Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Adventure Motorcyclist Heather Lea on the Unfiltered Realities of Long-Term Travel

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Adventure Motorcyclist Heather Lea on the Unfiltered Realities of Long-Term Travel · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Ashley Jordano, and today I'm joined by Canadian author, presenter
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and traveler Heather Lee. She's been to over sixty countries,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: forty of which were on a BMWGS during a two
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: year round the World motorcycle adventure. Welcome to the podcast, Heather.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We're so glad that you've been able to make it
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: for a chat.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Hi, Ashley, thanks so much. I'm excited to be here.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yay.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: So you're a freelance writer.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I've been a freelance writer for a long time and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: you've written for Overland Journal, Expedition Portal, Canadian Geographic, and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Gear Junkie. But the big news is that you've just
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: released your full your first book called Writing Full Circle.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: So super excited for you and congratulations, thank you.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I am so thrilled to have it done. It's one
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: of those things where it's kind of bittersweet because it's
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: like it's been such a part of my life for
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: eight years.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Writing the book kept me on the trip that the
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: book is about, and.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I'm also just so glad to be done with it
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: because writing a book is harder than I thought and
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: expensive and a toll on your time. So now it's
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: the fun part where I get to talk to folks
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: like yourself and I get to hear about people reading
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: the book and what their thoughts are.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, now is the fun part.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it sounds like Scott Brady's going to do
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: a review of the book, so you'll see that in
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the Spring twenty twenty six Overland Journal magazine edition, which
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: is very exciting.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. I can't wait.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: And a special thanks to Adrenaline Industries for their support
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: of this week's podcast. Adrenaline is making some of the
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: most exceptional expedition camp on the market and they are
• 2:01
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• 2:05
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• 2:09
  Speaker 5: duty American truck platforms, integrating comfortable composite living modules with
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: high clearance fullel drive. These trucks feature forty three inch tires,
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  Speaker 5: robust bumpers winches, and a conversion to single rear wheels.
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  Speaker 5: For their expedition trucks, they're building on extreme duty industrial
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  Speaker 5: full whel drives like the BAE with four or six
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  Speaker 5: wheel drive, reserve payload capacity and third world serviceability. All
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  Speaker 5: of this compatibility comes with one on one customer support
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  Speaker 5: and in the field training. Others take you far, Adrenaline
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  Speaker 5: Industries will take you further. Thanks again, Adrenaline Industries for
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: making this podcast possible.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So I would love to talk to you today of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: about unfiltered realities of long term travel. I kind of
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: thought that was a fun umbrella term for a bunch
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of different topics that we could dive into based on
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: this trip that you were on.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: And I think folks will get a bit of an
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: insight into.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Kind of what your book's going to be about, but
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: then some other little things that maybe little nuggets in
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: there of wisdom and things too. So, yeah, if you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: could just give a brief overview of the trip and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: what it was and when you went and yeah, we're
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: et cetera.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, So we started the trip.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: In fifteen, in the fall of twenty fifteen, and we
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: didn't come back until the fall of twenty seventeen, so
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: it was a two year trip and it was we
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: basically started out with Dave, my riding partner for the trip,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: had a map on his wall in his room and
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: he said, you have a motorcycle.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I don't have a motorcycle yet, but I'm going to
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: get one.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: And then I think we should ride down to Patagonia.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: And I just immediately said yes, Like I didn't even
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: think about it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, we're totally doing that.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: And then it just from there it became this round
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: the world trip because we were kind of like, well,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: we're going to be all the way down there, why
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: not keep going. I mean we have to fly the
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: get the bikes back somehow, so why not just keep going.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And what a lot of people might not know or
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: realize until they read the book is Dave and I
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: only knew each other for less than a month when
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: we decided to do this trip. So we had recently
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: met online, and we lived in two different countries, and
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: we met up and we were getting along well.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And so that's how the trip kind of came to be.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Was just this total yeah, like throwing all caution of
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the wind and just like this guy has.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: A cool idea.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I don't even know him, but I really want to
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: do this. So and I also thought, if I have
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: my own bike, I can just leave him in the
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: dust if I don't like him.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was good to say that takes a lot
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of courage to go with somebody you don't really know
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: very well on an intense trip like that.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: But yeah, a good point.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: You could just get on your bike and ride well.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And that's the biggest thing. I mean, I was I
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: was late in life when I met Dave. I was
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: almost forty well actually I think I had.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Turned forty, and I was super independent like I just
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: that was one of my you know, the things that
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I really liked about myself and liked in my life,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and so that was It wasn't so much that I
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: was trying to be a jerk.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I was just that was just a natural thought process
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Was like I can always just leave, you know, I
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: can as long as I have my own wheels. So yeah,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: that that became That helped in the decision. But of
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: course my hopes were that we would get along and
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: be able to continue the trip and get through it
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: together and then who knows.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: What after that.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so where did you go after you reached Patagonia?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Right? So we did.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: We started in Rellstoke, British Columbia, and then we went
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: all the way down to Ushuaia. So we we went
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: to Patagonia and then kept going just to reach the
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: southernmost tip of the Americas, and then we kinda we
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: didn't really plan to too far ahead, so once we
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: had we kind of thought, Okay, we're going to get
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: there and then reassess. The original plan, kind of loose
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: plan in the back of our head, however, was to
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: go from Ya to Buenos Aires and then fly over
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: to Africa. But there was a couple of things at play.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I was having quite.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: A bit of trouble with the bike that I had,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: and we kind of needed to figure out a way
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: to get back home and get some repairs on the
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: bike happening. And we also realized we wanted to do
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Alaska in Russia, and to do those both in one
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: summer season is next to impossible. Instead of so we
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: went all the way south, and instead of going over
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: to Africa, we decided to then fly back to the US,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: and then we went all the way north, so we
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: went up to Yukon, Alaska, and then that was that
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: was year one. We did pretty much just did the
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Americas all in year one, and then the next the
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: plan from there was to again reassess after we had
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: finished with Alaska, neither of us was having.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: A really good time in the heat.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: So the heat of Central America, for example, was proving
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: to be really hard on us. So we kind of
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: thought we would forget about Africa altogether. Yeah, there was
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: just this kind of niggling I mean, I've been to Africa.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you have too. It gets into you, into
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: your skin and in your head, and while you're there
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: you love hate it, but when you're not there, it
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: just keeps calling to you somehow.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: So I thought, you know, we just have to go
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: to Africa. So yeah, that was the start of our
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: second year.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, great, so second year you started. We're in Africa.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: We flew to Cape Town and we did nine countries
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: in Africa.
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  Speaker 2: So we started in Cape Town.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Of course, did South Africa, and then we went through
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Lusutu over to Namibia, which was a huge detour to
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: the opposite coastline, but we just had heard such great
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: things about Namibia, and then Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia was all
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: kind of a quick run through in Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: so nine countries.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: We stopped in Kenya. We really wanted to try.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: To go all through Africa up into Europe, but at
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: this stage in a game, we had already waited a
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: long amount of time for our Russian visas. We didn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: want to wait another nine weeks for Assudanese visa for example.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Plus it was a bit sketchy to travel there at
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: that time. So yeah, we stopped in Kenya and again
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: put the bikes on a plane and headed up to Scotland.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Of all places.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dave has a great friend there, so we really
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: wanted to see them. That was Glasgow was one of
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the options where we could fly the bikes, so we
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: chose Glasgow, and then we went all through Europe.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Pretty quickly, I would say within about a month, maybe
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: three weeks after we left Scotland, England, France, German, Germany,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: et cetera. Because by this point.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: We were mirroring the last stage of our travels and
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: we were so excited and nervous about Russia.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: So we just kind of blasted.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Through Europe in a matter of weeks just to get
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: to that final real, what we thought would be a real,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: real adventure. So Russia was Russia was our last country. However,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: we popped in and out of it a few times.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: So we went into Russia popped down into Kazakhstan, then
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: came back into Russia, and then went down into Mongolia
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: and then back to Russia again.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: Gotcha? Okay, great?
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And the bike you had the same bike the whole
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: time because you mentioned some issues or did you get
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the issues kind of sorted out after the first year
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and then use the same bike?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I mean it's I don't want to spoiler
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: alert parts of the book, but yeah, I.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Did not stay on the same bike, so I'll just
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: leave it as that. But it, yeah, is a pretty
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: exciting transition, I will say.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Ooh fabulous. Okay, so Russia.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Did you do transit visa for Russia or try to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: get a tourist visa and where did you get that?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: So that was an interesting and very eye opening experience.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: So of course, as a.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Lot of travelers know, you need to be back in
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: your home land to apply for visas when you have
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to send your passports in. At least that was the
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: case for this, so we just kind of had This
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: was something that we had to plan for quite a
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: bit in advance, and even having done that, we still
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: kind of screwed up a bit because we were it
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: was during our first year of travel that we were
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: up in Alaska and whatnot, and we should have started
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: the process once, like while we were heading up into
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Alaska for the summer, because that could have been working
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: for us in the background. And so for example, and
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: at least this was, you know, almost ten years ago now,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: so things might have changed.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: But if I'm remembering it all.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Correctly, we needed to first thing we needed to acquire
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: was an invitation letter from somebody in Russia that was
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: essentially willing to vouch for us and also willing to
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: give some of their personal information like an address and
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: full names and whatnot. And we knew nobody in Russia,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: so it's like, how do we ask for something like that?
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: And so I started filling out some paperwork and let's see,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: this would have been before Christmas, so November of twenty sixteen,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: and I started looking up things online. And I was
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: back home in Canada, where which is my citizenship country,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: and where I was born, and I was looking into
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: this whole Russian application, the visa application and whatnot, and
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: you know, I was like, this is not like any
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: other visa that we have filled out. I mean, for one,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of visas can just be gotten
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: at the border crossing, and so I started looking into
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: it and I thought, okay, the visitors visa only gave
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: us a month in the country, which wasn't going to
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: be long enough, plus one entry. So if we wanted
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: to go down into Kazakstan and Russia, how did we
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: get back into Russia?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: And our whole trip.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Was ending in Megadon, Russia, so we really wanted to
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: end there, and we wanted to stay in Russia a
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: lot longer than a month, of course.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: So.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: We so I called the Russian consulate I think it
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: was in Montreal, Canada, and I spoke to this guy.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: He was so nice and knowledgeable, and he you know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I said, hey, look, we want multiple entries into the
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: country and we need way more than thirty days, Like,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: is there any way to get around this? And so
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: he said, well, you know, the only other option is
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: a business visas, but you'd have to come in under
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: business pretexts.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, we can't, we can't really do that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: How does that work?
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: And so he talked to me a little bit more
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: and then he said, well are you doing Are you
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: conducting any business in Russia?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, I certainly don't want to say that,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to say something that might, you know, get me in trouble.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: And I said, no, like where you know I am.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I am going to write a book about it eventually.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: But and he stopt me. He said, okay, so.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: You're a writer and your travel partners the photographer, so
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it sounds like a business to me. And I was like, okay,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: are you like, is that going to work? So he's like, yeah,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: that'll work.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: You know, just you know, write it up on the
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: application form and you know, here's where to find that.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I had wasted about a month of time
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: trying to figure this out and filling out all the
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: wrong application forms.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: He also I said, okay, well what about the invitation letter?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And he said, okay, well you mentioned you're riding motorcycles.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: There's a motorcycle club in Russia and maybe they'll be
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: willing to vouch for you. I'll give you their contact info.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: So I write down an email and I hang up.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm so impatient and excited that I just hastily
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: type out this email to the Night Wolves.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: And you know, I'm thinking, well, he said, they're a
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: nonprofit club, so.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I was thinking Okay, this is a nonprofit, Like they're
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: gonna be honest people, you know what could go wrong
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: with a nonprofit? So I type out the email and
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: then I decide to google the Night Wolves after I've
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: hit send, and then I get this all of this
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: stuff about like motorcycle gangs and like murders and like
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: like illegal ilicit things, a bunch of stuff with Putin,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: like Putin's part of the gang. And I'm just like,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: oh no, like I've just given them like our website
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: or info. It has our tracking information on it, like
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: we're you know, our GPS coordinates, Like I just hand
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: it ourselves to this Russian motorcycle gang.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: It's so it's exactly the same. It's Hell's Angels exactly so.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And then I found an article that had been written
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: about like the lead member and his nickname is the Surgeon.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: It was like so terrifying to read because it was like,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: you know, he was like.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I hate journalists. I hate you know, any fascists who
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: are going to like you know, exploit there. They never
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: say the truth.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: And I had literally just typed out like, Hi, I'm
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: a journalist from Canada, because we're trying to get the
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: business visa. Oh no, So again, I don't want to
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: spoil what's what I've written about in the book, but yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: it was it was like it was a scary thing
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: to think about that I just contacted like the Hell's
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Angels of Russia, and they had a lot of our
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: they could easily find our personal information.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: And so in the long run, I took another route.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: There's more to that story, but it's in the book,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: and I ended up contacting BMW Russia and I spoke
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: to a really nice woman there in marketing I think,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and she vouched for us.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: She wrote our invitation letters.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: She just wanted in return for us to do a
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: presentation when we were in Moscow. So I said, well,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: that's awesome, Like that's a great trade. We absolutely will
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: do that. So that's how we ended up getting an
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: invitation letter. But this whole process for getting the Russian
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: visas took like until February the following year, so we
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: were home in our countries for well over three months.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Dave actually went back to work and I just pined
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: for the trip because he was.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I was really upset to lose so much time from
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: our trip.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: You know, we had two years, but three or four
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: months of not traveling during that time. You know, it
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: just felt to me like every day we were wasting
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: our time. Of course, it had to happen in order
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: to get visas for what ended up becoming one of
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: the coolest countries that we traveled through, So it was
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: worth it. But a little nail biting for sure, was that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: The most logistically challenging section of that trip, would you
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: say was getting that visa?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: And the only thing I would change is just to
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: do it more in advance. So like if we if
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: we had at least started the invitation letter process, we
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: could have shaved off about six weeks so that that
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: could have been working for us in the background while
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: we were traveling through the Yukon in Alaska, and then
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: we could have come home and you know, there still
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: would have been excuse me, a waiting process, but it
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: would have been cut half essentially. So yeah, I would
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: say for sure that was tough.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Cool, Okay.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go backwards a tiny, tiny bit. I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: do want to talk about Russia and your experience is
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: there as well, but I wanted to sort of circle
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: back to this new relationship and traveling with another person
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that you don't know really that well yet, and then
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: what that looked like. And you've mentioned like trust, conflict,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and connections, three sort of learning points along the way
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: because you don't know how this person travels or what
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: they're like. I have a husband and I've been with
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: him for a really long time and I kind of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: like get what he's like, and nothing's yeah surprising at
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this point, knock on wood. But for you, you're going
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: after a month and you, yeah, you don't really know
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: what you're getting into. So I'm curious to know more
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: about how the relationship evolved during that time and with
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: challenges and conflicts and everything.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And just to clarify, we we had decided after
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: a month of dating to do this trip, but that
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: was just the decision. Then from that point on we
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: did everything in our lives to get to that point.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: So we didn't actually leave after just a month of dating,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: but we weren't but we were not living in the
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: same country and we didn't We still had very little
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: time together.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: A lot of it was just over the.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Phone and we can, you know, weekends here and there.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: But yeah, like trust, conflict, and connection, I think that
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: is kind of how it happened in order right like
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: we we had we had to trust each other that,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: for one, that the other person wasn't going to bail
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: because we were both making huge sacrifices to do this trip.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Now I say that, but also at the same time,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: it was perfectly timed for us both. I've been living
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: in Vancouver for four years, I've been running an arts
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: and culture publication for ten and I was just I
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: personally was.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Ready to be done with it.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I was ready to sell my business and just kind
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: of have like I was getting kind of itchy feet
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: when I met Dave. And of course, so for him
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to suggest something like this was just right up my alley,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: exactly what I was craving at the time. And then
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Dave had to, you know, he had to sell his house.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: He is a contractor, a carpenter, so he was able
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: to just kind of just say no to the next job,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: and you know, for me, I was in a transition
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: between being done with my business and what was next,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: so as far as jobs and whatnot, that timing worked well.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: But we we had to trust that the other person
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: wasn't just going to get cold feet at the last
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: minute and be like, you know what, I don't think
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I can do this. And that was probably more likely
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: to happen with me because I tend to whimsically agree
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: to crazy things like this, and then I worry about
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: it obsessively during the night and talk.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Myself out of it.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: So there was a lot of sleepless nights where I
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't even know this guy. What if
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: we get kidnapped, What if we get some horrible disease,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: you know, like what if we crash, what have we
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: somebody gets hurt or killed, and just the whole ruminate
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: every there's no difference for me worrying about something as
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: opposed to anybody else worrying about something.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And on top of it, this new relationship, right, So
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that's trust really came into it, and also trusting the
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: other person could come up with the money. We just
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: quickly as a SIA.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: We budgeted for one hundred dollars a day for both
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: of us, so fifty dollars per person, and that was
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: a you know, that's a very modest amount of money
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: to live off of, but some days we'd spend far less,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: some days far more. But in the grand scheme of things,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: when you're gone for seven hundred and eight days, that's
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: well over seventy thousand dollars. So the way that the
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: math worked is seventy thousand dollars, you cut that in half, that's.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Thirty five per person that we'd have to come up
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: with to do this two years of travel.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: You cut that again in half, and that's you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: eighteen something eighteen five year. Most of us will spend
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: eighteen thousand dollars just on stuff throughout a year. So
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: it started to kind of I mean, sure we had
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: to have that money.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: At first.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: We didn't want to be putting this on credit cards
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: or anything. And that's another thing, is trusting how the
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: person works with their money and could they save up
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: for that. I had just recently sold a house in Revelstoke.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: It wasn't quite the.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Lucrative deal that it would be these days with that
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: resort town, but you know, I had made a profit
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: off the house and I had just squirrelled it away
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: into our RSPs and trying to be responsible until.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Dave came along.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: So I did have a little bit of money that
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't have to worry about trying to figure it out.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: I just had to worry if I wanted to take
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: out my investments if I felt that was the right
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: thing to do. And as I mentioned, Dave ended up
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: selling his house, which was really hard for him because
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: he had remodeled it and put a lot of blood, sweat,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: and tears into it. But he realized that he didn't
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: really want to have. Neither of us wanted ties back
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: home that could distract us from being in the moment
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: of the trip, So it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Was a tough choice. And honestly, if.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: We had left a year later, like we were originally planning,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: trying to get back into the housing market where he
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: lived in Bellingham, Washington would have probably been impossible for
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: us after traveling for twears and coming home broke. So
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: we had that going for us, you know, we didn't.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: For one, we didn't load up the credit cards with
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: a debt that we'd have to pay off when we
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: came back.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: And two we left a year earlier than planned.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: So as you can imagine, after only knowing each other
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: a month, we thought it would be the good thing
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: to do would be to spend more time together and
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: get a lot of things more organized. But in the
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: end we said no, let's go now. You never know
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: what's going to happen in a year.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I always joke that Dave was worried that I was
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: going to break up with him in that time and
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: then the trip would be over. But you know, it's
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: really one of those things where it's like if.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Not now, when, which I think is the chapter of
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: that part of the book. So then after all of that,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: and then you realize, like, holy crap, this person is
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: like committed just like I am. That's a really good
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: feeling to help you move forward from there. The conflict
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: part comes next, because just starting a new relationship with
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: anybody in your home life is tricky, right, and especially
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: when you were our age, which we were in our forties, right,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: So we were both very set in our ways about things,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: and that.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: We both have very strong personalities. We're both very stubborn
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and independent and determined, and nobody really acquiesces very well
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: between us.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: So it's all fun and games and it's the whole
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: honeymoon phase at first, and then you get on the
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: trip and you realize that this person's feet smells so bad,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: or that you know.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: This this person gets angry like too quickly about something
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that you think is silly or you know, you yourself
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: are just going through this whole evolution and formation of
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: just world travel.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Which changes everybody in a certain way, and so it's
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: inevitable that conflict will come up. So you're saying, you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: you've known your husband for a long time and you
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: know how he is in his ways.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any history to go in, so I'd.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: See Dave react to something and I'd be like, what
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: the hell, Like, why is he so upset?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Conversely, same for him.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: He would watch me ride over some really tricky terrain
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the day before, and I'd be super confident I'd and
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I'd get over it. And then the next day would
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: be something that he felt was less scary or less treacherous,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and I'd stop dead in my tracks and ask him
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: to ride my bike through it. And so I was
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: constantly vacillating with my one day feeling like wonder woman,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: in the next feeling like a whim. And that caused
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of tension too, because it's for both of us.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm thinking, you know, I'm trying to I
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: should be advancing as a rider as I'm going along here,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: And some days I just felt like I was.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Regressing and going backwards, so and you know, sometimes it's
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: just like you get to like a river crossing or something,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: and Dave would just blast right through it, and I'd
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: have this vision of me like dying. I'm like, I
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: can't go through that, I'm going to die. And I wouldn't,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of course, but I just would have this irrational fear.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: The next day I would ride up something steep and
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: rocky and with no problem. So things like that. We
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: were learning about each other and kind of had to
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: go along with it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: The great thing about having two bikes and different helmets
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: and headsets that can turn off is you just can
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: stay in your own little bubble and you can be
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: mad at the person for the entire day, Whereas you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: overland travel in a four by four truck or something,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: you're beside each other.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: All day and the awkward silence.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Right, So some days we would be we'd wake up
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: and somebody would forget to take the tent down the right.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Way or whatever, and we'd be livid with each other.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: But you get on your bike and you just ride
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: for a few hours, and then you stop for lunch
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and everything feels better because you've just gone.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: That actually happened to us in Guatemala City, and I
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: just kept going. And then I really like I could
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: he We had headsets, but they wouldn't work very well
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: sometimes and so you know, I could hear like some
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: static and then this like oh, and then we would
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: be separated from each other. So that happened in Guatemala City,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: had happened to pull In. And you know, also in Cusco,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I got really separated.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: From our entire group of writers we were riding with
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: that day. And I think these little things happened just
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: to remind me that I can handle myself. In no case.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: None of those cases did I panic or be like,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm in a country I don't even
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: know anybody.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I just got separated from my writing partner.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Who has the GPS, who knows our route, and now
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I'm completely like solo. And I almost welcomed those little
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: things that would happen in the day where.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I was forced to think for myself.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: So in all of those cases, I just, you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: I just thought, okay, you know, pull off, I could
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: send him a message, tell him where I am. He
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: knows with our in reach as we had the last
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: coordinate so if I sent him a message, it would
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: give him my coordinates and he could find me if
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: I just stayed there.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: So that was one tactic we used.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Another tactic was that our in reach an online account,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: and when I got separated from him in Poland, I
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: just found some Wi Fi and I logged into our
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: account and I could see where he was on the map,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: and he was, you know, quite a ways ahead of me.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: And my first thought was that, like, I see so
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: far ahead of me. But when I finally caught up
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: to him, he was stopped in a parking lot, and
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: he was so worried, right, and you know, when we
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: when I caught up, I was like, well, this is
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: what happens when we're riding so far apart. And he said, well,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: I thought you had pulled off. So I sat and
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: waited for a bit to see if you just pulled
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: off to p or something. And then you know, I
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: waited and waited, and then I thought, well should I
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: go back? And you know, it was a big freeway
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: you couldn't really turn around.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So in the end we always found each other.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: You know, and there were you know, it's you're gonna
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: You're going to find the way. I mean, I knew
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: in that case in Poland that we were going to
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: the Ukraine border. The worst case scenario was three one
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: hundred and seventy five miles to the border.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I would find him there at some point. Yeah, So
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that was, you know, But the riding style, the fact
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: that I my whole reason for riding a motorcycle around
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the world and using that form of transportation was to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: have that convenience and that independence of having my own transportation.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Dave's was to literally ride a motorcycle. He didn't care
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: where it was. The harder the.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Better, right, So we had differing views on we were
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: both riding bikes, but we had different reasons.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: I was using the bike to get me through some
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: beautiful countries and not be waiting for six hours for
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: the chicken the next chicken bus to leave, right.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: So I loved having the independence of my own vehicle.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: The motorcycles itself. The motorcycle itself did scare me a
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: lot more than it scared Dave, and he was a
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: much more adept rider, even though I learned how to ride.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: A year before he did. But so that, you know,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: that was kind of some of our conflict.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Another little side bit of conflict was that I loved
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: taking photos. I mean, as a writer to I just
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: know it's ingrained to me that you cannot pitch a
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: story to a magazine without exceptional photography, as you well
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: know as well, So you know I would I would
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: see these gorgeous scenes on the side of the road
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: or something I wanted to film and stop, and Dave
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: was wanting to just get out of the heat, or
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: we were tired, we just wanted to get off the
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: road before dark. So we would sometimes have arguments about,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: like I'm taking too many photos. But through all of this,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: the trust and the conflict inevitably builds connection and you
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: don't necessarily know it's happening at the time, but it's
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: kind of an inevitable fallout for two people who love
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: each other. You know, you just again in the moment,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: sometimes it just feels like everything's going wrong, but there,
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: you know, there was this love between us, and then
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: there was also this really intense determination to make it
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: to the end of this trip, which is megann and Russia,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: and sometimes that you know, I would be having these
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: feelings of like are we ever going to get there?
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Like are we going to survive for one and are
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: we going to get there together? You know, Like there
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: were some arguments where we were we really reassess, like
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: is this worth the stress that it's causing us? We
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: just blindly aiming for this arbitrary end to things? And
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: in the meanwhile, are we enjoying ourselves?
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Like if we're not enjoying ourselves, like should we be
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: pushing so hard? So when you read the book, there's
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of moments where I think the reader will.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Be like, why did they keep going? Like how you
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: know this?
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: It doesn't even sound like they're having fun. And again,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: this wasn't intended to be a negative storytelling. It was
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: to really show the human perseverance and the suffering that
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: comes with just really wanting to achieve.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: A huge And I don't know anybody.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Who sets out to achieve something huge in their life
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: who does not struggle, either within themselves or with the
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: outside world. Always, you know, you're always kind of battling something,
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: and that's what makes the goal worth it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: So we connected in the sense that we were.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: We felt the same things we felt when there was
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: a freezing cold day that's driving rain down the back
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: of your neck, doesn't matter you know how much wind
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: proof or waterproof gear you're wearing. We would both be
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: feeling the heat intensely. We'd have headaches, you know, we'd
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: both be feeling the ground as we're sleeping in the tent,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: wishing we were we.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Had a hotel that night.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: So all of these day to day things connected us
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: and formed a bond that even when we were super
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: angry or annoyed with each other, it's what brings you
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: to that next point the next day. And really all
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: it comes down to is you get on your bike,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: you point your wheels down the road, and you don't
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: have to think much beyond that, which is a really
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: freeing feeling.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah. It's like make or break in a way, Yes,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: isn't it?
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Interesting staff, Yeah, I'll have to read the book to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: find out what happens.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's you know.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I do these presentations for places like Horizons Unlimited and
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Overland Expo, and there's inevitably somebody in the crowd who's like, yeah,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: but what happened to the guy? Like should I stay together?
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: And I always say like, I'm not. That's I'm not
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: gonna tell you. You have to buy the book. And
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: find out what happened next.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what's the end to the love story exactly.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you also about like the unfiltered
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: side of long term adventure travel. And I think with
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the popularity of Instagram and Facebook and you see so
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: many sort of polished, beautiful experiences and photos, and you know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of travel content is it looks very idealistic
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: and perfect and wonderful, but it's not capturing necessarily.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: All the time.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: The other side of it, Yeah, what were the the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: real realities on the road. What were experiences that you
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: had that you were like, this is really hard, I'm scared,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: or you know, this is not what I expected. This
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: is not what Instagram is showing me over landing supposed
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: to be your motorcycle travel supposed to be.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm curious.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it depends on how personal you want
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: to get.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: But I'm I'm you know, I do talks with all
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: female crowds, and we get very personal. I usually let
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: somebody in the crowd bring it to female hygiene thing
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: before I jump into it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: But I will say the.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, being a woman on the road when you
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: don't have access to daily showers and you have internal
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: plumbing in your body, and you're just you know, like
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: you're exposed to so much more. It's really you have
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: to let go of a lot of that. You know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: you're you're If you're really hung up on having a
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: shower every day, you're gonna be miserable. I took care
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: of matters with you know, wet wipes and tea tree
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: oil and water in a water bottle, and your body
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: gets used to it. Right your body starts to realize, like, okay,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: we're not showering every day. My hair looks like hell,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: you're talking about like Instagram photos.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, all yeah, all.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: These people look gorgeous and poised, and but they're out
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: in these rugged landscapes.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And I have a photo that is probably me.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: At my absolute ugliest, And it was after you know,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: almost two years of writing, writing two thousand miles of
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: gravel to Megadan and the dust that just completely covers
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: your face and everything, Like it's I look goth, but
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: not in a cool way.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And I actually look more like like a ninety year
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: old miner down in the coal mines. Like, you know,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: everything is wrong with that photo, but it also I
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: just love looking at it every now and again, because
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: it's like, wow, you know that is true. Really what
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: travel is?
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're covered in dust, You're you don't look good.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I mean my skincare routine just went down the toilet.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't even wash my face sometimes for three or
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: five days. I never even brought moisturizer. You know, I
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: was using coconut oil when I would remember, and I
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: was lucky if I splashed water over my face at night.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I had crap in my teeth.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: I had my eyes just like were sunkn because I
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: was so tired all the time.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And there's no glamour to it. And you know, except for.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Moments like this when you you know, you get to
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: sit down and be interviewed, you know, like the day
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: to day of it is like it's gross, it's.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Smelly, it's dirty.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Like I talked earlier about someone's feet stinking and it
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: wasn't mine. Body stinks after a few days, right, But again,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: that just makes when you do, you know, splurge on
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: that hotel with air condition in that shower with hot water, just.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: An absolute luxury.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: And those things you don't think about them so much
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: when you're at home every day and you come home
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: from work and you have a shower. I mean, we
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: all love a hot shower, but we take them for granted.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: So there's that side of things.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: You know. I developed a bladder infection. It was horribly painful,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: especially while riding a motorcycle. And how do you get
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that taken care of?
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: You know, when you're in a country that has you know,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: like I just went to the pharmacy and used my
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: translation app to ask for medication and that actually worked,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: but sometimes you would need a doctor. How do you
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: even begin to do that? So and then you know,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I was in pain a lot. I mean it's always uncomfortable,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: like you're you know, riding motorcycle for a long period
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: of time over really hard terrain.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: And although we had a lot.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Of time, we still had to get places by the
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: end of the day, right, you need to get somewhere
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: where it's legal or nice to camp, and quite often
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: we were pushing the limits on that. So you know,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: you're like, I always had this pain in my shoulders.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: I'd be too hot or too cold, you know. So
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: it's not all of these lovely, sunny or incredible photos
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: that people show online that said I have an Instagram account.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I have some gorgeous photos on there.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: There are moments in every day that are absolutely stunning
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: and shocking.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, why do this? Right?
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: This the book that I wrote, Writing Full Circle, is
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: very true I think, to what long term long distance
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: travel is without trying to make us look good. I
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: mean there are points in that book where we both
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: look like jerks, we both look insecure. I think that's
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: really important because who in two years of their life
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: life doesn't experience ups and downs and stresses and forks
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: in the road. I mean, it's it's not.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Like you go away for two years and all of that,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: you know, disappears from your life and you're just on holiday.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: There's no holiday about this, you know, it's travel, and
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: travel is not a holiday.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's a good point.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: It was funny when you were describing having that hot
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: shower after a while, and I was just remembering, you know,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: like the color of the water is so shocking at
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the shower and you're like, holy, and
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I can smell like the dust, like the from my hair.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: When the water hits your hair, you like smell the
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: smell of dust as it's like streaming out. It's like incredible,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and then like how many times you have to wash.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: This hair to get the water?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Color to the normal. Yeah, yeah, that shower that showers great.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: You know you're in a hotel. Almost every hotel in
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the world has white towel. You'll stay in that chap
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: for an hour and you come out and you still
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: there's still grime all over the towel somehow, right.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: It's wait to towels. It's so funny. Yeah, good times.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you a little bit about traveling
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: as a woman in the global moto world, and you
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: alluded to it a little bit earlier. But do you
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: feel like you were told you can't do that, or
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: it's too dangerous where you're going, or you don't have
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: enough experience, or you know, you're not an expert enough
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to do a big trip like that. How are you
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: responded to as you continued across the world.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I love talking about this subject because there, as
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: we know, or maybe some listeners don't know, there are
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: many female motorcycle travelers out there in the world right now.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: When I first started this trip, which was ten years ago,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: there was you know, there was hardly any clothing.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: There wasn't very much protective clothing for a female. It
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: was really hard for me to find a bike. Like
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: I'm fairly short. I'm like five to five and I
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: have pretty short legs. So just trying to find the
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: vessel that I needed to achieve this trip was tricky.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I mean I always had to look for something with
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: the lowered seat and lowered suspension, which, as motorcycle folks know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: that compromises the ride somewhat to you and your clearance
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: and all that. So finding the bike was hard. Finding
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: gear that didn't make me look like a popsicle or
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: like a shrink it and pink it technique that drives
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: me crazy. It's like, we're just going to take this,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: you know, black T shirt that de size large man's
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: and shrink it and turn it into pink, Like we
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: don't want that, you know, I wanted something stylish, like
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: for two years you kind of want to and you're
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: going to see yourself in photos and then you're going
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: to maybe sell those photos.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Like you know you want you don't want to look
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: like a door.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Also, shy pink. Why is this why though?
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Like a lot of pink?
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, it's now it's gotten so much better. I mean,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: there are some incredible brands out there, you know. I
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: see climb Ads in my Facebook feed and they have
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: they have really nice colored jackets and stuff for female
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: like snowmobilers and riders and stuff. And Revitt was my
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: go to brand that I used on the trip. They
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: you know, we're kind of cutting they're cutting into that
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: industry for female riders back then, so so those were
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: you know, those were difficult at first, was just trying
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: to find the right gear and stuff that just didn't
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: feel like it was all made to fit for.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: A man or a small man. And then you know,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: as far as how I was perceived while traveling, everywhere,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: people loved seeing a female riding her own bike, no
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: matter of the country. I mean, I would get so
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: many thumbs up.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: I would get people like turning around on freeways to
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: come to come up to me and like roll down the.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Window and give me a high five. I love this
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: one story of I was on a back road in
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Peru and this big you know, you can probably envision
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: these big farm trucks where everybody stands up in the back.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Right, and it was full of women and they were
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: old women. And my first lave, of course, was how
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable for these poor old ladies. But also they just
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: they looked they were staring at me like with this
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: stern expression, and I thought, oh my god, they think
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: I'm crazier, that I'm being irresponsible or reckless, And all
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, they all just broke out and smiled
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: and started clapping as I went by, and you know
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: that was I mean, it.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Was just awesome. It was all these old ladies and
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: they were so excited. And you know, my hair is
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: fairly long, so I always had it kind of outside
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of my helmet, and a lot of people wouldn't know
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I was female.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: Until I wrote past right, So there are great experiences now.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Having said that, when you do a trip like this
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: and you have a social media feed and you're putting
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: yourself out there online with a website and whatnot, you're
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: inevitably going to get the guy that wants to tell
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: you that you are too delicate to do something like this,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: and they just can't help themselves. They just have to
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: tell you that you can't ride a big bike. There
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: was a man that had said that bike is way
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: too big for you. You're going to kill yourself on it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: I showed up in Moscow and a man came over
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: to me and asked if that was my bike.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: And I said yes, and he said, oh, it's too
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: big for you.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: And I said, I got here from Canada like a
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: year and a half ago, so I guess it's not
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: too big for me.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Then there was an incident in Mongolia at the border
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: where I know I write about this in the book.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It was really disturbing.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I was like harassed physically by a man who shoved
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: me and spit on me or on my windshield. Because
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I could only surmise it was because he didn't like
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: seeing me with four men, because I were traveling with
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: another bunch of guys at that time. You know, a
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: single woman with four men and riding her own bike.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: There was something emasculating to him.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I guess about that.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: So he harassed me at the border, and luckily I
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: was able to get rid of him and just take off.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: That was a bizarre thing, but.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: For the most part, I would say men, women, young old,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: especially young girls, just lose their minds when they see
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: a female on a bike, especially a big bike.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: They just love it, and it's just one of those
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: things that made my day.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: You know, you're just you're riding along and you're grumpy,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: maybe you've had to fight with your travel partner, and
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: you're feeling like this isn't the time of my life
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: I thought I was having And then somebody comes by
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: and rolls down their window and just gives you a
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: thumbs up, and it just makes your day.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Now, again, I had a very different experience riding with
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: a male partner, and I felt very safe, even on
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the times when we got separated or if I went
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: out on my own, you know, walking through cities or
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: towns or whatever to get groceries. Like I just always
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: had this sense of security because I was with somebody.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Previous to this trip, I've done a lot of countries
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: solo backpacking, including places like Africa, which can be quite
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: intimidating for a female, and there was a lot of
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: times I didn't feel safe and I felt scared. So
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I had that advantage traveling with Dave and just being
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: a couple I think really softens a lot of situations
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, especially country Yeah. Yeah. There are men and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: women that travel together that aren't married, and I think
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes get questions like well, are you married or yeah?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: We're like, I don't know if you guys, I mean
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you're together, but are you married or yeah?
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And it never hurts to wear a fake wedding ring.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I think it's it's just one less thing to worry about,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: something that's not too glitzy, of course, so you're not
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: gonna get robbed for it, but just something that there
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: you do have to be respectful and conscientious of cultures,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: and there you could you can inadvertently do things that
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: upset or are very disrespectful. Right, And so if you have,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: if you have these little ways that you can just
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: soften the blow. I mean, you know, it's it can
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: be very disturbing in lots of cultures for women to
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: see other women with so much freedom.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: So that's something to take into consideration.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: If you're going to ride your own bike through some
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: of these countries, then maybe at least dress the way
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: that they you know, aren't going to be they're not
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: going to be upset with or feel intimidated by when
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: you're off bike, right.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Just do the customs when you're off bike.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, take a look around. Is that's the situation. Yeah?
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's good. That, yes, it's huge.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, don't just blow through, you know, stop and
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: say hi to the kids. Quite often when we slowed
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: down and went through villages in like South America in Africa,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: we would you know, you'd lift your visor up and
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: just smile and wave. Go slow, you know, don't.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Blast through and stir up a bunch of dust.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: We traveled with a couple of guys for a bit
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: through Peru, and their bikes were so obnoxiously loud, and
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: they just always seemed to be kind of tearing things up.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: And they were a great They were a blast to
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: hang out with. But you know, I always kind of.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: Thought, oh, it's a bit disrespectful, like coming into a small,
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: quiet village with you know, a really loud dirt bike
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: or whatever. Just little things like that to just make
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: it easier. Because you arrive in these places looking like
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: an astronaut, you can terrify people, like, you know, in
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: some cases they might think you're military or part of
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: some swat team or FBI or something. I mean, the
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: whole get up can be scary. So whatever you can
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: do to soften that I think is important.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, wise words for sure.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: And also that time spent just stopping for a second
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: is very educating because you can see what the local
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: women are wearing. To your point earlier, I mean you don't.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you dress like them, but you can
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: see kind of what what people are wearing in different regions,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and that dictates for me anyways, I'm not speaking for
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: anybody else, but that dictates what I.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Feel comfortable wearing.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like in terms of looseness or tightness of clothing
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: or material or what's covered, you know, stuff like that.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, everybody's but to your point there, continuing
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: with this unfiltered realities of long term travel, I think
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: one of those things we talked a little bit about
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: some of like the I don't want to say like
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: negative things, but the real moments and not everything's looking
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: perfect and things like that, but the kindness of strangers
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: is a really wonderful reality of longer term travel and
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: short term travel. And uh, I wanted to come back
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: to Russia a little bit and was wondering if you
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: have any kindness of strangers stories from that country.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Just you even saying that, I'm getting shivers because I
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: don't even know where to start.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: One of the coolest things.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I think about Russia was that everybody warned us that
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: it would be hostile, that we'd have to be watching
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: our backs a lot, that we might get into trouble
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: with the law, or like, you know, just that people
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: would not be kind. And it started the very day
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: that we entered Russia for the first time, and the
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: border guard was just I mean, he was very stern
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: and intimidating. And then but once he saw our Canadian passports,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: because we're Dave is a dual citizen and I'm Canadian
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: and recently an American, so now I'm a dual citizen
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: as well, which is very exciting.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: But once they.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Saw those are Canadian passports, it was like smiles every
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: you know, and questions like do you know.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: You do a lot of travel. That's very good, you know,
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: and welcome to our country, you know.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Those That was like the day we entered, and so
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: that set the tone for the rest of our time
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: in Russia, which was about three months.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: It was such a lesson in how people can be.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: So resourceful and you know, you think you don't have
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: to be over the top kind and sweet.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, that gets exhausting after a while. For a
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: traveler to be honest.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, all of us travelers out there
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: know of a time when all you want to do
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: is stop for the day and be by yourself, you know,
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: just have a quiet time and just read a book
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: and maybe eat some potato chips for dinner.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: But that's always the time you get invited by some
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: like village Mama who wants to have fifteen people over
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: because you're such a novelty and you have to be
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: on you know, that is so it's so exhausting, right,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: So it's really the Russians are not over the top friendly,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: and that is totally fine because they're.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Still so friendly and they'll keep their distance, but if
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: you need them for something or you want to ask
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: them something, they're there. There's you know, starting with the
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: border crossing, and then of course, we had this amazing
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: friend named al She and I had been in contact
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: through Facebook like BMW Russia, and she helped us huge
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: with logistics for getting into.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Moscow and beyond. She even went so far as to
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: reserve us a hotel for two nights that she paid
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: for out of her own pocket and refused to let
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: us pay her back because she just said, I wanted
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: you to feel safe and welcome in my city. So
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: she and I don't even I think she was like
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: nineteen years old when we met her.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: She was so young, but so wise and independent. She
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: was an eye opener for me because without travel, you
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: have absolute ignorance and of a culture, and you just
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: make assumptions based off.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: What you hear in the news or what you might
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: read about and whatnot.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: And I had assumed that Russian women would be very
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: docile and subservient because of what the culture has taught
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: me in the past, what the news has taught me
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: about the culture.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: And she was just this little firecracker that just.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: Took everything under control and had all of these big
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: men just like stopping and listening to her, and she
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: just took control and she was wonderful. And from there,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: as we headed east toward Megadan, there's hardly anything. I mean,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: there's a couple of cities like Yakuts and Urkuts. She
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: was so worried for our safety. She was like a
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: mother hen but we next thing I can kind of
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: remember about another example of kindness of strangers is.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: We were just I mean, we were.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: At the very last stages of our trip, and things
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: were just getting so exhausting, and it was kind of
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: at that point where everything was I was very desensitized
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: by almost everything. I mean, I still loved a beautiful
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: sunny day and the scenery, but I was kind of
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: just I was road weary, and I hit some gravel
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: patch and had a very bad crash. I was not hurt, thankfully,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: due to good gear, but I could have been hurt
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: really badly, gone off the edge of the road, which.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Would have sent me down to probably my death.
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: And my bike was really trashed and the break reservoir broke,
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: so I had no more front brakes and just everything
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: the whole instrument cluster was a mess and coaxed it
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: limped it into their coots or no ya kouts, and
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: we had we had some really good We'd been traveling
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: with these guys. The Latvians called them Adventure well they
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: were called Adventure Team Latvia, and these guys were just awesome.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: They had gone ahead and they had figured out they
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: didn't know I had crashed, but they had, you know,
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: were they were always helping and like helping us secure
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: hotels and whatnot. And you know, I had arrived at
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: this party that they were at with my bike and
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: the guy that knew English, he knew English and Russian
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: and whatnot, and he looked at my bike and he
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: was like, what the hell happened?
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: You know? And I said, well, like crashed and I
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: just want to go to bed right now. I'm so tired.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: So he enlisted this guy to help us find a
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: hotel room. And again he's not from Russia, He's Latvian.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: But what comes next is this series of people that
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: just comes out of the woodwork, comes to where I'm
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: staying at the hotel, and you know, he like somebody
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: just shows up and says, I can help you find
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: a new break reservoir, we can figure out how to.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Get you breaks on your bike again.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: Like I don't even know what these people do every day,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: but don't they have jobs? I mean, this guy's just
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: out of his own time, comes to help me fix
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: my bike and finds like a Chinese knockoff part and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: helps me put my bike back together.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Never knew him before.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: And haven't seen him since, but spent an entire day
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: helping me put my bike back together. So and also
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: just the ingenuity of figuring out in these little towns,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, Yakouts is a big city, but just where
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: to find something like what you can get by with
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: dropping everything to help a stranded traveler. I mean, I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: can't say enough about that because it happened all of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: the time, and you would be having the worst day
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: of your life. Something my bike broke down and we
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: couldn't figure out how to repair it, et cetera, et cetera,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: and we'd both be in the worst moods, like maybe
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: we were looking forward to getting to a certain spot
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: and now we can't because something's broken down or happened,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, out of the woods would
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: come you know, your savior who's going to make you
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: smile and laugh and invite you to their house for
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: water in a shower or whatever. It never failed, And
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: this is something that I do not see in my
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: day to day life here. You know, you just there's
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: something about travel, and it's like you get these guardian angels,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: you know, that come with your flight ticket or whatever.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: They just are there and in the most bizarre circumstances
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: that just come out of nowhere. And I really can't
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: finish this interview without talking about our friends Neil and Linda,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: who again, this is something that set the precedent for
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: the kindness.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Of strangers right at the very start of the trip.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: It's not really a secret that I had a crash
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of my trip too that actually broke
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: a bone, and I've written.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: About it and whatnot. It's out there, so I can
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: disclose that. But Neil had met.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: Us in a gas station parking lot and we were
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: just sitting there eating ice cream, having a little break,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: and Neil came over and asked what we're doing, because
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: of course the bikes always draw attention. And sorry, this
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: was in near Standpoint, Idaho, so this was like great
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: two weeks after we had left, so right at the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: very start of our travel.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: And anyway, Neil talked to us for a bit. He
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: got our website. Three days later, I had my crash
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: and I was nursing a broken bone, and he read
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: on our blog that this was the case. He doesn't
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: even know us, he.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Says, sends me an email right away and says, I'm
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: going to come get you.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've got a truck.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: We can put your motorcycle in the back of it,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: and you're gonna stay at my ranch for as long
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: as you need.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Wow, we did. I mean, we rowed two up. We
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: didn't make him drive to get us because it was
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: one hundred miles in one direction.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: But you know, him and his wife just put us
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: up for almost two weeks. They loaned us their vehicles.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: And these aren't just any vehicles. These are like classic cars,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: like a classic truck in one case, you know, paid
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: for everything, completely stocked the cabin that we were staying
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: on their property with food for us, and would not
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: ask for anything.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: And they just I mean, they just gave us that
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: space for me to heal.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: And I just can't say enough about how like what
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: kind of faith and trusts I had in humans after that?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: And Americans.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: You know, like growing up in Canada, you hear things
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: about Americans and we're all again the product of what
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: we hear on the news.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: So you know, this is an Idaho and gentleman who
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: just took pity on this young couple, who youngish couple
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: who was who were kind of stranded, and opened up
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: his house, gave us the code to his front door
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: and left for three days with strangers in his home.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: That kind of trust in humans and strangers that you
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: don't even know, is another thing that you just don't
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: see in your day to day life.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: And so traveling, to me is the only thing that
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: is I think mandatory in one's life. You just have
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: to do it.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's pretty incredible to be able to these
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: experiences with people. It's a wonderful, wonderful part of travel
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: and that I'm grateful for. But thank you so much
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: for sharing your kindness of stranger story with us, Heather.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: That I guess I'll wrap it up, and yeah, thank
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: you again for joining me on the podcast, and congratulations
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: on your book, and I'm so excited to read it.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering where we can find you online and the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: best place to find your book.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can get the book anywhere books are sold online.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: If I'm being honest, it's a little bit more of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: a positive interaction for me if you purchase it directly
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: off my website within the.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: US anyway, that's fairly easy to do. International sales.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: I would suggest just going and finding the book online.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not going to PLAYNY favorites, but of
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: course the usual suspects like Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, et cetera.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: But yeah, if you go to Heather Lee writer, the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: book is available, that's the best place to go.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: And then of course you get to see some travel
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: photos and whatnot too, which is always fun.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. I had a blast.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: You know, this trip happened a long time ago, but
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: it's still such a huge part of my life and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: really has shaped my life moving forward.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: So I love talking.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: About it and I really appreciate this opportunity you guys gave.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you, of course, it's been such a pleasure. Yeah,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we can find you on Instagram and yes
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: all the rest like right, perfect, perfect, that's great. Thank
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: you again, and also thank you so much to the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal podcast listeners for tuning into this episode. I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: we will see you next time.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Bye,