MINT TV
Welcome to Bacha's Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to trail stories, tank camping to rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors.
Today we have a pretty fun interview with the Radio Chatter crew. Is it just you two or do you have anyone else that works with you?
Just us and our son, he signs all the shipments. So when you get to copy handwriting, that's from him.
It's not positive.
So these two have a pretty cool little conversation starter game. As you know, we've got three or four episodes out now.
It's a pretty fun little game. So by all means, go ahead, introduce yourselves. And I know you've got a pretty cool truck.
Okay. Yeah. So my name is Paul. So I kind of run the day to day operations of the game and shipments and all that kind of stuff.
Even though it's her idea, she'll tell you. But yeah, we've been doing like the overlanding off-roading thing since about 2018 or 19.
No, 19, because that's when we bought the truck. I thought it was after.
Well, we have a 2019 truck. So that makes sense.
You went off-road. You went off of a paved road. So I guess that counts. That counts. That counts. Yep. Yep.
So yeah, we have a 19 Colorado, Chevy Colorado. And then a few years back, maybe four years now, we added the Alucav canopy camper to it.
That's cool. And it is so beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. The whole interior we did ourselves custom.
So that's like, that's our family hobby. We got one little son. He's six years old. We got this new puppy now.
So, oh man, he's only a few weeks old. Yeah. We don't trust him yet. So yeah.
So that's, yeah. So that's like our primary family activities. We go out camping, off-roading or overlanding.
Started off just us, you know, introduced our son into it. And then, yeah, decided to kind of gamify it a little bit. Yep.
When just spending so much time on the road, like we joke, you know, we go down, down, you know, North Carolina or Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, like all that quite a bit.
It's pretty central to a lot of other states and friends. So we spend eight to 10 hours in a car together.
No, I'm telling the story. And then because once I turn it over, I might as well walk away.
So, so yeah. So then we spent so much time in the car together and then we want to hang out with friends.
And then you just jump right back in the car again to travel the next day. And it's like, man, we're sick of talking to each other.
And so then I'll let her tell the rest of the story since she really wants to talk.
My name is Bethany. Yeah. So we started, we went on our first like overlanding trip after watching a lot of stuff on YouTube.
And we started watching Mountain State Overland. We went on a Mountain State Overland trip and had fun.
And then that year we had a second one. We had like two trips, books within a couple months of each other. So we went on the second one.
And the second one was a lot of fun, but it was a little bit more fun because there was a lot more talking on the radio.
And the silence. But the first trip, I thought the radio was like for emergencies only, like wasn't.
And then the second one, there was more banter and it was fun, but there was a lot of like gear talk and I had no idea what was being said.
Like I was like, this is fun, but could be more fun if it wasn't so specific to like what kind of ball bearings you have rocking in your truck.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I ruined my own joke.
So then like on the third trip, I was like, we were driving down and I had a notepad with me and I started writing down questions.
And he said, what are you doing? I was like, I'm taking questions to ask when we're on the trip.
And my first question that I came up with that and I liked it because it was questions and I felt like it could create conversation that myself could participate in with having like no understanding.
And the first, the OG question is what was your favorite upgrade to your rig?
That was our very first episode. Yeah.
And then the follow up was, OK, well, what was the best? And then the follow up was what was the worst?
So I came up with like 15 or 20 questions initially and started asking them on the road and the radio and was like waiting for people to tell me to shut up.
And they were with stopper brakes and we got a lot of engagement. We'd stop and people were like, I'm really enjoying the questions, really getting to know people,
just getting to know more about how they got into the sport, why they're on this trip.
And then when we got to the campsite, it was like we were we were just picking it up and going.
Because I think prior trips talking to the guides was more of like the campfire is more of they get to know you. And we're already hours ahead of that.
And, you know, and it was a lot more continuation of the conversation of, oh, tell me more about that trip that you took when you're in high school or whatever, you know, thing that they talked about earlier in the day.
So it was just a lot of fun. Got a lot of really good feedback and encouragement to make a game. I was like no. And we we kind of shelved it for a year and then came back up again and Paul and I'll let you take over now.
But we'll wrap it up for you. Yeah, no, he just was say, like, I think he saw an opportunity. We had some extra money.
And he's always wanted to start a business. And, you know, he's like, I think this is a great opportunity to just start understanding what it is to like start a business with all the paperwork that you have all of the stuff that you don't really think about.
And then gives us an opportunity to like express our creativity when when the mood strikes. So, take it away.
You finished it. So do you guys do radio chatter full time then? No, no, no. It's very much a true side hustle. And it's amazing how much a little game can like take up a lot of time. Yeah. Right. Right.
It's like when everybody asked me like, hey, how are things going? It's like it truly is the pure definition of a side hustle. When I don't have time to engage with people, go to social media, email potential wholesalers like nothing happens.
And then as soon as I just start a little bit engagement, you post some things on social or you respond to a couple things. All of a sudden you get podcast requests or things like that.
It's what happens. And so last year was just a busy year for us. We started off really strong. We went to more expo. We did a huge deal with Midland. Midland had our product for free.
They bought a bunch off of us. They had it. Buy a radio, get free radio chatter at all their events last year. That carries over into this year.
So like it was a big deal with them. And then just our personal lives got busy and it was just kind of like just the side part of the side hustle. So hoping to really pick it back up this year, try to carve out time because we enjoy doing it.
We enjoy talking to people. Like we really like it started off as kind of a game. We have some other games you guys talked about on your podcast. We have the, you know, the after dark.
We have other ideas, but for us it's like, how can we add something new and unique to overlanding and off roading? Just help build community, build friendships, give something else to do.
I mean, like we, I'm drinking a beer. We all love sitting around drinking a beer or whatever, but let's give something else to do other than the same thing we do on every trip.
So like if you can get some games in it or whatever, like it's just something different that no one else is really doing. So I'd like to do more of that.
Yeah, we've, uh, might have to talk to you because we got a game we're working on right now. It would be pretty fun. I'd like to know a little more on how you did some stuff.
Yeah, it would be, it would be happy. Like part of the fun of doing this is it's, we are not going to become millionaires for making a car. Right. Even 10 card games. We're going to become billionaires.
We're going to become still in debt to buying boxes of card games that are sitting over there in the basement. But, um, but yeah, I'd be happy to like, it's, it's, but what's amazing too is just the network in the overlanding community.
Like when we started doing this and we were talking to a friend of ours about making a card game, he's like, Oh, I got a buddy who makes card games for fun.
And it was like, Oh my God, playing card. It was like, okay. So we talked to him and he's like, I've, I've printed from this manufacturer, this manufacturer, this manufacturer, this manufacturer.
These are the two I recommend. And they're like, wow, you just saved us months worth of work. Right. Like, right. Because of overlanding. Like it was pretty, pretty sweet. So, yeah.
It's one of the cool things about overlanding is there's a someone from almost every walk of life. Yeah. You know, like I'm a farmer. Mark is a underground construction guy. Did I say that right?
Underground boring. I put five boring.
You guys can hit it off. I used to do environmental site assessments and work with drilling rigs for doing like geo probe and how some augering similar, but different.
We, we, we borrowed this direction. So we're not really going straight down.
I mean, I, I, I, I mean, it's still a drill rig.
And then, you know, Gavin, he manages the stick. Gavin does everything. He's kind of a genius. He can do whatever he needs to.
No, no, it's a, it's the, what, how do you, how does that saying go? You know, I could do a little bit of everything, but I've never.
All trades master.
Yeah, that's 100%.
It just amazed me because I've met people that, you know, overland full time. I've met people that are homeless. I've met people that, you know, do everything. And it just, it's crazy. The world that overlanding as.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's a great way to, it's a great way to meet people.
Just like Bethany was saying, and it was a great way to start that communication and kind of breaks the ice, fun little games to do that.
And I think me and me and Alex half the time we're on the trail. We're just got the radio in our hand. We're just talking about it anyway.
So my, my wife was kind of similar in that aspect is she would get kind of bored in the passenger seat and you know, the kids sleeping in the back and she's just kind of crocheting and she's like, so and so what, what do they do it?
And so it's kind of, yeah, it was kind of the same thing. And we, I, you know, I didn't really learn about this until I'd say probably a couple months before we actually did our radio chatter episode and Alex told me about it.
And like, dude, perfect. Like, like, that's exactly what we needed. Like, so, so once we found out, I was like, oh, this is kind of cool.
Of course, after dark, that makes it a lot more fun too. And you just throw that we shuffled that shuffle that deck right into ours.
That was fun to make. But then I found myself kind of like hesitant to put some questions.
What is on your mind?
Yeah, right. Yeah. So a lot of the times with like, our over landing groups that we tend to ride with between us, the off road great group or MST, one of the other big ones that we're a part of.
We kind of, we kind of know each other pretty well.
But these help kind of ask the questions that haven't been asked. And yeah, we really value that. That's kind of a, it's a cool product. It's really outside the box.
And it scratches a niche, you know what I mean? For a group that is very, yeah, the very outdoorsy and very gear related.
This kind of helps you just get to know the actual people you're driving with and create those friendships and bonds. So yeah.
And we've heard stories from people that are similar where like, I've known this person for years.
And but then they were on, you know, pavement for eight hours going somewhere and they're like, I'm falling asleep or something. Someone asked me a question.
They're, I'm tired too. So they pulled it and then they're like, I learned something about them that I never knew for years.
So like, it's great to hear those stories. So yeah, it's, you know, informative too.
You know, the gear question, like what's your favorite piece of gear? Being able to answer that and then talk about why it's your favorite.
You know, when you're with a group of other people that are kind of, you know, everybody wants to know what your favorite gear is and what you do like and what you don't like.
So like I said, it starts that conversation. We all get talking about it. So yeah, it's useful for that.
It's excellent for podcast content. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It asks questions like, like I was saying that we haven't have it necessarily thought of.
And it keeps us within that realm of the overland off-road world. So yeah, it's pretty cool. We like it.
And one thing I remember like, cause we went down, was it last fall or two falls ago, we went to overlaying the red.
And that was like kind of our soft launch of radio chatter. And some people bought the product or like they had it out on the trails.
And there were, I remember there were some people there that were all by themselves. Like they heard about it.
They showed up and just someone said, Hey, we're going to go run this trail. And they went along with it.
And they said like, you know, for being by themselves and not even knowing like another rig, it really helped join the group.
Cause yeah, I could see that. Cause like, yeah, even though you're in your car, it still kind of feels like you're in a situation where, yeah, you're by yourself.
And you're like, Hey, like, you know, if I show up like, Hey guys, can I like tag along with you today to whatever? Yeah.
So it just like helps bridge that and make it again, build the community and get, you know, especially there's people like we've met that are like, Hey, I really want to get into this more.
How do I do it? How do I do it safely? Like recommend, you know, and it's just, you know, I always recommend like find groups where you're at or go on a guided trip, depending.
I don't know what your budget is, but you know, like that helps, but yeah, definitely just definitely helps. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think, I think that's one of the reasons why we kind of stick in and we group with MST is they were kind of founded on that.
Helping out beginners doing the doing like free group trail rides and stuff like that. They're not like, they're not subscription based or anything, but, but they're, they're very willing to, you know,
take a bunch of new guys out and run them on trails and give them that support. And it's a chance for everyone to meet. So it was, it was kind of the kind of the same thing is one of those things to help kind of break the ice and make people feel like they're more welcome, I guess. And, and more accepted.
I don't know. I just stick with MST for the hot dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's hot dog lore there behind the makers of it. But yeah, I mean, it's a good group. They did a, they did a poker run here for new years. That was our first poker run they ever did.
That's part of that. They did that in a different thing. And it's, what is that? Like, what is the con? That was with something with the Ozarks, right? Or something. But what, what is that? I guess in general, there's a poker run or some kind of. Yeah.
So for us this time, you know, first one we ever did. They, they pre-scouted the trail, the guys that that made it and found cool obstacles or cool areas. And, and they planted little flags and put a deck of cards out there and pretty much made a whole, you know, trail, I guess, map and logged the coordinates down.
And then I think they had six of them because the goal is to make a full hand for poker. Yes. And so they dropped the coordinates right at, you know, 10 a.m. for everyone at the same time. Everyone knew to be in the area, but they didn't know where the coordinates would be.
And then, and then once we started, it was kind of a, kind of a race to get to them. Do the obstacles. Every time you do the obstacles, kind of grab a poker card or from a deck of cards.
And if you do all six, you have your full hand. And by the time that we're done with everything, you have a full hand and then everybody groups up after, after we do it and we see who's got the best hand.
Okay. So, so there's a, it's a fun way to get everyone out there kind of friendly competition.
When we did it, they, they probably put a little too many cards. They put a couple decks of cards in there and then, yeah, we got, we had a lot of people with winning hands.
So, they also didn't shop in the deck too. So, no, no.
So it was, it was a lot of, it was a lot of fun though. And, and it was a really good kind of first step to make it a really, really fun event every year in the, in the equine community.
We do a lot of poker runs, but we've got, you know, people out handing cards out at each location, which kind of helps with that. Everyone gets a winning hand thing.
Yeah. Yeah. It, it was, this one was kind of based off of the, you know, trust and everything that everyone's not going to take a bunch of the same cards or anything, but yeah, but it was really cool.
You know, we did, we had, they had some easy obstacles. They had some harder ones.
And then they, you know, give you the option that you don't have to do the, the certain obstacle it's at.
There was one of them that, that Mark and I attempted and I got stuck pretty bad. It was pretty off camber spot, deep ruts. And of course we were the last people to that obstacle.
And yeah, I sank the truck pretty good and I could, I could reach out the window and touch the ground. We were, we were that bad. So, I'm sorry.
No, you're good. What, what kind of rigs you guys have? Oh, I'm sorry. I probably should, we should have said that. I have a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser.
Okay.
Yeah. 2014 Tacoma.
And I have a 98 forerunner.
Oh, okay.
Yes.
Toyota family represented.
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because I'm a Jeep guy.
Yes he is.
He just, he just can't get, he just can't go back.
Oh, I can go back. I miss my Jeep a lot.
Yeah, never does.
We met a guy who had a Jeep and then got a Colorado and he was like, the Colorado solid vehicle, you know, it's dependable all these things, all these great things, but I just, I just missed my Jeep.
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of solid axle does that, that you just, just wish you had at some points, but a lot of drawbacks to having things like that too.
Breaking off time.
Yeah.
See, yeah, my Jeep only broke once when I put a piston through the cylinder. Yeah.
I don't, I don't believe it. I didn't see it.
I know Alex's history. I think it was our first trip. There was a guy on it that had the FJ mark. Yeah. And he, I think if I recall, he said he bought his with like over 300,000 miles on it.
Yeah.
Really. Wow. And, and it was manual.
Yeah.
That's yeah those are, those are gems nowadays the, he drew a bit across the country too.
Oh yeah.
Those FJs are, are expensive now.
I was babying mine for a while and then once I started off roading, I got those pinstripes. I said, all right, to heck with it. And, you know, mechanically I try not to break anything, but you know, paint to paint.
It's just a protective cover. So, but yeah, you know, after, after, after that little off camber situation, that was probably the hardest obstacle I've done yet.
I said, you know, I wiped my hands on it. You know, I, it's not the kind of stuff I want to do frequently.
I got just past it. We got the card up there and Mark went and it was just an unfortunate turn of events that he ended up D beating his tire and it was a whole, I was way too low in tire pressure for that.
Yeah. Yeah. So we ended up getting him all taken care of gotten his tire put back on and finished it out. But it was a lot of guys.
You guys work with Cindy Pope. Are you a sponsor Cindy Pope stuff right. Yep. Yeah. How does that all work. Yeah. So, um, when we first got started, you know, we started just reaching out to people saying, Hey, we're starting.
You do whatever we'd like to send you a free deck, you know, just to kind of get our name out there and Cindy was really early one said sure send me a deck. Most people didn't even respond.
Yeah, sure. Send me a deck. And then she locked it like right away. She's like, I love this. She actually I think the first discussion I had with her was, I had my doubts, but this is actually pretty good.
So, you know, like, it sounds weird on paper, we get it. It. That's why we shelved it for over a year.
And then it was like, after the first weekend, like, our, our friend, Jason was like you guys need to like make a game and I was like I was just going to give you the list of questions to take on your.
Yeah, there you go. I'm like, no, I'm like, this has been done before this is not anything new.
I'm like, I mean, like I enjoy so I think the biggest thing that I've gotten out of this is even from the initial asking the questions.
I was nervous about, like, people, you know, like stop your questions are dumb, shut up, not, not that they would. I mean, he would tell me they're dumb but other people that more polite ways but
we're going to make this come, we're going to make this game we're going to make this card thing and put ourselves out there.
It was nerve nerve wracking for me but and I'm assuming for Paul to but like and then to get the warm reception has been really nice and seeing like, you know, all this feedback and even like we said, or like Paul was saying, getting feedback that you know people
have grown up together and learn new things, or it helps make some break the ice to get somebody to go on a trail when they've never they don't have a single friend in overlanding, you know, that that stuff was like all right that's really cool.
Yeah, and Cindy's got like so many of the different events that she does through so many. So like yeah, it works really well for those kind of groups right where you know, you know, and so.
So yeah, she just, she just really liked the product and started just helping us get connected so let us come down to overland the red because we're new which is just come down sell the game.
She got us connected last year with Chris from more expo and got us in the magazine there.
You know, like all sorts of stuff so yeah so this year you're going to see our product at all her events we've donated a bunch of products, so she's got giveaways for all of her events just as like a thank you for her support so just to help continue to get
our name out there and then yeah she's also one of our wholesalers. So she actually also buys product and sells it at a store. So we got kind of a mixed partnership with her with her various endeavors that she has so yeah she is a very busy woman.
Yeah, yeah I was gonna say I may talk to Benji with was at Midwest Outfitters or overland outfitters in Missouri. Benji Ward he's got the overland.
Oh yeah, he just, he just actually made a store.
Yeah, he's got a store there and it's all overland related and that's pretty cool. Yeah, so I have like, I have a court board I installed, we're in the basement, this is kind of my office.
And I have things after like this year is the year to try to reach out to more like potential wholesalers like it's great.
But like, no one really knows who we are like, yeah, right. Of the hundreds we've sold or whatever like no one really knows who we are so it's like we got to get into the shops and different, different, different wholesalers to really just get our product out there.
So, the goal is to get into more of those that's really the best way to get our product out there. Yeah, through Instagram. Right. One off product.
Yeah, he, he started the what and correct me if I'm wrong Alex because I'm going off of memory here but the budget overland Facebook page.
Yep. And then, which grew to like, I mean, crazy amounts, and then started the podcast.
I believe it wasn't budget overlanding.
It was budget overland first and then now it's new found overland. Yep. Yep. And so,
he had quite the following and, and eventually he switched over that new found overland.
He's just restarting his podcast, a couple, a few months ago, just opened the store in Missouri had a grand opening.
Alex and Mark actually drove drove over to that and that was pretty cool. He got to met Benji in person, a couple other guys make some connections. So, it would be a cool opportunity and he's a pretty cool guy, as it is.
That's cool. Yeah, the other the other like Missouri one is all roads taken. That's another great. Yep.
Yeah, I was, I was thinking on the way home today trying to race here to make sure I got here for the, for the podcast.
I was like, you know what, it would be really cool for like a kid's I spy game like a kid's I spy card game almost.
So we, so we tried, I mean, we, we've talked to tread lightly so tread lightly ever listens to this like we've been trying to talk about this to do a spy game. So like a kid's like kind of tread lightly they have something you can print on their website like a matching game.
So like we wanted to partner with them on doing one of those as well. Yeah, that would be cool. I was, it would be kind of fun to do almost like a radio chatter card game but each one's got like, you know, maybe five.
I'm trying to trying to think of something but you know five, five certain trees or a breakdown or something.
So like, in Brother Bear. Yeah, like roadside bingo, big jokes about doing that like wanting to do a river crossing.
Yeah, like I talked about doing like a bingo for like my zoom meetings. Oh yeah. Hey, you're on mute, you know, like bingo.
Yeah, like, like, when we first came out with radio chatter the number one request was like an adult only version. Oh yeah, the number two was something kids. Yeah.
And you know, it would be it would be a ton of fun we have a family, you know, kids trips that MST does and stuff, where everybody with kids they'll bring it around they'll have little campfires over there. And it gives a chance for all the families to bring their kids and we're all accepting
the, the wild hooligans that are running around so gives us kind of a chance to do like a you know a three day every all the kids meet each other and run around and play and it'd be a fun little game.
Not sure exactly.
Exactly what it would entail but you know, we always tried to do little games and stuff when we were there.
And, yeah, just kind of add something to it.
The, the other benefit of when you get a bunch of kids together is once you get, I'd say probably three or more, they kind of like watch themselves. Oh, gosh, that was my favorite part.
The, the, the young kids took Jasper, and my son, and he was probably seven months or something like that seven months old. And they were just, he just started walking and they were just taking them everywhere.
Yeah, he just, he's just a bit over a year old now and I can't wait for next year's kids will be rolling all around the woods and it'll be nice to be able to just relax, talk to the parents and joke.
Yeah.
So to pull it back to your truck a little bit, other than your aluminum cab what else have you done to it.
Okay, yeah.
Well yeah.
Yeah, I can say I've upgraded the drive shaft.
Placed it after slamming it into a rock. Yeah, well you broke it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so the, I mean, so mechanically not much has changed.
I did replace the rear suspension.
Part of getting the alley cab though right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I got like a vehicle sway going on right now.
And it kind of looked like the suspension had a slow leak, so I replaced those but I still got the sway I think it's actually the tires now. I got some weird wear on the tires or something.
That's what I do with my wife.
So mechanically there's like really nothing. It's, it's stock. I mean that I'm not really, I work for an auto OEM, but I'm not a car.
Never. It's also why you got the car. That's why I got to Colorado because I was like, I'm, I'm mechanically inclined, I can.
The only thing that I did myself you know I can do plumbing and electrical drywall whatever I'm a handy guy, but I've just never was into cars that wasn't, I was, I was the computer guy and computers.
Me too.
So then it was like, okay, I really want to,
but I camped, hiked, backpacked my whole life.
And I was like, I want to do more.
I want to introduce the vehicle to it.
So I got into it and was like, but I don't really,
I'm not going to buy some of the vehicles you guys have
and try to add to them or fix them up.
That's not my thing.
So I was like, but if I buy something capable,
I can learn as I break things and need to upgrade.
So at the time-
You were driving a Malibu, but he don't-
So, okay.
So he was always talking about, I want to get a truck.
And like, he was like, for whatever reason,
no, we don't need a truck.
And then we live in the city.
So our driveway is very close to our neighbors.
It's like one car wide, long, or wide.
Like there's, it's just tight.
So it was like getting a full-size truck, but then,
and then I think at the time, oh yeah, no,
we did have Jacob, we had our son.
So he was like less than a year old.
And he said something about like, I want the truck,
but there's not a lot of cargo, like cab room.
And I looked around and I was like,
I don't think a truck is much different than this Malibu.
Like if we can get the car seat in the Malibu,
like there's trucks that have this size of thing.
And it was like looking at you,
I feel like I saw a light bulb go off.
He looked up like the dimensions of the Malibu.
Then he started looking up the dimensions of the trucks.
But when I said truck, I thought he was going to get
like a Silverado or Sierra.
And then he was talking about a Colorado.
And he's like, oh, and if I get this AE version,
snorkel and all this other stuff.
And I was like, what?
He's like, so off-road, what?
So I was like, oh, when you said truck,
I was just thinking you want to just, okay.
So I remember, cause you were sitting at your parents' house
and you're looking and I was like, oh, okay.
Is that what I thought? But this sounds fun.
Yeah.
So I wanted like the ZR2 at the time.
There was no Gladiator.
It was like Jeep or buy something and upgrade it.
And we weren't using it.
And full disclosure, we work for General Motors.
So we needed to buy a Jeep product.
I kind of put that together.
So yeah, so this was like the perfect platform.
It was like factory lifted, factory protection,
factory suspension, like everything.
It was like, yeah, it was front and rear lockers.
Yeah.
Everything off the factory.
I was like, I can take it off road the day one.
And that's what we started doing.
And then we just started more adding
for the camping element.
Like I like the off-roading,
but we are campers fundamentally.
Like that's where we came from.
So the off-roading just allowed us to get deeper
into the woods or off trail to get to the camp spots.
Right? That was, that's our fundamental thing.
I explained when people were like, what is overlanding?
And he had to explain it to me.
And then when I watched, when he showed me some videos,
I was like, oh, so it's like backpacking,
but you're in a truck.
Yeah. Yeah.
Pretty much. Pretty much.
Yeah. And that's what our camper looks like.
Yeah. It looks like a backpack.
It does.
We don't want to bring a bunch of extra gear
and weight and all that.
And they're like, ah, okay.
So really that was a long wind for your question.
Hey, that was really it.
But, but I mean, we have solar, we have our fridge.
We have a water tank.
Water.
Propane.
Propane for cooking.
I refuse to put a heater in.
I will continue to state that.
I'm not gonna do that.
And so yeah.
So what's the toilet?
And then yeah, toilet I'd rather have than a heater.
I can, I can understand.
Oh yeah.
Toilet is 100% necessary.
What's the distaste for a heater?
Mainly because I mean, you get, we're from Michigan.
Like we're heartier.
Like we can't.
Yeah.
Like.
He, I mean, it's not something I want to do,
but I, I, I have zero interest in like winter camping.
Okay. So I do like winter camping.
I haven't done it many times, but I've camped in the cold.
Like I've tent camped and woked up, you know,
woke up with snow on the ground.
Like I'm like, if I can do that, I can camp in a truck.
In snow. Right.
This is not a big deal.
Right.
So last year I went two times.
I went in February and March and it was the first night
it was down to 15 degrees.
I was totally fine.
It was no big deal.
It's once it got down to single digits,
then I would wake up with ice everywhere.
Just because of the breath and everything.
I was like, okay, this is where a heater
would actually be nice.
You can bring it to 30 degrees or whatever.
Just manage the humidity that would have,
that might be nice.
I know I keep burping the sausage.
Your burps are gonna stop.
Yeah.
I think that the, the big thing to a heater,
the only reason I'd be interested is like a diesel heater
dries the tent out.
Yeah, exactly.
That would be an effect.
Yes.
I, you know, when I, I sleep in a military sleeping system,
I've got the, I can be warm in whatever weather,
but just being able to keep the tent
from having ice everywhere would be great.
Yeah.
And this is the only time I had ice.
Like, so that it's like, okay, well,
maybe just avoid single digits.
That shouldn't be.
Yeah.
So for me, and I'd just like to say too that
how you guys kind of started with,
and your kind of attitude about it was,
is very similar to my wife and I,
and how we kind of started.
And then we kind of wanted to,
when I started, we did more backpacking, camping,
and I kind of just wanted to bring the vehicle with it.
And then, you know, we just got just the same kind of thing,
snowballed from there.
Even talking about all the upgrades,
even before we even got the vehicle,
yeah, that was pretty standard.
But for us, diesel heater wise,
my wife shivers at like 65.
So she's got a sweatshirt on.
And, you know, I started camping and, you know,
and overlanding pretty, I would say, I don't know,
seriously as in every weekend almost,
with my son when he was probably six months old.
So having a warm tent, because we are not,
we are not to the rooftop tent part or anything like that.
So, you know, at first we were like,
okay, we're gonna wait a couple months
till it's warm enough for him
because of how young he was.
You know, we did great all summer.
And then we started getting into fall again.
My wife's teeth are chattering.
You know, it was one of those things where we ended up
going to Tractor Supply, picking up a buddy heater
and heating the tent up.
So it's just more of a comfort thing for her.
Can I do it? Probably.
Am I gonna love and enjoy it all the time?
Is it gonna make me wanna go out in the middle
of the winter all the time?
Probably not so much.
So I think I'm interested in a diesel heater just for that,
just more of a comfort level while we're out there anyway,
or just kind of bring the tent down a little bit for her
just to make it more bearable.
Because I have dragged her along half the time.
One reason that makes me nervous about the heater
is the way that our sleeping system works right now
with our son is we're up top in the canopy where the bed is,
but then he's small enough to where he can sleep
the width of the truck.
And to move out our platform, we put in ledges
so that you can put plywood, like slats of wood,
over the fridge.
And so he sleeps over that.
So, and then when he's time for bed,
we'll put him in there, we'll lock him up,
and we'll just hang out near the truck.
But I get nervous about the idea of like little fingers
and like open flame.
And I mean, I guess we could only use it
when we're there too, but I just,
it's just like one more safety thing
that makes me nervous.
But if he was in there by himself.
Understandable.
Yeah, I am a hundred percent the helicopter parent
on my, in our relationship.
I'm the always the one like, hey, don't do that.
Like constantly trying to make sure
he's not getting into trouble.
And for those, your system that you have,
just depending, depending obviously,
but there are Etsy kits, 3D printed ducks
that you can work in there.
And it would be almost, it would be very similar
to just basically having a dryer duct go through it.
So you would, your diesel heater stays outside.
So there's no risk of flame, no risk of being burnt.
And then it just kind of ducks into your,
wherever you want to actually put it,
into your sleep area, your alley cab.
So that, and you can most, and most likely put a vent,
you know, a great vent or, you know,
some sort of keep the fingers out.
But that, that is another option that,
it's pretty versatile too.
And the diesel heaters are really, really good
if you have, you have solar power.
So they run off a battery and diesel,
but even off of just a little bit of diesel,
they can heat you for a while.
So that keep you really nice and toasty in the winter.
We went to Iceland where our son was born
and we rented a camper van
and they had a heater.
I don't remember, I think it was electric.
I don't know, but it was like, it was nice
because it definitely did take like the chill
and like the moisture out of the air
and really made the inside of the van a lot warmer.
To the point of like, if it was going on,
I wouldn't want to leave because like they were last night
was like the best night for Northern Lights.
And our campsite, we were like on the shore.
Also, I had just gotten done like showering.
So my hair was wet and like, I didn't want to,
I think I brought a blow dryer with me, but I didn't,
the bathroom wasn't like ideal for me to dry it.
So I just like ran, you know, from the shower house
to the van and got in there and like warmed up.
He said, you gotta come out here.
And I was like, I'm not, I'm not leaving, I'm done.
Sorry.
I hate to be that, but I'm cold.
I'm warm now, I'm no.
Yep, yep, that's a-
See your photos when they're done.
Yeah, that would be, that would be my, my wife would be,
I'd get the diesel heater or something started up there.
And once she's got the heat and she's all snuggled up
in bed or whatever, she's not coming back out.
She doesn't care.
No camping.
She's show me, show me the pictures.
I'll look at them later.
So I mean, that's another thing I like about Overlanding
because like we started it and it was like our first time
going in, it was super hot.
I remember like drenching and sweat as we were getting,
like we actually hit some pretty crazy obstacles
that I don't think were anticipated.
But the nice thing is, is like you're in your car all day.
So it's like, you can put the air on.
So you can like kind of cool off.
It's like when you, you know, if you have to get out
and do stuff, it gets hot.
But then, or like when you get to camp,
but usually we try and find it.
Like we're, the group we're with always tries to find water.
So then you're hanging out with the water.
So that's nice.
Same thing with winter, like I guess with winter camping,
it's like, we'll get in the car.
You can warm up the heater and then we get to camp.
Like you can go sit by the campfire.
We'll have to-
Not a time like this though.
It's good to have separate activities.
I think next year we're gonna plan a couple winter trips.
You should come out with us, one of them.
Yes, I have not made it out this year.
I'll go, she probably won't.
My son, Steve's-
My wife won't go, so.
Yeah.
I loved it.
And like, she's like, like, how'd you stay warm?
I was like, I literally walked away from the campfire
and climbed into bed.
Yeah.
And then I woke up and I did it the same day.
You didn't change?
No, because why would I put cold clothes?
Yeah.
I was warm.
Well, sometimes I'll do that though.
Like I'll change into my pajamas, but then I'll sleep.
Like I'll put my clothes for the next day,
like next in my sleeping bag
so that they're warm in the morning.
But I just, yeah, he can wear like the same thing.
I'm not like, you guys got a good day.
Like I actually put makeup on today.
Like I am not a usually a fancy person,
but I have some limits.
Like I can't stay in the same clothes
for like four days camping.
Yeah.
Yeah, the minimalist guy camping style
isn't great for families either.
So.
I at a bare minimum have to change my underwear
and my shirt.
Yeah.
And so.
It's got to change.
It's a lot too much.
Oh yeah.
Socks too.
Yeah.
I always bring plenty of those two
and then I'll bring a couple of each just in case,
but yeah, we try to,
I try to make it as comfortable as possible
so that she continues to want to go out.
So she's not, she doesn't balk away from it really.
You know, she goes, if we ever go camping, she always comes,
but it's just a comfort level.
If she's having fun, we're all having fun.
It's also a lot.
Okay.
I guess we're going to have an anatomy discussion too.
It's a lot harder as a female when it's cold
for using the facilities and there's just.
No it is.
There's just not something I want to have to deal with.
Like.
Understandable.
So.
Yeah.
You guys have been to overlanding the red.
You've been to Iceland.
Where is your favorite trip you've done so far?
So this is hard because we have different reasons why.
Our first like road trip that we took,
we flew out to Colorado and they,
we actually rented a four runner and that was a lot.
We really enjoyed driving the four runner
and we like flew into Denver,
rented it and did like a big loop and camps.
And like we flew out like our backpacking stuff.
So we had like our tent and just drove around and camps.
And then, you know, for like 10 days and then came home.
So that was fun.
But then Iceland was fun because it was Iceland
and it was different.
And right.
It was a camper van that was like living
in the camper van.
That was cool.
That was like our first forte
into what we didn't know at the time was overlanding.
It was like the four runner was just car camping.
We'd get out the tent and do whatever.
I mean, not to get in the semantics of whatever,
but at the time for us, that was car camping.
That's what we knew.
And so, so then with the camper van,
even though we didn't really off road it,
it was like, oh, we're like living in it and getting out.
And like, this is interesting.
And then it all kind of came together.
The four runner, the camper van late, a few years later,
they're like, oh, this is what they call overlanding.
Oh, okay.
And it was, what was cool about the camper van in Iceland
is like everything was with us.
So like we, you know, we'd be driving.
I mean, you know, we have like the whole thing plotted out
and like an itinerary for each day.
And we'd be like in route and we'd be like,
oh, there's a waterfall over there that we missed.
So we'd like go check it out.
And then like everyone, they were looking at it
and we're like, oh, that's cool.
Are you hungry for lunch?
Yeah, me too.
And we would just like open up the back and get the camp.
Like they, it came with like a camping stove,
tables, chairs, everything we needed, sleeping bags.
So, and we brought freeze dried meals with us.
So we just boiled some water and let it sit.
And we sat like next to this beautiful waterfall
and ate lunch where it was like other people would be like,
oh, we have to go find somewhere to eat.
Or like I actually went back to Iceland over Thanksgiving
with my sister-in-law and my niece.
And you know, we stayed in hotels,
which was really nice too.
But it was like, you were kind of tethered to that hotel.
I mean, it was a much shorter trip, but like, yeah, I mean,
everything has its pluses and minuses,
but I liked that you were just able to keep going
and had everything with you.
And so you could pivot, easily pivot
because you're like, I want to eat lunch now,
or oh, let's go do this.
Or, oh, there's a hot spring.
Let's put our swimsuits on and go, go swim.
Yeah, I think those are like, they're the most memorable
because they turned into be foundational to what we now do.
And like, even the thing is, is like,
at the time we actually took
conversation starter games to Iceland.
That's why I was like, this is a new thing.
This is a thing that we've done for years.
We've always done conversation starter games
or like things because we spend a lot of time together,
but we can't always think of what to talk about.
So this was like a normal thing for us.
So like, those are the most meaningful,
but like, if you start thinking about, okay,
once we got the truck, like, what do we like?
Well, we go to Drummond Island quite a bit.
And we tend to go with family and they rent a house.
And sometimes we stay in the house.
Sometimes we stay in the driveway in our truck
and we do day trips around Drummond Island.
So that's become meaningful for us
for more of the technical kind of aspect.
And it's Michigan and we enjoy that piece.
But then we did-
Even if they have to go and destroy it on us.
Yeah, Marv, I know, I know, I know, so many.
The other memorable trip for us was two summers ago
and we took two weeks off of work
and we drove from Michigan.
We went to visit his brother in Omaha, but then we're like,
oh, I have a cousin that's in Iowa city.
Let's stop and see them.
And then we did that and then we're like,
oh, let's go check out some of this stuff.
And then he was looking at it and we're like,
oh, well next weekend we have a wedding in Wisconsin.
Let's just, we had a vacation,
but it turned into why would we drive out there
to drive back, to like drive back out.
So we did this like huge loop
and we went all the way over to like the east side
of Montana to like the Dakotas.
Devil's tower one, I don't mean this far.
And then North Dakota, South Dakota,
like we did all those states, a big circle.
It was like 17 days.
With our son.
And so like from a, we were like, and he did pretty good.
We made it, we did not wanna go more than four hours
at a time with him without like a significant break.
And we would go four hours, find like a playground,
let him play and run around.
Paul would make sandwiches in the back.
We'd eat, you know, and then we continue on.
And like, so I think that was really good for us
because we grew up going on road trips,
but we're kind of, our radius is not as large
because of a small child, but we realized like,
we can start taking some of these bigger trips, you know,
and like our next, I think in another year or two,
I think our next thing will be like to take
another two weeks and go like a little bit further west.
And maybe at the beginning, we have to like hammer
through like 12 hours of straight driving to get
to where we want and then do, you know, shorter trips
and stuff.
Yeah, that's very, very similar to kind of how we,
how we would do it.
The four hour you did, I think that's a universal kid thing
there, like after about four hours, it's the screeching
and the crying is you gotta stop.
Yeah.
We did around Lake Superior or the UP, go to the UP,
did the whole east up until about Leante came down,
did the whole bottom coast and did that big trip.
And that was very similar.
It was every four or so hours we stopped,
make a sandwich and you know, and that is very nice
because you save a ton of money having all your own food.
You don't have to go a bunch of different places.
Don't need lodging hotels, you know, state ground is free.
So it's a, overlanding is a really great way to travel
and see everything and do it kind of, I say budget,
but cause you ended up spending all that probably
on the truck to do it, but it's a great way to be able
to go and explore and do all that stuff
and do it relatively cheap while you're out there.
And you just, you always have everything you need.
So like even that Nat trip, we had reserved quite
a few places because we were like,
we're going to do this plan, but some days we couldn't drive
as far as we wanted because of the kid.
Some days are short.
We ended up like 75% of the places we ended up canceling
and just finding somewhere else to stay because it fit.
So like now I'm just after that trip,
I'm like, I'm not reserving places.
We're just driving.
You also like, yeah, you're looking at things online.
You have no idea of like concept of time or, you know, like,
oh, that kind of looks close on the map.
I mean, that happened in Iceland where I,
we planned the trip very last minute.
And so I found this website where you could buy
like a camper card and it was, you paid a flat rate
and it got you so many visits at all these campgrounds
in Iceland.
And so, because I didn't know, I was like,
I plotted all those campgrounds and then we,
we use those plots to like connect the dots.
And there was this one where I was like, oh,
there was these two campsites and we were like, you know,
this very close together on the map.
Well, I picked like the Eastern most one and we're driving
and this is getting to like the end of the day
and it's just us and we go and we're like, oh,
that must be the campground.
And then we look at like the GPS and we're like, oh no,
we still have like two and a half hours.
So we're going and we're going, we're like, where,
what in the hell did I do?
And we're going like up the mountains, down the valleys,
back to quarter.
And we're like, well, at this point we gotta keep going.
And I tell you what, I'm so glad we did
because we found the coolest little city that it,
I didn't make, if I hadn't said, no,
I wanna go to that campground
because that's what we reserved, then we'd have missed out.
And it was really cool.
It was like, yeah, you had to go up the mountain
and then you went down into this valley
and it was like a port city.
So there was like a cruise ship there.
It was actually one of the only places
that was relatively open late.
It's not like we were like staying out, you know,
until two or three in the morning.
It was like things just shut, they had such weird hours.
Yeah, everything just really,
but because this was like a port town for this cruise,
things were open and it was like a boom mini city.
And we're like, this is amazing.
Talking about back to the heater,
we found a warm building where we could go and sit.
We got a few pints.
He's like, I'm gonna go get us some appetizers
because we already ate dinner
and he came back with this plate of like lamb.
A big old lamb leg like this.
Yeah. Oh, man.
And vegetables.
And he's like, they don't apparently do-
Appetizers are the thing outside of the US apparently.
It was the best lamb dinner I've ever had.
And I can still, I think it's just cause it was warm
and it was just like-
And a massive lamb.
It was just warm to be inside
and it wasn't like stew, watery spaghetti,
freeze dried spaghetti.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think my problem was
is when I first, we started overlining,
let's say we did that, that UP trip,
basically east to middle UP,
I over planned the heck out of it.
I had points everywhere.
I had every waterfall close to the coast already mapped out
and I tried and I really tried to make sure
I hit every little mark on our itinerary
but with our son being probably six months old
at that time, it wasn't happening.
We found that out really quick.
And then from there, I kind of realized
it was nice to have a basic idea of where you're going.
And it kind of just kind of let it happen
and see where you go because that's kind of the,
kind of one of the better parts that we ended up doing
is we marked absolute major waterfalls
that we wanted to see.
And we just kind of took the coast until we found,
I can't even remember what the little town is
but it was right on Lake Superior in a little bay
and it was absolutely gorgeous.
They had really beautiful food trucks.
The whole town was just really quaint
and we would never would have found that
if we stuck to my itinerary.
But that is the really cool part about overlanding
in general is just doing stuff like that.
Well, on that note, oh, am I muted?
No, I'm not.
On that note, we should cut this episode off
and go to it and play some radio chatter.
Yeah.