Welcome to Botch's Off-Road.
Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to trail stories, tent camping to
rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors.
Today we got our full group here. We got Alex, Mark, and I. And I think today is just going
to be a little chat. I think we could talk a little about our last weekend. What are
you guys saying?
Yeah, I'm thinking we talked about how I lost a mirror again and I'm not allowed to have
them anymore.
Yeah, so last weekend we decided to go and do a little trail ride, I guess. We took a
ride, went out what, Saturday?
Yep.
Left at about 11 something. It was Mark, Alex, me, and Duncan, which is another group
member of Botch's. And we started off over by Prairie, which is closer area to where
I'm at. At least that's what we call it as Prairie. And kind of went around there and
looked for some new trails, found some cool little hills to go up and down. And then we
went back over to White Cloud and went and did Skitter Hill.
That was dumb. You guys shouldn't have let me do that.
Alex did Skitter Hill. And we didn't think we were actually going to do Skitter's Hill,
but Alex said he wanted to.
Last minute. Hey guys, I'm going to do something dumb.
Forward. Yeah. And then, so we did the bypass and they gutted out the bypass to be pretty
much any Subaru cross truck could get up that. And then, which, you know, before it was a
lot worse to where something like that might have struggled a little, but.
I bet you could take a GMC Terrain up it now.
Yeah, you could definitely take a GMC Terrain up there. You could take a 2020 Toyota Sienna
up there. But they did end up, you know, DNR doing DNR stuff. They end up blockading the
parking area kind of up at the top of Skitter Hill on that trail, put a bunch of wooden
posts down. And I know that they did that this year because earlier this year we actually
camped over there. So that was unfortunate because that was a cool little spot.
Hobo camp.
Yeah. Oh yeah. It was just kind of a, we decided to stay there cause Derek had been waiting
out there too long. And by the time Alex's transmission cooled down to actually leave,
it was pretty late. I think it was like what? 12, one?
Yeah. Yeah. That was from my last attempt at Skitter Hill. One of these days I'll make
it up. Yeah.
What else did you need to help for that timeframe is that we took the long way around.
Yeah. Someone was leading and he got us lost and went the longest way possible.
Okay. Let me also say this is even if you're taking the long way, it shouldn't, shouldn't
make your training that bad. Oh no, no, no. The training was, that was completely unrelated.
I was talking about the timeframe. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I thought you meant like
just like putting extra work on the transmission or something. Well, you know, what didn't
help was probably sinking it earlier and having to winch out. Although I got some really good
pictures of that. So I think it had more to do with the fact. Yeah. Okay. Maybe there's
water in transmission. I don't know. Yeah. I drained it and then I filled it back up
and then I drove it a mile and then I drained it and I filled it back up and I did that
seven or eight times and it's been fine ever since. So I think we're good. Yeah. Most likely.
I think that was my first time playing anchor. Yeah. My heavy ass. I, he let me pull up in
front and then he, he winched on to me. So that was like, I was like, yay. I get to do
it this last time, but I had some beautiful trees right where they needed to be this time.
Yeah. I would, I pulled up there. I was surprised I could get up there without slipping. See,
and it was like, that's no, it's pretty slick. I'm like, yeah, those tires do pretty well
if there, if there's any little bit of snow on the ground, but a little powder or anything
like that. But yeah, I was, uh, I was slipping and sliding all day on Saturday. Yeah. Well,
like we were talking about earlier, you were trying to, for the most part. Yes. But when
we were mud trains on ice are not the greatest combo. No, no. When we were over by Prairie,
you're, you were trying to kick it out. And then, then you got, then I, you know, something
that Alex doesn't do much, he kind of slowed down a little bit and was like, maybe I shouldn't
do this because this is a quick way to fuck my shit up. Well, that's cause I was hitting
shit. Yeah. I, uh, I was too many stumps. Yeah. That was pretty tight quarters, like
in some of the spots anyway, to get to where we were trying to go and then not ever being
on that trail. There were a lot of stumps sitting on the side of those straightaways.
Yeah. Uh, I put a drift wheel on my four runner and now I think it's a drift car. So if it
doesn't ding, when you put it on, that's not a drift wheel. You know, you have to like
roll it and it goes, it's, it's, I do have a quick release for it that will do that. But
the problem is it adds like two inches on length and puts the steering wheel like in
my chin. Well, don't ever say that two inches doesn't matter. Huh? I will say I went from
the four runner stock wheels, like 14 and a half inches and the new ones, a 13 inch
wheel. And it is so much easier to get in and out of that car. And there's so much more
space for the driver. Hmm. Yeah. Gosh, I was, uh, I think it was my first time. I was just
trying to think. I was my first time wheeling with Duncan. That was the first time I've
actually met him, but he was, uh, yeah. Oh shit. Duncan's a pretty cool cat. Yeah. He
was, he, he's the one that had that for runner, the mud, the mud, mud runner, whatever you
call it. Yeah. Mud crawler, cricket, the one that's all in pieces in my yard. Yeah. The
frame that's in your yard. That's got the body there too. Yeah. I didn't see the body.
Was it covered? It's on a trailer. Oh, actually the crawler is the reason that the trailer
is two flat tires. Oh, yes. Yeah. You try crawling it. Well, when we pulled it up on,
Duncan was a little too far to the right and ran up the fender well and we didn't realize
that it had bent the fender well just a touch and it rubbed the inside of the tires raw
and they were, that was their first trip on brand new tires too. I just, uh, forked out
a whole bunch of money on Friday to buy new ones for it. Yeah. Yeah. You live and you
learn someday. I'll have a trailer that doesn't have fenders like that. I actually just found,
so I've got two that I'm looking at right now. Uh, they're both wedge style. One of
them's aluminum and one of them steel. I'm kind of leaning towards the aluminum one if
I can find it again. Um, yeah. So pretty soon, stay tuned. The botches might be getting a
tow rig and a trailer. The botches, the boxes were thinking about a little event that they
might be pulling next year. Yeah, dude. I don't want to talk about that. Maybe we should.
No, uh, I don't know. It's quite a ways away and we'd be giving away all of our ideas and
give someone time to steal them. Yeah. Just say it's kind of like the poker fit coming
up. We don't have to get exact details. Yeah. It's similar to a poker event. That's, we
could say that except that instead it's a, it'd be a true, um, um, cryptid hunt. Yeah.
At that point, I feel like people can put it together, but I, I don't, I don't think
anybody's going to steal it. We don't have enough listeners. We'll talk about it. Sounds
fun. All right. So what we're going to do is we're going to get Gavin a Grinch outfit
and we're going to set him on top of the hill and we're going to get Mark a, um, a Wolfman
outfit. Oh, we don't have to. He's got the beard. We'll put him on top of the hill and
then we'll make Alan, uh, look like the, uh, no, he's big foot. He's big foot. Big dudes,
already tall. So we make Derek Slenderman. Yeah. That's definitely work. But no, we,
uh, we're going to, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Alex, Alex, the little leprechaun. Yeah.
We could not leave you out. You had everybody else ready. What's a, what's a Scott other
than Nessie? What's a Scottish cryptid? Uh, well, Fay, very, um, there's Kelpie, a supernatural
water horse. Yeah. You don't really look like a Kelpie. The Wolvar who is a humanoid Wolf
Creek. Can we talk about how there's Wolfmans all over the world and we've all just agreed
that they don't exist, even though almost every culture has one. Oh yeah. I mean, same
thing with big foot. I mean, you're right. And dragons. Yeah. I think dragons are half
and half. I really, the, the kid in me who grew up loving dragons, like wants to say
that dragons might be real, but also the, the logical side of me also thinks that dragons
could have very well been just dinosaurs that, you know, evolved through the millions of
years that they were probably supposed to be extinct and survived. So Joe, Joe Rogan
actually recently had a whole conversation about this because, uh, the today show or
something said that he believed in dragons, which he, he doesn't. I remember this. I seen,
I see the video about this cause he went full throttle on changing everything to what he
thinks that dragons actually were, was, um, in the middle age time, we were starting to
adventure out away from our original cities and we were running into crocodiles and stuff
that were, you know, crocodiles, they live pretty much forever unless there's an external
force and they grow nonstop. So he believes that there was some large saltwater crocodiles
that people then watched eat their friends and then assume that they were dragons. Yeah.
Well I do, I do really think like, for instance, Dodos, they, of course those are a lot closer
when you, when you look at the timeline, but yeah, I think that there is very good possibility
of large lizards, um, staying alive. I believe that there is a very good possibility that
there is a, what is it? A plesiosaur or a, you know, a Loch Ness monster. Every, you
know, the, the fact of the matter is, is that we don't completely understand how these animals
work. We have theories. We can look at their bones and look at the way that they were built
and try to understand. But if you look at a live, like, you know, a lot of living creatures,
things like the plesiosaur or not, you know, I think the plesiosaur is the fish. Am I thinking?
But yeah, so the plesiosaur is like what you would consider a long neck, you know, the,
I don't know what they're actually called, but the long necks that were on land, like
from the movie dinosaurs or whatever. Yeah. Um, that dinosaur except in the water with
fins instead, they were very similar. So, I mean, I think, I think it's very, very possible.
Yeah. I'm right. Plesiosaur. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I, I, I'm kind of proud of myself today. As
I had as a creationist. Oh yeah. I'll come right out and say it. I'm a creationist, but
as a creationist, um, I believe that dinosaurs, cause before the flood, I know anyone who's
not a Christian is going to say I'm crazy, but whatever. Um, before the flood, uh, people
lived extremely long periods. You know, we've got records of people living to be four to
500 years old. Um, so I could see lizards having done the same thing and lizards grow
nonstop their entire life. Yeah. Well, that's the thing is lizards don't have, yeah. You
like you said, a lifespan. So as long as there's something that they can eat, a food source
to sustain them, there's not really anything to stop them. So what do you, I mean, at that
point in the middle ages, what's to differentiate between a dragon and a dinosaur and just a
lizard? There's, I mean, there's such a, and to not even know the difference, number one
from being that, you know, that far back. I mean, it's all the same. And to have a giant
flying dinosaur is not hard to believe. There's plenty of them. Right. What's even now, what's
the difference between a dinosaur and a lizard? How long they live. That's really about it.
And during the time period that quotations for anyone paying attention during the time
period that dinosaurs were alive, the earth was a lot warmer than it is now, which means
that lizards would have lived a lot happier and a lot more climates than they do now.
Yeah. So that, and we don't have massive deforestation and water pollution and massive eradication
of animals. I mean, there was a lot better food source back then, even, even in the middle
ages, the amount of food, like if you were to just think about how America looked with
millions, what was it? 4 million bison before they got exterminated. I mean, could you imagine
a dinosaur or any kind of reptilian dinosaur in America, Utah, that point?
Bisons are one of my favorite subjects, like things in this category, because the whole
bison timeline is so interesting. So before horse, cause horses originated in the Midwest
and then they took the land bridge over to Europe and then they died. They were hunted
out here by native American, well, natives. I'm not going to say native Americans. We're
indigenous people. How's that? That's better. So they hunted out horses, not knowing how
to use them. And then they were hunting bison by, by hand on the ground. So the bison numbers
just absolutely skyrocketed because they couldn't control them. Well, then when we brought horses
back over, they now were using horses to hunt them and they wiped them out in a matter of
like 10 years.
Who's they?
Indigenous. Yep.
Was it or was it? I mean, I mean, I, so from what I know, and I, this could very well be
not true, but we, and I say we, as in the white people that were there at that time,
killed a lot of them off to cut off the main food sources for people because when a lot
of them moved in migrant with bison.
Oh, right. So by the time that the white man, you know, cause the Spaniards brought horses
over. So that's what the indigenous people started using to hunt. And they wiped out
from something like 4 million down to like 500,000 before Columbus even came over. So
then by the time Columbus got here, they didn't even see bison until we went to the other
side of the Mississippi.
Huh. I have to very, very much, uh, check on that. You know, not, not that I don't believe
you, but no, not that I don't believe you, but as in before I try to even like, yeah,
say anything else in regards to that, but the, uh, cause by the time that Columbus got
here, they didn't see bison until they went to the Mississippi and they were absolutely
amazed at what bison were because they were just this huge mammal. They thought they were
living dinosaurs. They thought they were mammoths. Hey, look at that. I mean, at the same time
we go full circle back to, you know, just what the knowledge of the people at that time
knew. So, I mean, very well could have been dinosaurs very well could have been just regular
animals that I mean, who knows, but
I mean,
Anyhoo,
just imagine, imagine being a settler, right? And you come here and everything's different.
Imagine seeing an elk for the first time, man.
Well, and even in the thing is, is even at that time, when you're that far back, like,
what are we, what are we settlers? Like where we say 1500 to 1600s? Let's get the French.
We had French at like what? 1600 French settlers from Canada. Quick, cause we have fur traders.
Yeah. The term dinosaur only became known in 1842. Right. Right. Well, isn't that just
big lizard or something like that? I don't know exactly the exact term for it is, but
yeah. Well, that's a, that's fair too. I mean, that's, that's very recent in human history.
Terrible lizard. Terrible lizard. Yeah. Yep. So yeah. Columbus got here in 1492. Well,
he got some of the homos in our area. There had to have been fur traders before that.
Right. So we had some, we had some brothers exploring what's today, today Newfoundland
in 1500, but that's the beginning. Was that the McGlenn? Was McGlenn? The court, quarter
real brothers. But just any who, so we're getting that, that what 14, 1500 and imagine
the possibilities of what animals still existed back then. So in an area as lightly hunted
as well. I can't say lightly hunted because the indigenous did a really good job keeping
populations down here. So the indigenous, the thing is those the indigenous, even like
as far as America is concerned and what our current population is now there, it was, it
was nothing. Yeah. Comparatively. I mean, comparatively the indigenous population was
nothing. So yes, at the same time in these popular areas near waterways for sure, but
you know, prehistoric elk. Have you seen those? Oh my God. Yeah, dude. Could you imagine seeing
one of those? And there's very possible that those were around at that time. So there were
about 54 million people, pre-Columbian 54 million indigenous people in the United, or
in the America in United States and Canada. Right. So compare that to today. I'm going
to look at population of North America. That'd be an even better way to, yeah. Well, 592
million people. So that's like, that's, that's a lot of free. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of
people. That's like 10 times the amount of people. Yeah. So I don't know. It, it's pretty
crazy to think that cryptids aren't a thing at the same time. So, yeah. So circling, you
know, back to you because right now, right. I think, I think though that if we, I think
about what like the origin type animal that these cryptids are originating from and how
many years they've had to adapt and evolve the same way that we have had years to adapt
and evolve, but differently. So Bigfoot, for instance, why couldn't it evolve to have a
higher form of camouflage or the hair on a Bigfoot resist any kind of thermal detection?
It's had years and years to work on this. I, you know, to me, it's just not that hard
to believe. And there's too many signs. There's too many origin stories all around the world
at periods where they haven't been talking to each other. You know, there's no way that
you could hear stories from, you know, one part of the world from the other and have
that, have that, you know, coincide with each other. So I would be really interested. So
even today we've got tribes that are cut off from the rest of the world. I'd be interested
to hear what their cryptids are. I would guarantee that there's, uh, that maybe it, which their
cryptids are probably very, it's like looking into indigenous tribe gods. Yeah. Um, it's
probably very similar, but I would say 70 to 60 to 70% of their cryptids are explainable
by modern science or, you know, that, you know, that big light in the sky that makes
a, makes weird sounds and it shines down on you. And then, you know, like, okay, that's
a helicopter. Yeah. Or, you know, the big silver bird in the side, you know, in the
sky we call it the, uh, the Thunderbird. That's like, that's a 747. I can hear it screech
for miles and miles. Yeah. It makes calls. It makes calls. Like, I mean, you know, I
mean, you know, at some point, you know, there's a tribe out there that's like, are what the
fuck? There, there's been stories of tribes the first time they've ever seen a white person
and you're like touching them, touching them, grabbing their hair, like, what the hell?
So I mean, it's cool stuff. Cryptids in general are really cool. Very cool concept to think
about. We could talk about that all day, but yeah, the, the whole, the whole, you know,
thing about that is that I hosted a, you know, a cryptid hunt this last year and it was fun.
It was nothing really crazy. We did some trails, but, um, obviously we didn't really find anything.
We weren't really trying. We didn't even go out at night. We, we originally planned to,
cause we did a, probably a 10 hour trail ride, um, that day. So we were all pretty pooped
and you know, we were talking about it. I was thinking about it before I brought it
up to Alex while we were out, um, trail riding Saturday. And I'm like, dude, what if we,
what if we made it kind of like a game, like a scavenger hunt and we make cutouts of these
cryptids and we place them throughout, uh, you know, a stretch of trail or a stretch
of trails, um, you know, paint them black, put on the other side, Hey, don't take this.
It's for a contest and then put like stickers on the back and like a 10 or something that
people can collect. And then, you know, as I was offline, I was thinking, I was, I was
thinking about what we were saying, you know, doing the sticker thing would be cool because
you could put it on your truck. So yeah, right. And then if you collect all five stickers
and I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, why don't we make them body parts? Cause it could
be like, cause he could be like Exodia, like let's get all five parts of the big foot.
And then like, and like you could get the head and one, you could get the arms and each
other or you could get a leg into others. And, and I was just thinking about that. Like
that would be kind of fun because then you could show that you did the whole trail, right?
Or the whole part have like, uh, individual stickers for each cryptid. And then if you
get all say five cryptid stickers, then you also get a cryptid hunt sticker. Yeah. Something
like that. So, but then I was like, okay, we could do like five parts of one cryptid
for like one trail. So like you have to get five cards and then you get the sticker at
the end or something like that. And then we could do certain challenges that are like
a whole different sticker by themselves. So like skitter Hill, that would be a sticker
on its own. That would be, that would be the moth man. You know what I mean? Like that
would that's, and if you did skitter Hill, you got the moth man sticker. And that was
something to like, we, we'd have to, uh, have a person sitting there watching people do
it. Well, one, because if anything happens, we need a recovery too, to be able to prove
check or proof check. You would have to have video or you would have to have some kind
of proof for sure. Yeah. But I was just thinking, I'm like, that would be really cool. And of
course you could get families and stuff in on that because you'd have to be searching
these trails, looking for these, these, you know, creatures. If we did it at night, it
would be really fucking hard, but it'd be fun. It would be, you know what I mean? Like
we could, we could do it so that the, you know, the signs are closer to the trail instead
of farther out. But I figure if we do it in the day, we can put them out like 25, 30 yards
out in the, in the trail to like, try to really hide them a little bit, make it an actual
challenge.
This would be a really cool, like two day event. Yeah, it would be, it would be cool.
Yeah. And I agree with that because it would be cool to do like a, or like a weekend, like
a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like come into camp Friday. We could do, like you said, uh,
ever or whatever. I think it'd be awesome to do it here in New Igo County though. That
would be cool to bring people in, but there's no, but I think the huge challenge is there's
not as many, not trails.
We have lots of the harder, we have harder challenges than ever in a lot of spots, but
they're separated by road. The pro and like ever kind of the thing. Yeah. Cause ever it's
nice cause it's all in one spot. Ours are like spread out a lot.
And that's, that's the thing is like, I, I almost would feel better doing, if we would
do like a whole weekend, it to be in an area like ever, because at the end of the day,
we're the ones setting up before. Yeah. And having to do all that extra driving and all
that. No, that's a good spot to do it. You know, ever or even, um, Yuma, Yuma is not
as hard, but there was some cool stuff in Yuma. Um, so I mean like there's, there's
places that we could go. Um, that would make it more, but doing like a three weekend trip
to where like you, me and you come out like, I don't know, Thursday or Friday we, and we
run the trails and we set up and we take, I think maybe doing like coordinates, but doing
like not exact coordinates. Like, Hey, it's in a radius, like a mile radius of this coordinate.
Yeah. I think, or if we put it on a trail and say it's on this trail, right. That would
be good. Yeah. Give the coordinates to the trail head and then it's on this trail. It's
somewhere on this trail. You got to find it. I could say though, that even then like group,
rides are going to be a thing, which is not a big deal. Like if people are writing together,
they, it doesn't matter. I almost would rather that that way you can recover if you need
to. And I think it'd be a lot of fun doing it together as a group. I think, uh, doing
it in teams of two vehicles. Um, and we'd set that up beforehand. You know, this is
your team. You know what I mean? Right. Um, and then obviously we'd have to have the GMR
channel open for recovery situation, stuff like that. I'd say if we want to do this,
I'd want to do it earlier in the fall. Leave starting to change colors. I'm thinking like
late September or mid to late September. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Change colors.
Yeah. Cause I want it to be warm enough that we can all comfortably, you know, still pretty
comfortably sleep. Uh, but I liked, I want to see the, the colors change and stuff, but
not all the leaves gone. I wanted to kind of be an in-between, but I think it would
be, I think it would be really cool. And I know for a fact that if we made this how we
did, we'd get a lot more people out here. Yeah. I know a couple of the people that we
trail ride from MST that would be, would be so down. Like I know Melissa, um, they're
big, big foot hunters and stuff. Like they would be down to her whole family. She's got
wife, a husband, I think two or three kids. And she's got a wife and a husband. That's
yeah. You know, that's what I meant. You know, she's got a husband and then, and then two
kids fair, but, uh, they're really cool and they, they do big foot hunts and stuff and
they were thinking about coming down, but it's like a three hour drive for them because
they're down by Illinois. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I think, I really think this is an event
that a lot of people would enjoy. So it's, it's reusable too. Oh, this could be a yearly
thing. And I location all the time either. Exactly. So like it could be botches yearly
and it could be the botches yearly cryptid hunt. And I love that. I think, I think as
much as we love doing cryptid shit and talking about cryptids, I think it'd be great. And
I think, I think we need to, to save up for plywood because that's going to be like, that's
going to be like the biggest expense on our end other than gas to scout and do this, but
we could do that throughout the summer. Maybe stickers depending where we go through. Yeah.
We're going to have to see that's, that's the thing too. Is it's going to be costly
for stickers, but we could just buy like big foot stickers, Muffins, like, like, we don't
have to make it, but I think at the end, like that would get all of the stickers. It would
have to be custom and we could do this from just, we could do those from Yammer or something.
Yeah. I having the one sticker at the end that's custom, that wouldn't be hard to do
or you could actually do that through your, through our shop, through the shop, because
we could custom that botches yearly cryptid hunt and we could put some scary, scary picture
on it or something. Or I'm going to be talking to Amber's wife soon about getting us switched
over to their shop. That would work. It will do a mix because they don't offer all the
products that our, our shop does, but I think that it would be worth supporting their business
just as much as, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. As much as we can. Yeah, I know. I'm
stoked about that. I think that's going to be so fun. We just, we're going to have to
make some time to scout and like decide what trails we like. So we're going to have to,
you know, next summer or, you know, spring, we're going to do Yuma or not Yuma ever. And
we're just going to have to like mark our favorite trails. Yep. And then Mark, maybe,
maybe we marked like the difficulty and then potential areas that we could put something.
Right. And then we could drop it all. We could, you know, Mark, we're going to need you and
your pickup. Yep. But we're going to hit, we can throw all the cutouts in there with
like a, you know, something to hammer them in like a rod or something, or just lean them
up against the tree. Yep. Whatever. And then we could set them up the night before, like
Thursday night or Friday night or something, and then have everyone come up and, and lead
it that way. But I think that that would be a really, really fun trip and we could do
like maybe, yeah, it'd just be a really fun trip. Oh yeah. And I, and I think as like,
cause my son will be probably he'll be, he'll be almost two. So he'll be talking and walking
and he can help us look and, and uh, you know, that would be fun as a family. I'll drag the
nephew along. Yeah. I mean, he could help look. That'd be one my mom would be interested
in too. So both my nephews could be there and she could come in the black for her on
her. Exactly. I mean, and it's like, you have to take the scary stuff. Like I said, we'll
do, we'll do like harder trail areas. We'll do those specifically as a sticker. Right.
What do we have ever? I don't really know, but yeah. Uh, we also got the off camber spot.
You got that off camber. We got the mud area. We could do a mud area just for Nolan. We
could put like mud monster out there. Like a swamp monster monster. There you go. Do
the swamp monster sticker for the mud. Do too bad. If we did it in New Igo County, we
could do the, uh, the drudging, the drudging, uh, drudging swamp monster or the drudge.
Oh yeah.
Yeah. I think Michigan mega monsters, the American chillers from Michigan. Oh yeah.
Well, isn't there a Michigan chillers that has a, there is there's Michigan children
and he went to American chillers as well. And for Michigan, it was a Michigan mega monster.
So it was pretty much a swamp monster. Yeah. So I got a swamp monster for the muddy areas.
We'll do a big foot. We'll do a dog band. We'll do a moth man. We could even do it just
so like a ghost or, oh, we could do slender man. He's a, the slender man count is encrypted.
He's more of like an internet. So, so if you believe that belief gives power, yeah. If
you're in that type of belief system, because I, in the way that I kind of think about this
stuff is like, even for gods, it's almost like a game, not a game, but it's a popularity
contest. Like the more people believe in you, the more powerful you are. I, so like, I think
that's in, to me, this is just how it makes sense to me. But like, if you think about
like how Christianity got its start and how that really killed out all the other pagan
religions to be the biggest and baddest and kind of rewrote its own history in a lot of
ways. I think, I dunno, I think that it won the popularity contest and I think that there
are pagan gods. I just think that they're so weak because there's so many less people
believe in them. So they're very much lesser gods by now. You know what I mean? And, yeah.
So like even like demons and stuff like that, I think that the name gives anything power
and the more that believe the more power it has. So if you think about slender man and
how crazy that got for that while. Yeah. I mean, and if with my beliefs, that kind of
point like that, I think that there is something to it. And it's such a fine line between what
is real and what's in the mind. Your mind can make things up and your mind can feel
and see things that isn't there. I dunno. I, so I mean, slender man, I think is very possible.
I think as far as being a cryptid, I think it's one cryptid status now, or maybe a legend
status. I don't really know. Where'd that come from? A creepy pasta? Yeah. Yeah. Creepy
pasta. Yep. Yep. Yeah. You know what that that got me for a little bit too. And I was
younger. I was like, man, I'm looking for something tall and fucking in the trees. I can't think
of another creepy pasta that got as popular as Slender Man. There is one more. I'm trying
to remember it. It's like a killer. Just a killer. I think the scariest thing for me
was Blair Witch. Yeah. When I was, when I was younger, I thought that was a real documentation.
Like when I watched that movie, I was, I was pretty young when I watched that movie. And
apparently I skipped the part where it literally says this was filmed to look like, like completely
missed that part. So when I was watching this, I, and even like, so I missed that part in
Paranormal Activity 1. I missed that that was a, that was fake too. So when I was watching
that, I thought I was watching all like real stuff at first. And then I was like, there's,
I was like, there's no way these people are catching shit like this. And then I had to
look it up and I'm like, oh fuck, it is fake. I said, now I feel dumb. Like, but when you're
younger and you have like, you believe so much in this, this kind of stuff, it was like,
oh, that's not hard to believe. Like when you grow up watching every ghost show there is
imaginable. So I watched, I can't remember the name of it, but there was one about the
Paris catacombs where it was like a mockumentary and a group of explorers, if you will, went
down with a little camera and they all got killed by some monster and the camera was
found later. I thought that was true. Yeah. Okay. See, but like Blair Witch, they found
the camera after and that's like, I don't know. It was just kind of like, it was so
believable. And then like, I don't know. I looked like you go through the woods and it's
like, that's not hard to believe. I see like weird, but like as, as I also grew up, I like
started looking into pagan magics and stuff like that. And like, oh, okay. Some of these,
some of these things you're seeing in the woods are not actually like heinous mean things
or just protective sigils or something like that. Like, cause that, that kind of called
me down a little bit. I was like, Oh, these are just like pagan protective symbols. Sienna
won't fuck with it. She will, if she sees shit like that. So we went up, um, one of
the first times that I guess you could, that we went camping with Sienna, uh, Ford escape.
We went up to two hearted. Um, and one of the, one of the camp spots we pulled into
and had every intention of staying in. And we kind of looked around for wood on the edge
of the campsite to see if it was, it was worth staying in real. Like, is there any dead wood?
Cause we don't want to buy any like, and she saw, uh, some kind of voodoo, witchy voodoo,
like handmade thing hanging from the tree. And she's like, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope.
She's like, we're not going here. And I'm like, honey, it's fine. She's, I went to grab
it. She's like, don't you fucking touch that thing. She's like, you stay right the fuck
away from that. She's like, I don't want any of that fucking energy over here. So yeah.
So we, so we were like, ah, we'll, we'll pick a different one. We picked a different site.
I, I get it dude. When I, so when I was in Korea, I had a roommate who was a Satanist
and I was going through like a really deep depression and like, couldn't figure out what
was going on. And then one day I walked in and he was having some ritual in the kitchen.
I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, Oh, I'm calling in my protective demon. And
I'm like, uh, yeah, I don't want to be part of this. Well, they feed on you too. Like
especially when you're in depression, depression. So like when I was younger, I always thought
I had something dark that followed me and I could specifically remember when I was younger,
like a dark shadow, like a being following me around. And I remember a couple of times
where I've had encounters with it. And so I, there was a point in my depression of recent
times before I met Sienna, where I was kind of, I was kind of like, dude, I think this
thing was like, I think this might, this thing might be like feeding off of me. You know,
it just felt like every day got worse and it felt like there was always something in
my house. And there was like, I would, I would breach my own fucking house, like a breach
my own fucking room door and clear my house multiple times because I felt like something
was in here. Yeah. And I let all the lights on because every time the light was off, it
felt like there was a growing darkness in a corner. And it was like, it was, it just,
when I looked over there in the corner, it just felt like the corner was quieter and
darker than it should be every time. And so like, I'm like, dude, there's something fucking
there. And I felt like it was feeding off me and things just kept getting worse. And
after I met Sienna, she did a lot of the fucking traditional Hispanic, like the cleansing
stuff with like, I was at Palo Santo, like egg rub downs and shit like that. And I think
that plus the fact that I, I was really happy with meeting her and that I kind of blocked
that I started to block that energy off. I wasn't as receptive to it. Yeah. And now,
and now that I'm at a different spot to where I cleanse and smudge pretty, pretty frequently
to where I have protective sigils and stuff around, I am not worried about it as much.
And I feel better. Like I don't feel that same entity if you, if you will. Yeah. I definitely
got moved to a different room and then it was all over after that. So it isn't that
crazy. I, so there was, okay, so I don't know if I told you this, but I ended up seeing
Sienna's great grandmother. Oh yeah. You told me the story. Yeah. So just a quick recap,
I guess for listeners, but I was, I was taking a piss and there's a window right behind the
toilet looking out into the woods behind the house. And I saw this, you know, didn't even
think twice about it. I just saw this old lady walking through the woods and then it
was a short older Hispanic lady with a white, like, like a white shawl over her head. And,
and I'm like, Oh, it's Sienna's grandma. I wonder, she must be feeling better walking
around and stuff. And so I got done peeing and I go, go out to the kitchen and go, I
saw your grandma. And she goes, yeah. I was like, yeah, she was walking out through the
woods and she goes, no, she wasn't. Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah, she was. I saw her and then
I kind of thought about her for a second. I'm like, there ain't no way she's feeling
good enough to be walking without a walker after she broke her hip like that. Like, so
then I told Sienna what happened, what I saw. And she goes, that is, that is weird. She
and she goes, that might be great grandma. And I'm like, no. So we immediately, we just
went over to grandma's cause we just thought it was cool. She goes, tell her what you told
me. And I told grandma and she kind of gasped and she goes, Oh, she goes, yeah, that's my
mother. And I'm like, no, she's like, that's who you saw. You saw my mother. She goes,
she was a white witch and she practiced like healing, healing spells and stuff like that.
So she would gather herbs from an herb garden that she had in the woods and she would walk
there every day. And she goes, so that was what you were seeing is you saw her walking
into the woods. She goes, you're very lucky. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm, I don't like
that. Like he, I, it didn't feel ominous, but there's a lot of stories on that land
from them because of the witchcraft and some of the, they've, they have seen like duplicate
spirit, like duplicate, uh, what would you call that? What are the, what are the people
that the kids that act like a doppelgangers, like doppelgangers spirits?
Yeah. I mean, to make it even worse, uh, in our area, uh, Enzley center area is where
most of the witches are. So like, there's a lot of that over by you. A lot of that,
a lot of native American burial grounds. There's a lot of spiritual energy all around. Like,
so they have that, you know, they have that, they had the doppelganger, they have a boy
that, uh, that will play as a boy or a girl. And they were playing tag and I can't remember
which three it was, but they were running around the house and they were bullying Michael,
the youngest brother. And as in, uh, Alex knows Michael and, uh, they were kind of bullying
him and chasing him around. And he's like, I've had enough of this. Like he's crying
like a little baby and he runs to the house, runs to the house door and, uh, all of a sudden,
uh, they're chasing, they look at the door and they go, get him, get him. And one of
the two of the people chasing runs into the woods and they get yelled at. They're like,
don't chase that. And they turn around and, uh, I think it was Alex. They pointed at the
door and they pointed at Michael walking through the door right as Alex was chasing Michael
going into the woods. Not me, Alex, a different Alex. No, yes. Alex, uh, Alex Sienna's older
sister. So, and as soon as they turned back to go look at this person, they were chasing
into the woods. There was no one there. So yeah, they definitely got, they definitely
got some, uh, some stuff over there, but you know, that stuff's just so cool. I think we,
we even got a book for that. I bought a book. I got to let you see this haunted New Wingo
County. Yeah, dude, I want to see that. It's even got the legend of Drudge and Swamp. Maybe
we'll do some, we could do some reads on this every once in a while. Yeah, that'd be kind
of cool. Do some reads, some, some cryptid reads, some scary stories. So our, uh, our
area has a lot of, a lot of history, uh, for the listeners that don't understand New Wingo
County is, I don't want to say one of the oldest counties in Michigan, but it has a
very rich history because it, uh, sorry, someone just distracted me, but a lot of stuff happened
here. I mean, um, Al Capone owned a lot of property here. So there's a lot of stuff wrapped
around Al Capone, um, very deep history with logging. So, uh, because of that, there's
a lot of like cryptid type stuff in our area, a lot of witchcraft. So yeah. Yeah, for sure.
And because we're a farming community, we have a very high population of migrant workers
and they all bring their own unique stories that happen here.
Um, stories and traditions and witchcraft and they have in Juju Voodoo stuff. Yeah,
there's, there's a lot, man, but yeah, we'll have to do some reading of haunted New Wingo
County. Do they have the story about the little boy on the dams in there? Little boy on the
dams. Is that what it's called? Little boy on Croton Hardy or I think it's Hardy. I think
it's Croton that he's seen on. See, we have the days of decadence, ghost of LaBelle, De La
Riviera, the Ribblet House, the good night ladies, the ghost of the Indigo Inn, um, the
old Kimbark Inn, guardian spirits of the woods, the ghosts of Manistee Forest, murder, mayhem
and madness, the ghost of Dugan Swamp, the mysterious girl in black, the Gothic ghost
of the trails. The girl in black is the one in New Wigo, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is all
in New Wigo County. Yeah. I meant that one. That's the one by the high school. Oh, I don't
know. 65. Yeah, I think it is. Yep. The one that got bit by a rattlesnake in our area
that has hardly any rattlesnake. Uh huh. Yeah. And they got screaming Ethel, the ghost of
Whiskeywood Hill. Um, it says John F Woods' house. So I think I've heard that one before
for some odd reason. Sounds familiar. Um, strange visitor, howling hell hound, the night
shift ghost of the old Grant Hospital. Um, little Fisher boy ghost of the Croton Dam.
Wait, what's the ghost of the Grant Hospital? Cause my, uh, my family owned that. See. Hey,
look, they have the old wood, the old wood water tower. Because the, uh, the Grant Hospital,
that's where the current, uh, old person home is the one that was there. Yeah. The one right
there by the funeral home. So it, I bet you that ghost would still be around. I've never
heard that story. It is in the 19th. It says this unnerving story is the only one of many
tales that have been told throughout the years of a former hospital in Grant, Michigan. The
hospital was built in the 1940s as Grant Community Hospital and was closed in 1983 as St. Mary's
Hospital and has been the site of an assisted living center since 1997. Yep. Um, it says
there's a whole lot of other stuff, ghostly, ghostly stuff of that. Um, it doesn't say
if she, if it was someone who died yet, but I haven't read all of it to it. It would be
going off. It's a proximity to the funeral home. I can tell you a lot of stories. Well,
I can't, there's a lot of stories from the funeral home that my family have kind of told
to each other throughout the years. So it'd be interesting to know how much of that carries
over into the hospital. Yes. There's Grant Hospital leading to a funeral home. So, yeah,
it's a, it's cool stuff. Like I said, we'll have to read, we'll have to do like reads
on this at one point. It'd be, uh, it'd be pretty cool. For sure. We definitely do that
like the month of October. That'd be kind of fun. Every episode in October starts with
the story of New York County. That would take a long time to read these stories. It might
be, it might be like a, yeah, it might be like a, maybe we do like a five minute, like
mini mini-sode, like mini-hazard or something where we just, where we just, one of us will
each will narrate one of them. Oh dude, that'd be, that'd actually be really cool. Just all
of October have like maybe record them all at one time, but then drop like a few a week.
So the listeners have more than two episodes a week. Yeah. That'd be cool. Right. For sure
dude. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now we have a plan for October. We have a plan for September.
We have nothing planned for next week or next month. Uh, yeah. I mean, we'll make it up
as we go. We have a power steering line to put on. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That was
some point. I guess anyone that replaces a rack of painting, you might as well replace
your holes at the same time. Yeah. We have, uh, we have to put a hose clamp on the power
steering boot. Oh yeah. Well, I guess I did count as a trail fail. Damn it. I forgot.
Dude, I did that a while ago. So I've been driving that without a, a hose clamp on there
for a while. I think you broke it up more recently though. It would have been when we
rebuilt it. Cause I didn't, I don't remember putting a hose clamp on there. I did them
on the black truck. It was definitely leaking. Cause I, I thought you had to do something.
You took it off cause you thought it might've been broken. That was before we rebuilt it
again. I'm pretty sure I took it off recently, but I could be wrong. I had to replace inner
tie rods like two months before I, uh, broke the front end and had to rebuild it all again.
Yeah. Yup. Fun times in the, uh, first gen room. Uh, third gen. Third gen, right. But
yeah, that's, uh, that's about our hour there. So this is a good thought to wrap her up.
Alrighty. Well, it was good talking to everybody. You now know our plans. Don't steal them.
And, uh, we'll, we'll talk to you later. Later. Sure.