Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Bound for Nowhere on the Quest for the Perfect Overland Vehicle, Exploring Alaska, and Realizing Childhood Dreams

Transcript

Bound for Nowhere on the Quest for the Perfect Overland Vehicle, Exploring Alaska, and Realizing Childhood Dreams · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journals podcast. My name
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is Ashley Jurdano and I'm senior editor at Overland Journal
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and Expedition Portal. And we're here at Overland Expo West
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: in Plague, Staff, Arizona in our Black series podcast Trailer Extraordinaire.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm here with two special guests today, Mack and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Owen from Boundford nowhere. Welcome guys.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Ashley, this is such a treat.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Yeah anytime.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: And special thanks to the New England Overland Rally for
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: supporting this week's podcast. The New England Overland Rally will
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: bring together Overlanders, adventure travelers, outdoor enthusiasts, and specialty exhibitors
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: from throughout the Northeast and further for a fun and
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: informative weekend of camping, educational classes, vendor demos, live music,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: and even culinary creations. Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, located in
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: the quiet northeast corner of Connecticut, is within an hour
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: of several major cities, including Boston, Hartford, and Providence. The
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: New England Overland Rally will be one of the largest
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: gatherings of overland and outdoor enthusiasts in the Northeast and
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: the fall is a wonderful time of year at the track,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and they have more than two hundred acres for camping,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: vendor displays, food and beverage areas, and parking. For more
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: information and a register, please visit Neoverland Rally dot com.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You guys have done extensive vehicle travel through North America
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and Mexico. Seems like you've learned a lot about vehicles
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and the creative process and probably each other and yourselves
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: along the way. I'm wondering, like, how did you guys
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: get into this?
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: I feel like our story kind of starts a lot
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: longer ago than the version that I guess we are
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: talking about now. Owen and I post college. I think
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: that it was two weeks after I graduated from college.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: We just kind of took our savings account and my
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: Honda Element and hand me down tent for my parents,
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: and we just kind of hit the road. It was
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: greatly inspired by something that my parents instead after college.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: When Owen and I started dating, it was an idea
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: that he had always been really intrigued by, and so
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: he was just like, we should do that. I'm always
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: game for anything.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Like that. So we just decided.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: So we took our meager amount of savings and we
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: got on the road and we were able to travel
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: for about six months with that money and our objective.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: It was only like six grand, so we really didn't
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: have very much to take with us. We ate a
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: lot of canned chilis and things like that, but we
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: just wanted to go for as long and as far
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: as we could. I am an army brat and had
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: lived outside of the United States for most of my life,
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: and Owen was born and raised in the Southeast.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I hadn't had a chance to see much
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: of the country at all. It was a nice opportunity
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: for us to shop for a new place to live.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: That was sort of the objective.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, looking for the place.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: This was in two thousand and eight, so the economy
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: was it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: Was twenty twelve.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a little big difference. Twenty twelve.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: The economy wasn't doing super well. We were fresh out
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: of art school and people weren't hiring artists to and
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: particularly not moving them across the country, and so we
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: kind of realized over the course of that six months
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: that we actually fell in love with the movement more
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: so than one particular place, because I think that we're
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: also huge suckers for falling in love with everywhere, because
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: everywhere has something really special and unique and interesting to offer.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: We just really wanted the movement more so than anything else.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: So that was kind of the inspiration for this two
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: point zero version that we're doing now.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: We spent a lot of time just getting ourselves prepared
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: for this new version. That's just like setting up our
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: careers so that we could work freelance remotely and then
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: bop around indefinitely.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Nice. So when you finished up that trip, what happened
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: after that? Did you start looking for a vehicle? Were
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you trying to set up to work on the road?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: How to know?
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: So that was so we just we actually ran out
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: of money in Colorado and Owen's family were in Atlanta,
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: and we had just enough money to get back to Atlanta,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: and so we kind of raced back and it felt
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: like maybe two weeks later you had a desk job
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: working in a studio.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: Just to go back a little bit, we were in Denver,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: Colorado on that trip, and our friend was cat sitting
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: the entire time, and he called us and said that
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: the cats had fleas and that his entire house now
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: had fleas and he was panicking.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So he had no idea what to do about it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: At that point, we were so low on money, we
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: were just like, all right, screw it, let's just drive
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: all the way back to Atlanta. We took care of
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: the fleas luckily, and then yeah, I fell into a
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: job pretty quickly, just because I'd been working before we
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: left in Atlanta, and so it was just kind of
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: an easy segue back into normal life, you know, a
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: few years later, we had bought in a house in Atlanta.
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: We were like kind of settling in, and all of
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: a sudden we started panicking.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: We were both working in a studio at that point,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: and we were both taking on additional freelance work, and
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: we are moonlighting, just doing that at night. And I
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: think it was like eleven thirty at night one night,
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: we were doing work on top of our studio work,
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: and we both looked at each other and we were like,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: what is going on, Like this is not how we
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: envisioned our lives. You know, we love this house, but
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: this is just not what we pictured for ourselves at all.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: And so that night we actually kind of sat down
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: and made a plan. We put a date on the
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: calendar two and a half years in the future, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: we left on that day.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Wow, on that date.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It left on that day.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: April nineteenth, twenty sixteen.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like you were pretty young at that point.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: The thing is like, once you realize what you love,
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: it kind of feels like puts everything into perspective. You're
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: willing to do anything it takes to make that possible.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: And we realized that our jobs weren't actively going to
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: be something that was going to help us live on
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: the road, So we needed to put a date far
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: enough out that would give us the opportunity to reform
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: at our careers to be able to take with us.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: And so that was kind of the biggest thing that
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: we needed to prepare. And then the other thing was
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: obviously we didn't have a vehicle at the time, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: the Hanta element unfortunately was not going to cut it
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: for full time travel. So we just wanted to make
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: sure that we had plenty of time to make that
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: transition and to do all of the prep work. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: that was the hardest two and a half years probably
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: of my life to know that you want something and
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: to see it in the future, and to just I
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: would sit in the driver's seat of my car in
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: my office and I would hold onto the steering wheel
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: and I would just be like, well, what if I
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: just kept driving? What if I didn't stop until I
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: got to the Grand Canyon? And it was just it
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: took everything I had to go into that job, but
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: I think it instilled a sense of tenacity to fight
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: for what we want and patience.
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Sure, oh my gosh.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: What steps did you take in order to prepare to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: transition to be able to work on the road during
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: those years?
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think that I stayed in that job
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: for just over two years when we got back. When
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: we made that plan, I actively started trying to take
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: on more and more work at night so that I
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: could eventually quit my day job then I could start freelancing.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: And I guess essentially we were trying to groom our
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: clients from that point on, just like we went ahead
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: and told them what the plan was, and I think
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: that most of them were like, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: They didn't really think it was actually going to happen. Yeah,
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: just we spent a few years just trying to build
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: up that client base, warned them ahead of time that
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: we were going to be remote, and luckily both of
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: us kind of stumbled into jobs that were remote friendly
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: well before COVID. It was just kind of training these
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: clients and letting them know that we were going to
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: be gone, but also building up that business in the
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: meantime to make sure that be sustainable.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's kind of weird to have to fold your
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: clients into what your personal life looks like. It's like,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: just so you guys know, we're going to be moving
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: into our car, we're going to be traveling around, but
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: don't worry. We'll still be here for you. We'll still
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: get your work done. And I think that, as silly
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: and ridiculous as that was, it's instilled a sense of
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: community in us with our clients because whenever we chat
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: with them, they're like, where are you, what have you
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: been doing, what have you been seeing? And I think
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: that because there's more of a bond between us and
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: our clients, our business has grown exponentially since we've gotten
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: on the road because there's a personal aspect to working
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: with us, and I think that people enjoy that and
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: then they pass us on to other people who need
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: the type of work that we do. So yeah, it's
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: been it's been a really lovely process. And then we
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: get to go visit them too, because most of them
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: were not in Atlanta, which is where we left from.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: It's kind of cool that we get to catch up
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: with all these people that we work with out the
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: year and then to be able to see them in
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: their home turf.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: I do motion graphics, and so we were doing a
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: bunch of stuff for TV and small startups in Atlanta.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: There's a big broadcast scene there, so we were doing
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: TV show titles in credits, lower thirds, things like that,
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: and so that just luckily segues into explainer videos. Illustration
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: is also involved in design in general. So I have
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: like these three kind of things that I like to
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: do and live in.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I left behind. I was doing apparel branding,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: so I would design textile graphics. It end up on apparel,
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: and that isn't something that is really easy to take
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: with you. So I was just transitioning more into like packaging,
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: graphic design and illustration. That wasn't ever really my passion.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: It was just something that I was doing so I
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: could transition into full time freelance work because pre COVID
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: world you had to have something that was very specific
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: to being freelance. And luckily you know that there's so
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: many more options for people now since then. My work
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: is trained position greatly into just photography and filmmaking.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Did that come out of your schooling or did you
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: kind of pivot to something that was a little bit different.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: So my degree is not at all what I'm doing.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: So my degree is in printmaking. So I have a
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: fine art degree and I am not currently or actively
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: making fine art anymore. But I think that when you
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: go so we met, we met in college, we went
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: to art school together. We are on the swim team,
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: which is where we met. I think that if you're
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: trained in art and design, you can take that eye
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: with you to anything that you do. And I feel
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: like that was actually a really empowering aspect of going
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: to art school is just realizing what a collaborative environment
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: looks like and you don't necessarily have to have all
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: the skill sets to do something. As long as you
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: can surround yourself by the right people, you can make
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: anything that you want to make, which has greatly led
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: me to photography and filmmaking.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you had a good background in photography, and I
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: did study motion graphics, so my schooling was in fact
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: what I do now.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So you guys were on this path to taking jobs
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: on the road and making that transition. You also had
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the vehicle to decide on. So how did that process go?
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: We're hopeless romantics and so naturally a Volkswagen Van again
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: was going to be our first rig. I had always
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: wanted one, and in fact, when we were on the
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: road that first time, we met a guy in the
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Badlins who had this adorable, like rusty orange Volkswagen Van again,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: and we hunkered down for a storm and we hung
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: out and had dinner and a couple of beers with him,
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: and we're like, oh, this is it. Like if we
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: ever do this again, like, this is the rig. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: will say from a livable standpoint, there's no better interior layout,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: in my opinion, than a Volkswagen Van again with the
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: full camper interior.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: So that's what we started with.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Like almost immediately, I believe that night that we put
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: the day on the calendar, I was just like, oh,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: look at all these vanigans for sale. I guess this
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: is just like what we're going to do, and that
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: did end up being what we did. We paid for it, like,
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: we bought it, and then we went to go pick
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: it up and it wouldn't start, which was a huge
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: sign for things to come. It was a huge ruds
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: flag that we clearly ignored.
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot of foreshadowing there.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you're not the only one. No, I
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: had a good community of support.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure it was fully stock when we bought it,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: and we did the best we could to make it
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: as reliable as humanly possible before we got on the road,
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: because we were fully aware of the fact that it
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: was not reliable. For instance, Owen wouldnt let me drive
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: it to work until it started for twenty consecutive times
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: with no issue, and I was able to drive it
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: to work like three times. This is a great car
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: to like shove your life into and travel the country with.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so we did a lot of work to it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: We did a suber swap, we did a bunch of
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: transmission work, a bunch of rewiring. So we took about
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I think we had it for over six months before
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: we hit the road to do as much work to
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: it as humanly possible.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: I think we actually had it for over a year
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: before okay, yeah, yeah, because we ended up sending it
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: out to Colorado to get all this work done and
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: then blew out there and did like a test drive
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: back and I.
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: Think that that went well.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: I think it was without a hitch, so we were like, oh, yeah,
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: this is great, it's going to work for sure.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: We broke down within two weeks of being on the
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: road full time, so it didn't last long.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Was the vision that you had of living on the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: road what the reality.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Was so that I feel like that's a That's an
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: interesting question because it's kind of a loaded question. I
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: feel like because people always asked was a huge transition
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: to get on the road and the answer is no,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: for sure, because we had wanted it so bad for
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: so long that it just kind of felt like a
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: sense of relief once we finally made it happen. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: think that we were a little it was a little
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: jarring for our van to only make it to Vegas
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: before it broke down for the first time. We actually
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: broke down outside of the Hoover Dam. I think our
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: You'll Pump went into vapor lock because it was so hot.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it was a little jarring to get on
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: the road. Oh and we were also broken into in
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Miami in the first two weeks.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the honeymoon period like we really didn't
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: have one because immediately we went into like the sobering reality.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: We started in our Lando, we dropped down to Miami
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: and the Keys, and then we stopped in Miami on
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: the way back. A week into it, someone broke our
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: window and stole some food out of our fridge and
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: a bunch of.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Like daving gear and they bled all over our van.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: It was, Yeah, it's a pretty invasive and yeah, I
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: think that pretty yeah sobering, as you said, to get
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: on the road and immediately have a break in like that,
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: And we had a safe luckily that had our camera
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and computer equipment, because we probably would not be on
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: the road today if that stuff was gone, because it
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: would have been such a financial hit right away that
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: we probably would have it probably would have stopped us
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: dead in our tracks.
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: It was just this weird little triangle window up in
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: the front of the van and a storm was coming
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: and we were driving all the way back to Orlando,
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: so we put like a trash bag like out in
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: that corner and just looked it as fast as we
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: could to Orlando, just to try and get into a
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: garage or someplace dry before it just got totally soaked.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: That's so hard when that happens to you feel violated,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: like very yeah, your house has been broken into, similar obviously,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and the weird vibe and feeling comfortable in it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: And we definitely there was no grace period for us
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: to so reality hit kind of hard.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But I think that as much as that stuff was a.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Bomber, we were also just so elated to be doing
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: what we had worked so hard for, so we kind
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: of just we just pressed on. We just took the
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: punches and did our best to recover and kept moving.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: And I think the interesting thing is too that no
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: matter the fact that we're the same people in each
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: of these vehicles we've done, it's each vehicle has also
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: like had a very different experience and a very different
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: lifestyle comes with it. So with our van again, it
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: was a lot of stress and anxiety about the mechanics
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: of the vehicle itself, and then we traveled a lot
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: in our Tacoma and that was really just more focused
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: on us and what we were doing.
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: And then in this newest version.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: With the four wheel camper, it's sort of like this,
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: it feels more like our regular life, almost back at home,
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: because we're getting to do work and career stuff as
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: well as traveling and all that stuff. Because yeah, like
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: the coma didn't really offer us a workspace. We were
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: just like sleeping in a coffin in the back.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Right, What have you learned from that progression of vehicle?
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I think that the biggest takeaway is that even though
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: these vehicles are very much a part of our team,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: they all have names, care about them, and we love them.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: But the thing is, at the end of the day,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: if it's not helping us towards our end goal, it's
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: nothing personal like we just need to We're just so
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: dedicated to doing everything that we do to the best
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: of our ability, and if a rig is not assisting
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: in that process, we just have to move on. We
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: just have to We just have to do better, because
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: at the end of the day, this journey is about us,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: it's not about it's not about a vehicle. So it
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: was always just hyper focused on what was going to
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: be best for us and our needs at the time,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: and so the progression has just been tailoring and trying
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: to figure out what that is.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Can you take me through the vehicle builds?
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, So it was a nineteen eighty five Volkswagen
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: Van again, and then we realized that we really wanted
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: four by four because a lot of the stuff that,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: you know, all of the recreational activities that we love
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: to do, are usually down really challenging roads. So we
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: were like, oh, we just are hopeless romantics for these
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: old rigs. So we ended up with the nineteen eighty
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: five Toyota sun Raider. Apparently there was only like twenty
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: one of them ever made, and we somehow ended up
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: with one fully original, but we wanted to do a
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: little bit of updating to be able to house our work,
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: and that took about nine months, and then we were
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: in it for two weeks, I think, is all we
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: made it, and yeah, it was such a bummer. There
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: was just again, in two weeks after doing this nine
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: month build, we were already having mechanical issues and we're like,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: we just clearly have Stockholm syndrome and are just ending
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: up in these vehicles that are just so demanding of
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: our time and our energy, and not that there's anything
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: wrong with that, but as people who have to rely
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: on it to get into service to send files for work,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: we just we couldn't trust it, and so we just
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: realized that we needed four by four, but we also
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: needed trust. So we didn't know what was next, but
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: we just knew that over the course of that nine months,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: we had kind of lost touch with why we were
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: doing what we were doing, and we just felt like
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: we needed to refocus, recenter, try.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: To figure out why we were doing all of this.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: And so that's when we ended up in our two
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: thousand and eight Toyota Tacoma with just a bedcap, like
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: just your run of the mill up and a basic
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: build in the back.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we were We had just driven the sun Raider
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: up to North Carolina, so we had only made it
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: a few states up and that's when we made this realization.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: In North Carolina, I hopped on Chraigslist and we bought
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: it Tacoma there and then drove them both back down
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: to Florida, where we sold the sun Raider, built a
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: little that platform with drawers, and then left in like
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: the course of a weekend.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, seriously, we turned around. It only took about three
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: days to sell the sun Raider, but it was really,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: really lovely. We had so much interest on our sun
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Raider that I was able to choose who purchased it.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: We were able to make sure it was going to
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: somebody who really understood what it was and that it
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: was old and special and deserved to be cared for
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: in the way that she deserved to be cared for.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: So we ensured that she went on to another family
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: that was gonna care for her as much as we had,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: but she obviously just couldn't be a part of our
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: life going forward. And then while we were in the
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Toyota Tacoma, we went up to Mainline overland because we
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: were heading up to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, so
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: we stopped in Philly to chat with them, and we
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: knew that four wheel campers had been pretty high on
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: our list, and we just loved the floor plane of
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: the flatbed and it felt like it was going to
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: give us everything that we had built in the sun Raider,
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: but then the reliability, trust, and all of that good
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: stuff that you get with a new vehicle. So we
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: stopped in and had an incredible conversation with them, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: we put a deposit on our build the day that
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: we took the ferry to Newfoundland.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So it was like, you guys, move fast.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to say, you know, like when
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: you know, you know, you know, like, yes, that's just
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: what it is. And I think that again, the whole
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: sun Raider situation just brought everything into hyper focus. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: then we realized that we were unwilling to sit still
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: while the new build was happening. We wanted to continue
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: to move until the day it was ready. So that's
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: what we did. We lived in the Tacoma for nine
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: months and we went as far north as Labrador. Winter
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: set in and very early September up there, and then
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: we kind of raced our way back south. But it
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: was an incredible time. And I will say that that
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: was the Tacoma was the hardest one for us to
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: sell because it had just like it felt like it
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: gave us our life back. And I think that you
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: really can't put a price on that. If it felt
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: like it had been you know, you've just been struggling
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: for so long.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: It felt like it really let us fall back in
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: love with being on the road. And yeah, just focusing
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: on the travel itself versus the vehicle.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys were talking about how the vehicle basically
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: helps you complete your why and why you do what
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you do? What is the why? What's the what?
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: We're just like, I can only I feel like you're
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: you should have a separate answer for this.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I feel like, because you know, but no.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: But for me, I do this because I'm in search
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: of inspiration for my work. I am a very creatively
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: driven person. I feel like I'm I'm willing to suffer
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: for my art. I just if I'm creatively fulfilled. Like
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm living the life that I'm meant
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: meant to be living. And I am very inspired by nature,
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: wildlife and the people that we meet along the way,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: and I feel like those things just keep me extremely
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: hungry to keep moving.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: So the vehicle is like a reliable platform for you
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: to get out into nature, or it's a facilitator well, yeah,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: which then fuels your creative process.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: Ye.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: It allows us to chase what inspires us.
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: And I think that there's, you know, like something to
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: be said about constantly being not necessarily in a state
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: of uncomfort. But I feel like there's this thing in
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: society now where everyone just gets comfortable and they just
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: like kind of go through cruise.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: Control through the rest of their lives. And I think
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: that there's something to.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: Be said about being comfortable but being uncomfortable, and so
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: I think that that helps us be a little bit
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: more elucid and aware of things and like just take
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: more notice of the things around us. And I think
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: that that's also a really big thing that drives me,
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: at least to keep traveling, is we're constantly learning about
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: ourselves and about the world around us. We're talking to
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: people that we might never meet, getting influences from them, which, yeah,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: like greatly helps us grow as people.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Okay, we have actually been sitting still for the last
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: couple of months, somewhat against our will, and I think that.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: So we got on the road to come to Overland
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Expo for the first time in the last couple of months,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: and Owen and I on the drive over here, we
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: took like a week to do it. We just kept
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: saying it felt like a part of our brain goes
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: to sleep when we live in a homelike environment, and
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: it feels like we're waking back up getting on the road,
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: like we're just so much more attentive. We see details
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: in the landscape and you know, and all sorts of
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: things that we don't otherwise see. So it's just like
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: this part of ourselves that goes dormant when we're in
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: a comfort, like a truly comfortable environment. And I think
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: that we just like the people that we are when
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: we're more just like aware and at tune to like
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: what's going on around us, and being on the road
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: and this constant state of change I think really keeps
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: you sharp in that way.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to spending that much time outside and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: really noticing sunrise, sunset, you know, whenever I'm inside, I
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: am not necessarily aware of what's going on outside, ye
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and so feeling the temperature and all that really makes
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: you feel more connected for sure.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is actually a recent realization I've had while
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: we were in Alaska this summer. I think that we
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: all know that we like came from nature, like it's
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: you know, like we know that, but I think that
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: when you spend so much time in it, I'm starting
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: to like feel this sense of being home, like when
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I'm in the outdoors more more so than I am
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: anywhere else, and I think it's just this connection to
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: this this place that we all have come from but
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: often feel very separated from. I always joke that when
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: I'm inside and I see it's sunset outside, like I
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: have like this weird sense of fomo from like not
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: knowing what's like when if I don't know what the
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: moon phase is, like I'm kind of like bombed about that,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: and I'm not like into what is it astrology? Like
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: I'm not even into astrology, but I just like to
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: I just like to be in tune with what's going
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: on in the natural world around me.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: So you guys went up to Alaska last summer, Yeah,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: this past summer, But tell me more about that trip.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: We started in Bellingham, Washington. At the time the Canadian
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: border was closed because of COVID, and we took the
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: ferry up to Juno, which was in itself one of
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: the highlights of the trip was just that two and
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: a half day ferry up there.
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: Hung out in Juno for a while, and then.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: We ferried up to Haynes and then drove all the
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: way up to Fairbanks and then just journeyed all around
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: the main sections of Alaska. Did our best to get
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: out there into some pretty wild places too. Yeah, it
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: was just a really interesting and I don't know, a
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: really refreshing experience for us, because with COVID and borders
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: being closed, we kind of fell into this sort of
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: like familiar loop for a few years, and it was
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: just nice to kind of break that cycle, see something
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: new again and like really have that feeling of like
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: a renewed sense of excitement.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Alaska, I feel like, to a certain extent, is
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: on everybody's bucket list. But Owen and I we have
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: these places that we both as kids, I think would
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: flip through old National geographic magazines and just like, really ogle.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: I think that the first one of those is actually
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: the Racetrack and Death Valley and to see that and
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: grow up and you're like, man, this just feels like
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: it's on another planet. And then to finally make it
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: to that place as an adult and to realize that
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: you've made a bunch of decisions that have led you
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: to this thing that was so inspirational to you as
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: a kid is a really magical experience. Getting to Alaska
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: and to see the fishing bears and Capmi, which is
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: a very very famous waterfall where the bear and while
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: we were there, we saw forty bears at any given
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: time fishing this one waterfall. And to be able to
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: know that you have the power to turn like childhood
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: daydreams into a reality for yourself as an adult is
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: like a really magical feeling.
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: I feel like that's I'm more proud of those accomplishments
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: than like anything career wise, just being able to like
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: make my childhood self really proud.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, that's so cool.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's really awesome.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Like, for instance, in Alaska, I was able to surf
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: the Boretide Wave, which is this really unique wave that
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: happens twice a day during a title shift. It's just
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: a single wave, so if you miss it, like you're
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: out for twelve hours, like you'll have to come back,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: I can try again. I ended up getting in the
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: water with that wave six times, and I only successfully
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: stood up on the wave I think two or three
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: of those times. But that was a wave that I
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: learned about when I was eleven, and I had wanted
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: to surf it when I was eleven. And it's so
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: funny because I do feel like your goals change as
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: you become an adult, but to like know that my
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: interests have still kind of like kept this quiet burning
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: flame inside of me. And again these like crazy, unrelated
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: decisions that led me to the ability to get to
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: that point to ride the wave. After I did, for
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: the first time successfully ride that wave, I got out
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: of the water and start crying because it's just like,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: it's such an emotional experience to be able to like
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: make your own dreams come true.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Completely overwhelming.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great, and I will chase that feeling to
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: the end of the earth.
• 25:44
  Speaker 7: This content is brought to you by Overland Journal, our
• 25:48
  Speaker 7: premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in two
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: thousand and six with the goal of providing independent equipment
• 25:57
  Speaker 7: and vehicle reviews, along with the most stunning adventures and photography.
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: We care deeply about the countries and cultures we visit
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: and share our experiences freely with our readers. We also
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: have zero averatorial policy and do not accept any advertiser
• 26:15
  Speaker 7: compensation for our reviews. By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: helping to support our employee owned and veteran owned publication.
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: Your support also provides resources and funding for content like
• 26:30
  Speaker 7: you are watching or listening to right now. You can
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: What other things did you guys learn from that trip
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: about yourselves? By the way, this is the third podcast
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: at Overland Expo. Or somebody who's been like tearing, well,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that's a good tign.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I'm glad because I feel like I'm always the one
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: who ends up crying, and it's just like that crazy
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: girl who no, no, no, super emotional about like the
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: stuff that she gets to see, which you know, it's
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: just a sign of how thankful I am for it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: But we went to.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Alaska, as cheesy as this sounds, with like really heavy hearts.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: We had had three pretty major family losses over the
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: course of a very small amount of time, and so
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I think that the both of us were kind of
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: dealing with like a huge weight of grief that was
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: kind of showing up in weird and unexpected ways in
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Alaska and just having so much space because it really
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: was just the two of us. This summer kind of
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: really allowed us to push through it and realize what's
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: important to us and what we want out of our travels,
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: out of our professional lives, out of our personal lives.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: It just like gave us the space to process it
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: in a way that I don't know that we would
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: have if we were in one a familiar place with
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: a bunch of people, like we would have never been
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: able to sort through that. I'm definitely an meditate in
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: motion kind of person, and it definitely gave us the
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: ability to sort through it all.
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: I think being in a sort of far flung destination
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: where there's not a network of people we're familiar with
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: or support of us, so that we were completely self
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: reliant for the most part and we were mostly alone.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: I can only think of one single night the entire
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: time that we were camping with someone else, or the
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: three and a half months, and I think that, Yeah,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: just having that time to ourselves to really process things,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: just talk about it, and it's kind of therapeutic in
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: a way, process the grief.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: Mm hmm.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And you guys were sharing that story while you were
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: on the road by filming.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so we filmed what ended up being a fifteen
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: part series about it. The series is called Lost and Found.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: I wonder what the title means. We showed up in
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Alaska feeling really really lost, and I think that there
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: was a lot of guilt that came along with that
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: because we were stressed from work, we were sad, and
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: it just felt like maybe we weren't being as attentive
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: to this thing that we had been looking FOURD too
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: for so long. But I think that over the course
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: of the time and then the additional time spent editing
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: that series, it really gave us the opportunity to turn
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: all of those experiences over in our hands and examine
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: them and realize, is, like, how far we really have
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: come mentally and emotionally from like when we first got there,
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: just somewhere out there and the vastness of it all.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: We definitely found ourselves.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Was it hard to turn the camera on sometimes when
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you were goat? Yeah, yeah it is.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: But the thing is, I found that all of the
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: moments that are hardest to pick up the camera for
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: are the ones that I'm the happiest to have in
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: the future because those are those are the moments that
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: are really transformative. Those are the ones that like really
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: informed the person that you're going to be going forward.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: It's really special to be able to have that to
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: look back on. We always joke that we make these
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: videos they're just like glorified home videos for ourselves, like
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: they're not for anybody but ourselves, and I'm really, I'm
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: really thankful to have these experiences to look back on.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting too because we kind of do things
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: a little bit differently, where we film everything for the
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: whole three and a half months and then we go
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: take a look at it and decide. And I think
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: having that hindsight really helps us see like how we
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: started versus how we ended, and kind of create this
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: arc and figure out interesting points that we want to hit,
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: the moments that really like were special to us.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that, you know, everybody has a different
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: process for how they create video work. But I kept
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: a journal for the entire summer, which also I feel
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: like was a very smart idea for like remembering some
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: of the minute details. But I think also to help me,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: like remember some of the harder days that I feel
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: like I have a hard time remembering if I was
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: just going to think back on it myself. But then
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: when we came to start to like rough out the
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: fifteen episodes, like Owen mentioned, we're writing a story arc,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: but like none of it is like manufactured. It is
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: what it happened as it happened, But it's just so
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: cool to see the whole thing laid out like that,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: and then to break it into individual episodes in the
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: story arc that happens within those episodes, and how that
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: kind of stacks up against the overall story. And it's
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: kind of weird to look at your own life that way,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: but I think I do find it to be very
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: very cathartic, and I think that half of the personal
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: development that is happened and has been because of the
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: editing of that series, as hard and challenging as it was,
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: make fifteen episodes just the two of.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Us, that's a big undertake.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: It is it won't happen again. We must hire an editor.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: How did you guys balance experiencing versus capturing.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: That's a great question, and it makes me happy. We've
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: had a lot of people ask us here at Overland
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Expo about that process, and it makes me very happy
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: that they're thinking about that, because I think that we
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: live in a very binge worthy society where everybody just
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: like wants but they're not thinking about what's happening behind.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: But that is very contrary to what people have been
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: asking us, So it makes me really happy that people
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: think about that. For us, we're very communicative of how
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: we're feeling and how we're doing, and we'll film some
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: stuff and then maybe there'll be like four or five
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: days where we don't film anything because we just need
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: to have some time to ourselves. Because if we're not
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: having a good time, nobody who watches this series is
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: going to have a good time.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: So we just needed to make sure that we.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Were staying in communication with one another and checked in
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: make sure that everybody was doing okay throughout the process,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: because it's exhausting, it's a lot of work, but also
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: that's just how we I think that's how we experience
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: places like I would have my face pressed up against
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: a camera regardless if I was ever going to make
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: something out of it in the end, because that's just
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: how we kind of process and enjoy and make art
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: around the things that we get to see and enjoy.
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that that pretty much sums it up.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: What's your advice about creating like a narrative storytelling piece
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: with those arc if people want to put together their own,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I guess writing piece or a video. What are some
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: things you've learned along the way in terms of story.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I will say that we actually watch a
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: lot of really incredible film breakdowns, and I have no
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: interest in writing a screenplay or ever filming a screenplay
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: of any kind.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: But I think that just like learning like.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: What a successful story looks like from a mechanical standpoint
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: is really important to being able to like work backwards
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: and create one out of your own story because, like
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: I said, we're not fabricating anything.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Everything is just kind of how it happened. But the
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: funny thing.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: Is, like you have all of the pieces to write
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: an incredible story out of your own because you have
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: all of the information at your fingertips, but just to
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: like know what that looks like. Lessons from a Screenplay
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: is our favorite YouTube channel that kind of breaks down
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: story arcs all sorts of different like character development ideas
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: and things like that, And so you just have to
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: like take that technical information and point it back at
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: yourself be able to write a good story. But I
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: think that having an overall outline for like the story
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: that you're trying to tell highs the lows, like all
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: of the things that contribute to the development of the characters,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: which are ourselves. But I just think it's like really
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: important to like write it all out right, and I
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: call it a skeleton of our series. I try to
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: like write the skeleton out and then I fill it
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: in with the footage that we actually have.
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think our particular style doesn't do a
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: lot of talking heads stuff, so it's mainly it's almost
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: like your all montages. And then like at the end
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: of the day, Matt can kind of go back and
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: see how she was feeling because she writes in her
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: journal the kind of like get those feelings, and then
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: she can and write and eloquently describe those things and
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: just like how we're feeling, and you get to do
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: some research and talk about the education of the area
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: and the history and things like that that get USh
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: jazzed up. I mean, I don't know if everyone else is,
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: but yeah.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, seeing the whole experience through is really helpful because
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: then you see the story like start to end is
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: always going to be helpful. But much like Owen said,
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: like looking at it as a whole, and then so
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: the vast majority of our storytelling is done through voiceover. Again,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: it's just such a nice way to take it all.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: Process it. Write something eloquent, because I know what I
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: would say in the moment would just sound completely dumb
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: by comparison to what I could write after the fact.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: So that's why we tend to shy it. We do
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: shoot talking heads, and sometimes we'll use snippets of them
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: because that's like how you can work your personality into it.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: But I think that from the overall story I am
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: telling the story after the fact.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You guys are really passionate about I would say like
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: tread lightly, principles and leave no trace and leaving it
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: better than you found it, and conservation. Why is that
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: so important?
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: Raised by a woman who like everywhere she went, she
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: was like, I leave a place better than I found it,
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: even if that was just like a rental car. My
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: mom was like, this will shine right of them when
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: we got it. And I think that she just like
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: really instilled this idea that we have to like take
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: care of the places that we go to. And I'm
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: very thankful for that because it is very informative of
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the person that I've become. We spend ninety nine percent
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: of our time on public land. Our way of paying
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: it forward. We don't pay to be there. It's like
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: I guess our right or whatever. As Americans like we
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: all have access to these beautiful spaces. I want to
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: make sure when I come back that it's going to
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: be there, that it's going to be taken care of,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: that it's in the same condition that I left it in.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: I also want other people to feel the same way
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: about it. And the thing is like, it's all about
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: connecting with the places that we go to, and if
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: you care about it, you're going to connect with it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: The more people that connect with these wild places, the
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: more people that will care about them, the more people
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: that will stand up for them, the more people that
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: will vote for them, the more people that will ensure
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: that these places are there in the future for us,
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: our grandkids, everybody in the future, because we all deserve
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: to know these places.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's kind of a big conversation. I
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: think that one of the biggest things too, is if
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: you like going out and seeing these places, you just
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: take care of it, because if they become trashed, they're
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: going to get closed.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: Then everyone loses.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: And if you see it happen time and time again,
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: and the more places that close means more.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: People are crowding up the other spots.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: So I just, yeah, I think it's really important to
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: have that education out there for everyone just to help.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: It's for the greater good, I think, And I think
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: that it's important for us to highlight that kind of
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: stuff so that even if it feels like common sense
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: to us, you know, maybe it's not for someone else.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: And you know, you don't want to come across as
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: dick or anything like that when you're like saying these things.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: And I think, just to do it in the most
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: organic manner, just showing how we do it, and maybe
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: that can rub off and domino effect can happen.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: And yeah, studies I believe. I read one study, but
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it shows that if you leave your campsite, the next
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: person's more likely too.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: I think it's called the broken window effect. Like if
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: a house has a broken window, there's more likely to
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: be more degradation done to the house because they're like, oh,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: really nobody cares about this, so I can do some
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: damage to it too. So I think that we always do.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: You know, we really have so little space. But I
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: carry contractor trash bags. I use our Winch gloves for
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: picking up trash, and I have like one of those
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: cool little trash grabber.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Things feel very official when.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: I'm out there with it, but it's but we tried
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: to take absolutely everything humanly possible that we can out.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: It's not uncommon for us to end up with our
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: entire back seat full of trash bags, or our entire
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: camper full of trash bags. And I'm filling my house
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: with other people's trash, and I'm willing to do it
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: because I care about these places and I want to
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: ensure that they're around for everybody.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: One conversation that was brought up at a panel here
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: yesterday was the tendency to throw trash into the fire pit.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's another thing to be aware of and
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: thank you for doing that. Yeah yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: I mean the other thing is like I can enjoy
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: place and tell like I can't sit back and enjoy
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: the sunset until I've like cleaned the area, like if
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: there's track, like I will not be able to sit
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: there and enjoy myself. So it's also kind of selfish.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: I'm just like I can't, I can't. I can't sit
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: here until this is done. Like we must put your
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: gloves on. We got we got work to do awesome before.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: We wrap up there's one question that I'm going to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: steal it from Scott Brady today, but he always asks
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: everybody in each podcast, what's your favorite book?
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: And why?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I know it's so hard.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: I think that my favorite book that I've read, the
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: one that jumps out immediately when you say that is
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: The Emerald.
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: Mile, which is, yes, have you read it?
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's so good and yeah, I thought that was
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: just a really great story, intertwining a specific narrative along
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: with the history of an area, and yeah, just fantastic story.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So for those who haven't read The Emerald Mile, it's
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: about oh my gosh, it's about so many things, but
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it's about so many history of the Grand Canyon and
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the incident where the damn.
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: Bro Yeah, yeah, part of that restreet.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they were like nailingie of plywood on top of
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: the damned Hoover Dam.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Just to be clear, Yes, I.
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: Don't think it was. I don't think it was the
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: Hoover Dame.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It was the Canyon Dam.
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And then this wild man gets into boat and rides
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the wave.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: Because they were trying they were trying to set a
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: speed record paddling through the Grand Canyon. But it just
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: is like this incredible like intertwined history of the Grand Canyon,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: the first people to like lay first, like Westerners to
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: lay eyes on it, the native people who used to
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: live there. Is just like so much good information about
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: so many good things.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Like an incredible feed of journalism. How long do you
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: think that took to put together?
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: It's so funny when they would bounce between storylines. I
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: was just like, I'm exhausted for the man who wrote this.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: This is insane. I think that one of my favorite
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: books is The Endurance. It's about the Shackleton expedition that
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: went to Antarctica. Their ship ended up getting crushed by
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: the ice, and they survived out there for well over
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: a year and they ended up making it home. It
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: was just the most incredible survival story. Shackleton was just
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: the most incredible leader, kept his team together, well, you know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: he kept morale as good as you can in a
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: situation like that. But the leadership that it took to
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: get them out and the tenacity that those people had
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: is just absolutely incredible. We love a good adventure story.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Speaking of adventure stories, what is next for you guys?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: What is next?
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of things on the horizon for us,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: and we're really excited. We do have a new series
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: that we are going to be working on this summer.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: We're going to be checking off the last of our
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: North American bucket list items.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: A lot of well the United States, oh.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, the United States specifically, but we're going to
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: be heading up into the northern Midwest to hit a
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: bunch of like seldom visited national parks, a lot of
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: We're going to have some floatplanes, possibly some ferries, some canoes,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: all sorts of really cool different modes of transportation to
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: get to these hard to add access places. Lots of
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: multiple hundred mile hikes. We got a lot going on.
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: Exciting.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really excited because it feels like that area
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: of the country like when people set out to travel,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: they always go west and you have to like make
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: a point to be in that particular area of the
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: northern Midwest, and it's eluded us for far too long,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: and we are going to put an end to that
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: this summer. Yes, yeah, But other than that, I think
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: that we're starting to look ahead to international travels because
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: it feels like the world is opening up a little
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: bit so we can finally make that happen. We've only
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: been waiting for like two and a half years. Same, Yeah,
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: I hear you.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Wherever you're going, we're going, okay, perfect. Yeah.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to follow along with your next adventures. And
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: if anybody wants to find you guys, or follow your
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: adventure or watch all your great content on YouTube, or
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: watch your adventures in Alaska via Last and Found, where
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: can they find?
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So we're bound for nowhere in all of the
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: places on the internet. So that's on Instagram, you do,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: our website's bound for nowhere. I think if you just
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: type in bound for nowhere, we should come up somewhere
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: along the way, I think.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys so much for spending this time
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: so much. Thanks so great chatting with you and learning
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about your past. And yeah, thank
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: you so much for sharing.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: Happy to share a lot of people helped us get
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: to where we are, so we see sharing as just
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: kind of a way of paying it forward to help
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: other people get out there.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Sharing is caring, that is yes, it is cool. Well,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: thank you guys, and thank you to the Overland Journal
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: podcast listeners for tuning in to another episode. And we
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: will see you next time.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks hie by