Latest / Go Wildly Podcast / Feral Forest Fairy: Fire, Rivers & Falling in Love with Sofie Maciel | Go Wildly Podcast

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Feral Forest Fairy: Fire, Rivers & Falling in Love with Sofie Maciel | Go Wildly Podcast · Go Wildly Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome to Season 2 of Go Wildly podcast.
• 0:05
  We are Emily and Heather, 2 childhood friends who carry a
• 0:09
  mic into wild places like rivers, trails, and forests with
• 0:13
  wild people to host raw, honest conversations about adventure,
• 0:17
  healing, identity, and the transformative power of nature.
• 0:21
  In this season, we're centering the voices of people who call
• 0:24
  Southern Oregon home. Outdoor enthusiasts and outdoor
• 0:28
  professionals whose lives have been shaped, changed, or are
• 0:31
  continually influenced by time outside.
• 0:34
  Come along as together we go wildly.
• 0:39
  Hey, you wildly wonder. Thank.
• 0:41
  You so very much for listening to the podcast.
• 0:44
  It means the world to us. OK, I have a little mission.
• 0:48
  Pause the podcast right here. Make sure that you subscribe to
• 0:51
  this guy, OK? It's going to be a fun time over
• 0:54
  here. And if you so wish, we would
• 0:56
  love a five star review or whatever your hearts inclined to
• 1:00
  do. Also, leaving us a review truly
• 1:03
  helps the algorithm and we appreciate you doing that.
• 1:06
  Thank you so very much. Also, little tidbit over on
• 1:09
  Instagram, we're having so much fun over there.
• 1:11
  Lots of behind the scene footage, some Povs, just some
• 1:14
  fun unhinged content. If you love the pod, that's
• 1:17
  where we go wildly for sure. So don't forget to follow us
• 1:21
  over there. Okay, back to the show.
• 1:26
  Camera and also on cell phone camera for social media stuff.
• 1:30
  Great stance, you are ready. Don't get too close.
• 1:35
  Don't zoom in. You are ready for your close up.
• 1:41
  Yeah, that's the word. Oh, I need.
• 1:48
  Ha, I'm ha, I'm Paul. That's the other one I thought
• 1:51
  you were saying. Ah damn.
• 1:56
  So before I embark on any river trip of whimsy, it is it is
• 2:03
  custom to put on glitter. Yes.
• 2:06
  Would you both agree to joining me in that endeavour?
• 2:08
  Absolutely, Heather, if you make your phone, I'm going to jump on
• 2:12
  and put my foot there. Where?
• 2:19
  Boom for flash. OK, this is the glitter stick.
• 2:23
  The PFD glitter. It just Pats on.
• 2:26
  Those guys are really jealous. They wish.
• 2:28
  That they were sitting on glitter.
• 2:30
  I'm sorry. This gonna be fun episode.
• 2:39
  We out? Oh my God, it looks so good.
• 2:42
  Is that purple? Yes.
• 2:44
  Can I put it on you? Also love.
• 2:46
  Purple, yeah. Who does it?
• 2:49
  I have if we want to get. Extra Will you video this?
• 2:57
  I have purple paint. For what?
• 2:59
  What do we do? Lips.
• 3:01
  Or, Oh yeah, it's a. Zinc stick.
• 3:04
  Oh hell yeah, That's going to be good.
• 3:06
  That's going to be good. Yeah.
• 3:09
  Oh my God, this was meant to go on your face, right on these
• 3:13
  appley cheekbones. Thank you.
• 3:16
  Shining a little on the nose, the amount.
• 3:22
  Of places. The amount of like old men that
• 3:26
  I've taken downriver that I've convinced to cover their face in
• 3:28
  purple. Oh, it really?
• 3:30
  Pleases me please and thank you. Obviously.
• 3:34
  I obviously need one of the. Obviously you need more.
• 3:37
  Purple food, Where do you get 1? These are from the Amazon from
• 3:42
  Jeff Bezos. From deep in South America.
• 3:45
  Yeah, somewhere raw. Purple.
• 3:50
  Delivery. I do like a little thing.
• 3:54
  It's just like we're going to war, and the war is for whimsy,
• 3:58
  yes. Yes.
• 4:02
  I want my number lip. Yeah, I like to wear it on my
• 4:04
  lips. You're just double.
• 4:07
  Camera. It's awesome.
• 4:08
  Wish I do Heather. Heather is our camera woman.
• 4:12
  Obviously. Gray, blue Heron.
• 4:15
  GBH. Hey, Ron.
• 4:19
  Do you guys want to hear my best impression of a great blue
• 4:21
  Heron? Yes, yes.
• 4:27
  They're really mean. Yeah.
• 4:28
  They are. They're very territorial.
• 4:30
  They're very loud. But I have seen a mink, sorry
• 4:37
  murder a great blue Heron. I've seen all sorts of crazy
• 4:41
  murderous nature is metal type things.
• 4:45
  But anyways, I digress. We get.
• 4:47
  Into that. We're going to get into that.
• 4:49
  Let's It's going to be a fun whimsy episode, yeah.
• 4:51
  The purple let me avoid this branch to your face I'm.
• 4:56
  Going to get clothes lined. That's a nasty strainer.
• 5:01
  Yeah, with. A with a tube deflated tube
• 5:05
  stuck on it of some kind. Yeah, some sort of garbage.
• 5:10
  Today is March 19th, 19th, we're on the Rogue Mother Rogue again.
• 5:18
  I told Sean that I had an appointment.
• 5:21
  An appointment. With your therapist, the river.
• 5:24
  Yes, yes, actually. And just to avoid a little, you
• 5:28
  know, like it's envious. And so can we blame him?
• 5:34
  I know. And so I'm feeling bad about how
• 5:37
  much I have fun and he has just laid away.
• 5:39
  So I'm so sorry but. Never feel bad about how much
• 5:42
  fun you have in your life. I don't feel bad about my fun,
• 5:44
  but I feel bad. That if his life lacks fun, hey
• 5:48
  chimp, well, he goes right in the kayak.
• 5:49
  He does. And you make time for that.
• 5:52
  Yeah, I do. I I make sure that he's going to
• 5:53
  ride bikes tonight. Actually.
• 5:55
  So then every week, release the guilt.
• 5:58
  OK. Thank you.
• 6:00
  You heard that, baby. Yeah.
• 6:02
  No, it's all good. It's fucking awesome.
• 6:06
  This is like a. Summer day on the river.
• 6:08
  It really is it. Really is it's it's 80 something
• 6:11
  degrees. That's why I'm curious, how do
• 6:13
  you see the turtles are out? Oh yeah, you from the very
• 6:18
  beginning. You're like turtles.
• 6:20
  Yes. Why do we see a turtle?
• 6:21
  I hope we see a turtle. It's.
• 6:23
  Pretty. I mean, it's pretty likely.
• 6:25
  I think so. Well, maybe we'll even see some
• 6:27
  deer. Perhaps an omelette?
• 6:30
  It's another word for a deer. Have you done The Maine salmon?
• 6:37
  No, I haven't done anything in Idaho.
• 6:40
  I know. I only just got into.
• 6:42
  The river when I moved here. Oh wow, let's introduce you and
• 6:46
  then we'll we'll lead back to that.
• 6:49
  So today on Go Wildly, we are obviously super stoked to be
• 6:55
  joined by Sophie Maseel. Sophie, is that the right
• 6:59
  pronunciation? Sophie Maciel.
• 7:01
  Maciel. Last name Maciel.
• 7:03
  Very classy. I don't know much French beyond
• 7:13
  Bonjour. Croissant.
• 7:14
  Even though my brother lived in France for 10 plus years and my
• 7:18
  sister-in-law is French, I did not learn any French while they
• 7:22
  lived with me. I know she cola.
• 7:25
  But. That's.
• 7:26
  OK. I mean, beyond the French
• 7:28
  English words like buffet and ballet and cuisine, yes, And
• 7:33
  champagne. OK, that's I'm I can make a
• 7:37
  whole sentence out of French English words.
• 7:40
  I know Maciel and Maciel. There we go.
• 7:44
  So Marciel wears a lot of hats, including this one right now in
• 7:49
  Southern Oregon. She's the wildfire education
• 7:52
  coordinator for the Southern Oregon Forest Restoration
• 7:55
  Collaborative. She is a whitewater raft guide
• 7:59
  with Roe Adventures. She's the board secretary for
• 8:03
  the Southern Oregon Trail Alliance and a volunteer
• 8:07
  prescribed burn practitioner with the Rogue Valley Prescribed
• 8:10
  Burn Association. Originally from Truckee, CA,
• 8:14
  Great Rivertown, Sophie grew up skiing, camping, hiking, and
• 8:18
  spending most of her time outside.
• 8:20
  After studying at CSU Monterey Bay and later earning her
• 8:24
  graduate degree at Southern Oregon University, she found her
• 8:27
  way to beautiful Grants Pass, drawn in by the Rogue Valley and
• 8:32
  the incredible biodiversity of the Klamath Siskiyou Mountains
• 8:36
  today. Today specifically, Sophie's
• 8:40
  passion is sharing nature with others through hands on
• 8:42
  adventure based experiences that help people connect more deeply
• 8:46
  to the land and the community around them.
• 8:49
  We're excited to talk with Sophie about the outdoor moments
• 8:51
  that shaped her. Make sure I'm lined up well
• 8:55
  here. Very good.
• 8:56
  What it means to care for wild places and how getting outside
• 8:59
  together can build stronger communities.
• 9:11
  That was a class 5. We nailed it.
• 9:13
  Class 5 fun. We're also joined by my dog
• 9:17
  Chimi of the Chimichanga. Today he just couldn't resist a
• 9:22
  day on the river with the girls. Be honored, honored to be on the
• 9:29
  boat. He's.
• 9:30
  Pretty stoked, yeah. He's pretty, yeah.
• 9:33
  Thank you for the introduction. I love hearing it back and being
• 9:36
  like, whoa, she sounds cool. I want to be friends with her.
• 9:39
  Wow. And thank you guys for taking me
• 9:43
  out on the river today. I love this.
• 9:45
  I know you kind. Of resistant a little bit.
• 9:47
  Well, I I just, I kind of had. To convince you, I have.
• 9:51
  A boat and I know how much like effort it takes to load up the
• 9:54
  trailer and get everything out and do the shuttle.
• 9:57
  So I was like, oh, let's keep it easy.
• 9:59
  And you guys were like. Oh, we should.
• 10:02
  Float and I was like. OK, yeah, push me a little bit.
• 10:05
  My my boat lives on my trailer, so I'll the most challenging
• 10:10
  part is just the shuttle. Which we have a team, yeah.
• 10:13
  And we got this. Also, this is our unpaid job,
• 10:16
  yeah. Like, so let's go out.
• 10:17
  Let's ball out. Exactly, Yeah.
• 10:19
  Yeah, absolutely. And it's the perfect, it really
• 10:22
  is the perfect spring day to be on.
• 10:23
  The river? Are you sure it's spring?
• 10:27
  The spring equinox is tomorrow. Oh wow, there we go.
• 10:30
  Yes, I guess technically. Well, I was going to say, Are
• 10:33
  you sure it's spring? Meaning like damn, it's hot,
• 10:36
  it's hot, it's summer vibe it. Is 80° which might be a Grants
• 10:40
  Pass spring temperature since it gets up really really hot in the
• 10:44
  summer it. Does, but it definitely should
• 10:45
  not be this hot at this time in March.
• 10:49
  No, this is. Not breaking some records a
• 10:52
  little bit like you know, more more recent records, but within
• 10:56
  the 19th century records. And it'd be really nice to
• 10:59
  actually acclimate into summer instead of going from like a
• 11:03
  very mild winter into 80° in March.
• 11:07
  Like I'm not ready to figure out which of my shorts fit me yet.
• 11:11
  And. As nice as this weather is, like
• 11:14
  as good as it feels on my skin, my favorite thing in the world
• 11:18
  to do is snowboard and play in the snow.
• 11:20
  So it was kind of a disappointing shift to being
• 11:24
  like, I only got out to Mount Ashland once this year, I'm
• 11:28
  ashamed to admit it. Well, it was only open for like
• 11:31
  a week. I know it's the least I've ever
• 11:34
  done it. I think they.
• 11:35
  Should capitalize on mountain biking up there in the summer,
• 11:38
  but I think there's some, there's some, there's some land.
• 11:41
  Mechanical situations too, with their with their lifts.
• 11:44
  But yeah, there's some. Stuffs with that, yeah.
• 11:48
  How many years have you been in Southern Oregon now?
• 11:51
  Yeah. Where'd you come from?
• 11:52
  How'd you get here? Who are you, Chelsea?
• 11:54
  Let's do it, let's get into it. I was born and raised in
• 11:58
  Truckee, CA. I like to say it's one of the
• 12:01
  coolest things about me because it was the most incredible place
• 12:05
  to grow up. Like just absolutely gorgeous.
• 12:08
  My parents really hooked it up for me, raising me and my sister
• 12:12
  and my brother there. And I'm the oldest of the three.
• 12:15
  So we're all our family's like super close and we always went
• 12:18
  camping and we always went hiking and adventuring and
• 12:23
  climbing rocks and we just got to do forest children stuff and
• 12:29
  frolic around. That absolutely rips.
• 12:32
  It rips so. Hard.
• 12:34
  And my parents just like they let me be as weird, as weird of
• 12:37
  a little fairy gremlin person as I wanted to be.
• 12:41
  And that's cool. I was a dog and I was a boy and
• 12:44
  I was a tree and I, I was just like allowed to explore myself
• 12:48
  in every capacity in that in my childhood, so.
• 12:51
  Were they like that also? Like did they lead by that
• 12:54
  example or were they just super allowing?
• 12:58
  They were just trying to do better than their parents, as
• 13:02
  all parents are. And they were just like, we're
• 13:05
  just going to let our kids be exactly who they are as And they
• 13:09
  were like, this is really weird, but it's OK, we still love you.
• 13:13
  So did you have a lot of boundaries then or was there
• 13:15
  not? Doesn't sound like it.
• 13:16
  I would say like safety was a big priority, but we grew up in
• 13:20
  it was a really safe town to grow up in.
• 13:22
  So I would get home from school and go ride my mountain bike
• 13:26
  with my friends the reservoir until it got dark.
• 13:29
  My parents were like bye. Population.
• 13:30
  Of Truckee, when I was growing up, it was about 14,000.
• 13:35
  Oh, perfect. And now it's about 17,000.
• 13:38
  OK, that's still still pretty small.
• 13:40
  Yeah, yeah. So I grew up there, did a lot of
• 13:43
  skiing and snowboarding, was on the snowboard team in high
• 13:46
  school. It was an amazing time of life.
• 13:49
  I got to skip class every Friday and go shred the gnar with my
• 13:52
  friends. And then I ended up going to Cal
• 13:55
  State Monterey Bay for college. And that was a difficult
• 13:58
  transition, as it is for most. But I learned how to surf.
• 14:02
  I got my scuba diving certification.
• 14:04
  I did a lot of hiking and adventuring in Big Sur and Santa
• 14:08
  Cruz and rock climbing on the coast.
• 14:11
  And I was like, Oh my God, the world is so big and amazing and
• 14:14
  beautiful and this whole different ecosystem type has so
• 14:18
  many new things to discover, so broadening my horizons.
• 14:22
  And I got my degree in education there.
• 14:26
  And when I finished my degree, I was like, I still don't really
• 14:30
  know how to do anything. Even though you'd learned all
• 14:35
  these. Sports.
• 14:36
  Athletes I. Had a lot of fun and built a lot
• 14:38
  of those skills, but like in terms of my career I knew that I
• 14:42
  needed to go back to school. Also, I have to digress really
• 14:47
  quick and say I am easily distracted by birds and I will
• 14:52
  be birding while we are out here back on track.
• 14:55
  We love that. In our last week's episode that
• 14:58
  we released with Francis, we recognized that birds are a
• 15:02
  gateway drug to the outdoors. I love that, absolutely.
• 15:06
  They're so just harshest and majestic and metal and
• 15:11
  everywhere and they're everywhere.
• 15:14
  So yeah. We like, yeah.
• 15:15
  If you see a bird, point it out and tell us what it is and what
• 15:18
  you know about it. Yeah, the listeners love the.
• 15:21
  Birds. OK, good.
• 15:22
  Yeah, I'm glad. Yeah.
• 15:24
  It's like they're here with us. Bald eagle.
• 15:26
  Speaking of which, at the top of that Cottonwood.
• 15:29
  Nice. Eyes, it's like.
• 15:30
  Sense that it was near. Yeah, there's a bird.
• 15:33
  Near this is my party trick. Halitis, Lucas Lefitis.
• 15:37
  That's a sick party trick. You know all the Latin names to
• 15:40
  the birds. All juice the bald eagles.
• 15:42
  Juice the bald eagle 'cause it is the most majestic. 1.
• 15:47
  Wow, that's still really impressive and awesome.
• 15:50
  I love it. I should learn more but you know
• 15:52
  my brain can only retain 1. That's.
• 15:55
  Good. OK, yes, I didn't learn enough
• 16:00
  about tea. I was like scared to become a
• 16:01
  teacher, but that was basically what I knew that I was going to
• 16:05
  do. Even though when I was in high
• 16:08
  school, I was like, I would never choose to become a teacher
• 16:11
  and be in the classroom because I was kind of like a
• 16:14
  rambunctious youth because my parents let me be crazy like
• 16:19
  that. Anyways, everyone did a great
• 16:21
  job. Thank you teachers.
• 16:23
  But I took did they nurture your craziness too?
• 16:26
  Or were they like, Sophie, sit down.
• 16:29
  Well, they were like. Sophie, don't you care about
• 16:32
  precalculus? And I was like, I just want to
• 16:35
  go outside. And we never went outside.
• 16:40
  And we grew up in Truckee, and this was in high school.
• 16:43
  We never went outside, but when we were in elementary school we
• 16:47
  would go to the shed in the back of the school, strap on cross
• 16:52
  country skis, and go adventure out in the woods straight from
• 16:56
  our elementary school for the whole entire day.
• 16:58
  Dude. And I was like, this is awesome.
• 17:01
  We would go like build survival snow forts, learn how to stomp
• 17:05
  out SOS in the snow in case we ever were in an emergency.
• 17:09
  We like learned how to use a Flint.
• 17:11
  And I thought that every school did that in elementary school.
• 17:14
  And my cousins were like, what? Do they do that out in CJ?
• 17:18
  No, I mean they keep they don't have snow.
• 17:20
  Oh yeah, but like the survival skills just taking off in class
• 17:25
  and going. And hanging.
• 17:27
  It's. I mean, but I do feel like
• 17:29
  elementary school generally does do more outdoor activities,
• 17:34
  whether it's survival skill training or not.
• 17:37
  There's more time spent outside in elementary school, and it
• 17:41
  just gets less and less through your education when it never
• 17:46
  stops being just as important. It almost aligns with, like,
• 17:50
  creativity in schools. You can be creative and do silly
• 17:55
  art projects with glitter in elementary school, but once we
• 17:58
  get to high school, it's serious.
• 18:00
  Yeah. And.
• 18:01
  Black or blue pen only? And that's what completely
• 18:04
  disengaged me from like being in in the lessons.
• 18:08
  I'm like, we're just going to sit in this classroom and get
• 18:10
  told by a teacher what's in this textbook and then have to go
• 18:14
  home and read the textbook like. Sick.
• 18:17
  I don't really care about that. So it wasn't as much that I was
• 18:21
  like standing up and being crazy.
• 18:23
  I was just like, like, I just want to be using my senses to
• 18:28
  learn, not just sitting here being like a drone.
• 18:33
  So I was like, I'll never be a teacher.
• 18:36
  Like, I don't like this environment.
• 18:37
  But when I went to college, it was during the first election of
• 18:41
  our current president. And so it was a very like
• 18:44
  environmentally politically charged time.
• 18:48
  And I took a sustainability in politics class.
• 18:52
  And that class like really pivotal pivoted my perspective
• 18:56
  on like what I can do to contribute to a community that I
• 19:01
  end up in. And I thought it was there that
• 19:03
  I realized, like, I, I'm going to become a teacher.
• 19:07
  And I don't have to do it the standard way where you just go
• 19:11
  into a classroom and sit kids down and blah at them for hours
• 19:14
  and hours. But I want to be an educator, A
• 19:18
  guide for helping students find what they're passionate about.
• 19:23
  And so it was cool to, like, have a click, yeah.
• 19:25
  I wish we would. I wish teachers would just teach
• 19:28
  that, yeah. Yeah, and.
• 19:30
  How to know your class? Yeah.
• 19:31
  Or a class about it, maybe like a discovery class and some
• 19:35
  schools do that. But I'm working a lot with
• 19:38
  public schools right now and having some challenges with the
• 19:42
  timing slots that we are allotted.
• 19:45
  In the parameters I'm sure. Yeah.
• 19:47
  Yeah, the curriculum that you have to follow to meet.
• 19:50
  I feel bad. State or national?
• 19:51
  I feel bad for Cruz. You just come home and he's
• 19:53
  like, I got to do all this. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so
• 19:55
  sorry about this. And it's all.
• 19:57
  Crazy. Work.
• 19:58
  Yeah. And he's like.
• 19:59
  Yeah. And he's How old is Cruz?
• 20:01
  10. He's 10.
• 20:03
  He's 10. He should be riding his bike,
• 20:05
  Yeah, he should be frolicking. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  Anyways. He should be climbing trees.
• 20:12
  And he does, and he does. He does be a whimsical youth.
• 20:16
  But yeah, I got to move home after I graduated from CSUMB.
• 20:20
  And then 2020 happened. And sometimes I feel guilty for
• 20:24
  how much fun I had that year because I just, like, was at my
• 20:29
  parents' house, not paying rent and not working.
• 20:33
  And just, like, I would go out into the woods every single day,
• 20:37
  go Backcountry skiing, just build snow forts for fun and,
• 20:41
  like, frolic around the woods with my other unemployed
• 20:45
  friends. And I was like, the world is
• 20:47
  really falling apart right now. But this seems pretty good.
• 20:50
  And I was just in nature. And so it was really nice for
• 20:53
  me. But that's when I decided to
• 20:55
  apply for the environmental education program at SOU.
• 21:00
  It was like the most renowned program to get a master's in
• 21:05
  outdoor education in North America.
• 21:07
  And I was like, oh, it's just in Oregon.
• 21:10
  My partner Daniel and I wanted to buy a house.
• 21:13
  Oregon is like way more affordable than California, not
• 21:16
  too far from home. We were like, let's go there.
• 21:20
  You'd never been to Oregon before, No.
• 21:23
  Cool. No, never been before, but I was
• 21:26
  really excited about this program.
• 21:27
  My partner was ready to go and like start a business somewhere
• 21:32
  and we wanted to buy a house. So we were like, let's check
• 21:35
  this place out. We bought a our a 30 foot fifth
• 21:39
  wheel and we lived in that for about a year while we got our
• 21:43
  ourselves settled here in Grants Pass.
• 21:46
  We checked out Ashland, we checked out Medford, we checked
• 21:50
  out Jacksonville and we checked out Grants Pass when we were
• 21:53
  scoping out at the SOU situation and it was the summer of COVID,
• 21:59
  so Ashland was like fully locked down.
• 22:02
  They did a really good job at staying safe, except for the
• 22:05
  people that didn't care at all. So we were like, oh, this place,
• 22:09
  interesting vibe. And we ended up traveling all
• 22:13
  those places and being like, Grants Pass has the Rogue River
• 22:16
  running through the center of it.
• 22:18
  Like that feels really good when we're going to go there.
• 22:22
  And yeah, so I, I went through this program and I learned so
• 22:28
  much about the ecology of Southern Oregon.
• 22:32
  This pocket, the Rogue Valley is like a pocket in between 4
• 22:37
  unique ecosystems. And they just like converge into
• 22:41
  a magical, a magical place. And it's like full of
• 22:46
  biodiversity, full of animals, plants, all sorts of things all
• 22:51
  working together to be so beautiful and so cool.
• 22:54
  And I've gotten to learn a lot from indigenous partners and
• 22:59
  taking trainings about like how plants are used medicinally and
• 23:03
  how fire is used medicinally. And that's my favorite
• 23:08
  perspective to learn from is 1 of reciprocity with the land.
• 23:13
  So that has been like kind of my journey to where I am now.
• 23:17
  And that's where I got introduced to the Southern
• 23:20
  Oregon Fire Ecology Education program, the Sophie program.
• 23:24
  That's a good. Doesn't hide it.
• 23:26
  And it's a paid internship in grad school.
• 23:28
  And I was like, there's no paid internships.
• 23:30
  That one is. And it's my name, so.
• 23:32
  It was calling for you. Literally it has a name on it.
• 23:35
  Literally. And that's how I got into fire
• 23:37
  ecology. And like, I never expected to be
• 23:41
  involved with fire until I just like, fell into it.
• 23:44
  And I was like, this is connected to every single thing
• 23:48
  about the world, so. Are you in fire sign?
• 23:51
  No, I'm a Taurus. Is Earth's side Earth?
• 23:56
  Yeah. But we're connected to all of
• 23:59
  the elements, are we not? You know, yeah.
• 24:02
  Totally. Because you know, you've, you've
• 24:05
  maybe you are a Taurus sun, but what is your moon and your
• 24:08
  rising? And where's your Sagittarius?
• 24:11
  Rising. I think that's fire.
• 24:13
  Yes. I don't know.
• 24:14
  I don't. Know all the things about
• 24:16
  horoscope? Well, Taurus are amazing, yeah.
• 24:19
  I'm a little crabby, so it's. A cancer.
• 24:22
  It's very tumultuous. That's valid.
• 24:25
  My dad's a cancer. We're best friends, but we argue
• 24:29
  sometimes. I'm a Taurus.
• 24:33
  I mean I'm a Pisces sun. Taurus Rising.
• 24:35
  OK, yes. I'm a Libra rising is Libra
• 24:41
  water? I don't know.
• 24:42
  Think Libra is air air. That sounds right.
• 24:45
  That sounds right. I'm not quite sure of all that
• 24:47
  fun stuff. Yeah, I, I don't know much about
• 24:50
  it, but I do. I do think it's like it has some
• 24:54
  truth to it because how can it not everything is connected like
• 24:59
  in such intricate space, space mystery ways.
• 25:04
  Like I have no doubt that it's doing something.
• 25:06
  Yeah. It's beautiful, yeah.
• 25:08
  We are, we are part of the universe, so.
• 25:11
  It's true, yeah. Yeah.
• 25:13
  Gus, we like to call it. Yeah.
• 25:15
  Gus. God Universe.
• 25:16
  Source. God Universe.
• 25:17
  Source. Whatever you whatever.
• 25:18
  You want to call? It captures it all.
• 25:19
  That's. My brother's.
• 25:22
  Name that's. Kind of cool, though.
• 25:23
  I think he would like that. It's like, yeah.
• 25:26
  Yeah, I am. I am all.
• 25:28
  With two s s and it's the God universe source spirit.
• 25:32
  Oh OK, I like it. I love that.
• 25:36
  Yeah. We're guided by Gus and Gab.
• 25:38
  Gab was my dad. Gus and Gab, Yeah, The G's,
• 25:44
  yeah. We just say.
• 25:45
  Joji. There's another inside joke
• 25:50
  where all of us shouts out GG. Yeah.
• 25:53
  Yeah, but. Yeah, tell me more about this
• 25:55
  fire. Yeah, I want some.
• 25:57
  More. I fire is like.
• 25:59
  Because we are in a fire. Area.
• 26:02
  Yeah. Fire area so we live the Rogue
• 26:07
  Valley at. The.
• 26:08
  Bay Area, we're in the fire area.
• 26:11
  Cooler, cooler are you be cooler.
• 26:13
  But also way hotter, yes. We live in a Mediterranean
• 26:18
  climate here in the Rogue Valley, which means that we have
• 26:21
  really hot, dry summers and really cold, wet winters
• 26:25
  ideally, and that balance means that we have regular fire
• 26:31
  intervals. On average, all of the
• 26:34
  ecosystems here in Southern Oregon are supposed to burn
• 26:37
  about every eleven years or 5 to 25 years somewhere in that
• 26:42
  frame. And that is way more consistent
• 26:45
  than how often we burn now because we practice really
• 26:50
  successful methods of fire suppression.
• 26:55
  And have for hundreds of years. Yeah.
• 26:58
  And we have been doing that very efficiently for a long time.
• 27:01
  So now obviously, the forest is going to build up, build up,
• 27:05
  build up. No matter how many people work
• 27:07
  for the US Forest Service or the BLM, there's never enough people
• 27:11
  to maintain that that much land, especially on the very complex
• 27:16
  topography and terrain that we have here in Southern Oregon.
• 27:20
  So taking fire out of that equation has led to a very
• 27:25
  overgrown, sickly forest situation and something that
• 27:31
  Southern Oregon Forest Restoration, the nonprofit I
• 27:35
  work for, they are focused really on the dug for mortality,
• 27:40
  how a lot of the trees are dying, and that's because of the
• 27:42
  beetle. But if fire isn't here to kill
• 27:44
  off the trees, something else will come up and everything.
• 27:48
  Like every and if fire. 'S not here to kill the beetle
• 27:51
  also. Yeah.
• 27:52
  Beetle's Cold keep. They're gonna eat.
• 27:54
  In the trees, the trees. Obviously some something's got
• 27:57
  it so. We need forest fire in a sense.
• 28:00
  So we just need that like because there's a lot of, is
• 28:05
  there a lot of negativity around?
• 28:07
  Well, like people freak out with forest forest fire and they're.
• 28:10
  Like, Oh my God. Scary, Yeah.
• 28:12
  It's scary. It's like.
• 28:14
  People don't like smoky, toxic air.
• 28:16
  Yeah. Makes it difficult to be
• 28:18
  outside, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of negative
• 28:21
  connotation around fire and there have been some very huge
• 28:26
  scary fires that have killed people, destroyed towns and been
• 28:30
  really detrimental to friends of mine, to so many people around
• 28:34
  the world. And sorry.
• 28:36
  I'm on your crotch. It's.
• 28:40
  Sorry. Hold on.
• 28:40
  Hold on. Yes.
• 28:42
  And. Yeah.
• 28:46
  Had an. Itch.
• 28:48
  Fire can be really bad, but fire is as essential to our patterns
• 28:54
  as water is. Without a healthy fire pattern,
• 28:58
  water can't be as healthy as it can be.
• 29:00
  And like, obviously in Southern Oregon, we care a lot about our
• 29:05
  waterways and our riverways, but fire takes care of that too.
• 29:09
  So what I'm teaching is not that like, fires always good.
• 29:14
  Like fire can be really destructive.
• 29:16
  But how can we as people bring fire back in a healthy way?
• 29:21
  Because way, way back, since time immemorial, this valley has
• 29:26
  been being actively lit on fire by the Takalma tribe, the Lagawa
• 29:31
  tribe, the Shasta Costa, the Modoc, the Klamath, the Karuk,
• 29:36
  the Yurok. So many tribes have seen the
• 29:39
  value of prescribed and cultural burning and the way that it
• 29:44
  rejuvenates river systems, rejuvenates plants, rejuvenates
• 29:48
  the spaces that they live and graze and gather from.
• 29:51
  And like, it's medicine for the land.
• 29:53
  So taking away that medicine, it is having a lot of ripple
• 29:58
  effects on the forest health today.
• 30:01
  And I'm no expert, I'm always, always learning.
• 30:05
  But I my job is to educate young people about that and to get
• 30:10
  fire into the hands of more community members with the
• 30:14
  support and safety dear ungulate, black tailed dear.
• 30:20
  Hey little baby, so cute. Big ears.
• 30:25
  I don't know where, what, where. It's like, oh wow.
• 30:27
  OK, she's. Like they can't see me.
• 30:31
  We see you. We.
• 30:33
  See. You.
• 30:34
  How do kids respond to that? Like what's the age range that
• 30:37
  you work with and what are their responses reactions?
• 30:42
  So I work with kindergarten through 12th grade and sometimes
• 30:46
  I work with adults and it's usually the same first day,
• 30:51
  first bringing it up response, which is like I'm scared.
• 30:55
  It like brings up a nervous system reaction.
• 30:57
  Like we've been trained to be afraid of fire since the early
• 31:02
  1900s when there was a huge, huge mega fire in Montana that
• 31:08
  wiped out an entire town. It killed multiple people.
• 31:11
  That's when the US Forest Service really like locked in to
• 31:15
  prevent fires and put out every wildfire before 10.
• 31:19
  That's when Smokey the bear came out and he was like, only you
• 31:22
  can prevent forest fires. And so that prop that propaganda
• 31:27
  style, not necessarily wrong. People do need to do their job
• 31:31
  to protect the forest and not burn it down.
• 31:34
  Don't start a Don't leave a fire unattended in your campsite.
• 31:37
  We can be responsible with fire but it put a huge like negative
• 31:42
  no no stamp on fire. Fire as a whole.
• 31:46
  As a whole, yeah. And we still have campfires and
• 31:50
  we still do. A lot of lot of people use burn
• 31:52
  piles here in Southern Oregon. That's how we get rid of our
• 31:55
  excess vegetation. But there's so much more like
• 32:00
  potential, that is, that was being utilized for thousands of
• 32:06
  years and then was suppressed because the tribes in this area,
• 32:12
  they would burn this river corridor of Willow and oak
• 32:18
  Savannah and ponderosa pine every 5 to 10 years.
• 32:23
  And then when they stopped, the forest was like, where's my
• 32:27
  meds? What the hell?
• 32:30
  And if they tried to come back and light this on fire, they
• 32:34
  would be shot on the spot like they would be killed for doing
• 32:38
  their cultural practices. By the government, By the US.
• 32:40
  Government, yeah, yeah. So we done messed, messed up our
• 32:45
  decision making there, and now we're in a real pickle.
• 32:50
  We're inside of a pickle. We're Pickle Rick.
• 32:53
  We. Are Pickle Rick and we don't
• 32:56
  know what to do. Yeah, so.
• 32:58
  What? What do we do?
• 32:59
  What do we do? What are some of our options,
• 33:03
  solutions around this? Or do we just continue to exist
• 33:08
  in a pickle jar? Well, as delicious as Pickles
• 33:12
  are, we're pretty efficient creatures in managing the land.
• 33:18
  And we? Do tend we do have a tendency to
• 33:20
  learn from our mistakes. Agreed.
• 33:23
  I think that I am I'm so honored to be coming into this field at
• 33:28
  this time because indigenous traditional ecological knowledge
• 33:33
  and like bringing back those practices of reciprocity with
• 33:36
  the land is back on the come up. It's like trending into this
• 33:40
  work. Of course, management, Yeah,
• 33:43
  thank goodness. Like what if we caught on to
• 33:45
  that way back in the day? But I'm so honored to be able to
• 33:51
  learn from that perspective because there are tons of things
• 33:55
  that we can do, but fires are going to be inevitable.
• 33:59
  And we will have a lot more big fires before we get through
• 34:04
  this, like through this pickle. But what we can do, there are
• 34:08
  three things that that wildfires respond to.
• 34:13
  We have weather, we have the shape of the land, the
• 34:16
  topography, and we have fuel. And the one thing that humans
• 34:19
  can control on that list? That's right.
• 34:24
  Which one? Fuel.
• 34:25
  It's fuel. We can go do forest management
• 34:29
  and like do fuel reduction. So that's what I do with my
• 34:32
  students is especially my high schoolers.
• 34:34
  I take them out and we do a ton of fuel reduction and they love
• 34:38
  it. At first they're like.
• 34:41
  Oh, I don't want to work for free.
• 34:42
  What the heck? Osprey, Osprey.
• 34:48
  Jet without a chemtrail behind it.
• 34:50
  Yeah, we got 2. Two birds in one, we got a.
• 34:54
  Bird, we got a plane. We're Superman.
• 34:59
  It's leaving its own kind of chemtrail Osprey.
• 35:03
  I was going to ask if that was an osprey on your arm.
• 35:05
  Yeah, it is. Yeah, I got this last year after
• 35:08
  a phenomenal season of floating on the river.
• 35:12
  I want to get a balding. A Baldy.
• 35:15
  Bald eagle. So my river name, well, my
• 35:18
  Mariel River name is Jolene Bobby.
• 35:20
  Jolene bald eagle. That is badass.
• 35:24
  That is badass. Jolene, Bobby.
• 35:27
  Bald Eagle. Yeah.
• 35:33
  With your students, are you doing fuel reduction and like
• 35:36
  prescribed burning or stick piling?
• 35:38
  What does fuel reduction look like with students?
• 35:41
  So we go out with saws and loppers and Rakes and shovels
• 35:45
  and we. Rake in the forest.
• 35:47
  We rake the forest and we cut down Deadwood and we limb up
• 35:52
  trees and we make piles and we do mostly burn piles.
• 35:58
  But we are working on putting together prescribed burns with
• 36:02
  students because that's what they're like.
• 36:03
  I want, they want to do it. We want to see how it goes.
• 36:07
  And that's still like something that I'm still learning is how
• 36:10
  to do a prescribed burn. And that's why working with the
• 36:12
  Rogue Valley Prescribed Burn Association is really, really
• 36:15
  awesome because seeing a prescribed burn happen, like I
• 36:20
  could spend 8 hours getting poked and thorned and taking out
• 36:24
  that BlackBerry Bramble or in 5 minutes fire could get rid of
• 36:29
  it. Like it's so satisfying to watch
• 36:32
  and, and also just the team, the teamwork around a prescriber and
• 36:36
  everyone's on their walkies and there's teams holding the line
• 36:40
  and you're watching as the fire creeps and moves through the
• 36:43
  forest. It's just like it's so.
• 36:45
  Cool. Seems like a more efficient use
• 36:47
  of time and money. Yeah, and it takes prep and it
• 36:51
  takes like training. You have to really, really know
• 36:55
  what you're doing. And a big part of teaching about
• 36:59
  fire is being hyper sensitive and hyper safe around using fire
• 37:04
  so. Does not only do you need to
• 37:05
  know how to start the fire, but also how to stop the.
• 37:07
  Fire and you need to have support like I, I work in a
• 37:11
  organization that is a collaborative, so we work with
• 37:14
  so many professionals in the area and a lot of people are
• 37:18
  focused on fire management as a tool.
• 37:20
  So I get to meet a lot of really cool people in my job.
• 37:24
  It's really fun. And kids get to see how fire can
• 37:28
  be used as a tool. And my goal is for my high
• 37:31
  school kids to go into the career of fire and forestry,
• 37:35
  especially going out to super rural communities like out in
• 37:39
  Cave Junction and to Kilma. They kind of like are isolated
• 37:44
  in a bubble out there. So bringing them like you can
• 37:47
  make $34 an hour out of high school going on fires, they're
• 37:53
  like, Oh my God. And I get to be outside with my
• 37:56
  friends. That's amazing.
• 37:57
  So like use. My body and.
• 37:59
  Yeah, you don't have to go to go to college and like get straight
• 38:02
  A's to be successful in this community.
• 38:05
  You can give back and make money and be outside and just do what
• 38:10
  you can do. So the whole point is to like
• 38:13
  cultivate agency. And I go into first grade
• 38:16
  classrooms and 1st graders like they don't think they can do
• 38:20
  anything to prevent a fire, but they can move sticks away from
• 38:25
  their house. They can be like they can help
• 38:28
  rake leaves away from their house.
• 38:30
  They can talk to their parents about mom, can we move this pile
• 38:34
  of of sticks from the house? Like if they just learn a little
• 38:38
  bit of technique, then they can feel more agency and more
• 38:42
  safety. I just want kids like not to
• 38:44
  only have fear towards fire, but to feel like they can do
• 38:48
  something to help change the detriment that we have like put
• 38:52
  around it. Hell yeah.
• 38:54
  The prescribed burn work that you do with students.
• 38:57
  What is like the radius outside of a community that you would go
• 39:01
  into? Because I'm, I'm assuming you're
• 39:03
  not going deep forest. You're like, yeah, how far from
• 39:08
  town are you doing this? Work so I, I will drive out to
• 39:15
  like Klamath and I'll drive out to the coast and I'll go up to
• 39:19
  Merlin and down to Ashland. That's kind of like the range
• 39:22
  that we cover in education. But with my high school class at
• 39:28
  North Valley, for example, we just walk like 10 minutes from
• 39:31
  the school and we take a bunch of dead manzanita that's like
• 39:37
  becoming ladder fuels and understory vegetation and put it
• 39:40
  in a pile bucket up. And then we usually that pile is
• 39:44
  like the size of a small elephant or a large elephant.
• 39:48
  So we like feed it into a smaller pile.
• 39:50
  And we're like very strategic about how we set up our piles
• 39:54
  because how you set up your burn pile, it can create less smoke
• 39:58
  and be less air pollutant. So that's been really cool to
• 40:02
  learn about and. I'm I just like, I feel really,
• 40:06
  really blessed to have a job that is also my passion.
• 40:11
  How it got girl, Yeah. It's really good clock.
• 40:15
  That, that's awesome. Yeah, with with also that intent
• 40:18
  of around like the burning to save communities, to reduce
• 40:23
  potential unplanned fires around where people are living and
• 40:28
  allow forest fires to burn naturally.
• 40:33
  Ideally, yes, like I I agree with fire suppression in the
• 40:38
  heat of the summer, like it will get out of control.
• 40:41
  But if there's a if there's a fire in the right conditions,
• 40:45
  let it burn like it's such a fine line and there's no like
• 40:49
  this will fix it. Yeah, because we're already,
• 40:51
  we're already inside of the pickle.
• 40:53
  But luckily Pickles are good and the world will regulate itself.
• 40:58
  It's just a matter of like, how are we going to live in a wild
• 41:01
  urban interface that is going to have fire, and how can we be
• 41:05
  responsible stewards of the land in doing so?
• 41:08
  Like, it's not just suppress, suppress, suppress.
• 41:11
  Yeah, that didn't work. You have to find a different
• 41:14
  way. When it comes to fire, when it
• 41:16
  comes to emotions, when it comes.
• 41:18
  To. So many things about living
• 41:21
  together, a whole bunch of humans in relation with planet
• 41:25
  and other people. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:27
  So it and it is cool because it all translates into the work
• 41:32
  that I do with Southern Oregon Trail Alliance building trails,
• 41:36
  that's building fuel breaks. It's building agency and
• 41:40
  community members and building relationships for people to
• 41:43
  support each other. Like that work aligns so well
• 41:47
  with our work. And we're like, oh, maybe we
• 41:48
  could get a prescribed burn over there and like, reduce all that
• 41:51
  BlackBerry. And then I also get to work on
• 41:55
  the river and bring guests from all over the world, all over the
• 41:59
  country, down the Lower Wild and Scenic River and like, talk
• 42:03
  about that burn scar and talk about that tree.
• 42:06
  And like, admire the beautiful perfect balance that is the
• 42:11
  Rogue River and Southern Oregon and the world in general.
• 42:15
  It's all so perfect. Have you had a day out that was
• 42:20
  just like hit so hard? Like just it's like, you know,
• 42:23
  out like doing your work, like either in the classroom or even
• 42:26
  like out with the kids or something that just like, yeah,
• 42:29
  you've made you had like an aha moment of your work.
• 42:32
  Oh my God, yeah. I can't think of a day that I'm
• 42:34
  not like. This is so.
• 42:37
  Good. Like, just today, I took the
• 42:40
  students out to the hill and we collected metadata and we
• 42:44
  assessed our little seeds that we're growing in a data
• 42:47
  monitoring plot and we just like, soaked up the sun.
• 42:50
  And of course, a handful of students are like, I'm bored,
• 42:56
  but I don't care if they're bored.
• 42:58
  We're outside. Being bored, we're looking.
• 43:01
  No, and it's OK to be bored. Just be calm and be present.
• 43:06
  Be bored. But this season, rafting
• 43:12
  specifically, like it was my favorite season because I spent
• 43:17
  the most time on the lower Wild and scenic, which is like
• 43:21
  completely out of contact with the real world and.
• 43:26
  The built world I like. I like to call.
• 43:29
  The build world, this stuff. The built world because.
• 43:32
  It's all real. The off the network wilderness
• 43:36
  world is far more real. Yeah, it's true.
• 43:40
  And my summer just like felt so fluid and challenging, but
• 43:48
  grounded and like connected and like it's all of this like
• 43:52
  different array of emotions. Oh my God, my phone died.
• 43:56
  No, I. Have I have my charger?
• 43:59
  Yeah, I grab it. Please, please.
• 44:02
  Thank you. It's Robin.
• 44:05
  I want to go. Front seat.
• 44:06
  I was going to, Huh. Front seat chimp.
• 44:09
  I was going to get a video of for sale sign for them.
• 44:15
  That house looks pretty awesome. That's.
• 44:17
  Pretty cool. It's got multiple.
• 44:19
  OK. We'll be back.
• 44:21
  It'll still be on the market. That's pretty sweet.
• 44:25
  Oh my God, you were so. Cute.
• 44:27
  He's precious. He's usually not super into
• 44:31
  people in general, but. He's getting better.
• 44:34
  He's getting better, he does like girls and he likes the
• 44:39
  river. Who doesn't like girls in the
• 44:42
  river? Yeah, are.
• 44:43
  The best things? Oh, you're so.
• 44:47
  Adorable. Yeah, that's a pretty sick, huh?
• 44:50
  Yeah, I live there. I live there.
• 44:52
  It is kind of challenging access off of riverbanks, roads like a.
• 44:57
  Quick hairpin turn, Yeah. And like, not a lot of traffic,
• 45:03
  but fast and loud. Traffic sketch if your dog,
• 45:07
  like, gets out, yeah. Or you have to do it over there,
• 45:09
  guys. Yeah, that's my office has that
• 45:12
  list. Give me a call if you want it.
• 45:16
  We can go look at it. Rematch.
• 45:19
  Yeah, I'll take it. Yeah, I'll take it.
• 45:23
  It's beautiful. Oh.
• 45:28
  Little little moment. Oh, oh shit, let me give you oh.
• 45:32
  And you brought bubbles. God, I love you.
• 45:35
  This is what needs to happen. Dudes, whenever Sophie, like
• 45:39
  when we're at like a gathering together and the kids are there,
• 45:42
  Sophie's just like, I got the kids, don't you worry.
• 45:46
  And like she's just with the kids the whole time.
• 45:49
  It's wonderful. We're just yapping.
• 45:51
  Well, yeah, it's. Well, the kids are so cute, Like
• 45:56
  they're just tiny adults are. You going to have kids?
• 45:59
  I think so, yeah. I want to.
• 46:02
  I love being around kids and I want to like.
• 46:04
  You're natural at it. I want to see the discovery of
• 46:08
  the world from my kids perspective and like rediscover
• 46:13
  it for myself through that. It's so cute.
• 46:17
  Respect. Definitely seems challenging and
• 46:21
  hard it is, but it's slightly intimidating.
• 46:24
  Once you're in it and it's your kids and it's your situation.
• 46:27
  It's more challenging and harder because you can't give them back
• 46:31
  to somebody and say. Totally let.
• 46:33
  This be your heart. That's Emily's perspective.
• 46:36
  I mean, it is really challenging at times, but there's so many
• 46:41
  beautiful moments. Absolutely.
• 46:42
  Yeah, I think it's worth it. And I, I teetered back and forth
• 46:46
  for a long time in my earlier 20s of like, I don't know, the
• 46:51
  world is pretty messed up. Like, I don't know if
• 46:54
  everything's going to die at a fiery blaze and if I want to
• 46:57
  bring kids into that, but. I think you think about that
• 46:59
  still and like, I think about that, but also like there's
• 47:02
  peace and just living in the moment and enjoying it and just
• 47:08
  taking it. Like I try not to think too
• 47:11
  deeply about it. You know, if I keep it very
• 47:16
  generalized in my thought of like, it's beautiful, I'm going
• 47:19
  to live my life to the best of my ability.
• 47:21
  I'm going to raise my kids to the best of my ability.
• 47:24
  I'm going to what else? Just like.
• 47:28
  Not. Worry, yeah, not worry, not, not
• 47:32
  assume or not project and not like gross and not like, yeah,
• 47:39
  don't think about the future. Just live in the moment the best
• 47:42
  you can in the moment with what you got.
• 47:44
  And like, as long as I do that very simply, like I have to dumb
• 47:47
  myself down because like. It's easy to overthink.
• 47:51
  It's easy. Yes it is.
• 47:52
  And that's where you get like, Oh no, no, I don't know, like
• 47:55
  deep thinking about it. You can get into all these
• 47:57
  spirals, but if you just think simpleton then you can live a
• 48:03
  happy life. Yeah, I agree.
• 48:05
  Just. Yeah, like, but you take it and
• 48:06
  leave it. Each subject has its own
• 48:08
  complexities and you you can choose to go down the rabbit
• 48:11
  hole or not. But when it comes down to it,
• 48:13
  like the purpose of life is love, Yeah, yeah, that's the
• 48:17
  whole point. And to not be too attached to
• 48:19
  any particular outcome or belief or really anything is to just
• 48:25
  truly be present and exist in love, exist self and planet and.
• 48:30
  That is, our purpose is to simply exist and be part of the
• 48:35
  the web of connection of every living thing and like, not
• 48:38
  necessarily to get 10,000 followers on social media and
• 48:43
  that. Would be great though.
• 48:44
  I'm. Not going to like if we could,
• 48:47
  but yeah, I, I came to the realization that like, if love
• 48:51
  is like my whole center and my whole reason of being, then I'm
• 48:56
  going to have kids because that there's no greater love than
• 48:59
  making little humans with your partner and seeing them go
• 49:03
  through life. Yeah, the love you get to give
• 49:05
  to them and the love that you get back from them.
• 49:08
  This is a winnow baby dog. On that note, the let's change
• 49:12
  out the battery because it's going to die in a.
• 49:13
  Minute This episode is brought to you by our friends at Roe
• 49:19
  Adventures. If you've ever dreamed about
• 49:21
  disappearing into a wild Canyon for a few days, rafting
• 49:25
  incredible rivers by day, and sitting around a Riverside
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  campfire at night, this is your sign.
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  Roe has been running unforgettable river expeditions
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  since 1979 on legendary rivers like the Rogue, the Salmon, and
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  the Loxaw. And because you're part of the
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  Go Wildly community, you can get $100 off any multi day river
• 49:46
  trip in 2026 or 2027. Just use the code Go wildly when
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• 50:00
  adventures. Howdy friends.
• 50:04
  Quick little pause on the adventure.
• 50:06
  First of all, we just want to say thank you.
• 50:09
  Truly. The fact that you're out there
• 50:10
  listening to this weird little outdoor podcast we started means
• 50:14
  more to us than you probably realize.
• 50:16
  We're just two little feral childhood besties that had an
• 50:19
  idea, grab some microphones and decided to record conversations
• 50:23
  in the wild. And somehow you.
• 50:25
  Showed up for it. Thank you.
• 50:26
  So if this podcast has ever made you laugh, taught you something
• 50:30
  or kept you company on a drive, a hike, or a day at the river,
• 50:33
  we I have one small favor to ask you.
• 50:36
  Give the show a follow, tap the stars and leave a review if you
• 50:40
  can. And also, here's a little fun
• 50:41
  exercise. Think of the first person who
• 50:44
  popped in your head while listening to this episode,
• 50:46
  because let's be honest, everyone on podcasts, remind
• 50:49
  somebody of somebody or somebody you know that'll enjoy this
• 50:52
  podcast. Send this episode to them.
• 50:55
  That's honestly the best way this little wildly podcast
• 50:58
  grows. All right, thanks for being here
• 51:01
  with us. Now let's go wildly together.
• 51:05
  If I didn't have kids, like, just bring your kids along.
• 51:09
  Yeah. That's something I've absolutely
• 51:11
  learned from my parents and from their whole community of river
• 51:16
  people. Was they never, as far as I can
• 51:19
  tell. I mean, they may say
• 51:20
  differently, but as far as I can tell, they never let having kids
• 51:24
  be an obstacle to the things that they wanted to do.
• 51:28
  Was like, oh, I want to go skiing.
• 51:31
  The kids are coming. I want to go rafting.
• 51:33
  The kids are coming. The kids are getting put in a in
• 51:36
  a car seat strapped to the raft and we're rolling that's.
• 51:39
  How it ought to. Be like and the only problem is
• 51:42
  is like. Oh that's pretty cool.
• 51:44
  The only problem is is like, I have, me and Emily are building
• 51:50
  this podcast. Yeah.
• 51:51
  Build a build a business, bring the kids with you.
• 51:54
  I I have been admiring your biceps the whole time we've been
• 51:57
  on this boat and you just flex them for me and now I need to
• 52:01
  sit down. Damn Bull.
• 52:03
  Yeah. Do you work on those for real?
• 52:06
  Yeah, this just happens. Yeah, I work out.
• 52:12
  I'm like, I'm not bad, but like. No, no, not bad at all.
• 52:18
  That's something I really like seeing in this work field that
• 52:22
  I'm in, is people bring their kids everywhere.
• 52:25
  Like we have a training seminar where we're learning about
• 52:29
  Indigenous methods of burning, and there's kids sitting there
• 52:32
  playing with pine cones, making a ruckus.
• 52:35
  And we're just like, that's just part of it.
• 52:37
  And it makes it more enriching for all of us to have multiple
• 52:40
  generations there. They don't know what anyone's
• 52:43
  saying say but. Cruise is with us.
• 52:45
  It would not be a fun time. Maybe not, but maybe it would.
• 52:48
  Or not hear. This.
• 52:50
  I have fun with. I'm like in AI know but not
• 52:53
  like. Cruise dull isn't.
• 52:55
  Like in a not in a mean way. He'll think it's mean he'll be,
• 52:59
  but more just like he wants snacks his the attention won't
• 53:03
  be on. Him yeah, yeah, that's how kids
• 53:05
  are it's true it does like make it an extra layer of challenge
• 53:09
  for sure but so is leaving them at home with someone else and.
• 53:14
  He's at school. Well, yeah, not an outdoor
• 53:16
  cruise, but like just think about.
• 53:18
  Adjust her mic. I don't know hold.
• 53:22
  Please. Technical got you.
• 53:25
  Technical situations. Testing.
• 53:28
  I mean, there's so many ways, like, kids learn through so much
• 53:32
  through osmosis that even if they're not sitting there, like,
• 53:36
  attentive to a presentation, they're hearing it.
• 53:40
  Yeah, they're being influenced by it.
• 53:42
  And there's so many things that I know that I picked up
• 53:45
  somewhere in my early life that I couldn't say, oh, I went to
• 53:49
  this presentation with my mom and so and so talked about it.
• 53:52
  But like, I've heard these things and learned these.
• 53:56
  Things and the feeling of community gathering, no matter
• 54:00
  what they're talking about, is a good feeling to anyone of any
• 54:03
  age. So I I feel like everything will
• 54:07
  work out as it's supposed to. Like, I genuinely feel that way.
• 54:11
  And yeah, kids are cute and fun and I like it.
• 54:14
  How did you get into rafting? Did you?
• 54:17
  You said you didn't do any rafting in Truckee.
• 54:19
  You didn't grow up doing rafting, being on the river and
• 54:23
  came here and came here, that ass raft guy.
• 54:25
  Came here, lived in a trailer, quickly realized that the
• 54:28
  temperatures in the summer reach 110°, vomited a little bit in my
• 54:33
  mouth and then said, what am I gonna do?
• 54:37
  And my friends were like, you ought to become a raft guide.
• 54:41
  And I was like, that's crazy. I don't have any experience
• 54:44
  doing that whatsoever. Like where am I going to get a
• 54:46
  job? So I just like threw out my
• 54:48
  application and orange torpedo trips shouts out.
• 54:52
  They ended up hiring me. They hire first year guides all
• 54:56
  the time. And I'm so, so grateful because
• 55:00
  here I am now. This will be my 5th season of
• 55:02
  guiding and it's one of my most favorite hobbies.
• 55:08
  Most like challenging, rewarding, beautiful, serene
• 55:13
  things that I do now and I just like get to do it.
• 55:17
  It's crazy. But yeah, I first time on the
• 55:21
  sticks, I was like a baby giraffe freshly born from the
• 55:25
  womb and I was like, these are heavy.
• 55:27
  I can't do it. And it was a long learning curve
• 55:30
  for me. It takes me a while to get my
• 55:33
  physical activities dialed. Like all the techniques and
• 55:38
  little things, I want to get them so bad that it like kind of
• 55:41
  makes a block for me to learn it.
• 55:43
  Same with like dirt biking and mountain biking and anything new
• 55:47
  that I learned in adulthood, I'm like.
• 55:49
  Why don't I just know how to do it?
• 55:51
  Totally. I'm like that too, yeah.
• 55:53
  That's yeah, I think that's a pretty normal challenge with
• 55:55
  adults learning, especially physical things.
• 55:58
  But it makes it all that more all that much more rewarding
• 56:02
  when you do have breakthroughs and like intentionally unlocking
• 56:06
  something new. Like, oh, and seeing that in
• 56:10
  yourself and overcoming something you're super afraid
• 56:13
  of. Like dirt biking and rafting are
• 56:16
  my scariest sports for me. Like I get those butterflies so
• 56:20
  intensely in my belly. I'm like, I could die.
• 56:25
  And then you do it and you get through it, and then you're like
• 56:29
  just so proud of yourself and you're like, whoa.
• 56:32
  I am capable of more than my brain thought that I was capable
• 56:35
  of. And that's why we go outside.
• 56:39
  Yeah, boom, boom, boom. Yeah.
• 56:43
  So now I work with Roe and how many?
• 56:45
  Seasons. Did you do stuff with OTT?
• 56:48
  I was with OTT for three seasons and last season was my first
• 56:52
  year with Roe. Cool.
• 56:54
  Wasn't a big difference. It was different just because I
• 56:57
  went full time with Roe and I was part time with OTT, still
• 57:01
  teaching in the summer, like doing camps and little things
• 57:05
  here and there were. You doing wild and scenics with
• 57:08
  OTT also or just day? Just day stretch and I really
• 57:11
  wanted to do the wild and scenic and scheduling was just like we
• 57:16
  kind of were set in our ways with OTT of like I'm part time
• 57:20
  and I just do day stretches. So I was really stoked to meet
• 57:24
  Ryan Garn and she recruited me to go on the row team when we
• 57:29
  did the new Klamath River and I was like, Ryan's so cool.
• 57:35
  Rafting is so cool. I want to do that.
• 57:38
  And I just like have loved the structure management
• 57:42
  organization of the whole, the whole team at at Roe, Tom
• 57:47
  Scarborough, our manager, he's like an Angel scent from the
• 57:51
  river gods. It has a baby.
• 57:53
  Angel. Tom is a baby Angel.
• 57:55
  Too bad. We didn't get that on your
• 57:56
  phone. That would be a great Instagram
• 57:58
  clip. For.
• 57:59
  Tom. We want Tom on the pod.
• 58:04
  Yeah, he's a good egg. I like working with him.
• 58:06
  And then I've just throughout all my years guiding, I meet so
• 58:10
  many cool people, like people have so many cool stories and
• 58:15
  experiences, and I just learned so much.
• 58:19
  And my Dan guests, yeah, the guests too.
• 58:21
  I'm always picking their brains and I get to hang out with them
• 58:24
  for four days straight and liaison with them after we're
• 58:29
  off the river and we have fun. We have a fun time.
• 58:35
  Come, buddy, we're having fun right now.
• 58:37
  We're on the river. There's no better office.
• 58:42
  No, this is it. Chim Chim.
• 58:47
  This is like a really excellent fishing spot, this rifle.
• 58:53
  I've caught a couple of Chinook salmon, couple of steelhead.
• 58:57
  Do you do any fishing guiding? I don't.
• 59:02
  As I approach my 30s, I don't know if I'm going to expand my
• 59:08
  guiding outside of rafting down the wild and Scenic.
• 59:12
  I want to go on way more rivers and explore them on private
• 59:16
  trips. But yeah, I'm approaching that
• 59:19
  time where I'm thinking about starting a family and guiding
• 59:23
  with a baby. People do it.
• 59:25
  There's some bad ass ladies out there that are getting it done
• 59:29
  and their kids grow up to be wicked awesome, so kudos to
• 59:33
  them. But I'm still only five years
• 59:36
  into rafting, so I'm still like learning a lot and having fun
• 59:41
  for sure. What's your favorite river
• 59:43
  around here to recreate on? Obviously you work on the Wild
• 59:47
  and Scenic if you have time off. Is that where you find yourself?
• 59:52
  Well the Rogue is absolutely my favorite.
• 59:56
  I got it tatted on my arm. Is that like, is that like
• 1:00:01
  topographically the rogue? This is the rogue, my tattoo
• 1:00:06
  artist. She like kind of shifted it.
• 1:00:09
  Like I think she horizontally flipped it and then like put it
• 1:00:13
  upside down. So it's not like I think it's
• 1:00:15
  like this, but this is Grants Pass, OK, right here where the
• 1:00:21
  Osprey is grabbing and this is Blossom barred out like I know a
• 1:00:24
  couple of little locations. Amazing.
• 1:00:26
  But good new Klamath is the rowdiest, most fun.
• 1:00:32
  Like if our if my friends and I are going to have a day off,
• 1:00:35
  we're going to send it down there and have you.
• 1:00:38
  Did you do it when it was damned?
• 1:00:40
  No, OK. I haven't done the Upper Klamath
• 1:00:43
  either. OK.
• 1:00:44
  So I've heard really good things about it up there.
• 1:00:48
  Yeah, it's sick. I mean I haven't, I haven't done
• 1:00:50
  it since the dams were were removed so I don't know how much
• 1:00:55
  it has changed, but Upper Klamath pre dam removal was
• 1:01:01
  fucking raging. Yeah, yeah, massive brown claw
• 1:01:05
  situation. Yeah, I want to get up there.
• 1:01:08
  There's so many rivers to explore.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah. I don't even know what to do.
• 1:01:14
  I have to go in the Grand Canyon.
• 1:01:17
  Must have you. Yeah, twice.
• 1:01:20
  Yeah, dreams. Been a long time and I feel
• 1:01:24
  ready to go back to sorry. This orwalk is super freaky.
• 1:01:28
  This little one. OK.
• 1:01:30
  Good luck. Thank.
• 1:01:32
  You. Yeah, that's at the top of the
• 1:01:35
  bucket list, Yeah. What time of year should I try
• 1:01:37
  to go? I mean, well, I think any time
• 1:01:41
  is a great time. I've heard great stories of
• 1:01:44
  September, October trips. I both of mine were summer, like
• 1:01:48
  July, August. I think there's no necessarily
• 1:01:52
  wrong time. Just depends on if you want a
• 1:01:55
  hot trip or a snowy trip. Yeah.
• 1:01:58
  The flooding that's happening down there right now looks
• 1:02:01
  pretty terrifying being in the river with that.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah, yeah. Scares me.
• 1:02:05
  Being in a flash flood on the Grand Canyon, like so, so many
• 1:02:10
  crazy, scary river stories from being of so many people,
• 1:02:15
  including myself, Yeah. Of being caught in a flash
• 1:02:18
  flood. Oh.
• 1:02:18
  Dang, you were in one too? I wasn't like actively in one,
• 1:02:22
  but we were camped at, I don't remember the name of the camp
• 1:02:30
  right now. It'll probably come to me later.
• 1:02:34
  And we had kind of just pulled in and it was, there was a side
• 1:02:39
  Creek bed. It was dry when we pulled in and
• 1:02:44
  then we started to hear like Thunder sound and.
• 1:02:51
  But it wasn't the sky. It wasn't the sky somewhere.
• 1:02:54
  It had been the sky, but suddenly this wall of water
• 1:02:59
  starts coming down through the Creek bed and we all just kind
• 1:03:05
  of go running for the tallest rock we can get on to upstream
• 1:03:10
  of it. And you don't want to be
• 1:03:12
  downstream during a flash flood and just watch all this water
• 1:03:18
  and rocks come barreling down. It didn't last very long.
• 1:03:22
  It was really like a flash, but. It was pretty scary.
• 1:03:28
  That's terrifying. I've got some pictures somewhere
• 1:03:31
  of us like standing on rocks in the middle of this flash flood
• 1:03:37
  coming. And my I'm pretty sure one of
• 1:03:41
  the stories that I recorded from my dad when he was dying was it
• 1:03:47
  was either a Grand Canyon flash flood or for sure there was one
• 1:03:51
  about a flash flood on Mount Sinai in Egypt.
• 1:03:55
  Oh my God. Yeah, flash floods are no
• 1:04:00
  fucking joke. They they take people away.
• 1:04:03
  My mom was recently watching a a YouTube video of a story of a
• 1:04:09
  flash flood that happened in Deer Creek in the like where
• 1:04:16
  they do the tours through Deer Creek Canyon of a flash flood
• 1:04:22
  coming and killing like 9 people.
• 1:04:24
  And like the guide was the only one who survived and he spent
• 1:04:28
  the next like 30 years of his life going in and trying to find
• 1:04:32
  the people. And yeah, it was.
• 1:04:35
  That's what like, that's what makes the river so scary to me
• 1:04:39
  because, like, water can be so unpredictable.
• 1:04:43
  And that's why it's like the opposite side of the coin from
• 1:04:45
  fire. Like they flow and they move and
• 1:04:49
  they don't really care what's in their way.
• 1:04:51
  Yeah. And that's like I have mega
• 1:04:55
  respect for the river and when I'm about to go down something
• 1:05:00
  scary, like I do a little woo woo offering to the river
• 1:05:04
  goddess and like do a little prayer every time because.
• 1:05:07
  Same. It's a it's like a big deal to
• 1:05:10
  travel via water, yeah, and make it and be OK.
• 1:05:15
  And every year you hear about accidents happening on the
• 1:05:19
  Rogue, let alone every other river.
• 1:05:22
  Every time I've ever gotten cocky about my river skills or
• 1:05:26
  my relationship with the river, the river is like Nope.
• 1:05:30
  Sit the fuck down, you. Stop No.
• 1:05:33
  OK, OK. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
• 1:05:35
  And that, yeah, that's that's part of why I say a little
• 1:05:38
  prayer, have a little ritual because the river has humbled me
• 1:05:43
  enough times that I know. Yeah, she is.
• 1:05:46
  She is the more powerful one. Yeah, I've had, I have always
• 1:05:50
  been like, I know who's in charge here, but I have.
• 1:05:54
  I had a friend this year who was like, he had been down the
• 1:05:59
  rogue, the lower rug once and he came from the locksaw, which is
• 1:06:03
  like big Ryan was talking all about the locksaw.
• 1:06:06
  Huge. Waves like giant wave trains.
• 1:06:09
  He didn't flip on the locks all season.
• 1:06:11
  He's a great rafter. And I was like, OK, we were at
• 1:06:15
  Mariel and I was like, tomorrow we're going down Blossom Bar,
• 1:06:18
  like should we go over the line? And I was already like Blossom
• 1:06:21
  Bar blah. And he was like, Nah, it's fine.
• 1:06:26
  I got it. I'm like but it's but it could.
• 1:06:31
  What he? Was like, I'm not worried about
• 1:06:33
  it at all. Like I'm just going to send it
• 1:06:35
  and I'm like, but you have to make this move, otherwise all
• 1:06:39
  the people in your boat may perish.
• 1:06:42
  A fate undesirable to all. It's not.
• 1:06:45
  Big water. It's a big move.
• 1:06:47
  It's technical, Yeah, So. And he was like, don't worry
• 1:06:51
  about it, I'll be fine. And I was like.
• 1:06:53
  Oh God. I'm just going to go over it out
• 1:06:55
  loud in my for me right now. I'm going to do this and like a
• 1:06:59
  little diagram and the next day we get past Mule Creek Canyon,
• 1:07:05
  my favorite part on the rogue. And then we get to blossom bar
• 1:07:09
  and we're like waiting in purgatory to send it down and
• 1:07:12
  I'm all nervous with my butterflies.
• 1:07:14
  I'm like, you sure you good, bro?
• 1:07:16
  And he's like, yeah, it's going to be fine, don't worry about
• 1:07:18
  it. And he flips, He flips at the
• 1:07:22
  top of Blossom like he made it through the past.
• 1:07:25
  The beaver's tail, beaver's slide.
• 1:07:28
  And. Then.
• 1:07:29
  Hit the cotton balls and it flips like hits in the front
• 1:07:34
  left and flips it upright. 4 swimmers.
• 1:07:38
  One of the swimmers was wearing his PFD incorrectly regardless
• 1:07:44
  of all of us guides being like tighten that shit.
• 1:07:46
  Down. And it slides off of his head
• 1:07:49
  and he's like holding it like a kick board at the bottom.
• 1:07:54
  Good for him for that. Yeah, that's OK.
• 1:07:56
  And we were like. Why did you take off your PFD?
• 1:07:59
  He was like, it was like in, it was like up here covering my
• 1:08:02
  eyes so I couldn't see. And we were like, he was like
• 1:08:06
  shaped like a large juicy pear from the grocery store.
• 1:08:09
  And we were like. Oh, I just saw a huge fish jump
• 1:08:12
  right behind you. I'm going in there it is.
• 1:08:21
  The fish are jumping. I got.
• 1:08:23
  It I'm just kidding. I love a fish.
• 1:08:32
  Wow, that was like a real. Sized fish.
• 1:08:35
  I got it. It's the native.
• 1:08:41
  What the hell do we call? It that's like floppy.
• 1:08:44
  It's a pink bass. It's a that is a dogfish.
• 1:08:51
  Because it got that. Dog in it got them dog.
• 1:08:57
  I wish I would have got that on my Cam on my phone.
• 1:08:59
  I'll have to just cut that up. I saw.
• 1:09:03
  Usually I see fish. When I see fish jump, they're
• 1:09:05
  like, you know, beetle baby fish.
• 1:09:07
  That was that was like. A jump fish.
• 1:09:09
  OK, So what did that humble him? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:12
  Going back to the flip. Yeah, afterwards.
• 1:09:14
  So like. Told you.
• 1:09:19
  No, he was super embarrassed after that.
• 1:09:21
  Like he was like. Oh.
• 1:09:24
  And we just like, helped him. We had to like, throw him a
• 1:09:27
  throw bag and pull his rope out of the flow so that he didn't go
• 1:09:30
  down Devil's Staircase and like the next two class threes.
• 1:09:34
  And it's not my place to be like.
• 1:09:38
  You. Suck, I told you like you, it
• 1:09:41
  humbles you in in its own way. And he had an excellent
• 1:09:44
  recovery. Like he hopped right on that
• 1:09:47
  flipped boat and like pulled up the 2 ladies and then the other
• 1:09:50
  two people ended up like getting too far from the boat and
• 1:09:53
  swimming down and everyone was OK.
• 1:09:55
  But he won't do that again. Yeah, but he is going to be
• 1:09:58
  taking that rapid a little bit more seriously from now on.
• 1:10:02
  And yeah, you don't underestimate the river, you
• 1:10:05
  don't ever underestimate her, even if it's not as big as the
• 1:10:09
  locks, have you? Not been down before.
• 1:10:12
  He had been down, I think. Maybe twice.
• 1:10:16
  OK, so he's been newer to? That was his first rogue send of
• 1:10:21
  the season, so he had been down twice like the year prior.
• 1:10:26
  Anyways, he's I still think he's a super awesome Raptor.
• 1:10:31
  I enjoyed working with him, but it was just a lesson for me to
• 1:10:34
  be like and that is why. You.
• 1:10:37
  Never underestimate the river. Mother Rogue.
• 1:10:40
  But yeah, like when I was reading for our our podcast
• 1:10:44
  today, I was like, what are the things that are like most
• 1:10:48
  influential to me? And I've heard this talked about
• 1:10:52
  in a lot of your guys's past podcast, is like fear plays such
• 1:10:57
  a big role in growth outdoors in life in general.
• 1:11:02
  But like when I think back to like pivotal moments in my
• 1:11:06
  childhood, it's jumping off of the biggest rock at the rock
• 1:11:11
  jump with my cool older cousins. And that feeling, same thing as
• 1:11:16
  going down a scary rapid. My belly is like, don't do it,
• 1:11:19
  you might die. But like, I kind of have to
• 1:11:23
  learn the skill of shutting that off and sending it and also not
• 1:11:30
  dying ideally. So far so good.
• 1:11:32
  Just doing it scared, doing it anyways and then seeing that you
• 1:11:36
  can, you can do things even when your fear response.
• 1:11:40
  I mean, sometimes it's important to listen to your fear response
• 1:11:42
  and understand. Boundaries for a reason.
• 1:11:44
  And also sometimes it's, it's trying to hold you back from
• 1:11:48
  something that is a growth point.
• 1:11:50
  And then you recalibrate that fear response in future
• 1:11:55
  scenarios where you can say, OK, this is scary.
• 1:11:58
  I've done scary things before. I have the the muscle memory and
• 1:12:03
  like the callus essentially to know that I can do this.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, and I'm. Yeah, really.
• 1:12:09
  The self trust. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:11
  I think this. Is the best friend of mine over
• 1:12:13
  here maybe? They look nice.
• 1:12:17
  Let's be friends with them. Howdy.
• 1:12:20
  Yeah. Beautiful day, Sir.
• 1:12:23
  It is. Sure does.
• 1:12:26
  Sure does. Where's your paddle?
• 1:12:28
  Sure does. If you know, you know.
• 1:12:32
  Yeah. It's so fun to say that to
• 1:12:37
  people and watch them try to figure it out.
• 1:12:40
  For days. What?
• 1:12:42
  The fuck it means? Frustrating little Riddle until
• 1:12:45
  you learn it and you're like lol stupid.
• 1:12:48
  Wow. How I did not figure that out?
• 1:12:52
  You better go investigate what's happening over there.
• 1:12:56
  Oh, it's a puppy. Oh my God.
• 1:12:59
  It's a larger dog with the puppy and they look like twins.
• 1:13:04
  Blessed be. The big and the little.
• 1:13:06
  Oh my God, the frolicking. So cute.
• 1:13:08
  The frolicking. A moment taking a moment for the
• 1:13:17
  river we're watching. We're currently watching two
• 1:13:23
  people on the shore throwing their throwing balls for their
• 1:13:26
  dogs and it's precious. Yeah, if you're not, if you're
• 1:13:31
  only listening to this through your ears and you're not
• 1:13:33
  watching on YouTube or Spotify video option, you are missing
• 1:13:39
  out on the visual immersive experience here.
• 1:13:43
  Are you jealous, Jimmy? Are you jealous?
• 1:13:47
  James see how they get to stick. Chims Swim.
• 1:13:52
  We can live vicariously. Through them he's like, but
• 1:13:55
  they're not floating on the river, so yeah.
• 1:14:01
  Jimmy does know how to swim on demand from shore.
• 1:14:04
  That is one of his known commands.
• 1:14:08
  When to jump off the boat? He's never jumped off the boat
• 1:14:11
  into the water. They do try to not encourage
• 1:14:15
  that. It's good, Paul.
• 1:14:16
  Yeah. My dog likes to try to eat the
• 1:14:19
  Rapids as we go by them. The face like this is unsafe.
• 1:14:25
  Yeah. We haven't taken her on anything
• 1:14:27
  crazy big, so I'm like, it's going to buff you out,
• 1:14:30
  girlfriend. Yeah, one time I saw three
• 1:14:34
  little fluffy otters by that boat ramp over there.
• 1:14:37
  One time I watched dogs chase a deer off of this Cliff, and the
• 1:14:43
  Cliff just fell, plummeted to its death.
• 1:14:46
  The deer. Yeah.
• 1:14:47
  And it was kind of like spooky and weird vibes, yeah.
• 1:14:50
  That's sad. Just spooky and weird.
• 1:14:54
  Anything dying tragically. It's spooky and weird.
• 1:14:58
  Yeah. In your presence.
• 1:14:59
  Yeah, in my presence, yeah. Oh, you were saying that you.
• 1:15:02
  Saying. Some morbid animal on animal
• 1:15:07
  action on your outdoor adventures.
• 1:15:10
  Oh my God, I didn't even know this was possible.
• 1:15:14
  But we saw some crazy murder. Some nature is metal on the road
• 1:15:20
  this year. The biggest one was we just got
• 1:15:25
  down the fish ladder and we were perusing down to Whiskey Creek
• 1:15:27
  cabin and we heard like. My man.
• 1:15:31
  You know, the great blue Heron, which I am doing for Florida
• 1:15:35
  State, but it sounded like it was like being strangled and we
• 1:15:39
  thought it was like tied up in fishing wire.
• 1:15:42
  When we came around the bend and we saw it in the corner, like
• 1:15:45
  twisting around and like it looked like it was tied up.
• 1:15:48
  We got a little bit closer, and there was a mink on the bottom
• 1:15:54
  of its neck, like biting into it, strangling it.
• 1:15:58
  And the mink was murdering a great blue Heron.
• 1:16:01
  A mink is the size of my forearm.
• 1:16:03
  Yeah. And the great blue Heron is like
• 1:16:06
  a whole Sophie's height. Like, the tallest 1 is like 5
• 1:16:09
  feet tall. Yeah.
• 1:16:11
  Which isn't very tall. I realize this.
• 1:16:14
  No. But for a bird for a bird, so
• 1:16:16
  this. Little.
• 1:16:17
  Mink murdered a great blue Heron and my poor guests were in the
• 1:16:22
  boat and they're like. This is.
• 1:16:24
  Sad. And I was like keeping us in the
• 1:16:26
  Eddy to watch because it's national.
• 1:16:30
  Geographic in real. Life and I was like this is
• 1:16:32
  crazy. We are going to sit here and
• 1:16:34
  watch this horrific murder and listen to the death screams of
• 1:16:39
  the Grey blue Heron and we did your butt.
• 1:16:41
  Hole is in my face. That means he likes you.
• 1:16:46
  Oh, he twisted. Yeah.
• 1:16:48
  OK, I'm gonna get pink eyes to. Nah.
• 1:16:50
  But it took like a solid 2 minutes.
• 1:16:53
  Lay down. Of listening to the screams of
• 1:16:55
  the great blue Heron before it just like went limp and then the
• 1:16:58
  mink like dragged it away. Good boy.
• 1:17:01
  And it was absolutely metal and I had no idea.
• 1:17:06
  They're like major predators. They're vicious little
• 1:17:10
  creatures. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:17:12
  Yeah. Minks are scary.
• 1:17:14
  They're. Carnivorous.
• 1:17:15
  Yeah, they're hardcore. That was a cool 1 though.
• 1:17:20
  And then naturally, me and the guests on the boat created like
• 1:17:24
  a whole soap opera drama story as to why the mink needed to get
• 1:17:28
  revenge on the great Blue Heron. That's.
• 1:17:30
  Fun. I love doing that.
• 1:17:31
  Sort of stuff. It was a drama.
• 1:17:32
  My favorite. It was a drama.
• 1:17:34
  I usually do that with. I would do that a lot at Mariel
• 1:17:37
  when I worked at Mariel and I to like, pass the time while on a
• 1:17:41
  hike with like, a friend. And we would do it in our
• 1:17:45
  southern accents. Yeah, that's where Jolene Baba,
• 1:17:50
  Jolene Baldigo came from. Yeah, there's all sorts of crazy
• 1:17:59
  river drama going on out there, out there in the world.
• 1:18:06
  Most of it we. Don't even get to see.
• 1:18:08
  Oh yeah. But you were lucky enough to see
• 1:18:11
  it, that one. Dude so cool.
• 1:18:14
  Look, all that freaking. Breeze man, look at.
• 1:18:17
  All them sticks. Look at all that wood, any.
• 1:18:22
  Cool bear story and it would be cool Bear bear experiences from
• 1:18:27
  Laura Rogue. Just like for me, just sighting
• 1:18:31
  bears, friggin rock climbing like legends on the sides of
• 1:18:36
  Mule Creek Canyon mostly. Oh.
• 1:18:38
  Cool, I've never seen one in Mule Creek Canyon.
• 1:18:40
  Oh, there's and they're so like close and they're really good
• 1:18:44
  rock climbers. But there was like a vicious man
• 1:18:51
  hungry Bear on the Rogue this year that one of the lodge
• 1:18:57
  operators ended up shooting and putting down on a trip that I
• 1:19:01
  was on with children present. And there was like a big shotgun
• 1:19:06
  fire and the kids were like. What was?
• 1:19:08
  That and we were like, pretty sure he just shot the bear.
• 1:19:12
  We're not going to say that to the kids.
• 1:19:16
  But yeah, there there are some bears that like as the lower row
• 1:19:19
  gets more populated, they got, they learn that the the square
• 1:19:25
  things in those inner tube things usually have food.
• 1:19:28
  So they like climb up on there and get really territorial
• 1:19:31
  around boats and pop boats. I had a bear on this boat two
• 1:19:35
  nights in a row. One time I was I did a solo
• 1:19:39
  rogue trip. That's me.
• 1:19:41
  And. It was so awesome.
• 1:19:44
  I laid over at Lower Champagne and beautiful.
• 1:19:49
  I set up my cot like maybe ore lengths away from my boat.
• 1:19:54
  I was very close to my boat. So it's like I'm just me, who am
• 1:19:58
  I? I don't need to go anywhere And
• 1:20:02
  the first night I. I wake up in the middle of the
• 1:20:05
  night. I hear like I hear my boat
• 1:20:08
  shift. I hear my.
• 1:20:08
  Oars shift. Oh gosh.
• 1:20:10
  And. First thought Boat's floating
• 1:20:12
  away. I'm no my first thought was
• 1:20:14
  there's a bear. Oh damn my heart is racing and I
• 1:20:19
  just reach down to the ground and throw a rock in the general
• 1:20:25
  direction of my boat and I hear it scurry away and I couldn't
• 1:20:28
  sleep for like I don't think I fell asleep for like 3 or 4
• 1:20:31
  hours after that. It was just on guard and and so
• 1:20:35
  the next night I'm like, well, I'm staying in the same place.
• 1:20:37
  It knows. It knows I'm here.
• 1:20:39
  It knows their smells too. Though.
• 1:20:41
  And so I set up all these booby traps all over my boat.
• 1:20:45
  I had stacks of rocks and I had a whole chain of carabiners
• 1:20:49
  hanging from my oars and the MO and my I let the boat get really
• 1:20:54
  soft and the moment that it climbed on the boat, stack of
• 1:20:59
  rocks fell over and the chains were jangling and it scared
• 1:21:03
  itself away. That time I just laid.
• 1:21:05
  There and giggled that. Thing.
• 1:21:07
  When I woke up, howdy, when I woke up there was a bear paw
• 1:21:12
  print on my table and on my cooler.
• 1:21:15
  That's. Kinda cool it.
• 1:21:16
  Was really cool. That's anyway all awesome.
• 1:21:19
  Yeah, no, not that many like bear interactions on the river
• 1:21:22
  for me, but lots of bear interactions throughout camping
• 1:21:26
  in the Sierra Nevadas. Yeah, just the same thing as
• 1:21:31
  you, like fair prints on all my food and they shattered some of
• 1:21:35
  our car windows broke into cars have.
• 1:21:38
  You had any near death experiences out in the out in
• 1:21:41
  the woods where you were like oh shit, oh shit, check the hips.
• 1:21:46
  Honestly. Go.
• 1:21:48
  I have been pretty blessed. Not like I don't have anything
• 1:21:51
  that comes to mind, Like the closest thing was falling off of
• 1:21:55
  a large Cliff while snowboarding, but it was like a
• 1:21:59
  squishy, snowy, powdery day and I wasn't skiing alone.
• 1:22:04
  And I was like, that was kind of awesome.
• 1:22:06
  Like I didn't get injured. That's the only thing I can
• 1:22:09
  think. About how many feet was it?
• 1:22:11
  We thought it was like 20 feet. Well thought.
• 1:22:14
  Well, yeah, we were at the bottom and looking up and like,
• 1:22:16
  how much did we just eat it? You just tumbled down.
• 1:22:20
  You just. Like flew off, kind of flew off.
• 1:22:23
  You're just going and then you're like, oh.
• 1:22:25
  This wasn't land, this is air and ground.
• 1:22:29
  Well thank my God. Thankfully there wasn't like too
• 1:22:31
  much powder to where you just fucking.
• 1:22:34
  Sunk yeah no it was honestly the perfect I wouldn't even call it
• 1:22:38
  a near death experience because it was like too cushy and yeah I
• 1:22:44
  like I don't like swimming like falling out of my IK and
• 1:22:49
  swimming like every time I do I feel like I'm going to die which
• 1:22:53
  is not a great thing for a raft guide to feel but when I'm in a
• 1:22:58
  I've never like falling out when I'm in a raft guiding a boat
• 1:23:04
  we'll see I have lots of time to go yeah I'm I'm going to keep
• 1:23:09
  everywhere we're. All between swims.
• 1:23:10
  Exactly. So no, I've been very blessed
• 1:23:14
  and I am generally risk adverse despite how many extreme sports
• 1:23:20
  I partake in. Yeah, how?
• 1:23:23
  How much mountain biking do you? Do not that much.
• 1:23:27
  I'm trying to follow Sierra and Larry into the woods and I am
• 1:23:31
  getting into mountain biking because it's the closest
• 1:23:34
  adrenaline rush to snowboarding. Snowboarding is my favorite
• 1:23:37
  thing and we don't have a lot of snow here, even on a snowy year
• 1:23:42
  like well. I'm going to be starting up
• 1:23:43
  ladies group. That's awesome.
• 1:23:45
  Yeah, I used to. I did ladies group before I got
• 1:23:49
  pregnant with Roscoe and then I had to put it on a hold until I
• 1:23:53
  was like ready against. But now.
• 1:23:54
  We're going to. Yeah, it's going to be every
• 1:23:56
  other Thursday alongside the like the it's not that it's a
• 1:24:00
  guys group ride, it's just that it's the shops group ride.
• 1:24:03
  But it's going to be like a separate girls vibe.
• 1:24:06
  Let's go. And then if the girls want to
• 1:24:08
  come out and like, you know, gather on the off days, they can
• 1:24:13
  cuz there's still a group ride happening that women do attend.
• 1:24:16
  But like, this will be a little special along parallel.
• 1:24:19
  That's always fun, right? Yeah, just with the girls.
• 1:24:21
  Fight definitely keep me posted the vibes.
• 1:24:24
  It's the vibes. We're wearing glitter.
• 1:24:26
  Yeah. Yeah, for.
• 1:24:27
  Sure, and some boys. Will wear it sometimes.
• 1:24:30
  But like, and the guys are like, I don't know, like they're like
• 1:24:33
  going, they're like going, going.
• 1:24:35
  Gone. They're serious gooses.
• 1:24:37
  Yeah. And we're whimsical gooses.
• 1:24:39
  Yes. It's just, yeah, it's vibes are
• 1:24:41
  different. That sounds amazing, definitely
• 1:24:44
  keep me in the loop and I hope to be able to make it to the.
• 1:24:48
  In Grants Pass. I live in, I live off the Merlin
• 1:24:51
  exit. OK, Technically in Grants Pass
• 1:24:53
  though. OK, yeah.
• 1:24:56
  But I also really want to stay in the loop on the youth
• 1:25:01
  mountain biking development project.
• 1:25:03
  You want to become a guy like a coach, not a guide a.
• 1:25:07
  Guide I'm not a. Pose I think we're going to need
• 1:25:11
  a bunch of because it's like 4 kids to 1 level 2, Level 3 coach
• 1:25:19
  and the coaches you have to have like your wilderness first
• 1:25:22
  responder. Do you have that got that a
• 1:25:24
  background check and and then the course like there's online
• 1:25:28
  coursework and then there's an in person course?
• 1:25:33
  Type of thing. There's already like a whole
• 1:25:34
  system. Set up with Nica, Yeah, that's
• 1:25:37
  great. There's going to be a coach's
• 1:25:38
  summit to like, get certified up in Hood River like April 17th
• 1:25:44
  and 18th, which is like coming up.
• 1:25:46
  Yeah. It's like in a blink away, the
• 1:25:47
  blink away. Oh my God.
• 1:25:48
  And I don't think I'm going to be able to make it.
• 1:25:51
  I was trying to talk Sean into it, but it's going to be a
• 1:25:53
  little rough because we're like going down, going down to where
• 1:25:59
  are we going? San Francisco?
• 1:26:01
  Yeah, in like a couple weeks before it's just hard with the
• 1:26:03
  bike shop. But we're like, maybe they'll do
• 1:26:06
  a separate the the director of NICA for Oregon.
• 1:26:10
  Maybe she'll like sign us. Off.
• 1:26:12
  Down. Yeah, like go.
• 1:26:13
  Up to where she's at in Oak Ridge and like, have her sign us
• 1:26:15
  off. So we're gonna ask for like some
• 1:26:17
  special situation for that. OK.
• 1:26:20
  Yeah, that's awesome. But I'll keep, yeah.
• 1:26:23
  That's good to know we're. Gonna have another info meeting
• 1:26:25
  if you wanna join. I have it on my calendar.
• 1:26:27
  Cool. Yeah, it's a Monday.
• 1:26:29
  Because yeah, just making opportunities for kids to get
• 1:26:32
  outside. Yeah, it, that's so much good
• 1:26:35
  stuff. It's really good.
• 1:26:36
  And like, I feel like a lot of the kids around here don't.
• 1:26:40
  A lot of kids do know how awesome it is here, but a lot of
• 1:26:43
  kids don't get the opportunity to play with it.
• 1:26:47
  Yeah. So also my thing is, is like
• 1:26:49
  Nica, there's like a barrier to entry.
• 1:26:51
  There's like it's 350 bucks, $355 plus like a plus the cost
• 1:26:58
  and fuel to like get to practices and to the races.
• 1:27:01
  And it's like a whole weekend race for like kids, for like
• 1:27:04
  families, right. So I was hoping that maybe I
• 1:27:09
  would start like a non profit or something where I could grab
• 1:27:14
  grants to so kids that want to get into biking that don't have
• 1:27:20
  the money for a decent bike that don't have like like I can like
• 1:27:23
  fully scholarship them through Nyka.
• 1:27:25
  Yeah. And like put their families like
• 1:27:28
  maybe I don't know how that would work for like camping and
• 1:27:31
  like getting their families there, but like we'll make it
• 1:27:33
  work and we'll give the funds to like more bodies equal more
• 1:27:36
  money. So that's.
• 1:27:36
  Such an amazing idea. So I'm.
• 1:27:38
  Going to try to do something like that.
• 1:27:39
  I think you could do it. Yeah, I think you could too.
• 1:27:41
  It's just one more thing. It's.
• 1:27:43
  Just another thing. So I gotta play it, chill and
• 1:27:47
  let it flow like the river goes. Wow.
• 1:27:54
  So in due time. In due time.
• 1:27:57
  I love it. It's all about intention.
• 1:27:58
  That's where it starts, yeah. For sure, for sure.
• 1:28:01
  Getting the kids outside well. Yeah, it's like, and that's
• 1:28:04
  where you make the most impact, right, With kids because like,
• 1:28:07
  they're fresh, they're meldable. That's where it all begins.
• 1:28:10
  And. Yeah.
• 1:28:11
  If we focused more on that as a whole.
• 1:28:15
  That's the next flow of people who are going to be property
• 1:28:18
  owners and good voters. Good.
• 1:28:21
  Citizens and all the things. I do stewards.
• 1:28:24
  I do have faith in this generation like I really enjoy
• 1:28:30
  working with them and they although they are a pain in my
• 1:28:35
  butt, always being like I'm bored, miss Mace, are we going
• 1:28:39
  outside? I don't want to but why not blah
• 1:28:42
  blah blah. I love them like.
• 1:28:46
  I love them. Dude, right?
• 1:28:49
  Isn't that fun? Sick.
• 1:28:53
  Yes, they are like Amazon. Dude, I don't know.
• 1:28:56
  This is from National Geographic.
• 1:28:58
  Oh, apparently OK with a boundary with a bottle opener on
• 1:29:01
  one end. I found this.
• 1:29:03
  This is a river score. The river giveth and the river
• 1:29:06
  take it. Truly do with those a thing?
• 1:29:14
  I truly. Feel like you and.
• 1:29:16
  Them, they're gonna be besties. I can feel that way just.
• 1:29:20
  Be gone. I like it.
• 1:29:22
  Matching BMDS and everything, yours is in way better shape.
• 1:29:26
  Mine's brand new. Yeah, this is.
• 1:29:28
  I've got it at the. This was my like.
• 1:29:32
  Vintage Next. Season I got it at the end of
• 1:29:36
  last season so it was my like gift to myself for completing
• 1:29:40
  last season let's go I needed I needed AI needed a more purple
• 1:29:45
  vest that was actually the intention my former one was more
• 1:29:48
  purple a little more on the pink side of purple and.
• 1:29:52
  Not purple enough? Not purple enough?
• 1:29:54
  Yeah, so I found the purpleest one I could find.
• 1:30:01
  No, I do think that the kids are like engaged.
• 1:30:03
  They care, like even if they pretend not to, I feel like they
• 1:30:08
  are really compassionate and empathetic and like they pay
• 1:30:11
  attention to a lot of the happenings of the world and I
• 1:30:15
  really, really like them. They're just, they have all of
• 1:30:20
  the potential in the world and it's cool to see.
• 1:30:22
  You do a lot of teaching of them.
• 1:30:25
  What do they teach you? They teach me so much patience.
• 1:30:31
  Like so much patience. Yeah.
• 1:30:36
  I don't know if I'm getting taught patients or if I'm just
• 1:30:39
  like figuring out how to be. I don't know.
• 1:30:42
  Well, and they teach me, they teach, they reflect to me what
• 1:30:50
  I'm teaching them. So they teach me how to be a
• 1:30:52
  better teacher. They teach me different ways of
• 1:30:55
  learning like one of the kids in my class doesn't want to do.
• 1:30:59
  I have kids put things in a notebook and we just have a
• 1:31:02
  notebook that they turn in. She just, she just said no to
• 1:31:05
  notebook and I'm like, so how are we going to get grades?
• 1:31:08
  And she's like, I don't know, like I have to go like OK, so
• 1:31:12
  I'm like thinking in my brain, how can I accommodate her but
• 1:31:16
  not make it easier for her? And like I'm just always
• 1:31:19
  expanding by. Have you figured it out?
• 1:31:23
  Kind of. Really.
• 1:31:24
  She. I can't lock her down.
• 1:31:26
  She's a slippery fish. Again.
• 1:31:31
  They are everywhere. They're.
• 1:31:32
  Everywhere. But yeah, I I love every single
• 1:31:37
  grade for different reasons. Like I love high school, love
• 1:31:41
  middle school, love the 5th graders, third grader, they all
• 1:31:45
  have their own little charms and I wish I could, I wish there
• 1:31:50
  were more Sofs so that SOF could teach more kids.
• 1:31:54
  But some of my students, like I'll see them after my class and
• 1:31:59
  they'll update me like I want to, I want to go teach kids
• 1:32:03
  outside like you do, or I'm going into the fire department
• 1:32:06
  or I'm going to college to become an EMT.
• 1:32:09
  And like, even if they're in my class, like, oh, I don't want to
• 1:32:14
  do anything after the class. They're like, that was actually
• 1:32:18
  a really fun class and I liked it a lot.
• 1:32:20
  And I can't be mad at them because that's how I was in high
• 1:32:24
  school too. Sure.
• 1:32:26
  Yeah, sure does. Do you think he gets it?
• 1:32:31
  Where's your paddle? Sure does.
• 1:32:37
  Somebody's going to hopefully comment on.
• 1:32:39
  YouTube comment. Comment if you know what that
• 1:32:41
  means, yeah. I don't know what that means.
• 1:32:44
  We'll teach you offline. OK, cool.
• 1:32:46
  So we don't. We can't reveal the secrets,
• 1:32:48
  Yeah. I feel like I might know what it
• 1:32:51
  is, but I'll ask later. Yeah.
• 1:32:55
  So. So do you think you're going to
• 1:32:56
  stick around in Southern Oregon? Yeah.
• 1:32:58
  Is this the place for you? Is this the place to put roots
• 1:33:01
  down and raise a fam and do the thing?
• 1:33:04
  I think that yes, yeah, I love you now.
• 1:33:09
  Good. Yeah.
• 1:33:09
  I feel pretty definitive about yes.
• 1:33:11
  Like maybe not Merlin Forever, but definitely Southern Oregon,
• 1:33:17
  Rogue Valley. Like my partner Daniel owns a
• 1:33:22
  tree business, 0 Gravity Tree Service. 3.
• 1:33:26
  Quotes shouts out best in the best in the valley.
• 1:33:29
  No bias here. And yeah, we just we work with
• 1:33:34
  soda and we have such like cool friends and cool connections and
• 1:33:37
  the longer we spend here, the better the network gets.
• 1:33:40
  And I get to come on the river with cool people like you too.
• 1:33:43
  And it just keeps on getting better and feeling more and more
• 1:33:46
  like home and I, despite coming from California.
• 1:33:53
  Just kidding. It's so beautiful.
• 1:33:54
  But yeah, there's a, there's a thing here.
• 1:33:57
  There's a. Thing happening here.
• 1:34:00
  Where when I had California license plates, Oregon didn't
• 1:34:04
  feel too welcoming. Yeah, like, annoyed with me
• 1:34:10
  immediately. But now I'm like, driving behind
• 1:34:13
  a California license plain like Californians like it's true.
• 1:34:18
  They drive different. You think you drive different
• 1:34:21
  now? I've always been a perfect
• 1:34:24
  driver. No mistakes, ever.
• 1:34:26
  Not one. There we go.
• 1:34:29
  It's everyone else, obviously. Yeah, I love it here.
• 1:34:34
  I love the history and, and sharing the good parts of the
• 1:34:39
  history with people and taking people downriver like it's an
• 1:34:43
  honor to share this part of the world.
• 1:34:45
  It sounds like you really embraced it.
• 1:34:47
  Like there's very few people that really come in and like get
• 1:34:52
  to know the train, get to know the environment, get to know the
• 1:34:56
  tribes that are here too. Like you're like a wealth of
• 1:35:00
  knowledge about this place and it you were didn't even like,
• 1:35:04
  you know, you weren't even raised here, didn't even be born
• 1:35:06
  here didn't even be born here that.
• 1:35:07
  Was weird, like I'm guessing that has a big, big reason for
• 1:35:12
  that is that you came here for education.
• 1:35:14
  You came here to become a student initially and through
• 1:35:18
  school get plugged into not just learning these subject matters,
• 1:35:24
  but you get directly connected into groups and organizations
• 1:35:29
  and projects that can then feed that fire that you have within
• 1:35:33
  you to clearly you have a thirst for knowledge.
• 1:35:37
  Thirst. I thirst for it, I quench.
• 1:35:42
  And the program I did was to get a masters in environmental
• 1:35:47
  education. So I was learning it to teach
• 1:35:50
  it, and the best way to learn something is to teach it.
• 1:35:54
  So every time I teach it, I get to learn more about the subject
• 1:35:58
  matter and bounce off of like a lot of the kids in this valley
• 1:36:01
  do have a lot of information and their families hunt and they
• 1:36:04
  fish and they gather and forage. And so it's cool to learn from
• 1:36:08
  them too. And that's why using the
• 1:36:11
  outdoors as a teacher as the guide.
• 1:36:15
  And I'm just like bringing the kids into that environment,
• 1:36:19
  that's the best way to learn in my opinion.
• 1:36:21
  And that's why I just want to see a lot more of that happening
• 1:36:26
  in schools, getting more kids outside.
• 1:36:28
  How often do you run into like a kid from a family like that
• 1:36:32
  where you're the educator, you're teaching them something
• 1:36:34
  that you've learned somewhere and they say that's not how we
• 1:36:37
  do it? Oh, yeah.
• 1:36:39
  I mean, they always have something to say about
• 1:36:41
  something. So like maybe on the daily where
• 1:36:44
  they're like actually Miss Mace, we do it like this.
• 1:36:47
  I'm like, that's awesome. That's great that you do it like
• 1:36:50
  that. This is, this is either the way
• 1:36:52
  that I do it or it's the way that I've heard it has been done
• 1:36:56
  by others. But there's never just one way
• 1:36:59
  to do anything. And yeah, it's always very fluid
• 1:37:04
  learning outside. And my whole plan is to
• 1:37:09
  infiltrate the public education system and turn it upside down
• 1:37:16
  so that we can bring kids outside more often.
• 1:37:19
  Like why are we keeping the kids inside?
• 1:37:21
  Crews went to an outdoor. In this environment.
• 1:37:24
  Come on, crews went to an outdoor kindergarten and it was
• 1:37:27
  awesome. Yes.
• 1:37:28
  Well, I don't want to to say that they have other.
• 1:37:31
  Things. Well, the fact that it was
• 1:37:33
  outside was awesome. I don't know if necessarily the
• 1:37:36
  program was set up really well. I feel like we were kind of the
• 1:37:38
  Guinea pigs to this first little pilot program situation.
• 1:37:43
  Chin, come on, man, Come on. He said interview my butt now.
• 1:37:50
  But I'm glad that it was there during COVID too, so I didn't
• 1:37:53
  have to mask him and I didn't have to.
• 1:37:54
  Oh yeah. Because he already had like a
• 1:37:56
  speech impediment and I didn't want him masked.
• 1:37:58
  That's. Hard, yeah.
• 1:38:00
  And I didn't personally leave in the masks so.
• 1:38:04
  Yeah, and there are. There's always things with
• 1:38:07
  certain school systems, no matter how like outdoor they
• 1:38:12
  are, you still need structure and you still need consistency.
• 1:38:16
  So like I totally understand how that can be challenging, but I
• 1:38:20
  just like I feel like the way that education is right now, it
• 1:38:25
  feels kind of like a waste of the kids time.
• 1:38:28
  Like when I think back to my public education, I didn't go to
• 1:38:31
  like a terrible school. I just went to the basic public
• 1:38:34
  school. I I can't remember like anything
• 1:38:38
  that stuck with me, that helps me in life today.
• 1:38:40
  Like we learned a lot about American history, not a lot
• 1:38:45
  about indigenous history at all, which is American history.
• 1:38:49
  So what did we really? Learn even the real history of
• 1:38:52
  how like the native situation and like.
• 1:38:55
  Yeah. What happened with that?
• 1:38:56
  Yeah. So I trust nothing now.
• 1:38:58
  All of that is. Trash.
• 1:39:00
  It was all wrong. And I could tell you the
• 1:39:04
  quadratic formula which I've never used.
• 1:39:08
  You've never done a ^2 + b ^2 = C ^2.
• 1:39:11
  Well, that's the Pythagorean. Oh see, that's how much I've
• 1:39:14
  learned. Who needs that?
• 1:39:17
  No, some of that is like really essential.
• 1:39:19
  But when I filling out my tax, there's a.
• 1:39:22
  Division in it. Do I need to know that X = -b ±
• 1:39:27
  sqrt 3 ^2 - 4 B squared -4 AC? Divided by two a that one.
• 1:39:32
  That do I need to know that? Never.
• 1:39:34
  No, someone does. No.
• 1:39:36
  I don't even know in what case scenarios someone does.
• 1:39:39
  My brother knows it because he's a math tutor.
• 1:39:41
  That makes sense. Cruz won Cruz.
• 1:39:44
  Wants to teach math. Oh, that's cool.
• 1:39:47
  He's really into math right now. Well.
• 1:39:48
  That's good, yeah. And.
• 1:39:49
  My brother. If you love math, go forth with
• 1:39:53
  that passion, sweet people. Not I.
• 1:39:57
  I love bird turtle, I love tree. I love lamp.
• 1:40:04
  Oh. Dude.
• 1:40:05
  Really. He likes you.
• 1:40:07
  That's what I'm. Saying he likes you so she.
• 1:40:10
  Loves. You embrace it.
• 1:40:12
  Snuggle thing. Oh.
• 1:40:15
  You're so sweet. Most people.
• 1:40:18
  Yearn for that attention from him.
• 1:40:20
  Yearning. I'm not I'm Jelly.
• 1:40:24
  Yeah, actually he's kind of doing something for this stretch
• 1:40:27
  that's happening. In my back, in my hips, it.
• 1:40:30
  Feels kind of nice, yeah. I'm into it for Uno memento por.
• 1:40:34
  Favor. He only does nice things.
• 1:40:37
  Very pretty purple. Flowers on the hillside.
• 1:40:41
  Shooting stars. But like, that's what I love.
• 1:40:45
  Also about outside. We could learn math outside.
• 1:40:49
  Yeah. Daniel can go outside and, like,
• 1:40:52
  pick up the right stick and hold it up to a tree and be like,
• 1:40:55
  yeah, that tree is 135 feet tall.
• 1:40:58
  I'm like, how did you do it? He's like math.
• 1:41:00
  Yeah. We can learn.
• 1:41:02
  History outside, look at this purple flower.
• 1:41:06
  This is a canis of first foods of the indigenous people of this
• 1:41:09
  land. Like we can learn any subject
• 1:41:12
  outside science, obviously light things on fire, combustion.
• 1:41:17
  Yeah. Hydrology, hydrology, basically
• 1:41:20
  everyology, mycelium. OK, that's it, period.
• 1:41:24
  Yeah, yeah, it's very fun. And like I said, I just get to
• 1:41:30
  do my passion for work. And I want to, like, help kids
• 1:41:35
  be able to do what I'm doing. Not necessarily this, but what
• 1:41:39
  is your passion and how can you do it?
• 1:41:41
  And I just had a conversation with my class the other day
• 1:41:44
  that's like, nowadays people go into their careers and they're
• 1:41:49
  like, how can I work the least and make the most money?
• 1:41:53
  That's their, like, idea of how they're going to get their job.
• 1:41:56
  Oh, yeah. Which would be sick, but.
• 1:41:58
  Or at least have the most fun yeah while working.
• 1:42:01
  Sure, these are like their criteria, but really what is the
• 1:42:07
  most beneficial is how can I use my passion to help my community
• 1:42:13
  and make money, like helping my community?
• 1:42:16
  Because it's not supposed to be about money as much as it is
• 1:42:20
  about bolstering up what's around you and supporting
• 1:42:23
  yourself, your family and your community.
• 1:42:27
  Yeah. Just takes money to pay bills
• 1:42:30
  and then pay. Use that money within your
• 1:42:32
  community to continue to support your community.
• 1:42:36
  And there's circular. Economy instead of linear.
• 1:42:38
  And we need that in Josephine County.
• 1:42:40
  We need it. Like this place has so much
• 1:42:44
  potential and so many issues within our circular economy.
• 1:42:49
  Like we have so much space and resources and good people.
• 1:42:54
  We just need to, like, start circulating the money a little
• 1:42:57
  bit more wisely. Yeah, Yeah, I'm not giving up.
• 1:43:02
  We're doing it. Don't.
• 1:43:03
  You've only just begun. Exactly, exactly.
• 1:43:06
  I got so much time, so much energy.
• 1:43:09
  I'm just sitting back and hanging.
• 1:43:13
  Haven't been much of A help this part.
• 1:43:16
  What? In what way?
• 1:43:18
  How? Dare.
• 1:43:19
  You in my in my tangent way. Oh no, I mean.
• 1:43:24
  I'm just chilling. Sophie's doing great leading
• 1:43:26
  leading the charge. I'm just yapping at the two of
• 1:43:29
  you. You're.
• 1:43:29
  Perfect. That's what it's supposed to be,
• 1:43:31
  yeah. It's the container for it.
• 1:43:33
  Exactly. Really like.
• 1:43:35
  We should talk very little. Yeah, totally should.
• 1:43:38
  Talk most. I feel like I've already talked.
• 1:43:40
  I haven't, I haven't been very, I don't know, tangent giving
• 1:43:46
  today, inquiring, inquiring. Yes, I am actually suffering
• 1:43:50
  from a chronic migrant situation.
• 1:43:52
  Oh, no, I'm sorry. So I'm lounging since I am on my
• 1:43:57
  moon. Let this.
• 1:43:59
  Be your medicine, your healing. It is and also.
• 1:44:04
  Ibuprofen. Also that that's a lab.
• 1:44:09
  And. Also pharmaceuticals
• 1:44:11
  unfortunately. Wish I could ward them off with
• 1:44:13
  something else. Put it in the comments if you
• 1:44:16
  have a remedy for migraines, but actually it's the only thing
• 1:44:21
  that I have found that's worked. I've had migraines.
• 1:44:23
  For 20 years, yeah, migraines are a real thing.
• 1:44:29
  All right, you got it. You got it.
• 1:44:31
  You got to get off my head. I love you a long time but.
• 1:44:34
  He takes. He takes.
• 1:44:35
  Instruction Well. Well, it was kind of a nice
• 1:44:39
  stretch for a moment. Yeah, let your legs actually
• 1:44:42
  relax while you lean. Where's?
• 1:44:47
  Thank you for being our captain. Truly my pleasure this is.
• 1:44:50
  Luxurious right now. We are we let me.
• 1:44:54
  Yeah, I'm going to actually go this.
• 1:44:55
  Way. Yeah, let's switch around.
• 1:44:57
  Let's. Shuffle.
• 1:44:58
  Actually this is what I needed. It's always good to shuffle
• 1:45:01
  around. I get Emily and you.
• 1:45:06
  Oh. Stop it.
• 1:45:11
  How far are we from the bridge? It's good question.
• 1:45:17
  We're pretty close. I'm pretty sure that like far
• 1:45:20
  green Forest Bend is past the bridge.
• 1:45:25
  That wooded Glen over there, you guys see it?
• 1:45:28
  Sure. It's just a complete spaghetti
• 1:45:32
  at the wall gas. Oh.
• 1:45:33
  Because we're getting we're going to hold right there and
• 1:45:36
  change the Battery heartland. Howdy, y'all, it's Heather.
• 1:45:40
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  The fact that you're out there listening to this weird little
• 1:46:32
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• 1:46:37
  childhood besties that had an idea, grab some microphones and
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  And also, here's a little fun exercise.
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  Think of the first person who popped in your head while
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  Send this episode to them. That's honestly the best way
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  All right, thanks for being here with us.
• 1:47:21
  Now let's go wildly together. What does Daniel do for
• 1:47:27
  recreation? Do you guys share the same
• 1:47:29
  recreation hobbies we. We like dirt biking.
• 1:47:32
  Together. Oh, sorry.
• 1:47:34
  Yeah, let's thank you. Thank you.
• 1:47:36
  Hat perfect. OK, now that we're here.
• 1:47:40
  Thank you for your unspoken permission to reach into your
• 1:47:44
  collar. And think.
• 1:47:46
  That something's wrong. There's a Caterpillar on my
• 1:47:47
  chin. We love dirt biking together and
• 1:47:52
  we love snowboarding together, and he had more river experience
• 1:47:57
  than I did when we moved here on the American River.
• 1:48:01
  OK. And after my first season
• 1:48:03
  rafting, I went home to my parents and I was like.
• 1:48:06
  What the hell? Mom and dad, why?
• 1:48:08
  Didn't you over? They make me rafting and they
• 1:48:10
  were like, dude, it was either skiing and snowboarding or
• 1:48:13
  rafting. Like it's expensive, we can't do
• 1:48:15
  it all. I'm like that's valid.
• 1:48:17
  Sorry, you're like watching. We only need a few outdoor
• 1:48:21
  hobbies and then we our life should revolve around them.
• 1:48:24
  And I'm like, OK, fine. With.
• 1:48:25
  Kids too like getting them equipment and they grow out of
• 1:48:28
  it and all that stuff. And rafting is like, it's a you
• 1:48:31
  got to get, you know, you don't have to, but you know.
• 1:48:34
  You need the gear is required you.
• 1:48:36
  Need the gear and you. You're gonna need a boat.
• 1:48:39
  Yeah, yeah. And you have to store a boat.
• 1:48:41
  Yeah, it's the whole thing. Or you need friends who have the
• 1:48:43
  boats and we'll store the boats for you.
• 1:48:45
  Yeah. So, Daniel.
• 1:48:47
  Comes boating how? Did you bag Daniel?
• 1:48:51
  We love a lot. More you mean?
• 1:48:54
  No, just kidding, I had to bag him.
• 1:48:56
  GBH. We went to college together at
• 1:49:00
  Cal State Monterey Bay, and he was in my Spanish class and I
• 1:49:06
  saw him from across the room and I was like, he's so cute.
• 1:49:09
  And then I just was like, because of my natural allure,
• 1:49:13
  he'll just come up to me now that I've acknowledged him and
• 1:49:17
  he never did. Rude.
• 1:49:19
  Rude. So then I was like, what the
• 1:49:21
  heck? And so I had to do all my
• 1:49:23
  investigations. Does he have a girlfriend?
• 1:49:25
  What's his deal and is he gay? Is he gay?
• 1:49:29
  Important questions And turns out that all of his friends were
• 1:49:35
  tall blonde girls. And I was like, oh God, I don't
• 1:49:39
  know, he might not like a short brunette.
• 1:49:42
  So I went up to him in class one day and I just started yapping
• 1:49:46
  at him. I was like, I like your truck.
• 1:49:48
  And he was like thanks yadda yadda.
• 1:49:51
  That day he offered me a ride home and I was like no, I'm
• 1:49:55
  getting dinner with my friend. Nice power move.
• 1:49:59
  Leave him wanting more but the next class I like dressed all
• 1:50:04
  cute in my cowgirl boots and I stuck out my thumb when I heard
• 1:50:09
  his truck coming and he picked me up.
• 1:50:12
  That's really cute. That's cute.
• 1:50:14
  And I was like, yes, it worked. And I lived like a one minute
• 1:50:19
  drive away from there. So I was like, I just actually
• 1:50:22
  live right here, right when I got in his car and he was like,
• 1:50:25
  well, do you want to just come to my house?
• 1:50:27
  And I was like. Yeah, duh.
• 1:50:30
  Obviously. And so we went there and that
• 1:50:33
  was the first time that I ever met a boy who made his bed.
• 1:50:38
  Wow. I didn't even know that any men
• 1:50:40
  or boys made their own beds. Especially at that age.
• 1:50:44
  Yeah, at 19. We met at 19.
• 1:50:46
  So. You saw his bed.
• 1:50:47
  And I was like. What?
• 1:50:49
  About to mess that up. All his dishes were done like
• 1:50:52
  his house was clean. I was like, I had no idea this
• 1:50:55
  even was a thing. And he was just so sweet and
• 1:50:59
  silly to me. And then he I was like getting a
• 1:51:02
  tour of his house and I saw a motorcycle in the garage and I
• 1:51:06
  was like, whoa, whose motorcycle is that?
• 1:51:08
  And he was like, oh, it's mine. And I was like, cool.
• 1:51:12
  And he was like, do you want to go for a ride?
• 1:51:14
  And I was like, yeah, I do. And then we went on a sunset
• 1:51:19
  motorcycle ride on Hwy. 1 in Monterey and dolphins were
• 1:51:24
  breaching and I was like touching his abs and and shit.
• 1:51:28
  And I was like, this is this is happening.
• 1:51:31
  And I will like never forget that moment.
• 1:51:33
  And then we've talked every day since for the past 10 years, and
• 1:51:37
  we're in love. It's so fun.
• 1:51:44
  I feel so blessed to like, have met my person at such a young
• 1:51:48
  age and to be able to, like, start my life with them.
• 1:51:51
  What are his red flags? Well, everyone has them, right?
• 1:51:55
  They just depend on what they are and how big them flags.
• 1:51:58
  Are he's like, he's like, what is a red flag?
• 1:52:04
  I mean, he's bald. Well, I don't.
• 1:52:09
  Really scare. Her is he?
• 1:52:12
  Like bald Reese because of hair recession or he chooses to be
• 1:52:17
  bald. No, it's bald because of hair
• 1:52:20
  recession. And that's OK.
• 1:52:22
  Yeah, yeah, that's why I'm like, beautiful red flag.
• 1:52:26
  No, he he a recent red flag is like he breaks his body somehow
• 1:52:32
  every other year and I have to nurture him back to health.
• 1:52:35
  So he likes semi diets and then you have to bring him back the
• 1:52:39
  leg. Like can you stop?
• 1:52:40
  Getting into that reminded me of, I said like a bald joke in
• 1:52:43
  front of Robin and he's like, I'm bald.
• 1:52:46
  I'm like. Not you.
• 1:52:47
  I don't consider you bald. He's like, I am bald and I'm
• 1:52:50
  like, again, I don't see you as bald and I have to.
• 1:52:54
  Like, well, he is bald so I love bald.
• 1:52:57
  J sees himself as bald. Gotta be mindful of what you say
• 1:53:02
  around people about their own kind.
• 1:53:05
  It turned into a funny moment. I did not.
• 1:53:08
  I didn't feel bad or nothing. It was.
• 1:53:09
  We laughed about it. It was silly.
• 1:53:11
  It was, yeah, We make fun of it all the time.
• 1:53:13
  And he's like. Just the most.
• 1:53:15
  Motivated person that I know. And when I met him I was like,
• 1:53:21
  yeah, I'm going to be a teacher so I'll be pretty poor for the
• 1:53:23
  rest of my days. And he was like, not if you
• 1:53:26
  stick with me, like we can make it work.
• 1:53:29
  Like we'll, we'll make money in our own special way.
• 1:53:32
  And I was like. That's what we will.
• 1:53:34
  Oh, we will. OK.
• 1:53:37
  And yeah, we, we. Live in our house, which is on 2
• 1:53:40
  acres and Grants Pass, and we have, like, a bunch of majestic
• 1:53:44
  oak trees and an oak Savannah. And, like, we just get to tend
• 1:53:48
  to this little plot of land. And we love gardening together.
• 1:53:53
  And we have a dog and we love going on hikes.
• 1:53:56
  And we just love to exist in the world.
• 1:54:00
  In Southern Oregon. Yeah.
• 1:54:01
  In Southern Oregon. Because it's so good.
• 1:54:03
  How do you balance property management, maintenance and
• 1:54:07
  recreation? Oh, it gets really hard in river
• 1:54:11
  season when I'm living in the lodge as a Little River gremlin.
• 1:54:16
  It's hard to to balance because everything kind of dies.
• 1:54:21
  Luckily he's an arborist so he can maintain the trees.
• 1:54:25
  Yeah, he, our trees are super healthy, but the veggies like
• 1:54:29
  our heirloom tomatoes are squash.
• 1:54:33
  We have little pests that like you kind of need to check on the
• 1:54:35
  plants every day and just like give them a once over and be
• 1:54:39
  like, oh, there's a bunch of squash bugs on the squash and
• 1:54:42
  like pick them off by hand. So those things fall by the
• 1:54:46
  wayside when I'm on the river. But we're setting up systems and
• 1:54:50
  learning every year. Like I grew up in a place where
• 1:54:54
  the conditions were too gnarly to garden, so we didn't do any
• 1:54:59
  of that. So that's another new skill that
• 1:55:01
  I'm learning, being blessed by these Southern Oregon
• 1:55:03
  conditions. Tis the climate?
• 1:55:06
  It's the climate. That's what Miley was singing
• 1:55:10
  about. It's the climate.
• 1:55:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much, Sophie,
• 1:55:22
  for your time and your energy and your knowledge and your
• 1:55:26
  whimsy and such a fun friendship and it's been really.
• 1:55:33
  You got to come. Great.
• 1:55:34
  You have to come to Emily's summer party.
• 1:55:36
  Yeah. I feel like you'll be such a.
• 1:55:37
  Good addition, I hope you have to party.
• 1:55:40
  If you're available. It'll.
• 1:55:42
  Be in sorry because summer summer.
• 1:55:45
  I'm inviting in September. OK?
• 1:55:49
  I think I'm available that day. Yeah.
• 1:55:51
  Quick fun fact before we wrap up, for those of you who don't
• 1:55:54
  know, when a woodpecker is creating a hole in a tree, it
• 1:55:58
  wraps its tongue around its brain to protect it from
• 1:56:03
  shattering its brain inside of its skull.
• 1:56:05
  So anytime you hear a woodpecker, any species, Peckin,
• 1:56:10
  it's licking its own brain. And I just felt like the people
• 1:56:14
  needed to know that. They do, yeah.
• 1:56:15
  Butterflies taste with their feet.
• 1:56:17
  That's so cool. Fun.
• 1:56:19
  Facts. Awesome.
• 1:56:24
  Thank you guys for having me. We'll do our should we do our
• 1:56:26
  wrap UPS? Yeah.
• 1:56:27
  Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you so much.
• 1:56:29
  OK, I will do the first wrap. What is your favorite piece of
• 1:56:34
  gear? Well.
• 1:56:36
  I I am not like the biggest gear head, so I would say that it's
• 1:56:40
  my cowboy hat Yeah, I bring it everywhere.
• 1:56:43
  I was gonna guess sparkles I glitter is not necessarily my
• 1:56:47
  gear. Look how many puppies this guy
• 1:56:49
  has A. Lot of puppies like 12345678.
• 1:56:54
  That's a lot of little Piper. Ribs.
• 1:56:57
  They must breed them. Yeah.
• 1:57:01
  Cute. My hat is is a multitude of gear
• 1:57:05
  that I use. Sorry, that is the most
• 1:57:10
  distracting, cutest little bundle of fluff.
• 1:57:14
  I'm back and. Action.
• 1:57:19
  Great, and this is your piece of advice for your younger self.
• 1:57:27
  Don't take life seriously, just have fun and be whimsical.
• 1:57:33
  Period. Pert.
• 1:57:34
  Oh, yeah, Pert, cool. And what would be your piece of
• 1:57:42
  advice for somebody looking to get into what you do, let's say
• 1:57:46
  what you do for like fires, Like how does somebody get in touch
• 1:57:50
  with like the prescribed burns and learning about them and just
• 1:57:53
  like, how do they get plugged into that world?
• 1:57:56
  Yeah, go to the RVPBA Rogue Valley Prescribed Burn
• 1:58:01
  Association website and they send out prescribed burns.
• 1:58:05
  There's one coming up this Saturday and there will be more
• 1:58:08
  throughout the spring. Can you volunteer?
• 1:58:10
  You can volunteer with no experience and go on a
• 1:58:13
  prescribed burn and learn the ways and you can get as closer
• 1:58:16
  as far as you want to like. It's just a way to expose the
• 1:58:19
  community to this awesome practice.
• 1:58:21
  I didn't know you could do that. Yeah, RVPBA.
• 1:58:24
  And if you want to come help us maintain trails, Southern Oregon
• 1:58:28
  Trail Alliance on Facebook, instagramand@sotrails.org.
• 1:58:34
  No southernoregontrails.org. We send out invites to come out
• 1:58:39
  and work on trails and hang out with cool people and eat good
• 1:58:41
  food. Yeah.
• 1:58:42
  And then potentially meet you, and then they can get plugged
• 1:58:45
  into rafting. Potentially, Yeah.
• 1:58:48
  And you go leisurely too, like you go.
• 1:58:51
  I go with friends. I love a private trip down the
• 1:58:53
  river, it's super fun. Awesome.
• 1:58:58
  And if when your body expires and your soul leaves this plane
• 1:59:03
  of existence, how do you want to be remembered?
• 1:59:05
  Just a small, small casual question.
• 1:59:09
  I want to leave behind what the place that I am.
• 1:59:15
  I want it to be better than I found it.
• 1:59:17
  So I'm sustaining. I'm making a garden, helping my
• 1:59:21
  oak trees be healthy. Like even if it's just a small
• 1:59:23
  plot of land, I want it to be better than I found it.
• 1:59:26
  I want to pass down seeds to my children that I have like
• 1:59:31
  cultivated throughout the years. Like I think seed passing is
• 1:59:34
  really cool and I have already had the honor of influencing
• 1:59:40
  young people to contribute to society through forestry and
• 1:59:45
  caring about the outdoors. So like I, I already have
• 1:59:49
  fulfilled such a beautiful thing in doing that, like hearing
• 1:59:53
  students give me that feedback. So if I can continue to do that
• 1:59:57
  and continue to just network and create a mycelium like network
• 2:00:05
  with the people to help the forest, that's what I want to
• 2:00:08
  leave behind. What a great answer, dying girl.
• 2:00:12
  Let's do it. And if people want to, you kind
• 2:00:16
  of already touched on this a little bit, but if people want
• 2:00:18
  to meet you, find out more about you, get in touch with you where
• 2:00:22
  they find you, if you want to be found.
• 2:00:25
  I am on Instagram at Sofmace SO FM A/C E Feel free to request to
• 2:00:32
  follow if you want to see some adventures and whimsy.
• 2:00:36
  But come out to some trail days, that's where I usually am.
• 2:00:39
  Come out to some burns, that's where I usually am.
• 2:00:42
  It's really fun to hang out out in the forest.
• 2:00:45
  That's the best place to do it. Hell yeah.
• 2:00:47
  Yeah, where you? Are your most natural self.
• 2:00:50
  That's where I'm, that's where I'm sofing the hardest.
• 2:00:54
  Love that to be confused with sofa.
• 2:00:58
  And also we're putting on like a community wildfire engagement
• 2:01:02
  event in Ashland at Science Works on May 2nd.
• 2:01:06
  So there's going to be tons of like cool tablers and
• 2:01:10
  informational things. And there's going to be like a
• 2:01:12
  live performance from Ballet Folklorio.
• 2:01:15
  And we're going to, I'm going to be doing like live fire
• 2:01:18
  demonstrations for educational purposes.
• 2:01:20
  There will be movie screenings and tons of community gathering
• 2:01:24
  around Wildfire Resilience on May 2nd at Scienceworks in
• 2:01:29
  Ashland, so if you guys want to come to that, it's going to be
• 2:01:32
  pretty awesome. Sounds.
• 2:01:33
  Sick sounds. I love that, yeah.
• 2:01:34
  Yeah, thank you. Wonderful Fire fingers.
• 2:01:38
  It's like jazz hands about fire. Thank you, Sophie.
• 2:01:42
  Thank you. Thank you truly.
• 2:01:43
  Thank you. Looking forward to more time
• 2:01:45
  with you on camera and off camera.
• 2:01:48
  Yes, me too. Sophie, thanks, guys.
• 2:01:52
  Like, follow, subscribe, share with a friend.
• 2:01:55
  Leave us a comment. Tell us how you like this
• 2:01:58
  episode. Does Sophie remind you of
• 2:02:01
  somebody in your life? Send this to them and get
• 2:02:04
  connected with Sophie. All right.
• 2:02:07
  Bye. I'm Emily, I'm Heather, and
• 2:02:09
  together we're go wildly. Huge.
• 2:02:14
  Thank you to Sophie for floating along with us and sharing her
• 2:02:16
  passion for environmental education.
• 2:02:18
  Be sure to check out southernoregonforestrestorationcollaborative@sofrc.org.
• 2:02:26
  Also, the Southern Oregon Trail alliance@sotrailalliance.org and
• 2:02:32
  the Rogue Valley Prescribed Burn Association at R.
• 2:02:35
  VPB. A.org.
• 2:02:38
  And if this fire lit an episode inside of you, Yep, I'm leaving
• 2:02:43
  that in there. Come see Sophie in action.
• 2:02:45
  The 3rd annual sparking action event that she mentioned is
• 2:02:48
  happening May 2nd, 2020, sixth at Science Works in Ashland.
• 2:02:53
  It's a free community event with live fire demonstrations,
• 2:02:56
  wildfire preparedness activities, and local
• 2:02:58
  organizations sharing resources. All ages are welcome, and it's
• 2:03:03
  free. Learn more at sofrc.org.
• 2:03:07
  And if this conversation made you want to get out on the
• 2:03:09
  water, good. That's what we all want you to
• 2:03:13
  be doing. Row Adventures runs multi day
• 2:03:16
  guided river trips on Wild and Scenic rivers across the West.
• 2:03:19
  And Go Wildly listeners get $100 off any trip in 2026 or 2027.
• 2:03:26
  Use code Go WILDLY at rowadventures.com for new
• 2:03:30
  reservations only, nothing you already have booked.
• 2:03:34
  Ask for Sophie if you're going on the Rogue and go wildly with
• 2:03:37
  Row Adventures. All these links are in the show
• 2:03:40
  notes, so go outside and go find your.
• 2:03:43
  River. That's a wrap on this episode of
• 2:03:47
  Go Wildly from the bottom of our backpacks.
• 2:03:50
  Thank you for listening. We know you enjoyed the show, so
• 2:03:53
  tap, follow, tell a friend or two, and leave a quick review if
• 2:03:56
  you can. It makes a real difference.
• 2:03:59
  Your support allows Go Wildly to reach new listeners and bring
• 2:04:02
  more outdoor stories to the mic. Until next time, go Wildly and
• 2:04:07
  go outside.