, like, we've got it all
• 52:31
  here. We've got desert, we've got
• 52:33
  ocean, we've got Alpine meadows, we've got volcanoes, we've got
• 52:37
  caves, we've got wine country, we've got rainforests, we've got
• 52:40
  rainforests, extreme sports. We've got 7 different wild and
• 52:44
  scenic rivers we've got. We have all Four Seasons plus
• 52:48
  some. Yeah, exactly.
• 52:49
  It's just like, what don't we have?
• 52:51
  I mean, we have everything here, and we've got crazy lava fields.
• 52:55
  I mean, it's just insane. So I feel like you would not
• 53:00
  even have to leave the state and there, you'd never run out of
• 53:03
  things to do here, new things to explore.
• 53:06
  Yeah. Because it's just that it's a
• 53:07
  huge state, for one, and it's just so diverse.
• 53:10
  Yeah. When Asia and I were driving
• 53:13
  back from Bend on Monday, we were exploring a little bit
• 53:16
  along the way. We stopped at Mill Creek Falls,
• 53:18
  which I'd never been to before and and we were saying that we
• 53:22
  could spend a month in one like Valley of Oregon and be doing
• 53:29
  something different every single day and still not see everything
• 53:33
  there was to offer in that valley and then move to another
• 53:36
  one and same thing. And we'd still not see
• 53:38
  everything. Like there's so much.
• 53:41
  There is so much here. That's crazy.
• 53:43
  Did you grow up being like an outdoorsy kid?
• 53:45
  Were you? Not at all.
• 53:47
  No, not at all. Well, I was so my, I think my
• 53:53
  camping experience as a kid was pitching a tent on my, my back
• 53:57
  porch. So I have no, I love, yeah, I
• 54:00
  love my family. I have an amazing family.
• 54:03
  They're, they're not really, you know, they're not outdoorsmen.
• 54:06
  Like we never did rafting or camping trips.
• 54:09
  My dad every once in a while would take us to this, this
• 54:12
  really awesome State Park in Indiana called Turkey Run State
• 54:16
  Park. And it was along the river and
• 54:19
  there were cool little micro gorges and stuff.
• 54:22
  And it was a really pretty spot in Indiana.
• 54:24
  But I think that was like the only hiking I ever really did as
• 54:27
  a kid. The first house that we lived in
• 54:32
  in Indiana was surrounded by 12 acres, and we had a little Creek
• 54:36
  that ran through it. And I would spend all my time
• 54:40
  outdoors. I'd be climbing trees.
• 54:42
  I'd be going down to the Creek hunting for crawfish.
• 54:45
  But it was something I did alone.
• 54:48
  I didn't. I didn't.
• 54:50
  So I think that's part of why I'm very comfortable being alone
• 54:54
  was because I, I spent a lot of alone time as a kid do.
• 54:57
  You have any brothers or sisters?
• 54:58
  Yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got a younger brother who's three
• 55:02
  years younger and he lives in DC now.
• 55:06
  And yeah, he was my only sibling.
• 55:09
  And we lived out in the country, so we didn't have like a big
• 55:12
  crew of friends or anything in the neighborhood.
• 55:14
  So, you know, I spent a lot of time by myself, but I liked it
• 55:19
  and it allowed me to feel comfortable being by myself.
• 55:25
  And it allowed me the opportunity to go find
• 55:29
  adventure. You know, it's like, what do I
• 55:31
  want to do? What's down?
• 55:32
  What's down this way, What's, what's up this tree, you know,
• 55:36
  what's under this rock. So I think I learned how to
• 55:43
  appreciate nature at it at a young age.
• 55:45
  And my mom really loves nature. She she also probably helped
• 55:50
  influence me as well. And then my first camping
• 55:54
  experience, hiking, backpacking experience was with this this
• 55:59
  boarding school that I went to. OK, so not all bad.
• 56:02
  It's not all bad. No, I will say, I will say that
• 56:06
  was the redeeming quality about this school was it was my, it
• 56:10
  was my introduction to hiking and camping, which sometimes
• 56:15
  they did as a bonding mechanism and then sometimes this, this
• 56:21
  backpacking, camping or whatever was served as a punishment.
• 56:25
  And I'll explain that. OK, So it, we would do trips.
• 56:32
  I, I went there after my freshman year for something
• 56:36
  called summer Challenge and we would spend all summer there.
• 56:40
  And it was, I don't know if you guys are familiar with
• 56:46
  Scientology at all. OK, so.
• 56:50
  I mean, I'm not intimately, but I know of it and I know it's
• 56:53
  controversial. Yeah, so this school I went to.
• 56:56
  I want to hold that note. I just, this is a good little
• 56:59
  starting point. I didn't want to turn it on the
• 57:01
  whole time. OK, Scientology.
• 57:03
  OK, so and this is just my own take, this is not what this is
• 57:09
  just my own take. This is not what the school said
• 57:12
  anything about Scientology, but the school was founded pretty
• 57:16
  much the same time as Scientology.
• 57:19
  Like L Ron Hubbard was doing his thing back in the 60s and that's
• 57:23
  when the school started. And there there's a lot of
• 57:26
  crossover, there's a lot of a lot of similarities.
• 57:30
  And the school I went to had a lot of these different rules
• 57:36
  like these ethics, these morals. And if you broke them, you would
• 57:42
  get punished. You'd go on something called
• 57:44
  24247. They'd pull you out of school,
• 57:47
  pull you out of sports, and you would spend an entire day, and
• 57:52
  this could last for days, weeks even, And you would.
• 57:57
  Depending on the punishment or depending on the crime, most.
• 58:00
  Yeah, the crime. The crime could be anything from
• 58:02
  a lie, stealing, smoking a cigarette, having sex, something
• 58:08
  called brother's keeper. If you haven't broken any rule
• 58:11
  but you know someone else who has, you only have 24 hours to
• 58:14
  inform authorities or you're just as guilty as them and you
• 58:18
  will get the same punishment. Just fucked up.
• 58:20
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 58:22
  So this goal was very based on fear.
• 58:24
  They were really into. Fear and control.
• 58:26
  Narcs. They were very much into narcs.
• 58:29
  So they would have something called a bust where, oh, sorry,
• 58:34
  back-to-back to the 2 four thing.
• 58:35
  So you'd get pulled out of school and you'd have to do
• 58:39
  community service all day. You weren't allowed to talk or
• 58:43
  smile. You would wake up at 5:30 AM for
• 58:47
  like this hardcore workout, you know, And then they'd put you to
• 58:51
  work, whether it's raking leaves or scrubbing stuff, whatever the
• 58:57
  job they want you to do is. And you could only have cold
• 59:00
  food. You don't get to eat the normal
• 59:01
  food. And I mean, it was just like
• 59:05
  this whole thing and then. Did your parents know that this
• 59:08
  was the protocol of the school before they sent you there?
• 59:11
  I don't think that they knew it. They didn't.
• 59:14
  They didn't know exactly, but what the school did was it was
• 59:21
  it was like 1 big mind fuck where I the first like the
• 59:26
  summer you go there, you're like, this is wack, this is
• 59:29
  crazy. But then after a while they get
• 59:31
  into your psyche and you start believing them.
• 59:34
  It's like it's. Stockholm Syndrome.
• 59:36
  Exactly. It's, it was very culty and you
• 59:40
  know, like it was like a lot of group thought.
• 59:42
  And if you have any different opinion, you're ostracized and
• 59:46
  they gang up on you and so, and you get punished.
• 59:50
  And so you start to believe these things after a while
• 59:53
  because it makes your life easier.
• 59:55
  And they'd have this thing called busts where if there were
• 1:00:03
  multiple people that were dirty, you've broken where the rules.
• 1:00:06
  You're dirty. And they'll, they'll, they'll
• 1:00:08
  invent, they'll, they'll, they'll take you into a room to
• 1:00:12
  what is it called an interview? No, it's a irrigation.
• 1:00:14
  Interrogation. Interrogation.
• 1:00:17
  And they'd be like, here's a piece of paper, write down
• 1:00:20
  names. And if they if and if they had
• 1:00:24
  enough people that they thought were dirty, they would have a
• 1:00:29
  bust, which means they shut down the entire school.
• 1:00:33
  And they say, hey, everyone, 1:00 go to the auditorium.
• 1:00:38
  And so, you know, they'd usher in all the school to the
• 1:00:42
  auditorium. The Dirty kids, The Dirty kids
• 1:00:45
  would be put on the stage facing, facing people.
• 1:00:49
  And then, you know, whoever it was, the principal or whoever it
• 1:00:52
  would be, they said, OK, everyone in the audience, now is
• 1:00:56
  your chance to come up on stage on your own before we start
• 1:01:01
  calling you out. And you know, there'd be quiet,
• 1:01:05
  no one's moving. But then after a couple minutes,
• 1:01:07
  you know, you'd see one go up or you'd see a few more go up.
• 1:01:11
  And then they're like, Nope, there's more, there's more.
• 1:01:14
  And then they start calling people out and then they'd be
• 1:01:17
  like, Nope, there's more. We know there's more.
• 1:01:20
  And there is one time. This is, this is like the moment
• 1:01:23
  that's like so clear in my mind where I'm like, this is so
• 1:01:25
  fucked up where I started wondering if I wasn't, if I
• 1:01:30
  wasn't remembering things right. I'm like, Oh my God, they must
• 1:01:33
  be talking about me. Like what did I do?
• 1:01:36
  Did I do? Did I break one of the rules?
• 1:01:37
  I just don't remember. Like I I started to like
• 1:01:40
  internalize this. Like gaslighting you hard, I
• 1:01:43
  know. And it was just so fucking
• 1:01:46
  crazy. And yeah, that's just one of the
• 1:01:50
  many memories I have of this school.
• 1:01:53
  And it was just, I don't like fear based things, you know,
• 1:01:57
  it's just like, it's like a it's one big mind fuck.
• 1:02:01
  And so, so, yeah, so the school, I, I had a couple great teachers
• 1:02:07
  that I really love and I made, I made some, a couple great
• 1:02:10
  friends there. And I still talk to some of
• 1:02:12
  these people today. And, but for the most part, it
• 1:02:17
  was a very traumatized experience.
• 1:02:20
  And, but the redeeming quality of the school was to introduce
• 1:02:24
  me to camping. So if you're, if you're bad and
• 1:02:31
  two 4 is not working out for you, they will send you up to
• 1:02:38
  either some, a place called Seguin Island off the coast of
• 1:02:41
  Maine, where you're going to be living there for a week or
• 1:02:46
  whatever. And you know, doing maintenance
• 1:02:50
  around the island, doing these workout things, doing all that.
• 1:02:53
  Or they'll send you up to Eustis, Maine, which is on the
• 1:02:56
  border of Canada. It's like mainland Maine up in
• 1:03:00
  the woods in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:03:04
  And the first time I was sent there, it was amazing.
• 1:03:08
  I think it was, it was in the summertime.
• 1:03:10
  The weather was great. You know, we hiked, we camped.
• 1:03:13
  Did you get in trouble? I did not.
• 1:03:15
  No, I didn't get in trouble. It was that was part of summer
• 1:03:19
  challenge. And so all the kids had to do
• 1:03:22
  this camping trip. And that was the first time I'd
• 1:03:24
  ever been camping. And we weren't just camping, We
• 1:03:25
  were, we had backpacks on like we were, we were, you know,
• 1:03:28
  backpacking. So that was that was my first
• 1:03:31
  introduction. And it's like you're hanging out
• 1:03:33
  with a bunch of people your own age camping.
• 1:03:35
  And I was like, this is awesome. This is really great.
• 1:03:38
  So I think that was one of my first real experiences, like
• 1:03:43
  spending, you know, real time outdoors, like a real hike, like
• 1:03:47
  hiking up mountains. I think we canoed too when we
• 1:03:51
  were there. That was fun.
• 1:03:54
  But another time that they thought my attitude was not very
• 1:03:58
  good, they sent me up there in the winter time and I almost
• 1:04:02
  died. Oh my God, I they sent me up.
• 1:04:04
  I had bronchitis and I have a severe asthmatic.
• 1:04:07
  And so they sent me up there and I was already sick and we were
• 1:04:13
  backpacking, camping in Maine in the winter.
• 1:04:19
  I did not even have the proper clothing.
• 1:04:21
  I didn't even have like snowshoes or anything.
• 1:04:24
  I was duct taping my boots and I ended up getting like 104
• 1:04:29
  temperature. So they had to get.
• 1:04:31
  On top of bronchitis. On top of bronchitis and they're
• 1:04:36
  like, OK, we're going to put you in a uret.
• 1:04:37
  We're going to go continue on and we'll check on you.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah. And we'll come check on you.
• 1:04:42
  And you're like 14. I was.
• 1:04:45
  I was, I was 17. I want to say.
• 1:04:52
  They ended up having someone drive me an hour to see a
• 1:04:55
  doctor. I actually had pneumonia.
• 1:04:57
  And yeah, I almost died. But it's like, who thought that
• 1:05:01
  was a good idea to send a girl who says severe phosmatic with
• 1:05:05
  bronchitis without the proper clothes to go camp in the winter
• 1:05:08
  in Maine? And then abandoned her in a
• 1:05:11
  year. The snow, the snow was like, you
• 1:05:12
  know, like, you know, this high. It was, it was absolutely.
• 1:05:15
  And I mean, that was I yeah, that was just crazy.
• 1:05:19
  Your parents didn't didn't know about that to like go stand up
• 1:05:22
  for you or they are they? I don't think no, no, no.
• 1:05:26
  Yeah, my parents, my parents are awesome.
• 1:05:28
  I just don't think they really knew what was happening because,
• 1:05:32
  I mean, my mom lived in Indiana, my dad lived in Connecticut.
• 1:05:35
  But a couple hours away. They'd come up for like a
• 1:05:39
  couple, a couple weekends out of the year.
• 1:05:41
  They'd have like a family weekend, you know, where they
• 1:05:43
  bring out the good food. You know, and put on an air.
• 1:05:47
  Show and have like a better than they really are.
• 1:05:49
  Exactly. I mean, it was totally it was.
• 1:05:51
  Did they? Call your parents to let them
• 1:05:53
  know that you were had pneumonia and.
• 1:05:56
  They put you through this or they must have.
• 1:05:59
  I don't. I don't remember.
• 1:06:01
  I don't really remember how all that worked out, but I remember
• 1:06:05
  being not no longer camping, being put into the yurt, being
• 1:06:09
  driven to the doctor, being diagnosed with pneumonia.
• 1:06:12
  And I, I, I must have, they must have called the trip off and we,
• 1:06:16
  we went home. I I can't really remember it's
• 1:06:18
  been so long but. Also, yeah, homicide, yeah.
• 1:06:22
  Yeah, the school is very traumatizing, but I will say,
• 1:06:24
  you know, it did introduce me to camping and so I am thankful for
• 1:06:29
  that. Do you remember when you were on
• 1:06:31
  the good trip? Do you remember being like, this
• 1:06:33
  is legit? Do you remember having moments
• 1:06:36
  of like? No, I do.
• 1:06:38
  Yeah. We, I mean, there were a lot of
• 1:06:41
  moments. I mean, it was and it was hard
• 1:06:42
  to, I'd never done a hike like that.
• 1:06:44
  Like I remember we hiked to the highest point in Maine and it
• 1:06:47
  was along the the Appalachian trails, like the starting point,
• 1:06:50
  actually. And I remember being on top of
• 1:06:53
  this mountain and I had never been on top of a mountain
• 1:06:55
  before. And it's like, this is awesome.
• 1:06:58
  Like look at this 360 view. And it was like tough climbing
• 1:07:02
  up. I mean, I was, I wasn't like in
• 1:07:04
  shape or anything. And I'd never been on a real
• 1:07:07
  hike before. So it was a lot of hard work.
• 1:07:09
  And we had we had packs on and it was, I think that was like a
• 1:07:16
  real pivotal moment for me. I mean, since I had no
• 1:07:21
  experience, I mean, being on top of a mountain and seeing, seeing
• 1:07:24
  beauty from above, I think that was really, really neat.
• 1:07:27
  And I think just hanging out with other, you know, people my
• 1:07:30
  age out in the woods away from screens.
• 1:07:33
  There's no T VS. I mean, we didn't have cell
• 1:07:35
  phones, I don't think back then. But it was, yeah, it was fun.
• 1:07:41
  You know, we played games, you know, we chatted, we hung around
• 1:07:43
  the fire. So I think, I think from then
• 1:07:48
  on, I was super into camping 'cause when I moved to
• 1:07:52
  Asheville, my boyfriend that I moved there with at the time,
• 1:07:58
  we'd go camping a lot. And I read this book called The
• 1:08:03
  Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it was about
• 1:08:08
  someone, a real person who lives in the mountains of western
• 1:08:12
  North Carolina called Eustis Conway.
• 1:08:15
  And he was an outdoorsman, but he kind of had a similar
• 1:08:18
  upbringing, you know, kind of came from white collar family,
• 1:08:22
  you know, suburbanite. And he kind of just rejected it.
• 1:08:26
  And that's kind of how I was too.
• 1:08:28
  It's like I never, I never really fit in in that, in that
• 1:08:33
  kind of way. I was always, I was always very
• 1:08:35
  different. I was always, you know, into
• 1:08:37
  art, into kind of an alternative lifestyle.
• 1:08:43
  So I'm, I'm, I was kind of like the black sheep in my family.
• 1:08:46
  I don't think my family sees, sees it like that, at least not
• 1:08:49
  anymore. I think my family is very proud
• 1:08:51
  of me and they're very, very, very happy and they're very
• 1:08:54
  thrilled with the person I've become.
• 1:08:58
  And they've always been very supportive of me and my art
• 1:09:02
  career. So I'm very, I'm very grateful
• 1:09:05
  to them. But when I got to meet your mom,
• 1:09:08
  yeah, she was very just praising you and also expressing how
• 1:09:14
  amazed she was at you that that you're so brave and independent
• 1:09:20
  and exploratory and curious and creative.
• 1:09:24
  And she was like, I don't know where she got all of this, but I
• 1:09:28
  just love her so much. And she, she's remarkable and
• 1:09:31
  amazes me everyday. And it was.
• 1:09:34
  My mom's the sweetest. She's so sweet, it was so tender
• 1:09:38
  and and genuine. Just her like amazement of you.
• 1:09:43
  Yeah, I mean, and my dad's the same way he is.
• 1:09:46
  He's a sweetie, too. I'm fortunate to have just
• 1:09:49
  incredible parents that have been so supportive, so loving,
• 1:09:54
  just like everything, even through missteps or, you know,
• 1:09:58
  hardships in my life. Like they've always been by my
• 1:10:01
  side and never faltering. And yeah, I'm super grateful for
• 1:10:06
  them. Good parents.
• 1:10:07
  Great parents? Yeah, totally.
• 1:10:10
  And so you you were were you able to do art at the school?
• 1:10:14
  How did in their cultivate and nurture your your art?
• 1:10:19
  Yeah, and actually I had a unique situation.
• 1:10:22
  So I've never been big into sports, but the school makes you
• 1:10:27
  do 33 sports a year. So I would do cross country in
• 1:10:32
  the fall and I started off doing karate in the winter and then I
• 1:10:37
  would do lacrosse in the spring. And I never got into karate.
• 1:10:45
  So I talked to the school and my art teacher and I said, hey,
• 1:10:50
  instead of me doing karate in the winter, how would I do an
• 1:10:54
  intensive art class? Just my own class.
• 1:10:57
  And I got to make up my own curriculum.
• 1:11:00
  So yeah, my teacher, yeah, Kevin O'Brien, he was the school's art
• 1:11:05
  teacher. And him and I made a plan or
• 1:11:08
  like, this is what this is the what we're going to do.
• 1:11:10
  And I would spend, you know, I do it unsupervised, you know,
• 1:11:14
  And I'd have a curriculum that I would do.
• 1:11:17
  I'd have different projects every week.
• 1:11:20
  And so it was very advanced. And yeah, so I got to start off
• 1:11:25
  my kind of my art path at that school.
• 1:11:30
  And actually I had my first art show and sold my first painting
• 1:11:34
  at that school, too. We had an art show.
• 1:11:37
  And my amazing teacher, John Rigney, who I still speak with
• 1:11:42
  today, him and his wife bought this painting I did of a baobab
• 1:11:47
  tree. It was a really big painting and
• 1:11:51
  they ended up moving to Africa a year ago and he sent me a
• 1:11:54
  picture of this Theo Bob tree hanging in their house.
• 1:11:57
  He. Still has he still.
• 1:11:58
  Has and he's like, this is one of our prized possessions.
• 1:12:02
  I'm like, Oh my God. Because this would have been
• 1:12:03
  back in, you know, like 2003 or something like that.
• 1:12:07
  So a long time ago. So that was really cool.
• 1:12:11
  So I sold, I sold quite a few paintings at that, at that
• 1:12:15
  gallery, or it was a, it was a school event, but it was just
• 1:12:18
  like, it made me think I'm like, wow, I could actually do this.
• 1:12:22
  And I did, you know, even when I was in Asheville, I had my art
• 1:12:25
  studio there. I'd have art shows and, and then
• 1:12:30
  when I moved to Grants Pass, I immediately got an art studio
• 1:12:32
  downtown. And so, yeah, art's been my
• 1:12:36
  career, you know, since the beginning.
• 1:12:40
  Your first paid job? Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Well, it's not, I don't, I wouldn't, I know it wouldn't be
• 1:12:44
  my first paid job. I think technically my first
• 1:12:46
  paid job was I worked, I worked at a horse stable.
• 1:12:49
  Cool. In Indiana.
• 1:12:50
  Yeah, I've done I've done all kinds of stuff.
• 1:12:52
  You know, I've worked at restaurants.
• 1:12:53
  I've worked. I was a cashier at a like a
• 1:12:56
  organic grocery store. And actually, that's a funny
• 1:12:59
  story. So I was a cashier girl at this
• 1:13:02
  place. What was it called?
• 1:13:06
  Green something, I don't know, it's based, it's an Asheville
• 1:13:09
  grocery store. And I was checking this lady out
• 1:13:14
  and she said, hey, would you happen to?
• 1:13:19
  And I was, I was really cute. I was like 21.
• 1:13:22
  Anyway, do we like where we are? Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  We had to move because Emily was getting Sonnet from there.
• 1:13:28
  I. Was bacon in the sun?
• 1:13:31
  So now we're here y'all after a battery break and move.
• 1:13:36
  We were just getting into the story of the cashier.
• 1:13:40
  Yeah, it's the cashier. This is like AI think that was
• 1:13:43
  my least favorite job. I absolutely hated it because
• 1:13:46
  you know, you're you're there. Oh hey corn.
• 1:13:49
  Hello. Hey, just been looking at you
• 1:13:51
  over there. Wondering when you were going to
• 1:13:53
  come say hi? He's been, he's been a patient
• 1:13:56
  boy. Yeah.
• 1:13:57
  He's such a lap dog. Yeah.
• 1:13:59
  I think being a cashier was probably my least favorite job
• 1:14:01
  I've ever had. Watched the microphone.
• 1:14:03
  Oh, shit. Right.
• 1:14:04
  OK, I think it's my least favorite job I ever had just cuz
• 1:14:09
  it's like you're stuck here. You can't leave and you have to
• 1:14:13
  talk to a bunch of people. And I'm just like, I'm not a
• 1:14:15
  people person. Like I'm an animal person.
• 1:14:17
  So it's like, I don't want to talk to you, you know?
• 1:14:20
  Makes me talk with everybody. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:21
  And half the time people are grouchy.
• 1:14:23
  You know, I remember people, people would yell at you if you
• 1:14:26
  didn't ask them if they received the senior discount.
• 1:14:30
  But if you ask them and you assumed they, some people would
• 1:14:33
  get really upset that you even asked them, you know?
• 1:14:36
  So it's like it's a lose, lose situation to be a cashier
• 1:14:39
  sometimes. But anyways, this is just a
• 1:14:41
  random, you know, random story. So here I am doing the cashier
• 1:14:46
  girl thing and this lady is in the line.
• 1:14:49
  I'm checking her out and she's like, hey, by any chance would
• 1:14:54
  you be able to model for me next weekend?
• 1:14:58
  She's like, I have a jewelry line that I would like that I
• 1:15:02
  need. I'm looking for models.
• 1:15:04
  And I was like, well, I've never modelled before, but sure, why
• 1:15:06
  not? And it was a paid gig.
• 1:15:09
  So I was like, oh cool, awesome. And so I show up that weekend
• 1:15:14
  and she's like, I'm so sorry. My photographer bailed today.
• 1:15:19
  So my best friend is going to take pictures.
• 1:15:21
  I was like, OK, and her name is Rose.
• 1:15:23
  I'm like, OK, cool. And her best friend who's taking
• 1:15:28
  pictures that day was Andy McDowell.
• 1:15:32
  The actress, Yes. What?
• 1:15:35
  Yes. Rose is her real name and she
• 1:15:39
  was the one taking pictures and you know, her daughter, who's
• 1:15:41
  all very famous now, Margaret Crawley.
• 1:15:43
  I was modeling with her, so I gotta wear all of her fancy
• 1:15:48
  evening gowns like she'd wear on the red carpet.
• 1:15:50
  And I'm like in bed with Margaret Quali.
• 1:15:54
  And she was much younger than me.
• 1:15:55
  She was like, she was like. I'm in bed with Margaret Quelle.
• 1:16:00
  Literally, literally, we're in this bed together and our dress
• 1:16:03
  is like modeling this jewelry and stuff.
• 1:16:05
  And I'm like, I had no idea she was going to be super famous one
• 1:16:09
  day. Wow.
• 1:16:09
  And yeah, it was like, really, really cool.
• 1:16:11
  But anyways, so Andy McDowell, Rose, her Rose Quelle.
• 1:16:15
  Who's her? Name.
• 1:16:16
  I can't picture who that is. If you saw a picture, she has
• 1:16:19
  very curly hair. She's like she's a southern
• 1:16:22
  accent. Her and her daughter were
• 1:16:26
  actually in a show called Maid that came out a couple years
• 1:16:28
  ago. She's been in, I don't know,
• 1:16:32
  she's been in so much you'd recognize her face if you saw
• 1:16:34
  her, but. Are you still?
• 1:16:38
  Do you have any contact with either of them?
• 1:16:40
  I know. No, no, this is like a one off
• 1:16:42
  thing. And but it was just like so
• 1:16:45
  random and cool. Like I remember, I remember Andy
• 1:16:49
  McDowell, I guess I was like getting dressed or something and
• 1:16:53
  she came up against me and she grabbed my boob on accident.
• 1:16:57
  I don't know how you grab someone's boob on accent, but
• 1:16:59
  she kind of like, you know, grabbed my boob on accent.
• 1:17:01
  She said part of me for being fresh.
• 1:17:04
  I just thought that was the cutest thing ever.
• 1:17:06
  And anyways, yeah, so I left this and I got 300 bucks for the
• 1:17:10
  gig and I went straight to the shoe store and bought myself a
• 1:17:14
  pair of a red cowboy boots I had been eyeballing and coveting for
• 1:17:19
  months and months and months. So yeah, that's my random
• 1:17:22
  cashier girl story. I love those stories.
• 1:17:26
  Yeah. Didn't know you were gonna meet
• 1:17:28
  somebody famous. Get the boots you.
• 1:17:31
  Want I know it was Yeah, what a yeah.
• 1:17:34
  Random cool story. That's a trip.
• 1:17:37
  Yeah, so. So, yeah, I don't even know how
• 1:17:41
  we segwayed into oh, hey, you were asking me about my first
• 1:17:45
  job. Yeah, that was yeah.
• 1:17:48
  I've been a cashier, I've worked at horse stables, I've worked at
• 1:17:51
  farms, I've worked in restaurants.
• 1:17:56
  Gosh, I don't know. I've done a few things, but
• 1:17:59
  mainly, like in my adult life, I don't know, we had the bar.
• 1:18:05
  I've been a social media manager for multiple different accounts
• 1:18:09
  from restaurants to, you know, tourism to doctor's offices.
• 1:18:14
  Like I do kind of all different kinds of businesses, nonprofits,
• 1:18:19
  and then, yeah, then the art. And then I'm also a writer.
• 1:18:21
  I've written for different magazines and, you know, I do, I
• 1:18:26
  write blogs. So yeah, mostly travel related.
• 1:18:31
  I used to do a lot of like RV road trip articles for for RV
• 1:18:38
  magazines to a little less of that now, but.
• 1:18:42
  Has your art always been nature inspired, even when you were
• 1:18:46
  making art as a kid? Yeah, You know, I did do a lot
• 1:18:51
  of landscapes as a kid. I I've done a lot of portraits
• 1:18:55
  too. Really one of my favorite things
• 1:18:58
  to paint is the human figure I love.
• 1:19:01
  Like back when I was in college, like having figure days was
• 1:19:04
  always really fun. You know, you'd, you'd have, you
• 1:19:06
  know, a nude model and you'd paint them for about, you know,
• 1:19:10
  3 hours. I loved Figure.
• 1:19:12
  Drawing and it was that I think that was one of, I think that
• 1:19:15
  was one of my that was the most fun.
• 1:19:18
  Those were the funnest days for sure.
• 1:19:19
  So I think that was my dad's favorite art of yours was.
• 1:19:23
  Was. The naked women.
• 1:19:25
  Yeah, I think so, yeah. We had a they used to have a our
• 1:19:31
  art place downtown. They used to have like a once a
• 1:19:33
  month nude figure drawing class that you could take.
• 1:19:37
  I don't. Know if they still do it?
• 1:19:38
  I know the museum has figure drawing.
• 1:19:40
  I don't know if they still do it.
• 1:19:41
  They used to though, I feel like.
• 1:19:44
  Yeah, I think that would be be great to do.
• 1:19:46
  You know it's. It's kind of fun.
• 1:19:49
  It is. It's a lot of fun I.
• 1:19:50
  Like to do. We used to warm up.
• 1:19:52
  I took a couple classes of figure drawing when I was in art
• 1:19:54
  school actually, and I did not finish.
• 1:19:57
  I don't have any degree, but that's what I was going for.
• 1:20:00
  Well, part of it, and I was going to.
• 1:20:04
  Paint a mural in my bedroom when we were kids.
• 1:20:06
  Really. Yeah, I used to be really cool,
• 1:20:09
  but I. Want to see some of your work
• 1:20:10
  sometime? I don't really have any work
• 1:20:14
  anymore. I mean, I have some ceramics
• 1:20:17
  that speak for themselves. Yeah, I don't really.
• 1:20:20
  I might have some stuff from high school, but I didn't really
• 1:20:24
  take any. Anyway, yes, don't really have
• 1:20:27
  anything good, but anyway the well where?
• 1:20:30
  Was I at with the figure drawing?
• 1:20:32
  They would put like a, OK, let's do a like a one minute timed one
• 1:20:36
  and then we'd work up from that. And I loved that.
• 1:20:39
  Like, OK, you got one minute to like do it.
• 1:20:41
  And I love that. Messy.
• 1:20:43
  Yeah. Like that was my favorite, just
• 1:20:45
  to like, let it flow and like, let the chalk or whatever I was
• 1:20:49
  using charcoal or whatever, like let it just do its thing.
• 1:20:52
  It was my favorite. I loved it, yeah.
• 1:20:55
  I love that too. Yeah, it's I think when I was
• 1:21:00
  when I was in college, we had this this model who was my all
• 1:21:04
  time favorite model. She was probably like 300 plus
• 1:21:08
  pounds. And every time that she would be
• 1:21:10
  there, I would just, I'd be in heaven because of all the
• 1:21:15
  highlights and shadows, you know, texture, all the textures,
• 1:21:19
  the roles. Oh, my God, It was.
• 1:21:22
  And she was hysterical. So she'd be, she'd be posing and
• 1:21:25
  just cracking jokes the whole time.
• 1:21:27
  Legit. I mean, she was like the best
• 1:21:29
  model ever. Yeah.
• 1:21:30
  I'd love to go to another figure drawing class at some point,
• 1:21:34
  it'd be a lot of fun. Yeah, I've always wanted to do
• 1:21:36
  the, you know, the paint and sips just to like reintroduce
• 1:21:40
  myself back and to that sort of art.
• 1:21:43
  I think the most art I do anymore is like collaging.
• 1:21:47
  Yeah, well, that's really fun. That's a whole.
• 1:21:48
  Art yeah. And I well, I do a lot of I'll
• 1:21:51
  do a lot of like graphic design stuff.
• 1:21:54
  So I do do a lot of digitally type shit, but and on my
• 1:21:58
  Procreate on my digital, I have some stuff on there actually
• 1:22:02
  that's recent that is pretty cool.
• 1:22:04
  I actually did a whole series of strawberries that were
• 1:22:08
  strawberries, but with like Tupac and Biggie and like Frida
• 1:22:14
  Callow. I love it.
• 1:22:15
  That's cool. Yeah, actually got scolded from
• 1:22:18
  Sean for drawing Frida Callow Strawberry on my on a trip that
• 1:22:25
  we took. He's like when you were just on
• 1:22:27
  your iPad drawing the whole time.
• 1:22:28
  And I'm like, fuck yeah, it was, it was raining outside.
• 1:22:31
  I'm not reading a book right now.
• 1:22:32
  So yeah, what else do you do? Creating art.
• 1:22:34
  I'm not gonna sit there and scroll.
• 1:22:35
  We've had that conversation. Yeah, Sean can be a little
• 1:22:40
  slightly. He can be a party pooper for
• 1:22:42
  fun. Yeah, I would.
• 1:22:42
  Say that's a great. Creativity and fun.
• 1:22:45
  Party pooper. He's not really toxic.
• 1:22:47
  He has, we are. Really.
• 1:22:49
  He's not really toxic. Toxic.
• 1:22:51
  He's pretty healthy, not like grand scheme of things.
• 1:22:54
  He's a healthy man. We love Sean, we love Sean but
• 1:22:57
  like. We wish he loved us more.
• 1:22:59
  Yeah, he doesn't. That's all.
• 1:23:02
  We won't get into that. But like, just know, Shawn's
• 1:23:05
  great, but he, you know, he's a dude too.
• 1:23:08
  And, you know, I mean, it's kind of inherent for guys to like,
• 1:23:11
  maybe it's not I I'm categorized, I'm generalizing.
• 1:23:14
  But yeah, I think maybe he was just bummed that I wasn't paying
• 1:23:18
  more attention to him. Yeah, he usually has a pretty
• 1:23:21
  covert way of being like, well, I'd wanted the attention.
• 1:23:25
  Hint hint. So y'all want a little more
• 1:23:28
  attention? Anyway, but that's all I got for
• 1:23:32
  these days. What about you?
• 1:23:33
  Do you have? What's your creative outlet?
• 1:23:35
  This, this is it. This is it.
• 1:23:37
  Yeah. This is.
• 1:23:39
  I was not not artistic as a kid. The art that I made was only
• 1:23:45
  like very guided in class, like, OK, now draw a line.
• 1:23:51
  Now paint that line, big reader. Yeah, I liked to.
• 1:23:54
  I liked to read. When I was younger, I did
• 1:23:56
  theatre, musical theatre. But then, then I got into more.
• 1:24:03
  I was really into social things. That was my creativity was
• 1:24:06
  social interaction, parties, politics, those kinds of things.
• 1:24:13
  But for the last like 10 years or so, I'd been really seeking a
• 1:24:16
  creative outlet. And I remember having multiple
• 1:24:19
  conversations with my therapist about needing a creative outlet
• 1:24:23
  that like the politics weren't cutting it for me.
• 1:24:27
  COVID cancelled everything. And I really wanted some.
• 1:24:31
  And I wasn't, I wasn't into art. I wasn't going to be knitting.
• 1:24:35
  I wasn't going to be drawing or painting or crafting something.
• 1:24:41
  And then I started to have experiences like this, sitting
• 1:24:45
  down and just telling life stories with people in nature.
• 1:24:49
  And I realized that's that's where I feel creatively inclined
• 1:24:55
  and inspired. Now here we are.
• 1:24:58
  Here we are, yeah. And I, I mean, now I'm
• 1:25:03
  experiencing a lot of creativity in cultivating my home space
• 1:25:08
  that you know, as you both know, but you don't.
• 1:25:12
  It's my childhood home that I've taken over since my father
• 1:25:16
  passed and it was still furnished with all the furniture
• 1:25:20
  that my mom bought when we first moved into the house in 1999 and
• 1:25:24
  my mom My parents got divorced when I was 1617 and my mom moved
• 1:25:29
  out. So from 2007 till 2025,
• 1:25:35
  basically all of the furniture in the house is has been
• 1:25:39
  basically the original furniture that my mom bought in 1999.
• 1:25:43
  So now I finally feel like I'm in a space creatively,
• 1:25:47
  financially and energetically where I can remove old pieces
• 1:25:54
  and really envision and feel what I want the home space to be
• 1:26:01
  like. Yeah, make it your own.
• 1:26:02
  Make it my own? Yep, And I had to go through a
• 1:26:05
  little bit of like I had to get permission from my mom.
• 1:26:08
  Essentially. She's like, I felt like I needed
• 1:26:11
  that permission to be able to sell the couch that she had
• 1:26:14
  bought, even though she didn't give a fuck about it.
• 1:26:17
  She didn't think about it. She probably probably part of
• 1:26:20
  the reason why she didn't like coming into the house was
• 1:26:23
  because there's all these memories of all the stuff that
• 1:26:25
  she provided to the home when she lived there.
• 1:26:28
  And but I just still felt some attachment to that.
• 1:26:34
  It still works. It's still a great couch.
• 1:26:37
  Why would I get rid of it other than it doesn't?
• 1:26:40
  It's not who I am, it's who my family was, but it's not who I
• 1:26:44
  am moving into the future. So I'm enjoying that creativity
• 1:26:48
  of seeing how I want to use the space, what colors I want to
• 1:26:52
  bring in, what textures, what materials.
• 1:26:55
  I mean, it's your house, you can essentially put a remodel on any
• 1:26:58
  part if you wanted to and do the whole shebang.
• 1:27:01
  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I love how it's designed.
• 1:27:05
  I love how the space is designed, but I use it
• 1:27:08
  differently than how my family used it or my dad used it and so
• 1:27:13
  I don't need a normal dining Scotch.
• 1:27:15
  Bar still up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:17
  Which? It probably will be forever
• 1:27:19
  until his friends come and drink all the Scotch.
• 1:27:21
  I'm gonna drink some when I come over to your part that way I do.
• 1:27:24
  Yeah. I'm gonna be like.
• 1:27:25
  I had a few sips here and there. Good good.
• 1:27:28
  I don't drink it but other people should.
• 1:27:30
  So he would want other people to drink his Scotch and even like 2
• 1:27:35
  weeks after he died, I, it was time my brother was going to
• 1:27:40
  move into my dad's room because we were living together at the
• 1:27:43
  time and I, my brother was still kind of like, oh, I don't know,
• 1:27:49
  should I? And I was like, dad would be
• 1:27:51
  like shaking his finger at us saying it's been 2 weeks, why
• 1:27:55
  haven't you changed the whole house already?
• 1:27:57
  Like, so I know that he would be very supportive of making all of
• 1:28:02
  these changes, but I still felt a lot of resistance in myself
• 1:28:05
  and had to work through that. And now it's fun.
• 1:28:09
  It's fun to, I don't have visions for every space yet, but
• 1:28:12
  like the living room has gone through a big change and the
• 1:28:15
  dining room, the loun, the former lounge, now dining room
• 1:28:19
  is a different space and just kind of taking things.
• 1:28:23
  In my bed and. Feeling that creativity.
• 1:28:25
  You can redo it in a year, 2 years, 10 years.
• 1:28:27
  The only. Timeline is the one that I feel
• 1:28:29
  for myself, other than sometimes I feel a little weird when
• 1:28:33
  somebody comes over who it hasn't been over before.
• 1:28:38
  And I, I feel like I'm in this energetic limbo of like, yeah,
• 1:28:42
  this is my home, but it's still set up how my dad had it.
• 1:28:46
  So like, take everything in with a grain of salt because it may
• 1:28:51
  not be representative of me. I'm just still holding on to it.
• 1:28:55
  And so sometimes I'll make like kind of excuses of like, oh,
• 1:28:58
  yeah, well, it's like that because that's how my dad had
• 1:28:59
  it. But it's, it's going to change
• 1:29:01
  someday. But yeah, I love my home.
• 1:29:03
  Embrace it. Yeah.
• 1:29:05
  Absolutely. Speaking of Scotch bottles, did
• 1:29:07
  you hear the story about it was like the night before I moved
• 1:29:11
  out or something in the middle of the night, it was like 3 in
• 1:29:13
  the morning. All of a sudden I hear a huge
• 1:29:14
  crash. I was like, Oh no, what's going
• 1:29:17
  on? And and Jim and Corndog were
• 1:29:20
  sleeping on my bed and they both jumped off the bed to see to
• 1:29:23
  investigate. And was it an open bottle?
• 1:29:26
  It was a Lefroig bottle. Lefroig.
• 1:29:28
  It was Lefroig, his favorite. And it was the last of the
• 1:29:32
  Lefroy 10 year bottle that he had had that I'd been like
• 1:29:37
  sipping off of on special occasions for him.
• 1:29:40
  There was maybe like an inch left in the bottle and it was
• 1:29:43
  the last one that he had had had that really the last one that
• 1:29:47
  he'd had. My brother and I drank the night
• 1:29:49
  that he died and then we put his ashes in it, but it was the last
• 1:29:52
  one that still had any Lefroig in it.
• 1:29:55
  And it it exploded or it just fell off the.
• 1:29:59
  So there has been another weird yeah situation.
• 1:30:02
  Yes. And it's just like, it was like
• 1:30:03
  the night before I moved out. It was just really, really
• 1:30:06
  weird. And Gary was there being like.
• 1:30:10
  I need a drink and farewell. Yeah, yeah, I credited it to
• 1:30:15
  that. He was saying thanks for being
• 1:30:17
  here, and he was glad. That I worked at.
• 1:30:20
  Home could provide a safe transition space for you.
• 1:30:25
  And it was perfect. It's just what I needed.
• 1:30:27
  It was like a little, it was just like a relaxing, peaceful
• 1:30:32
  haven during kind of like a volatile time in my life.
• 1:30:35
  And I was going through the divorce and it was just like a
• 1:30:37
  safe space, a beautiful space, A relaxing space.
• 1:30:42
  I mean, I took full advantage of the hot tub on the deck.
• 1:30:45
  You know, I had most of my meals outside looking over the river
• 1:30:49
  and yeah, it was just, yeah, it was an amazing time.
• 1:30:54
  Yeah, Did you? Tell me about what happened when
• 1:30:56
  we were out on a walk one time. No.
• 1:30:59
  What do you want me to or do you want to?
• 1:31:01
  You OK. And that ties very well into
• 1:31:04
  that. The home really is a sanctuary
• 1:31:07
  space. It really is a space of healing
• 1:31:10
  and recovery. And even though, well, yeah, I
• 1:31:14
  mean, my dad chose to die there because it was sanctuary home
• 1:31:19
  and it was the safest, most comfortable place for him to to
• 1:31:23
  leave this life. It was way better than a
• 1:31:25
  hospital or a Hospice center. And when I was going through my
• 1:31:31
  divorce, that's where I found myself.
• 1:31:33
  And you, it's a place of healing and recovery big time.
• 1:31:40
  And so when Heather and I were having one of our first like
• 1:31:44
  meet up and brainstorm and chats about whatever creative venture
• 1:31:48
  we were about to take on, we hadn't really, I think it was
• 1:31:51
  actually the day that we said podcast for the first time.
• 1:31:55
  Maybe it was. Maybe the second day.
• 1:31:57
  I think it was more we were getting into just like we were
• 1:32:00
  brainstorming hard. We were like, this is where
• 1:32:02
  we're going. OK, how's it going to work?
• 1:32:05
  And we were. We did a multiple loop walk
• 1:32:08
  around the property and. But was it that day that we went
• 1:32:13
  for a walk? A block walk.
• 1:32:15
  Oh, did we do a block walk that we.
• 1:32:16
  Went into the block walk. So yeah, OK, we've gone on some
• 1:32:20
  long walk to brainstorm and talk and just shoot the shit and kind
• 1:32:24
  of figure out what we were going to do creatively and where we
• 1:32:27
  were going to go. And I'm pretty sure Jimmy was
• 1:32:31
  with us. Yeah.
• 1:32:32
  So nobody was in the house? Nobody.
• 1:32:36
  Only I was living. No.
• 1:32:38
  Corn dog was there. Oh.
• 1:32:39
  Corn dog was there. Corn dog was there.
• 1:32:43
  And so you weren't home. And we came into the house after
• 1:32:48
  being like, all right, we're fucking doing a podcast.
• 1:32:51
  We are in alignment. This feels really, really good.
• 1:32:55
  We're clear and we're on the same page and we walk.
• 1:32:59
  We open the front door and walk in the house and we can hear
• 1:33:01
  water. Running.
• 1:33:03
  Running and we look inside and the kitchen faucet is on full
• 1:33:08
  blast and. Wow.
• 1:33:12
  Nobody's there. We didn't.
• 1:33:13
  We didn't go to the sink before. Usually if you know you could
• 1:33:17
  leave it dripping but it's on full blast.
• 1:33:19
  It's just like, whoa. And we walked in like, oh, OK,
• 1:33:24
  well, I guess Gab's saying we're on the right track.
• 1:33:29
  Go for it girls, You're in the. Pool a lot of talk about your
• 1:33:32
  dad. I feel like that meeting like in
• 1:33:35
  the early stages, because we were like, I think it was all
• 1:33:39
  very serendipitous that we that Emily got a hold of me and then
• 1:33:43
  we like we really kind of, I mean, this all didn't happen all
• 1:33:47
  overnight. Like I was hella busy with some
• 1:33:49
  marketing stuff with one of the restaurant owners and I kind of
• 1:33:54
  had to let that go before this could take off.
• 1:33:56
  And I was pretty like weighed down with some other stuff.
• 1:34:00
  And so we had a bunch of meetings just like, you know,
• 1:34:03
  what are we doing? What's this look like?
• 1:34:06
  What's some goals maybe we could set around it like structure
• 1:34:09
  wise making sure that it was all aligned did?
• 1:34:11
  We we were discussing if we had any kind of timeline.
• 1:34:14
  Originally our timeline was that we were going to launch this in
• 1:34:17
  October, yeah. Or we were going to start
• 1:34:20
  recording in October and we were going to launch by January.
• 1:34:23
  And then it was launched by March and then it was end of
• 1:34:26
  April. Because we we weren't putting
• 1:34:29
  pressure on ourselves because my dad wouldn't have won it best.
• 1:34:33
  Well, you guys are a little busy too, yeah.
• 1:34:36
  And I had to get rid, like I said, I had to kind of let go of
• 1:34:38
  another project that I was trying to do that never really
• 1:34:42
  came to fruition. Even even though it was like a
• 1:34:45
  year in the making. I was just like, OK, I got to
• 1:34:48
  let this go, go and move on. And we, we also didn't really
• 1:34:53
  realize how much admin work there was when we started to dig
• 1:34:56
  in, which finally we started to dig in because when we'd get
• 1:35:00
  together, we'd just brainstorm. Yeah.
• 1:35:01
  Then we'd just like shoot the shit.
• 1:35:02
  Catch up and we were like, we can.
• 1:35:04
  Clearly. Run a podcast because when we
• 1:35:06
  get together we can just talk for like 3 hours so we can do
• 1:35:11
  something where we're just talking and whether it's just us
• 1:35:13
  or there's other people involved.
• 1:35:15
  Yeah, but. Clearly we're doing something
• 1:35:16
  with talking. Funny, it was just like, it
• 1:35:18
  always felt very aligned. You know, it always was like,
• 1:35:21
  oh, this is, I feel like we're on the right track here.
• 1:35:24
  And it was always the referencing, like your dad, like
• 1:35:27
  maybe he brought us together again.
• 1:35:29
  And like, I don't know, you know, I didn't really spend much
• 1:35:31
  time with Emily's dad. After like middle school.
• 1:35:36
  After middle school, yeah, I think there was a few run it
• 1:35:40
  like mimosa run insurance that like we I was like, I'm I'm
• 1:35:43
  always friend, you know, from like middle and he remembered
• 1:35:45
  me. I had to kind of like, you know,
• 1:35:47
  jog his memory or whatever. And then like I run into him
• 1:35:51
  playing music at like galis and stuff like that and you know,
• 1:35:55
  hey, you Remember Me type of thing, but it you know, that was
• 1:35:57
  kind of it. So it's not like I had any sort
• 1:36:00
  of connection or relationship with him.
• 1:36:02
  It was just always through Emily and our childhood.
• 1:36:05
  Yeah. How did you guys meet?
• 1:36:06
  Like how do you remember, like when you met each other?
• 1:36:10
  Yeah. Heather remembers better than I
• 1:36:11
  do, OK? Yeah, we met at a babysitting
• 1:36:14
  class. A babysitting.
• 1:36:16
  Class A babysitting first aid training class.
• 1:36:18
  Yeah, was it how old at the school?
• 1:36:21
  It was no, it was through Red Cross.
• 1:36:23
  I think Red Cross put it on and it was the summer.
• 1:36:29
  I remember it being kind of rainy that this like, week.
• 1:36:32
  So maybe it was, But I Emily thinks it was the summer before
• 1:36:38
  6th grade. I think so, too.
• 1:36:42
  And that was that we just, like, met each other and, like, kicked
• 1:36:44
  it off. I remember I really liked
• 1:36:45
  Emily's shoes. Yeah.
• 1:36:49
  And we just exchanged numbers and I think our moms chatted.
• 1:36:53
  I remember my mom came to pick me up and your mom was there
• 1:36:55
  too. And I think we chatted in that
• 1:36:56
  like, weird little hallway thing.
• 1:36:58
  We were like I met a friend. Yeah, Can we, can I, can we go?
• 1:37:01
  Can I go over and play at Heather's house?
• 1:37:03
  Yeah, Heather come over and play at our house.
• 1:37:04
  Oh, that's so cute. And.
• 1:37:06
  Then we stayed connected, I mean, up until June like junior
• 1:37:10
  year, and then I kind of faded away because I was gotten into
• 1:37:13
  partying. Oh yeah.
• 1:37:17
  Drinking. Nothing.
• 1:37:18
  You're a wild thing. You're being crazy for a minute.
• 1:37:21
  Never really went very far, I'll just say that.
• 1:37:25
  But. But then I, I do remember that.
• 1:37:27
  I, I know that I hosted the after prom party our senior
• 1:37:31
  year. Oh, yeah.
• 1:37:32
  And I remember you being there. Yeah.
• 1:37:34
  And that was kind of a like reconnection after really being
• 1:37:39
  kind of disconnected through high school.
• 1:37:40
  And then we kind of reconnected the after prom party, but then
• 1:37:44
  really went separate ways again and stayed stayed aware of each
• 1:37:48
  other's lives because of social media.
• 1:37:52
  And then when I was feeling this need for something creative,
• 1:37:55
  Heather was the first person that came into my mind of that's
• 1:37:58
  who I want to do something with. Because I'd watched Heather's
• 1:38:01
  creativity over the years and running businesses and really
• 1:38:06
  creative. Like she was the first person to
• 1:38:09
  have a grazing board charcuterie business in the valley.
• 1:38:12
  And I was seeing all of these happen.
• 1:38:15
  And I knew that she had great ideas, was super creative, could
• 1:38:20
  see projects to fruition, and also could walk away from
• 1:38:24
  projects that weren't serving. Her and we had started kind of
• 1:38:27
  chatting more and more and more like I can't remember when it
• 1:38:30
  was, but it was the when you had your dad was still alive and you
• 1:38:34
  had that part that you had the. Party.
• 1:38:36
  Memorial Weekend party. Yeah.
• 1:38:37
  And just Sean and I, it was like we showed up hella late, but we
• 1:38:40
  came in like reconnected. And then I feel like we stayed
• 1:38:43
  more chit chatty through social media since then.
• 1:38:47
  And then your dad passed. There was a little bit of a
• 1:38:48
  break, but I was still very like, even though we might not
• 1:38:51
  have been talking, I was still like, what's happening?
• 1:38:54
  And and then it was. And then Colby, you and Colby
• 1:38:59
  started really hanging out again.
• 1:39:01
  And then, yeah, it's gonna get up.
• 1:39:04
  There you go. You come to me, Corey.
• 1:39:06
  Anyway, yeah, that was that. Anyway, let's get back to you,
• 1:39:09
  Kate real quick. We've got like probably 15
• 1:39:12
  minutes before we get back on the boat and perfect float
• 1:39:15
  downstream so. Should we try to do like one?
• 1:39:19
  Do you have any more outdoorsy, pivotal outdoorsy stories?
• 1:39:23
  Anything scary anywhere? Like, oh shit, there I was.
• 1:39:27
  Oh shit, there, there they were. I don't have anything like that.
• 1:39:31
  But I mean, another, another big pivotal time in my life was when
• 1:39:39
  I was 21. I actually, that's when I
• 1:39:43
  started dating Chad and we've dated a very short amount of
• 1:39:46
  time and he broke up with me and I was very heartbroken about it.
• 1:39:51
  I was 21, he was 35, so. That's crazy, my friend of mine
• 1:39:56
  right now is 35 dating a 20 year old.
• 1:39:58
  Really. Yeah.
• 1:39:59
  And wow. And I've been like what, But
• 1:40:03
  also like, you know what, when you know, you know, if that's
• 1:40:06
  what if that's what you want, if that's what makes you happy, I'm
• 1:40:09
  so happy for you. Who's that age is just a number
• 1:40:15
  we can. Talk offline about Wow.
• 1:40:18
  OK, very happy for him as long as he's happy and I trust that
• 1:40:22
  he knows what he's doing and I support his choices.
• 1:40:26
  OK, OK, go on. Sorry.
• 1:40:27
  But anyways, so I was, I was really, I was really, you know,
• 1:40:32
  I was, you know, a little heartbroken about it.
• 1:40:34
  And I was like, I need a change. I need to do something
• 1:40:37
  different. And so I actually took a
• 1:40:41
  semester off of college and I backpacked Europe by myself for
• 1:40:47
  like several months. Wow, Yeah, cool.
• 1:40:51
  Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So yeah, I was 21 and I actually
• 1:40:54
  turned 22 over there. And So what I did was I, I had a
• 1:41:01
  a daddy daughter trip with my with my father.
• 1:41:04
  We went to Ireland and Scotland and then from there he flew back
• 1:41:12
  to the the States and that's when I started my journey and I
• 1:41:17
  had set up different farming jobs along the way.
• 1:41:20
  Like woofing? It was very similar to woofing,
• 1:41:23
  except it wasn't woofing. It was this website
• 1:41:25
  calledhelpx.net and I don't even know if it's around anymore, but
• 1:41:29
  you know, it might not just be farming.
• 1:41:31
  It could be working at a hostel, it could be working as a nanny.
• 1:41:35
  It's just kind of different jobs, including farming where
• 1:41:39
  you get room and board and some them provide a stipend.
• 1:41:42
  So I had little jobs set up here and there along my route.
• 1:41:48
  But yeah, I never once stayed. I never once paid for a hotel or
• 1:41:53
  a hostel. I either stayed in my tent
• 1:41:55
  somewhere or I was staying at a farm, or I was couch surfing.
• 1:42:00
  And I had never heard about couch surfing before.
• 1:42:02
  But basically at the beginning of my journey, I flew from
• 1:42:05
  Dublin to Paris. And I didn't even know where I
• 1:42:08
  was staying that night. And I'm on this train from the
• 1:42:10
  airport to Paris, and I'm just, you know, sitting all by myself.
• 1:42:15
  And there's this lady next to me.
• 1:42:17
  And she was like, and she was talking me up.
• 1:42:19
  She's about the same age as me, and she's like, yeah, yeah,
• 1:42:22
  where are you from, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:42:23
  You know, what's your plan? You know, And I was like, I
• 1:42:26
  don't have a plan, really. It's like she's like, where are
• 1:42:28
  you staying here? I'm like, I don't know.
• 1:42:30
  I figured I'd just figure it out when I get there.
• 1:42:32
  And so brave. That is.
• 1:42:35
  Or stupid and crazy and, and she's like, well, why don't you
• 1:42:39
  come stay with me? And I was like, wow, really?
• 1:42:43
  I was like, OK. And she told me about this thing
• 1:42:45
  called couch surfing and I had never heard of it, but you know
• 1:42:49
  what? It is a thing.
• 1:42:49
  You know, it's a website, yeah. It's a website, Yeah.
• 1:42:52
  It's a whole, it's a whole thing.
• 1:42:53
  And so basically, like she took me in.
• 1:42:57
  Her name was Lada and she actually was like this super
• 1:43:01
  famous, like burlesque dancer that performs around the world.
• 1:43:05
  Wow. And your little run insurance
• 1:43:07
  with. These crazy famous.
• 1:43:09
  People, yeah, just like she was like, I think she was from
• 1:43:12
  Sarajevo, but yeah, her and her boyfriend was in some really, I
• 1:43:16
  guess the famous band in in Paris and he was on tour so he
• 1:43:20
  wasn't there. So it's like she took me back to
• 1:43:22
  her flat, which was gorgeous and cool and funky.
• 1:43:26
  Like, if you imagine like, what like a, a famous burlesque
• 1:43:30
  dancer's flat and Paris looks like that's it.
• 1:43:33
  Like very eccentric and luxurious and luxurious.
• 1:43:37
  And I'm like, Oh my God. And she like, wined and dined
• 1:43:41
  me. She made me like, crepes and
• 1:43:45
  like traditional French dinner. And then she's like, OK, now
• 1:43:47
  we're going to go out on the town and I'm going to introduce
• 1:43:50
  you to people. And so she took me to, you know,
• 1:43:53
  her favorite bars and like, just showed me.
• 1:43:57
  She's like, that's a sacrifice, you know, like it just like took
• 1:44:00
  me out on the town for the night and then the next morning I said
• 1:44:03
  thank you and I was on my way. Wow.
• 1:44:05
  That was my introduction to couch surfing.
• 1:44:08
  So from the rest of the trip, if I wasn't, you know, if I wasn't
• 1:44:12
  camping, if I was going to be in a city, then I couch surfed.
• 1:44:16
  So I did that that several times, you know, couch surf,
• 1:44:20
  couch surfed in Venice. And that was really fun.
• 1:44:25
  When I was in Venice, it was during kind of like their 4th of
• 1:44:28
  July, their version of the 4th of July.
• 1:44:30
  And it's like everyone's out in boats and there's fireworks.
• 1:44:35
  And so we went out on this boat and saw the fireworks and
• 1:44:39
  everyone's partying, having a great time.
• 1:44:41
  And yeah, when I went to I stayed with a guy who ended up
• 1:44:45
  being kind of creepy in Salzburg because I wanted to be, I wanted
• 1:44:50
  to take myself on the Sound of Music tour on my 22nd birthday.
• 1:44:54
  Awesome. So so I was like, I have to wake
• 1:44:56
  up in Salzburg on my birthday. And so I couch surf with this
• 1:45:00
  guy. And you know, I was fun at
• 1:45:04
  first. You know, he took me to like out
• 1:45:06
  to dinner. We went to like this cool
• 1:45:08
  brewery beer garden more, more not a brewery like a beer
• 1:45:11
  garden. And but then it was really weird
• 1:45:14
  because at the end of the day, he's like, so you could sleep on
• 1:45:22
  the. Couch or on my.
• 1:45:24
  Bed and as soon as I said I'm gonna sleep on the couch, he
• 1:45:30
  like his tone of voice just changed right away and he was a
• 1:45:32
  complete fucking asshole to me. Wow.
• 1:45:35
  Yeah. It's like, oh, OK, I see how it
• 1:45:36
  is. So I got the hell out of there.
• 1:45:39
  Did you sleep there? I I did stay there because I had
• 1:45:42
  nowhere else to go, I mean. Sleep with one eye open.
• 1:45:46
  Exactly, I did when I when I arrived in Paris, I was going to
• 1:45:51
  Paris specifically to go to the Django Reinhardt festival, which
• 1:45:54
  is it takes. Well, it's actually changed
• 1:45:57
  venues, but it used to take place in San Wah, which is like
• 1:46:00
  this little, little tiny town like 40 kilometers South of
• 1:46:04
  Paris, right along the Seine River.
• 1:46:07
  And it was actually held on an island in the middle of the
• 1:46:09
  river. It was a very intimate.
• 1:46:11
  Cool. Really intimate, cool festival
• 1:46:14
  where like, you know, river barges would show up and pull up
• 1:46:16
  to the island. You know, it's, you know, tons
• 1:46:19
  of, I mean, it's the town that Django lived the the the last
• 1:46:24
  part of his life. That's where he died.
• 1:46:26
  Like he's buried there. And so, you know, it's like,
• 1:46:30
  it's a bunch of Romany people, you know, Gypsy people,
• 1:46:35
  musicians and, you know, like, and when I was there, I met a
• 1:46:40
  bunch of Irish guys that were in a Gypsy jazz band and a one of
• 1:46:48
  their friends was an Italian guy, Simone.
• 1:46:51
  Anyways, when I was there, they kind of took me under their wing
• 1:46:56
  and they're like, I'm gonna let's get you some Mace.
• 1:47:00
  And we need to, we need to set you up so you're gonna be
• 1:47:04
  protected while you're doing this journey.
• 1:47:06
  And that was really, really cool and.
• 1:47:11
  What a nice. Did you ever have to?
• 1:47:12
  Use the Mace. Never had to use the Mace.
• 1:47:14
  No. And actually Simone took me.
• 1:47:16
  I was like he's like where are you going next?
• 1:47:18
  I'm like I'm going to Italy. He's like I'm going back to
• 1:47:19
  Italy too. So he took the train together
• 1:47:21
  and he's like you can't stay with me because my girlfriend
• 1:47:24
  would not be OK with that. However, I'm gonna have you stay
• 1:47:28
  with my Co worker Maria. I think she was Slovakian
• 1:47:33
  anyways, but he and he got me totally hooked up with a place
• 1:47:36
  to stay for a couple weeks when I was in Torino Turin.
• 1:47:40
  And and then she would Take Me Out and just like I just met all
• 1:47:44
  these people or everything like a line like feel like, let me
• 1:47:47
  help you out. Let me introduce you this
• 1:47:49
  person. I want you to see this.
• 1:47:51
  And so I kind of feel like even though I'm not, I don't do couch
• 1:47:55
  surfing so much anymore at all. I kind of want to do that for
• 1:47:59
  other people. Like when someone is like, I'm
• 1:48:01
  visiting Grants Pass and like, let me show you around or like,
• 1:48:04
  if you're going to be going to Wyoming, I'm like, oh, well, how
• 1:48:07
  about you go check this out and go on this hike and do this.
• 1:48:10
  Like I like to share those things because I feel like I've
• 1:48:14
  been given those opportunities from other people, you know, so
• 1:48:17
  it's like I was given a gift. I want to share.
• 1:48:18
  The gift with you. Love that.
• 1:48:20
  So, yeah, so that's kind of how when I travel and I'm about to
• 1:48:23
  do another big, I'm going to go backpacking for a month this
• 1:48:26
  summer in Europe and Eastern Europe.
• 1:48:28
  I always have like a very loose itinerary where there's some
• 1:48:32
  places where I'm like, we have to be here On this date.
• 1:48:35
  Like, we've got a hotel while we're, you know, in Venice.
• 1:48:38
  You know, we're doing this a backpacking trip in the Albanian
• 1:48:44
  Alps. So we've got to stay here on
• 1:48:46
  this night. But otherwise, like I try to
• 1:48:48
  stay really fluid and open when I travel, you know, because you
• 1:48:51
  might arrive somewhere and you're like, oh, this is
• 1:48:54
  touristy or oh, this is too crowded or there's got to be
• 1:48:58
  somewhere better to go. Or maybe maybe it's just not
• 1:49:02
  what it's cracked up to be, whatever the reason is.
• 1:49:04
  Or, or maybe you like somewhere so much, you're like, I need
• 1:49:07
  another night here. You know, I need more time to
• 1:49:09
  explore in this area. So I try to stay really, really
• 1:49:13
  loose and fluid when I do these trips.
• 1:49:15
  And that's how that's how it was when we do our big Rd. trips and
• 1:49:19
  the, and the Airstream too, where I have a very loose
• 1:49:22
  itinerary. But you know, you stay open
• 1:49:25
  because it's like it's part of the journey, you know?
• 1:49:27
  Do you? Ever know where the river is
• 1:49:28
  going to? Yeah, it's going to send you
• 1:49:30
  and, and all that travel is super outdoor oriented.
• 1:49:33
  Like you're not seeking, you're seeking a city for certain
• 1:49:37
  things. But most of the time you're yeah
• 1:49:40
  on in the wild. Exactly.
• 1:49:43
  Exactly. Villages over cities.
• 1:49:45
  Exactly. And we were still going to be
• 1:49:47
  going to cities, you know, because it's like, you've got to
• 1:49:49
  see this room in Aqueduct. You've got to go to this museum,
• 1:49:53
  You've got to whatever. But it's.
• 1:49:56
  Yeah. But most of the time it's gonna
• 1:49:58
  be, you know, out in the boonies and national parks, backpacking,
• 1:50:03
  going from little village to little village.
• 1:50:06
  There's too far away from crowds.
• 1:50:07
  Is there isn't there a really cool like backpacking journey
• 1:50:11
  like kind of trail through Europe?
• 1:50:14
  The Camino. The Camino.
• 1:50:15
  Yeah, the one in Spain. Well, it's Spain, Portugal,
• 1:50:18
  France, and there may be one more country.
• 1:50:23
  My momma's done. I believe every section of it,
• 1:50:27
  but through multiple different trips.
• 1:50:29
  So in October, she did the Portuguese section of the
• 1:50:32
  Camino, she's done the Spanish section of the Camino, and I
• 1:50:35
  think she's done the French section of the Camino.
• 1:50:37
  Also multiple different ventures.
• 1:50:39
  Karens did that I think last year.
• 1:50:42
  Yeah, It's, it's it's beautiful. I haven't I haven't done that
• 1:50:45
  before. Like when I went, when I did my
• 1:50:47
  first backpacking trip. Let's see, I started in Ireland,
• 1:50:50
  Scotland, then I went, I did France, Italy, Austria, Germany
• 1:50:54
  and Norway. Wow.
• 1:50:56
  And then this trip it's going to be flying into Venice just
• 1:50:58
  because it was crazy cheap tickets.
• 1:51:01
  And then Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro are.
• 1:51:06
  You going to the Put Vice Lakes National Park in Croatia?
• 1:51:09
  Yes. I see one of two places on my
• 1:51:12
  bucket list. Is it?
• 1:51:13
  Oh my gosh. I will send you a picture of
• 1:51:15
  that. Yeah.
• 1:51:15
  I'm trying, I'm trying to go there in November, but I think
• 1:51:19
  that it's gonna be like too late in the season, huh?
• 1:51:23
  And so yes, please, please send me pictures, videos so I
• 1:51:27
  vicariously until I can get there.
• 1:51:29
  Have you booked your flight yet? No, I need to.
• 1:51:31
  I'm doing that, doing that this month.
• 1:51:33
  I have to figure out where, where I'm going.
• 1:51:35
  We got to start. A plan around that.
• 1:51:37
  Yeah, we're, that's why we're trying to build up a ton of
• 1:51:40
  recordings. Like we have a good bank going
• 1:51:43
  behind us type of thing because essentially we want to Emily
• 1:51:48
  wants to travel this winter. And then also like if we do want
• 1:51:51
  to just take a random week off of some sort, which we kind of
• 1:51:56
  can since how we've been structuring our recordings, but
• 1:51:58
  also like we kind of have a lot of like spotty weather in the
• 1:52:01
  winter and stuff. So it'll be nice to be like,
• 1:52:04
  it's actually really fucking bad.
• 1:52:05
  Like, let's not record today and then we can just try to hit it
• 1:52:09
  the next time. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:52:11
  It's not a huge deal because we have that banked up, you know,
• 1:52:14
  sweet boom, boom, boom. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:52:16
  So we're recording today, but this episode may not come out
• 1:52:19
  for. Like a month or two.
• 1:52:20
  Yeah, yeah. Cool.
• 1:52:21
  Awesome. Actually, no, I bet it it will
• 1:52:24
  come out sooner than later because we have a lot of guys
• 1:52:26
  already banked up. Yeah, we don't have as many
• 1:52:28
  females. Yeah, we're trying to find a
• 1:52:30
  balance. I'm trying to kind of go like
• 1:52:33
  every other one. Mm hmm.
• 1:52:34
  Ish. Or like 2.
• 1:52:35
  I'm in one man. Yeah.
• 1:52:36
  Mm. Hmm, cool.
• 1:52:38
  I'll mix it up. Yeah, we have some.
• 1:52:40
  I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, it might be actually a
• 1:52:43
  few months because I think we've had some requests for our
• 1:52:48
  personal stories that they people want to.
• 1:52:52
  We've had some requests. So yeah, it might be good for
• 1:52:54
  people to like, get to know us or whatever and get a deeper
• 1:52:57
  sense of what we're doing here. Who we are.
• 1:53:00
  This has been a good one for that though, because you asked
• 1:53:02
  some good questions of us. So yeah, getting a little bit
• 1:53:04
  out of us too. We got to go down the rabbit
• 1:53:06
  hole for a minute and get to know us a little bit on each
• 1:53:09
  episode. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:53:10
  Because you're you normally try to focus on the the guest or
• 1:53:13
  whatever, but. I mean, like real late, but
• 1:53:15
  yeah, you're the star. You're the main character.
• 1:53:18
  The important dog is. At the end of the day, it's just
• 1:53:20
  like we're just out here and we're having a conversation and
• 1:53:23
  we kind of have a loose, a loose guided structure, but like we
• 1:53:28
  kind of just see where it goes. And honestly it whenever I try
• 1:53:32
  to plan a little bit like I'm like, OK, I definitely want to
• 1:53:36
  like get into this question or ask about this.
• 1:53:38
  It seems every time I do that where I'm like, Nope, I'm doing
• 1:53:40
  this it, it goes in another direction and I'm OK with it
• 1:53:43
  because it was still very a rich conversation and rich topics and
• 1:53:47
  a rich story. But like it wasn't, oh, I forgot
• 1:53:50
  to ask that. Darn.
• 1:53:51
  Yeah. You know, that's kind of the
• 1:53:53
  thing about this being in the wild, weird and being entirely
• 1:53:57
  unscripted. We don't have a list of
• 1:53:58
  questions that we're prepared to answer.
• 1:54:01
  Yeah, I mean, we want to know pivotal outdoor experiences and
• 1:54:04
  then we have a couple wrap up questions.
• 1:54:06
  But otherwise, it's just like, no, let's just let's just chat
• 1:54:10
  and see, see where we're going. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:54:12
  Yeah, well. Go.
• 1:54:14
  Ahead and do our few wrap UPS. Yeah, I think so about that
• 1:54:17
  time, Well, first before our final.
• 1:54:21
  Wrap UPS. Is there anything else that you
• 1:54:24
  would like to make sure that people know about you, about
• 1:54:28
  your art, about what nature and communing with the outdoors
• 1:54:33
  means to you, and like what they could walk away from this
• 1:54:36
  episode having gleaned? Oh, man, I all I could say is,
• 1:54:46
  you know, try to, or at least for me, I try to spend as much
• 1:54:56
  time outdoors because it kind of grounds you, you know, it
• 1:55:01
  connects you. I feel like you could get really
• 1:55:03
  lost in them. Just kind of a nastiness in the
• 1:55:07
  world, the politics, the the Facebook ads on Facebook, like
• 1:55:12
  all the stuff like the screens. And I just feel like maybe this
• 1:55:15
  year, if there's more, less screen time, more nature time, I
• 1:55:20
  feel like everyone in the world would be a little happier, you
• 1:55:23
  know? Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:55:24
  And if the screen time that you're gonna get is this podcast
• 1:55:28
  watching us be outside in nature, we support that screen
• 1:55:31
  time. Awesome.
• 1:55:34
  And when your body expires and your soul moves on from this
• 1:55:41
  plane of existence, how would you like to be remembered?
• 1:55:46
  I would like to be remembered as a person that lived on their own
• 1:55:55
  terms, that followed their dreams.
• 1:56:00
  And I guess that I'd like to be a kind of person.
• 1:56:06
  I want people to Remember Me for caring about others, you know?
• 1:56:12
  So yeah, I think kindness, you know, acts of kindness.
• 1:56:16
  Absolutely, Yeah. I think you live up to that for
• 1:56:19
  sure. I'm still over here working on
• 1:56:21
  that. It's a we're.
• 1:56:23
  All working. We're all working on I'm a spicy
• 1:56:25
  enchilada. Yeah, I'm salty.
• 1:56:29
  I mean, your necklace does say fuck.
• 1:56:31
  It does say fuck. It's my favorite word.
• 1:56:33
  There's so many like ways that you could use that, like good
• 1:56:37
  connotations, bad connotations. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck
• 1:56:41
  let's. Fuck.
• 1:56:43
  Let's fuck. Fucking egg.
• 1:56:47
  So awesome. And for folks who do want to see
• 1:56:52
  more about you, get in touch with you, connect with you in
• 1:56:56
  the Internet world. Where can they find you if they
• 1:56:58
  want to find you and if you want to be found?
• 1:57:00
  Yeah, yeah. So you could find me.
• 1:57:03
  I'm my travel blog, an outdoorsy blog is Argosy Odyssey on
• 1:57:08
  Facebook and Instagram. And if you really love.
• 1:57:11
  Link it below. Yeah, if you really love GOAT
• 1:57:14
  content, there is Frankie the GOAT on TikTok.
• 1:57:18
  And if you love art and want to follow my art career, you could
• 1:57:23
  go to Cape Battles Art on Facebook.
• 1:57:27
  And my website is Cape Battles art.com.
• 1:57:30
  And my art studio, which I'm hardly ever at these days, is
• 1:57:36
  432 NW 6th Street, right next to Taroko at the corner of 6th and
• 1:57:41
  C in Grants Pass. And yeah.
• 1:57:45
  Do you ever do public art shows that people could come to, or
• 1:57:49
  would they like, have to make an appointment to come and see?
• 1:57:51
  I mean, if I'm there, the lights on, you're welcome to come by.
• 1:57:55
  Honestly, my studio is pretty empty right now because all my
• 1:57:58
  work is currently hanging at Lulu's and lacking clam
• 1:58:03
  downtown. Cool, but yeah.
• 1:58:06
  Really quick, a quick question on that.
• 1:58:08
  Do you just do you mostly just rotate it through grants past
• 1:58:11
  you ever go to Ashland or Medford?
• 1:58:14
  You know what I need to, I just, I'm like so crazy busy with work
• 1:58:19
  all the time that I've kind of put like that side of my art
• 1:58:24
  business on, you know, on the side I, I'm kind of reserving my
• 1:58:31
  energy towards like big projects like murals or commissions.
• 1:58:36
  So right now, like if you see, if you see my work at Lulu's or
• 1:58:39
  the Clamp, it's work that I did years ago and I just get, I get
• 1:58:43
  prints of them done. But yeah, one of these days I
• 1:58:46
  need to spend, I need to, you know, carve out more time just
• 1:58:50
  to focus on my art. And that is part of my plan.
• 1:58:53
  I'm hoping when I get my farm I will move my art studio at home
• 1:58:58
  and I will be able to paint more.
• 1:59:00
  Yeah, because it's right there. Yeah, it's a paint day.
• 1:59:02
  Yeah, this. Past year I bought a tiny home
• 1:59:04
  and I live in Gold Hill now, so it's a lot of commuting.
• 1:59:07
  So if I'm working on a small Commission, I'm working from
• 1:59:09
  home. If I'm working on a big
• 1:59:11
  Commission, like a big canvas, I have to work at the studio.
• 1:59:15
  But yeah, it'd be, it'd be nice to be able to work from home.
• 1:59:19
  So if I have like a a moment of inspiration at 1:00 in the
• 1:59:22
  morning because I can't sleep, I could paint, I could at least be
• 1:59:25
  productive, you know? So you were inspiring.
• 1:59:29
  That's. So inspiring, you juggle a lot.
• 1:59:31
  I do you were telling me, but I like to play a lot.
• 1:59:34
  So I I work. I work my ass off because I want
• 1:59:37
  to enjoy life. I want to I want to be able to
• 1:59:39
  afford to travel. I want time to explore the
• 1:59:42
  outdoors. And I love food.
• 1:59:44
  And I, you know, food is expensive these days, so.
• 1:59:48
  So I got, I got to work hard, you know?
• 1:59:50
  But you know what? I'm lucky.
• 1:59:52
  I love my job, all of my job. So yeah.
• 1:59:57
  Awesome. Thank you, Kate.
• 1:59:58
  I really appreciate you guys are having me here.
• 2:00:01
  To join us and inspire us and our followers and watchers and
• 2:00:05
  listeners and continue to share your art and we'll we'll link
• 2:00:09
  all the art stuff and show notes and we will we'll splice in a
• 2:00:14
  few clips of your art too We. Hope that you catch this whole
• 2:00:19
  awesome vlog pod on our YouTube channel.
• 2:00:23
  The extended cut will be there. It comes out the day after the
• 2:00:27
  pod which is Saturdays, so YouTube Saturdays, the pod
• 2:00:30
  Friday, Friday before. So catch us, catch her, catch
• 2:00:35
  them, catch all of us there, catch us.
• 2:00:37
  Outside. Catch.
• 2:00:39
  Wait, wait, what is that? Catch us outside about that.
• 2:00:41
  Catch me outside, how about that?
• 2:00:45
  Awesome bull. Pack up and get back.
• 2:00:47
  Get back on the boat and float our way out.
• 2:00:51
  Thank you for being here. Corn dog.
• 2:00:53
  We didn't get any corn dog. Do you have anything you want to
• 2:00:55
  add? Rough, rough.
• 2:00:58
  Oh God, don't try to eat it, you stinker.
• 2:01:02
  You need a stinker bag. Awesome.
• 2:01:08
  I'm. Gonna grab a few more bites too.
• 2:01:09
  OK. OK.
• 2:01:12
  Go wildly Leave No trace principles means that when we
• 2:01:16
  come to a site and there is matter out of place, we clean it
• 2:01:20
  up. Leave it better than you found
• 2:01:22
  it. Always leave it better than we
• 2:01:24
  found it. And look, we're making money.
• 2:01:25
  We're picking up cans and each can that gets us $0.10.
• 2:01:29
  Yeah, I think somebody is intentionally stashed those.
• 2:01:32
  They look fresh. They look very fresh and they're
• 2:01:35
  very tidy and arranged here in the Bush and it's just
• 2:01:42
  beverages. There's no other.
• 2:01:45
  Doesn't appear to be any other waste in here.
• 2:01:53
  Still a thing that people talked about. 3456789 We made a We made
• 2:01:59
  a dollar today. See, we're rich.
• 2:02:03
  Oh my gosh, how much did the Go Outly podcast make?
• 2:02:06
  We monetized. We monetized a dollar.
• 2:02:13
  Oh, and and there's this part of a part of a duck that appears to
• 2:02:19
  be from the Rogue Duck Derby. They haven't done that in a
• 2:02:22
  while. I think they do it every year.
• 2:02:24
  I don't think they did it this year really.
• 2:02:26
  They put rubber duckies in the river.
• 2:02:27
  Yeah, they drop like 1000 something rubber duckies from
• 2:02:32
  the Parkway Bridge and it's a race.
• 2:02:34
  Then they're all like sponsored by somebody every like somebody
• 2:02:37
  can buy a bunch of ducks, they're all labeled on the
• 2:02:41
  bottom and then the first duck to make it to the 7th St. bridge
• 2:02:47
  is a winner and they can like win a car.
• 2:02:50
  Wow, I know somebody that's won. Oh yeah.
• 2:02:51
  Yeah, I've seen it. Because they have in front of
• 2:02:53
  like row automotives, don't they have?
• 2:02:55
  It's a big rubber ducky. Yeah, every year.
• 2:02:56
  Yeah. OK.
• 2:02:57
  I don't think they did it. This year, though, how do?
• 2:02:59
  They or they haven't done it yet.
• 2:03:00
  They haven't yet. So how do they catch the rubber?
• 2:03:02
  Oh, OK. Yeah, they put out, they put out
• 2:03:03
  a big net. I mean, some slip through the
• 2:03:05
  net, but they're all dropped from a giant net off of the
• 2:03:08
  Parkway Bridge, and then they're collected in a giant net at the
• 2:03:12
  7th St. Bridge or the Cable Bridge.
• 2:03:14
  One or the other, Yeah. Is that what that was?
• 2:03:16
  A rogue Jackie. It looks like a rogue.
• 2:03:18
  Jackie in the Rogue. It had a little label on the
• 2:03:20
  bottom. Which?
• 2:03:23
  Tells us that sometimes they slip through, but otherwise not.
• 2:03:27
  A whole lot of trash at this. Spot.
• 2:03:29
  It's pretty decent. For the beginning of summer and
• 2:03:34
  now there's no trash