Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Adventures in Automotive Journalism with Chris Collard

Transcript

Adventures in Automotive Journalism with Chris Collard · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overlain Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Matt Scott, and I'm here with the illustrious automotive journalist
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Chris Collard. Thanks for coming on.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're super excited to have you on. Chris
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: has a phenomenal story in the automotive overland off road world.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: He's one of Jeez, I mean you're you're one of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the big boys of automotive journalism and in the off
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: road space. You've been You've been doing this for a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: lot longer than I have.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Matt, did you get a contractor in large that door
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: so I can get my head out? Leave it's swelling?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate the compliment. But you know what, I'm
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: just a normal guy. Sure, I'm just a normal guy
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: just doing some really cool stuff.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: And a special thanks to on X for supporting this
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: week's podcast. Are you tired of searching for a campsite
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: only to find it packed or off limits? With on
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: X off Roads new Motorized Dispersed Camping Layer, you can
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: now see legal off grid camping spots in national forests
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: right in the app. Plan ahead, avoid the crowds and
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: camp confidently. Knowing you're on public land where it's allowed.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Download on X off road today and find your own space.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Thanks again on X.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So you started, you've been doing this for decades. We
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: started working together in G'Z two thousand and eleven when
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you're the editor of Overland Journal. You know, I always like,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I think I learned a lot from you. You've always
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: been very professional in this space, particularly in a space
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: where people will seem to be becoming, you know, maybe
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: less and less professional, a little bit more casual. Like
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you've always maintained this very very you know, professional standard
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of your work. And it's just so good to have
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you on man.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, Matt, it's been a long time, shich we've sat
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: at the table together, so I'm glad.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: To be Usually there's tequila involved, but it's a little
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: too early. It is. It is noon o'clock somewhere. It is.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of a story in Baja. So the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: three o'clock down, Julio, stop, you know what became a trend?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Well, it's near it's near three somewhere, oh jesu. Okay,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Well we didn't bring the tequila, so I'm just excited
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: for this. So have you given anything interesting lately.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I've got my dodge up here with a camper on it,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: which is interesting to me because I'm not used to
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: have actually having a camper.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It's like the life of it. Like the the Unicorn
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: dodge that you found, all right, and it had like
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: no miles on it. Yeah, what's going on with that thing?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Just happy camper?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It still has twelve miles on it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: It had super low miles one on er.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, what year is it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It's ninety nine with a five point nine comings, So yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I love it. It's awesome. So it's my it's my
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: toe rig. Yeah, you know it's not I have a
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: you know, a pop up camper on it right now.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And it's not like a vehicle that I would take
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: down to Baja because you would just shake the thing apart,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: so to speak, and the stuff that we do. But yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: it's exciting and on the back of it, I've got
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: my expedition.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Cheap awesome a trailer. Well you have marks? Is this
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Mark Smith's.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: It's one of the five, so it's not his personal,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: but it was one of the five Expedition Day Las
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Americas CJ seven's.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I would love for you to school me on that trip.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Well, we can do that. We'll go for a drive
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: later on and you can drive it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So for those there's there's a part of the world.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: If you're familiar with this podcast, you probably know what
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the Darien Gap is. It's it's the unpassable piece between
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Panama and Colombia that well, you just can't drive through there.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: There's a myriad of reasons why there's no highway connecting it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: You know, we've had a look, we've had a little
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: bit of a drug problem in the last fifty years
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in this country, most countries, so that keeps a nice
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: little buffer between the Colombian band band and the supply roots.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But you can't drive through it. And jeezus, when when
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: did they do that trip?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So that was in nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So a little backstory on it is that Mark always
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: had the dream of driving from Shwaya to Prude of Bay, Alaska,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: so basically tip to tip, across the Americas and cross
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the Daring Gap. Prior to that, John Blastfrid Snell had
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: done it with basically with the British Army and the Panamanian.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Arty had some support.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: They had three hundred people and they had huge support.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: But Mark's dream was to do it. I mean, he
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: was one of the founders of Jeepers Jamboree, and it's like,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: we don't need all that, we can do it with
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: just five vehicles and you know, thirteen guys. And that
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: was his dream. So they got some support from Jeep
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and basically the jeep gave him the vehicles and yeah,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: shipped him to Laparaiso and drove down to Shuaya around
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and headed north.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, how long did it take them to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: The whole trip was about six months six months and
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: about twenty one thousand miles. The dairy in section of
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: it was thirty one days.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of time. In the jungle.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: John blasher Snell was ninety days. So they barely made
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: it through the dry season. What is considered the dry season.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Dry sea is just less wet inter it's just less wet.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it was they you know, they came in
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: from from the south, so they got to to Turbo
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: and put the vehicles on a barge and across the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Trotto and Upo Kakaikas and basically dropped them all on
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: a swampy embankment north of a village called Rio Americana. Yeah,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: and headed north and at that time, the Pan American
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: pan American Highway it stopped just shy of Yavisa.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just still ends there.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Now technically it does. Yeah, that's as far as you
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: can go without permits, and if you have permits, you
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: can you know, you can get actually into the Darien proper.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And is that because it's also a tribal area.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So on the on the Panamanian side, you've got Kuna
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: is the primary tribe on the Panamanian side, at least
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: south of Avisa. It's different if you go towards the Caribbean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: and then once you get into the Colombian side, it's
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: in Barra and they don't like each other. Yeah. So yeah,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: it's you're absolutely right. It's a it's historically, i mean,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: going back four hundred years, it's like it's you know,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: it's tarbon, which means the stopper, which means it's just
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: don't go there.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a really tall fence between neighbors. But
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you know, going back to Mark Smith and all this stuff,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that's kind of in a way your story kind of
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: starts and revolves around this in some way. You know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: back when you're a ups driver and kind of the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: area of the Rubicon, Georgetown kind of area I think,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and you were you were delivering to Mark Smith and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: this like this was a side hustle so to speak,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that became a full time job of passion and you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: led you to be like this very experienced and respected person.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So what was that What was that journey like for you?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Because I think there's a lot of people out there
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that can really relate to, you know, having a normal
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: job and daydreaming of of adventure and you were able
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to turn your life into it.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know I was in the area. I mean,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: first time on the Rubicon was eighty four. I had
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: just gotten a tote World I pick up and I thought,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: all right, you know, don't tell me you were born
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: that year, man.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I was born in the nineties.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that fits things in perspective. And one
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: of the old guys that they used to call old guys. Yeah,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: so I'm super familiar with the area. Been up there,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you know, it was like the place to go is
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: kind of where we I learned how to drive technical trails.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But if we heard that Mark Smith was going to
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: be up there, it was just like, oh, no way,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Mark's going to be here. It's like, man is like
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: flying into the springs. I'd love to meet him. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: years later I ended up, you know, as a UPS
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: guy and I was just UPS driver, and we kind
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of we talked, and he realized I was in that
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: four row dive circles and asked me if I wanted
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: to start working with him and his team on some
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: of the events with Cheap Cheap jamb Usa around the country.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: So I started traveling on weekends at two different different events,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: and at one point I was I was on a
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: flight with Mark bor of course I always got first
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: class because he was like golden medallion, diamond whatever, and
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: he bumped me up to first class with me with him,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: and he was, you know, he's kind of drilling me.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, what are you going to do?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: You like being a UPS guy, And I'm like, well,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I mean it's a good job, and I'm not gonna Yeah,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: it's good pay, good benefits, all that stuff. It's like it,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you know, but I dream of doing other stuff, and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I dream of being a photographer and and he says, well, kid,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: you better get off your beat and a family friendly
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: comment there, get off your ass and do it. It's
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: like nobody's going to do it. Nobody's going to help
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you do it unless you make a decision to do it.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: And it was kind of a you know, I had
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: a couple of people that were that really prompted me to,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: you know, just jump off the bridge. Yeah, you know,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: prepare myself.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: For it, but jump off the bridge. Yeah. Yeah, because
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: it's you know, these days, being a being a content
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: creator or being a you know, I mean even to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: some degree a journalist or you know, YouTuber or whatever.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It is like it's not as big of it, you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: jump as it used to be. You know, this was
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: it was not a normal career path.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Certainly, we were shooting film. You know, it was the
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: film days. It was before there was anything called social media.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: So if you got your information, it was from the
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, the Internet was there, but it was just
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: coming about, so to speak, and you know, information was
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: conveyed in newspapers and magazines and yeah, that's so, what was.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: The first story that you got published?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: It was actually on South America. The nineteen ninety eight trip. Okay,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: so that was the nineteen ninety eight there was a
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: twentieth anniversary reunion trip back to South America with three
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: of the original expedition cheeps. I found out about it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I was a UPS guy, and I'm like, I'm like, hey, well,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: what how do I do?
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: How do I can?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I can I go?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And I was able to be part of.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: That project, which was amazing.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So the journey kind of kind of starts in nineteen
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: ninety And then where did that trip start?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It was started in Oakland getting the vehicles on the
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: ship and containers and.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: They were they were the three of the original c
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: J five seven sevens okay.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah uh. And then basically we flew in you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: into Alparaiso. It spent about four or five days getting
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: through customs in Dwana and and then started from there.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it was it was it was really cool
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: to be involved with that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And then what was the route for that trip? Was
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that another dairy?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: No, it was not, No, So for clarification, it was not.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: It was just South America and it was from basically Lima,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Peru across to Bolivia. Okay, yeah, Puno down from Bolivia
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to Argentina and up there Chili.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It would have to have been crazy to go to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: some of those places late nineties, and it was. I
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: know that it wasn't that long ago, but there's you're
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: saying like there's no internet, there's no digital cameras, there's
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: no anything like there's very little internet and there.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to make a call. I had a
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: phone card that you know, you put the you can
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: make a call at a payphone and then you dial
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: in your your code for the credit, and then it
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: puts you through to an international.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know that was a thing.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a thing. We have these things called
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: dial phones back then too.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I was so different world though. But you know, in
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: contrast talking with al and like Banjo Bob, the ogs
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: that were on that trip with us, there's so much
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: even in nineteen ninety eight, there was so much more
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: pavement than there was just twenty years prior. And it's
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I have a vehicle in Uruguay that I've had in
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Chili and in anyway bought it with a friend of mine.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Is not the one Christians? Yes, yeah, yes, the Forerunner, Yes.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: The for Runner awesome, but there's so much more payment.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: And you know, you jump forward in other twenty years
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and South America is still on and the wild, but
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: you have to get try a little harder to get
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: off the beaten path.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So where did that story? So that's
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, and where did that story get published?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It was in four World Driven Sport Utility magazine, so
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: one that nobody remembers now it was.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: It was a big deal.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: It was a big deal back then. Yeah, and yeah,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: so I was trying to get published in any I
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: mean I started writing for my Foorl Drive Clubs monthly newsletter.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like just like, okay, I got to this year, and.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Then the cal four Wheel monthly newsletter, and I mean
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: you got to when I when I jumped off the bridge,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I bought a book back guy named John Shaw, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: in there was a very valuable message and it was
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: that if you want to sell a photograph, you need
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: to sell it with a great story. Yeah, because the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: times are changing in most media outlets, it's like you
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: got to give them a turnkey package. And I did
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: not know the difference between a comment a period at
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the time. English was my least best subject.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: We have that in common. But when I started, yeah,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: he used to edit my stuff, you.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Know, So I went back to school. I'm like, okay,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I got to learn the difference between killing and the
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: semi coolon in sentence structure and you know all that stuff.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So it was that was a really valuable lesson and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: to touch on something that you said earlier about professionalism
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and quality of content. I was in Northern Greenland with
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: a guy named Franz Lanting. He's a national geographic photographer
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: and residents and he knew the direction I was going.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: This was a paid, paid photography workshop that I was on,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: and he just said, he goes, never let anything out
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: in public that's not absolutely your best work, because it
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: will come back around. If you throw something out there
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: that's just half witted, yeah, fits crap, it will come
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: back around.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That's hard going to have your name on it. Yeah,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: because there's so much volume of content, Like I struggle
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: with that. On like Instagram, you know, you're you're like
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: part part of I think being in medias you kind
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: of have to have a little bit of a social presence.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: But then you're like, do I post the iPhone photo?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Do I post this like is it? Is it?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: You know, like you're you're trying to all right, all right,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So I did a photography column for for Tread magazine
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: for a couple of years, and you know you mentioned
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the iPhone. I also do commercial photography or RAM trucks
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: and deep and auto manufacturers and stuff. The iPhone. Those
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: listening you can't see. I have my iPhone in my hand,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: iPhone fifteen. They're amazing. They can't do everything, But can
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you use the published I mean, that's what everybody's using
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: for social media.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I use it now for like interior photos, for like
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you know, for automotive reviews.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's so because I mean it's such a it's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: just a wide angle. It's there, and I mean lenses
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: are expensive these days, you know, so.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: They work great. So you know, there's an old adage
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that the best camera for any photograph is the one
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: that's in your hand or your pocket. So don't worry
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: about it. Use your iPhone. They're amazing.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Oh man, So you've written for I'm going to collectively
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: say everyone, which I think is cool, but also a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: lot of international stuff. I know that you've done a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff with like four by four Australia. You've
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: ran for some Russian magazines, you know, that is what's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: what's that like to not only contribute in the market
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that you know in the United States, but then also
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I mean in countries that don't even share in alphabet.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It's wonderful because you meet so many people. I've met
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: so many people. I mean the way that started. I
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: was at the Sema show around two thousand and two
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: thousand and one something like that, when I was just
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: getting going and I Gary Monica Wescott. Of course, yeah,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: they had their turtle, Yeah, the Turtle five was there
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: on display. And I accidentally stepped in front of a
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: guy that was taking a picture. And I realized that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, excuse me, sorry, and he's like, oh,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: he's okay, it's okay. I'm like, accent. I waited till
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: he was done. I said, where are you from? And
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: he reaches out his hand and to shake mine and
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: he says, I Andre Ford for magazine Moscow and Matt.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It just like it turned a light bulb on in
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: my head because I was busting my tail trying to
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: do an article and you sell it to one outlet
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: and obviously you can't sell it to a bunch of
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: outlets because you know, that's just taboo. Nobody buys anything
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: from you again if you do that. But it turned
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: on the light bulb, so I said, we need to talk.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And I spent the next you know, six or seven.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I still actually still do. I'm always hunting down new outlets.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: But I spent the next six or seven years finding
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: magazines in Italy and France and Spain and the UK
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: and Australia, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Malaysia. I mean, go down
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the list, all non competing, mostly different languages. They don't
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: care if that story is in a you know, a
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: different country, in a different language.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So it's one package that you can deliver, that's.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Right, and they translate. I translated the first few to
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the Spanish magazine. I'm like, this doesn't work, you know,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: if it's not your native tongue. So it not only
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: from a business standpoint, it allowed me to do a
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: story wherever it was or whatever it was, and sell
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: it to a whole bunch of different outlets. They didn't
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: pit on, but the aggregate made it worth you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: made it worthwhile. But even more than that, like I
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: remember the first Outback Challenge that I shot in Australia
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: five I was able to and I was kind of
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: like the wild card coming in somewhat of an unknown,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: but Jim Jackson was like, oh yeah, okay, I'll support
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: you and getting down there a little bit. He was
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the guy that brought airb to the America US and
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I was able to put that story out to maybe
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: ten different international magazines, and so the promoters at the
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: event were like, I love you. They're like, come back
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: next year. And then on the next event, I would,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: you know, Croatia, whatever it was. I would say, hey,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm Joe, journalist in the United States, interested in
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: your event, but I also do this is what I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: just did on the last one, and people look at that.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: The promoters were like, we want that kind of exposure.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it kind of snowballed in a good way.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So let's fast forward to like kind of the mid
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: two thousands, and that was kind of your first big
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Africa trip and you've been back a lot, but what
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: was it like the first time he got off the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: plane there in Africa?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Magical? Yeah, So that would have been in two thousand
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and two and I went with my college roommate Andrews,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and we just went into Cape Town. We hired a
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: vehicle for a month, Yeah, and I had it was
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: a toy to highles with two rough top tents on.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It had a kind of a defined route but undefined
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and that we were going to go anywhere we want,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: but we had to be in a few places because
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: of the reservations in the national parks and stuff. Uh,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you know, and it was awesome. It was like just
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: so what was you guys?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: What was your vague route?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: We went just north, crossed over at Orange River Canyon
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: on the border in Namibia and spent quite a bit
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: of time and then maybe because is fantastic, Yeah, Socifully
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: and the Quivertry Forest and up the Skeleton Coast. Actually
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: they won't lay in the Skeleton Coast, so we went
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: around the backside. We might have gotten in trouble.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: There's a few rivers you can drive.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, the Oana and the Warusib they all they
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: all lead into that. Yeah, the Skeleton Coast, the Himba
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: area up to the north.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: The Himba peop were super cool. The the hack for
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: getting into the Skeleton Coast is if you want to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: go camping, you have to get like proper permits. But
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: if you stay in the one of the lodges, either
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: in Movi Bay or Terrace Bay, then you have access.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: You just you can just walk right in and you
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: don't have to do because it's it's not easy to
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: get permits there. Right.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: We ran into one of their patrols, so we went
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: like I think it was the warusib is the one
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: to the south and then up the mountain range and
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: they came down the way and yeah, we ran into
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: their one of their patrols and said told us that
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: we weren't supposed to be there. And I was like, okay,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: well is this part of your concessions, your concessionaire land
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And he was like, well, we just don't like people here.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I'm like, but it's not that we're not allowed to
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: be here. You just don't like people here, like he
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: didn't like us. It wasn't being a jerk. I'm just like,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: this is open land for non you know, not clients.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh. Africa is just such an interesting thing.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: You know, It's been a place that I love and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it's so accessible.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I've said this before on the podcast but for what
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a trip to Europe will cost you. You know, it
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: always these overlall trips always seem, you know, from the outside,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to be like very expensive, right, And they're not cheap, right,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Like you're going to have to put some work in
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it and save some money and whatever. But for the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: cost of a European holiday, you can do one of these,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: one of these adventures in Africa.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: You know, Matt, you can, and you know, you know
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: you've done stuff. So I think most people, I think
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: fear is such a limiting factor in our lives and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: everybody's lives, my life, your life. People that have a
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: normal job that you know that think of Africa. Can
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I go there and just hire a vehicle which means
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: brent a vehicle and just take off with a map.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: It sounds really scary, yeah, but it is totally attainable
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and doable. And like you'll run into mom and dad
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: with their two kids from England or from New Zealand
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: or whatever, and they're doing the same thing you are.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: They got a map and they got a vehicle and
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: they're just going and checking out Africa and they're camping
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: at riverbeds. I mean, it's it's not unobtaining.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I you know, it's it's cheap to run
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a highlux It's obviously cheap to cook your own food
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: versus you know, eating that emission or whatever. You know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: it's all about it's all about those trade offs. But
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it is, it is doable, and you know, you you
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you're a byproduct of the information you take in. And
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of the information that we take in leads
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: us to think that the world is not a super
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: safe place. But you can face the same issues anywhere
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in the world, right you have to. You do have
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to have a good understanding of of where you are.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: You don't want to put yourself into bad situations.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: You're not going to go just meandering around part parts
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: of Cape Town.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's just.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: But you're not going to meander around parts of Los
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Angeles or New York or other the.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Same thing rural America is generally nothing's ever going to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: happen to you. Nothing's going to really happen to you
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: in rural I mean there's no people and all I
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: mean there.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Are But so last night I camped on northern Idaho.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Coming up here, I just pulled off a canyon and
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: camp next to a river. No, I mean I feel
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: as safe there as I did in camping and places
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: in them Bibiator Zimbabwe or the Zambia short of we
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: don't have lions. Yeah, elephants and you know babminons that
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: are going to come in and shred anything you leave
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: on the ground under your tent or net track.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I remember wild camping the first time, was wild camping
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and heard a lion. Oh yeah, and that is an
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: interesting one. You're not You're You're actually more prepared for
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: it than you think. Like it in locks some something
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: deep deep down inside. But so let's go to let's
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: go to another trip. So two thousand and six kind
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of the next trip, and this is where I started
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: kind of seeing some of your stuff. I was like
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, I got my driver's.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: License and I'm picking up two thousand and six dollar
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: driver's license.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know, I know. It's awesome. I
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: started driving. I started racing in nineteen ninety five.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: We're going to change this interview to you because I
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: think you were like eighteen years old and you were
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: working down in Panama, weren't you.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I was twenty or twenty one when I was running
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: that overland hostel in Panama. Yeah, I'm young, but I'm
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I'm still an old guy in this world. So two
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: thousand and six Venezuela, which is an interesting thing, like
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there's these places in the world where due to politics,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you just you just don't end up going right. So
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: they're they're open for a period of time, so to speak,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and then they've been closed Venezuela. I mean, I know
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: in theory you can go, but it's not really advised.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Right now, Well, what was Venezuela like in two thousand
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and six?
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, So I had just gotten back from Greenland trip
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I love. Well, I had just got back from Greenland. Yeah,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: and like a week later I was heading to Venezuela.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: So it landed in Caracas. I was there with again
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: named Felipe owns a company called Jumpbock four by four okay,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: RB distributor, all right. So it was a trip with
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: them down basically trying to get into Angel Falls the
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: back way. So most people fly fly in and they
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: take a boat up, you know, to Canaima, and then
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: they take a boat up Falls. So now this was
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: going to be a four by shore triplot across the
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Grand Savannah, but how was Venezuela. So I was told,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: do not leave your hotel. So he had somebody picked
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: me up when he went to a hotel because do
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: not let call her going around on the streets. Yeah,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: because Jim apprised him of this is Jim Jackson apprised
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: him of who I was and what I like to do.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: He goes, do not leave the hotel. We have a
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: higher kidnapping rate than El Salvador. Yeah, like, okay, I'll
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: take I'll take his word out of it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So I waited.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean Venezuela as a whole was amazing.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: The trip was awesome. We went south basically for a
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: day and a half.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It looks like such a diverse country ecologically, topographically like it,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: but politically I know so little about it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Political arm pit.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just corruption.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So Hugo Chavez. The day before we landed, Hugo Chavez
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: was on the un floor and he said, the white
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: devil stood here yesterday. That was George Bush. So we
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: got off. There were like billboards and paintings, murals on
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: walls of an uncle seam with a bloody dagger and
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: an American flag And it was not necessarily a friendly environment, welcoming. Yeah,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: this definitely gave you gave me a reason to be
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: cautious and understand.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and six. You know, this isn't that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: long after nine to eleven. You know, we're we're at war, you.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, we're kind of going off. Everybody in Hugo
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Chavez obviously had that. The Venezuelan government had close ties
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: with some of the people that are not necessarily our allies.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: So you know, that was the word. Once we got
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: away from Caracas. I mean, obviously it's an armed country.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: You know, every gas station has an armed guard with
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: a shotgun. There's a lot of crime. But you get
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: away from Caracas, and like we were mentioning about big cities,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it's like you get out into the people with the world,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: where the normal people lived, and the people are wonderful,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: you know, and just a vast wilderness of jungles and swamps.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So we basically from La Paragua, which is like the
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: end of the paved road, it turns into the Grand Salona,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: which was flooded, so we had to we got to
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: where we realized we couldn't get any further anymore. We
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: used to mirror to signal a guy in an island
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: to bring the barge over. Yeah, So we waited a
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: day for the barge to come and we loaded our
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: vehicles on it and we couldn't get all the way
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: to the other side. So we spent the night on
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: an island and wonderful because his family lived there at
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: the barge owner. His family lived there, so full immersion
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: into hunting Caymans. In the middle of the night with
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: two drunk venezuelans and shotguns, They're like, we're going to
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: go hunt Caymans. Do you want to go? And you know, sure,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I'm like.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, probably not going to do this again.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So when how often does that opportunity to come up?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't, it doesn't really come up.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was overall it was just an amazing trip.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: We had mechanical problems. We got basically two days into
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the jungle. The vehicles. You can find this typical of
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: international travel when you're trying to source vehicles, is that
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: we thought we were going to have vehicles with all
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: the same tires, the same size tires, and it didn't happen.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: And the jungle tracks are super narrow where they're made
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: by seventy eight series land cruisers with very tall, skinny tires,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: and we had wide, fat tires. It was just destroying
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: our tires. We got down to one spare and we're like,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: we should probably head back and find a different way
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: to get to Angel Falls. So two days in, two
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: days back out, and we're like, well, we still got
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to go. So we found a plane. We found a
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: guy with at one eighty six that could drop us
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: off at a jungle airstrip a place called La Blanca
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and little village. And I used to fly as a
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: pilot for my younger days, and we're playing in. First
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: of all, the guy had this weight and balance on
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: this plane. Everything was piled on the back like I
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: kept putting bags forward, and he's like he got pissed out.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he said to me, but he's like,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: landed on this muddy airstrip and then basically hiked about
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: maybe the last fifteen miles over a bunch of mountains
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and came across the lights, came over a ridge. It
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: was pitched back middle of the night. Came over a
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: ridge and there were the lights of Kanima down the valley.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: It was like, yes, you know, knowing when to turn back.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: When you're on a whether it's a four wheel drive trip,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a larger expedition or whatever, that's a challenge, you know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: because you're everything everything. You get certain types of people
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: together and their mind just tells them move forward, move forward,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: move forward. You can get yourself into a sticky pickle
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: right quite quickly because you need tires to move and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: when you have none of them, it is bad.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it was a great decision. It was
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: just a series of challenges with you know, not having
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: the same vehicles with the same time skinny tires because
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: that was the original plan. But you know, when you
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: travel in third world countries and different place just stuff happens.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Stuff happens. It's like the trip to Sam Watson and
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I did to a Cambodia and then two weeks in Kenya.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Both of the vehicles that Sam had lined up for
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: that trip, which were defenders, neither of them panned out.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So we were I remember you doing that trip in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Cambodia because I was doing a lot of travels in
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asia at a similar time. And it always amazes
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: me that Southeast Asia doesn't end up on kind of
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: this overland radar that much.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Like another amazing and amazing place, lovely, beautiful, inexpensive to travel,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: you know, for the most part, wonderful people. I mean
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: you look at areas that have had i mean really
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: really rough backgrounds, you know, Cambodia, Vietnam.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, particularly is crazy.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Camer Rouge basically assassinated a third of the population after
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the Vietnam War. But you probably I think you've traveled there.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It's like, but what you find is that the people
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: are so vibrant and alive, and it's like, you know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: they still have kind of a little bit of an
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: oppression government, but they are they are excited.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I think. I think the trime of inistor of Cambodia
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: has the largest private military, and that's kind of what
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like solidifies that power.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Some of the Kimitt Rouge are still in the government.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I went to one of the one of the universities
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I went to usually in the summer to kind of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: get more credits, had a phenomenal Southeast Asian studies programs.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I went to school for Air National Studies, and one
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of my professors was like in the hut when Polepot died,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: like they you know, they had to have. I think
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: he was like a un observer, like, Okay, this guy's dead, yeow,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: I'd love to remember that guy's name, but just absolutely
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: crazy country. Southeast Asia in general is just like I mean,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: we love to talk about these trips, but I also
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: liked always bring it back, like here's how you can
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: do it. Well, get on a plane, you can do
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: it and rent a scooter, rent a you know, rent
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: a small motorcycle, bus train. You know, it's all so
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: accessible there.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And scooter's a great, a great suggestion.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: That's what Laura and I always did.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: And they're you know, they're inexpensive, they're light. I mean,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: you're going to get wet.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: That's what we did. That's what we did Vietnam in
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it was we're both fairly tall, and those
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: scooters ergonomically are not designed for a six three dude.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: They're just a little small. So I think next time,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I've done several trips there on scooters, I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: think next time, i'd you know that behinda makes that
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: little like one twenty five kind of just like really small.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Keep it simple, but you know, you can do this,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: like you can you can fly in rent a scooter,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and annoy and drop it in, hoach him in. You
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: know you can you can do that and tailand can
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: do that in Cambodia. Me and Margaret's a little weird
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: with motorcycles, but such a great spot.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: So and I think again it's it's that it's unknown,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: the fear of the unknown that keeps so many of
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: us from doing things.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it sounds cliched say, but you really
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: do realize the way you travel that people just want
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the same things in life. You know, most people are
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: just going around their daily life. But I mean, geez,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: for twenty years we've had this image of like these
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: radicalized people or angry people or war or corruption or this.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: As not going to say they're not out there. Yeah,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: it's there, but as you said, most people they want
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: to rage their families. They want to provide for their children,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: They want their kids to have a better life than
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: they did. I mean, it's most people when you get
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: away from the political element, lowest price, good example, all
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: of her trips are yeah, she goes, they are the
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: most wonderful peace and they Their message was just please
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: tell Britain, tell America. It's like we're not all terrorists.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: We want to be like you, we just kind of
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: are stuck.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: We're a little we're a little little sidelined.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Right now, right it's the political side. So yeah, yeah,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: So rolling back to Venezuela and Angel Falls. The whole
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: idea was getting to Angel Falls, and we did you know,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: we did accomplish that. We ended up renting the plane.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I mean that was a little scary because, like I said,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I used to fly and we're like zipping through clouds
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: and almost on high four conditions and I'm like coming
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: into this jungle layer strip and we landed in the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: gear was just rattling like crazy. I'm like, come on,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: maybe hold up, okay, out of the plane, grabber bags,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: happier on foot.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I was joking, like, you know, I think planes are cool.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I think getting like a private palette scenes would be great,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: but I'm way too add for the regulations. But like
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: flying in Africa or South America sounds great. Like the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: planes I've been in in you know, in Africa, it's like,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the gauges are all broken.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: You're snail.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Grind caravan or something, and like you're like it's got
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a glass cockpit, but none of it is working. Or
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it says like subscription lapsed or whatever, and you're just like, oh, yeah,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: well the mountains there and this is here, and I
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: think the land landing strip somewhere over there. That sounds fun.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: We take our chances when we do that. I mean,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I have a great I have a lot of confidence
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: in general aviation, but when you get into some third
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: world countries, it's like the whole meetenance. I had a
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: picture of the toolbox for the mechanic at the airport
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and it's basically there's a welder and a grinder and
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: a big hammer.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Somehow, I think that these uh, these aircraft aren't getting.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: There an they don't get one hundred hour inspection now.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: But you know, one might take me down someday. I
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: don't know, but you have to try to make the
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: best decision when you're there. It happened that even on
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: that same trip, you know, during that between the La
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Paragua and camping on the island and stuff, I was
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: while I was doing my business in the morning out
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: by the bushes, and all of a sudden, you're here
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: helicopter coming in low. It was like, I'm like, that's
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: kind of weird. Yeah, he comes in off the deck
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: probably twenty feet over my head. The lands right in
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: front of me, and I'm just kind of cleaning things.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Up and I'm like, okay, hey, hey, appreciate it. Away.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: It was a friend of Felipe's. He's like, oh, I
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: just come down to dizzy. So from a photographic opportunity,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: it's like we run that island. We're pushing vehicles across
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: this huge flooded swamp with dead trees hooking out of it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't remember the guy's name. I'm like,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: can we take the doors off your helicopter? He's like sure,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: so I went up. I'm like that that's the you know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: as from a photographic standpoint, you'd like taking There's lots
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: of pretty pictures of elephants and mountains and if I
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't all that's like, but you're the subject.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Often it's like you're the subject. You got to get
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: away from from yourself. Or you know that barge with the.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Jeeps on it, Yeah, it gives the image of the contact.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: This is before drones, so like this, you know, helicopter
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: time was like crazy expensive. So getting the opportunity to
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: do that, I was like, yeah, yeah, so helicopters poorly maintained.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Tess and one eighty six is you know, what are
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: you gonna do?
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Well? Hopeful here? I amked you hope. So when did
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: you do Antarctica? Because that was is that twenty twelve
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: thirteen twenty thirteen? Yeah, that was just like such a
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: crazy trip. I remember like being at the office with Scott,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: who's doing a lot of the planning for that trip.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: One of my things before He's like, I just put
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: an an a top on my credit card. And that was,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like the to get the Exhibition seven vehicle
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: over there. And I mean that had to be we
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, exotic trips, but then maybe there's
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a way that you can do them. I don't think
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: there's a way that you can do that one. That
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You know with
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Greg Miller and Scott and Expression seven. What was what
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: was it like? Because you guys left from Cape Town, correct,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I believe getting on a plane in Cape Town, you know,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: like a Russian transport plane. We're on this theory of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you know, this concept of aircraft and whatever flying over
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the Southern Ocean. You know that you're landing in Antarctica
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: was what was going through your mind?
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Then the interesting thing about that flight, and you're correct,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: it's on a cargo plane, so they put in the
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: number of seats that they need and then you got
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: a big cargo in neet and all the cargoes in
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the back, so one of the our vehicles was in
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: the back. Yeah, had probably forty people strapping into seats
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and you're on a Basically you're on call for the flight.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: It's all dependent on whether so they're watching weather at Novo,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: which is the Russian air base. Basically that we were
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: going to land on an ice airstrip and they're looking
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: for weather windows because once that plane hits halfway across,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: it can't turn back. You can't get fuel. It's a
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: fuel issue. It's a range issue. Yeah, so when they call,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: basically you need to be able to be wheels up.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And I think it was two hours, so you kind
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: of on a standby when they say we're going, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: took complete excitement. I mean, like you said, it's one
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: of that was one of those the Expedition seven project
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: about doing all seven continents. It's like, man, that's awesome.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: I would I was editor of the magazine at the time,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and putting in a huge number of hours, and like
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: I couldn't break myself away to do the Russia side
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: or Africa. But and I go at the beginning, I
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: was like, that's that's the one I want to do.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: If there's availability, that is the one to do.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, the rest of the lakes you could feasibly
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: do yourself.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: And I've done a lot of them. Yeah, yeah, I've
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: driven across South America, and I had been in Australia
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: a number of times and Africa a number of times. So,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: but Antarctica is like it is somewhat the unobtaineded an obtainium,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: largely to do with logistics and the cost, I mean,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: because it's you know, very it's just super expensive, not
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: within my means. So I was I was super I
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: was super glad to be able to be part of that.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Just exciting. I loved the entire trip, you know, from
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: loading stuff up in Cape Town.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And how long once you got to Novo, how long
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: did it take to get to Scott Edmondston station.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: So we were a couple of days in Novo getting
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: final preps, getting with Easley, getting all the vehicles.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Because the trucks guys were kind of right. They handled
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the logistics, they did understood it, and they had the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: rest of the vehicles exactly.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well there were two vehicles, so one was Greg
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Miller's and one was one of the Arctic trucks that
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: was rented you know times. So they are they're like
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: to go to logistics people and that you know.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because wasn't there a thing that they they'll they
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: like drag fuel to the South Pole station.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: That is different. That's from McMurdo. Okay, okay, yeah, so
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: that that's from McMurdo to South Pole station. They drag
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: basically it's a fuel train.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've got these big bladders that they drive across, like.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Four thousand liter bladders and they've got sixteen of them
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: on a sledge and big heavy equipment. They've got one
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that's a you know, a couple that haul the sledges
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: and other ones accommodation for sleeping. Another one is for cooking.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Spake train. They do it twice a year. Yeah, they
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: run that twice a year and that's what fuels just
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: you know, the South Pole station. But so it was
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because you have to go back and look
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: at days because it's twenty four to seven daylight and
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: it's not like you're traveling for eight hours. That the
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: plan was to travel for twenty hours and then have
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: a ten hour rest period, which prevailed for maybe the
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: first three cycles, and then it was that we were
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: wondering we wanted to go all the way across. Yeah,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: that was the plan. If we got to south Pool
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: station with enough time to get all the way down
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: to the Rossie Shelf and turn around and go all
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: the way back, you know, backtrack thirty five kilometers.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and distances are just huge. I mean, what's the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: what's the terrain like? Like that's always been like a
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: question that I've had, is like it seems relatively smooth,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: like you're driving across a you know, smooth like bed,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and presumably it's not all smooth.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: So on the on the ascent and descent off of
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the plate toe, you're basically climbing, you know, eight thousand
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: to ten thousand feet up through glacier fields. Wow, because
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: you're coming from the coast to the Antarctic to the plateau,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: which is high elevation.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: And that that I realized it was like that high.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a sketchy part because all that's moving.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: The plateau generally is fairly static and you're not dealing
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: with crevass and all that. But those, you know, the
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: ice flows, it's what you're climbing, going up and down
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: yet and yeah, so everybody's you know, tethered. We followed
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: a track that Geasley and imil and the Archtetrac guys
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: had had GPS with sound penetrating ground penetrating sonar.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Because now you're prior, that's what they hang out a.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Big boom exactly, and they did this a couple of
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: years prior, and that basically is the track that we used. Yeah,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: that's fast, but honestly, Matt the you know that for me,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: I loved the entire thing. The cold temperatures, the wind,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: and you can't say it was really cold because it
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: might have been like mine is forty you know, And
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: I got friends in North Dakota that were, you know,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: had pinning me afterwards, said that's not cold.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: For me.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: It was being so far removed from the rest of
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: the world, and you know, with the understanding it's like,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: you know, there's nobody here to help you if something
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: goes wrong, not for a while. And then on that
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: same note, I think we're a bunch of whims, you know,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: because I've read about Shackleton and Ummets and then Scott
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: and these guys. Is like when they kissed their wives goodbye,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: that might have been it, you know, and for many
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: of them it was. I mean, these guys were super tough.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: So my homeboy Scott never came back. It was yeah,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I mean it was.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: It was an amazing trip, and you know there were
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: some hardships, you know, nothing cherish. Nobody lost an arm,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: nobody died, and nobody got frash bite.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: You know, it was cool. The interpersonal would have to
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: be probably pretty tough. I mean you're spending I mean
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: you're in a car for twenty hours and then oh congratulations,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you had to go into a tent and negative forty
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: degrees like it's it's kind of like so funny, keep driving.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Funny story. So Nemo had given us tents. Cam Nemo
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: had given us some individual tents, and then we had
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: an Arctic oven, which was a dual layer larger like
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: mess tent. The first rest period we crawled into our
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: tents and did our thing. That was enough. It's like that.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: It was cold.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we had good, good acquiment, goodquiment.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing wrong with a tent. But it's like the
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: double layers of that Arctic oven. So after that we
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: all piled into the Arctic oven. There was enough for
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: him to lay down our sleeping bags and stuff. So yeah,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: that was a cool night.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Was chilly, getting pretty close with your buddies there.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: That was fine. The Arcticon. Yeah, just plenty of room.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: And there's a point where you know, whether it's sleeping
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: or changing your clothes or going to the bathroom, it's
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: like you lose all sense of modesty when it's just
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: like you've got you've got a goal, you got a job.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: It's like okay, well it's like this is just the
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: way to other stuff doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: You know, people will be like, well, it's like going
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: to the bathroom. I'm like, it's cold. You may you
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: do your stuff fast.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: You're not. You're not sending memes on the camp.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: You're not or in the newspaper. You know. You know,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: cleaning yourself is with handy wipes, which everything is frozen,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you know, so you'r handy wipes. You either could heat
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: them up on the dash or you put them under
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: your armpit for a while.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just I'm just I'm just imagining ice cold,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: handy wipes on my tender bits.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: And it's great, it's invigorating.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, you think how long, how
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: far all of this stuff has come. The fact that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, a private expedition can drive across Antarctica testfully,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you know, that's just a really cool thing. You know,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about progress on this on
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: this podcast and how these places have changed, you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and and you know, would you have been able to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: do that twenty years ago prior to that trip, maybe not.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I know, Arctic Trucks really revolutionized a lot
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of stuff in America, not necessarily even just like the
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: tourism side, but you know they're there work logistic support. Yeah.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they do a really really good job of that.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: So could you have done it twenty years ago? You
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: would have had to figure out some other plans because
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Arctic Trucks wasn't there. Yeah, but yeah, it's uh.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: I will always be happy and grateful that I was
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: able to bear to that. You know, that project and
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I used the term expedition very very lately. Yeah, I
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: hear it that thrown around a lot, and I'm like, yeah,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean I think.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: That one, that one with how it's it doesn't qualify.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: That qualified Australia.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, and I called it East West the Australia.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: That was considerable.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was basically was the fiftieth anniversary recreation of
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: a nineteen sixty nine East to West Australia. So of
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: course we started on the east most eastern point and
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: went to the most western point.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: What's the easternmost point of Australia, Cape Iron, Cape Byron,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and then the westernmost steep point, steep Point, Yeah, that
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: kind of north of Xmouth.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, north of Xmouth and Monkey Bay. And yeah, so
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: that one. And I've been to Australia a number of times,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: as I mentioned, and I've been across the Simpson Desert
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: a number of times, been up through the King's Canadyan
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: area and Palm Canyon Airs Rock.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: And so we did some of that.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: But's the really cool part of this is that we
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: had special permission to cross the northern Simpsons. So most
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: people that's QAA going across the French line.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: And did you track did you cross that east west?
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, from east to west.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So we kind of crossed the Colson track because that's
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the one that is still permitted, but you have to kind.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Of it's permitted and that one will take you up
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: towards Alice.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, so we did cross that track.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But we started a place called Beachcomber, which was
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: just basically like two hundred and fifty miles total. Our
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: goal was to try to make forty miles a day,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: thirty five miles a day because we're going east to
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: west the dunes in the Simpsingo north south and there
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: was you know, and there was no sport, so you know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: other than the fact that you know, if we had
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: to we had a sat phone. Yeah, and we had
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: two of the original expedition members. Oh wow, John and
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: then Ian who were the videographer and the team leader
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: from the nineteen sixty en PT And it was that
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: was like to me, that was a highlight.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: He said, there's lots of beautiful mountains, waterfalls, deserts, whatever.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: But how old were those guys when you redid it?
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Eighties early eighties?
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a considerable undertaking for an eighty year
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: old guy.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And I was so glad that we could bring them
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: along because they had not seen that desert for fifty years, jeez.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: And to listen to the stories that they had around
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: the campfire, and again when they left, they had an
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: old military Vietnam era radio with a long wire and
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: a crank, and like they had zero communication with the
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: outside world pretty much because it just didn't work. And
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: so I had a huge amount of respect for them.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: They were in you know, nineteen sixties deeps with tall,
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: you know, skinny tires and homemade sand ladders, and I
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: mean they really yeah, I mean both of them drove
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: the JL that I was driving, and they both commented,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: They're like, I can't believe how good these tires go
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: and this you just turn it and step on the
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: gas and it goes.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: But having that perspective and realizing that we are we
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: are in the golden age of four wheel drives, Yeah,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: and I encourage everyone to drive a vintage four wheel
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: drive off road because you realize how easy we have it.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: I remember when without without button lockers and all that
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: stuff and low gears like in power steering and all this.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember being a really green kid, you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: when I started at Overland Journal, and I you know,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I had like a a TJ on thirty fives or whatever,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and I thought I knew how to drive. And then
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I traded that for a seventy one Land River one
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: oh nine came.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: From that ranch or yeah, that Tour Texas.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: The graphics on it, Yeah, I mean, it's such a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: cool car to be twenty one Prescott.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: That was like, where did this kid get this car?
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: That's awesome? I literally I traded a clapped out rusty
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: jeep for it because I think the guy was like,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you know, he probably felt that he was getting away
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: with murder, getting rid of the thing, and I thought
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I was getting rid of you know. But the breakwork,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: the throttle work, the fact that you have to Okay,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: if I'm at too much of an angle of kind
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: of my foot has to be in the break. But
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: then my my my other foot kind of has to
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: be you know, you know, feathering the throttle because at
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: a certain angle the carbels star of a fuel, you know,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: or the brakes didn't work in reverse as much as
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: they did. So like I remember, like there's this one
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: photo of me on three wheels of this thing. And
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: what I remember about that photo I think you were
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: maybe there that day we did like a team building thing.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like on three wheels of this thing. And they
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: were a twin leading shoe, a drum brake front and rear,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: so they didn't really work well in reverse. And I
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: remember my foot like throbbing on the on the brake
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: pedal because I had to push so hard. But these
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: days it's just like, you know, oh, the car auto
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: holds for me.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a whole other podcast. Oh yeah, so
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: just on that on just that's that subject.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I've got ed.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Let my expedition jeep. It it you know, across the
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: dairy and gap. Sure it is a stock jeep. It
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: has a two inch left it.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: It's so cool. It's orange, it has like this beautiful
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: betina to it, like it looks like it's been used.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: It has all the graphics. Oh god, I mean, that
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: has to be one of the coolest jeeps in exists.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just thrilled that I own it.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amazed how many of them are still around from well,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: there were five of it.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: They were fine they're they're all still around.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: They're all still around.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: They're all still owned by the families, you know, so
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Mark's family.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Still, Patty has his.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: It should be back at I think it's going to
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: be back at the front of the Jambres office. Tim
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Stegan still has his. He was the youngest guy on
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: the you know, the trip in seventy eight, and he
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: runs his on the roof gun. He's a jamboree guy.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: He's still doing it.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, runs it every year. So Kevin's got his Kevin Arnold,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: which Mike Arnold was an og and so basically they're
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: they're all there. And but to my point on having
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: auto hold brakes and all that stuff, So I did
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: the seventieth Cheaper Chambourie and they had a you know,
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: like I said, two inch lefts, got thirty two inch tires.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: I went through the axles. I put in limited slips,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't have low gears or I mean other
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: than stock. Yeah, that was the funnest Rubicon run I've
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: done in decades.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Well, those vehicles then were just of an appropriate size,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: like you park a CJ seven next to a even
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a two door Jo.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's tiny.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: It's it's I mean, you park it next to a
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: side by side and it looks tiny. You don't have
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: to have thirty sevens and you know an eight million
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: RTI score to do the rubicon when you can drive
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: around the rock instead of having to flex over the rock.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: But what it did, Mattter, it brought me back to
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: like the eighties and my first early days going up
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: on that on that trailer on ford Ice or Ducy
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: or bear Lake where I didn't have We didn't have gears.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: They just you know, you could do warning opinions, but
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: they didn't have transfer case options. You didn't have big
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: tires to where thirty threes were big tires. Yeah, and
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't have power steering, so it was like it
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: was you learned how to pick your lines very carefully,
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: you know, and pay attention to everything. So going taking
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: ed La back up, you know, sure I got hung up,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I got pulled off rocks here and there, but it
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: was awesome.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: I had a blast.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: And I was with all the guys, all the guys
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: from gen Wright and there, you know, the sixty forty clubs,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Dana sixties forties, LSA, and you know, we were all
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: kind of running together and at camp they were like, man,
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: you guys, we got to build like some stock rigs
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: like collars over there and just come this dude like
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: this vintage run. I'm like, you should do it.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: It's like, you get, that'd be a lot of cool.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the new toys are amazing, but they get
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: they make us lazy because I have a rock rig
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and it's it's point and shoot.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's great. These vehicles are. These
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: vehicles these days are so capable, like you know in
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: the little overland world, you know, I think of like
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: how comfortable and crazy and do it all these vehicles
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: are you know, I mean you have these rock crawler
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: pre Runner overland hybrid things that can go eighty mile
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: an hour down a dirt road and they're pretty good
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: in technical terrain. And then they have a camper on
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: the back, and you know, maybe that's not a good
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: idea and maybe the back to basics is really where
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: it's at. So it's the guy that's currently sleeping in
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: an earth roamer.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: But so, what's the best vehicle for expedition travel? I've
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: had this question posed to me.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean the seventy series I.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Think I'll give you a better answer. The one that
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: keeps running. Yeah, yeah, right, Well, the one that makes
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: you smile and keeps you running, keeps running. It's like
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: I said, drive hummers around Africa and jeeps cross Australia
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: and all kinds of.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Different cars, but most cars are pretty good. But I
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: you're right, it is the one.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: It's the one that keeps running and makes you know
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: and puts a smile on your face. You're like, I
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: just like driving this thing. It's great. I trust it,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: you know. I got to know too, Tacoma, with three
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty thousand miles on it, I continue to
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: maintain it, but I trust it. And that's what I need.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I'm running solo down in Mexico doing whatever. It's like,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I need to be able to trust epically. I need
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: to know the vehicle, be able to if I fix
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: it if I have to, Yeah, which I have.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Didn't you have a big wiring problem down there recently. Yeah,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Apparently three hundred and forty thousand miles mostly on dirt
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: will do that.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: No, it was not.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: It was I was racing Nora with the team and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: we were outside of Loretto, camped and because it was
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: a low budget race, right, We're not Robbie Gordon.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: No, I had dual batteries and the mount shifted and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: it short short out on the hood and it chased
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: every ground through the vehicle, like just vaporized the grounds
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: which are oh six cage wire and chased all the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: grounds through my wiring harness under the dash. So everything
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: went up in flames and smoke. And that's a whole
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: nother story. But I was miraculously able to fabricate grounds
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: and it ran. I didn't have lights and windows, but
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: it ran.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: The benefit of simple vehicles and I.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Was able to get home.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: So, and after I got home, I realized that the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: whole hardness was smoked, and I know, I pulled the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: whole dash out, and I learned about twenty something years
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: worth of dust and.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: My dashing in the vents, like holy moly, Well now
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: it's already for another twenty years. But well, Chris, it
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: has been. And it has been an absolute pleasure to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: have you on this Over the years. I've learned so
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: much from you and I really appreciate that. And uh,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you know, your contributions to this industry are just unreal
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: and crazy, and you know, thanks for all that you've
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: done for this space and all the inspiration for the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you know, millions of people I've ever read and seen
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: your work. So thanks for coming home.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: So Matt, it is a pleasure. Yeah, like you said,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: old were you when you came on at the Journal
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: twenty years twenty one something? Yeah, twenty one, So it's yeah,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: it's a pleasure. Now it's been look at that you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: got hair, facial hair.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: I have a month.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Time's all gray. Yeah, but no, it's you know, one
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: of the one of the things I let it up
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: this industry is some of the people like you that
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: you basically come up through the ranks. You know, when
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: I found out that you were working down at Panama
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Passage and I'm like, no, ways, guys, Like, why wasn't
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: I doing that when I was twenty I was doing
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: what people told me I was supposed to do.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't remember much about panem Passage. I do
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: remember once falling over the gate drunk. Okay, there was
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: a twenty one year old kid from Chicago that had
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: a never ending supply of people that wanted to party.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: That was a bad idea.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, anyway, learning curve learning, curve learning, curve.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: But it's super fun to be on the show, and
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I know that there are a whole bunch of campfire
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: conversations we did not touch.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we'll have to do this again.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah sounds good, and we'll continue this like around the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: fire tonight.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'd love that. I'd love that. So anyways,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us here with Chris Collard on the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Overlin Journal podcast. We'll see you next time
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: All right, see you guys.