The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Nostalgic School Pranks, Summer Shenanigans, and Epic Road Trip Tales!
Ever wondered how a simple ninth-grade science class could turn into a hilarious journey of childhood memories and teenage mischief? Join us as we kick off our episode with a light-hearted recount of such an exercise, testing students' attention to instructions and setting the stage for our whimsical recap of the Highfield Summer Jam Session. We reminisce about re-watching "Cool Runnings" on recent flights and the joy of shared experiences, all while exchanging multilingual phrases and laughter.
Travel back to 1993 with us as we debate iconic movies like "Jurassic Park" and share personal milestones from that memorable year. From doctoring report cards to forging signatures, we hilariously relive our mischievous school days and the lengths our parents went to keep us on the straight and narrow. Through these stories, we celebrate the familial bonds and the carefree spirit of our youth, with plenty of laughs along the way.
Our summer adventures continue with tales from a camping trip near Circleville, a fun-filled Cincinnati weekend, and a thrilling jet boat tour down the Rogue River. Despite the chaos of flight delays and airport meltdowns, we discovered the beauty of various campgrounds, enjoyed traditional wines, and even played unconventional pool volleyball. Join us as we recount these memorable moments, highlighting the joy of minor league baseball games, the excitement of road trips, and the unexpected fun that made our summer adventures truly unforgettable.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hysg@gmail.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
Facebook: The Outer Belt Podcast
Instagram: The_OuterBelt
That reminds me, you know, first day, ninth grade science class, we go through and the teacher gives us a sheet of paper and she's like here, buddy, you know, do this so I can gauge kind of where you're at and then turn it in and you're good, free to go. Name, put my name, and it says please read all the questions before proceeding. And the very last question is um, if you've read this whole document, don't fill anything out and just turn it in you filled everything out no, I read through the whole thing but there were so many people.
Speaker 1:You just looked over and they're just steady writing and steady figuring things out or whatever. And it's like there were like six of us that they we got up and did our turn it in early and these kids are like what, what do they do, you know? Like they're all mad at us or whatever. And then you see them get to the bottom and you start like after a few minutes you start hearing you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 3:That's quite a choice. That's following directions.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's smart, because in science you've got to follow the directions. Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Belt. I am Patrick and you all know my friends Chili, buttermilk, eric and Jerry, and we are here for another recap of the Highfield Summer Tour season of fun. I had a great name for this. What was it again? I had a great name for this, what was it again?
Speaker 2:You did have a great name for this. What was?
Speaker 1:it. Did anybody watch the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:Multiple times.
Speaker 3:What was? It called, of course, you did.
Speaker 1:It was the Highfield Summer Jam Session. So the Cisco Shakedown, what's it called, I don't know, Highfield Summer Recap High-filled summer recap part three. Trois, trois and Multilingual here. Finally Is it Three and finally.
Speaker 2:Tres, three, trois. It's multilingual.
Speaker 1:It's French, it's something, that's all I know.
Speaker 3:I don't know any other languages.
Speaker 1:Do you know German? No, Eins, zwei, drei right oh.
Speaker 2:I learned that in Cool Runnings.
Speaker 1:Oh, I watched that the other day. I did too. I was on a Delta flight.
Speaker 2:That's where I watched it. No kidding, yes, that was a flight.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was flying out to Atlanta and I'm like, well, I got like four hours to kill, yeah.
Speaker 3:Cool Runnings. Huh, that was your choice Cool. Runnings runnings.
Speaker 1:It's such a good movie.
Speaker 3:It is a good movie.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's your jerk.
Speaker 3:How old is that?
Speaker 1:movie.
Speaker 3:Wait, guess it, before somebody fact checks this 1991.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Yes, no.
Speaker 3:Maybe. Yes, I'm going to go, I'm going 91.
Speaker 1:Really, yep, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm going to say 92. I'm going to go with 93, the year I graduated.
Speaker 3:I doubt it, but that sounds good Eric 90.
Speaker 4:And Jerome, I have no idea. I never watched it.
Speaker 3:What? Okay, pick a year, just don't do 2000s 91.
Speaker 4:Stop recording right now.
Speaker 3:No, you can't be doing mine 91 and a half. We're going to stop it and Jerry's going to watch this. You have to watch the whole show.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go with 1 AD Bob Jamaica. We have a bobsled team. Did anybody actually look it up?
Speaker 3:Anybody? What is it? 94., 93., 93.
Speaker 1:Oh, you win the prize. 93 was a great year.
Speaker 3:It was fabulous. That's Jurassic Park. That's the year I graduated.
Speaker 1:Is that Schindler's List too? Oh, really, is it? I don't know? Come on, we need our fact checker. We have our fact checker back in the house. We're all excited I'm so excited that he's back here. Let's hear it for the fact checker.
Speaker 3:Yay when.
Speaker 1:And it is 93. I was right again.
Speaker 3:Nice. Some good movies in 93.
Speaker 1:There were some good movies in 93. Some tearjerkers. Yeah, we got to see arguably one of the best movies in my life Jurassic Park. Can you imagine? That opened my eyes to Jeff Goldblum.
Speaker 3:Wow, you never saw him in the Fly.
Speaker 1:Really, I saw the Fly after. I saw Jurassic Park. Wow, yeah, I love that movie so much.
Speaker 3:The Fly or Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1:Jurassic Park. When I was a kid that came out. I was in third grade. I want to say Got a very bad report card, shocker. So I doctored it. You know, because if you can't do then you commit fraud, yeah. So I doctored it up and then Mom was very happy and Dad were happy, so they signed the report card. I got it back to the teacher. They ended up buying Jurassic Park comforter set and pillows and everything for my bed.
Speaker 2:Mom's a seamstress.
Speaker 1:She made some Jurassic Park pillows. They put up red curtains because you couldn't get Jurassic Park curtains but red curtains. In the room I had a dot matrix printer. I don't know if you remember that one. That's the one where the paper is indefinite and it feeds to the bottom.
Speaker 1:I was going to do it, but it's the most god-awful sound, printing that thing off. I made a banner out of a dot matrix printer of a Tyrannosaurus rex and then and we had to tape, tape it up, you know like, tape it together so that would make one big thing. And then we stuck that on my door and I was all excited and it was great. They bought me the movie, obviously, and it was great. And then the next time the report card came out they found that I had lied about the first one.
Speaker 3:And then then, Did everything get removed.
Speaker 1:I believe the word is wrath. The word of the day is wrath brought to you by the letter W.
Speaker 2:Did it have the grades and all the quarters on it?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and they were called in for a parent-teacher conference.
Speaker 3:Of course Can't get out of that one.
Speaker 1:Cannot get out of that one. What did we learn from this? Don't talk to your. I did all right. Fraud works. No, I'm kidding. That's funny, Jerry.
Speaker 3:you never did anything like that, mm-mm.
Speaker 1:My parents were on it too, because I was the second kid, so they knew when the reports cards came out and Melissa would always give them hers. So I couldn't just sign it, because I learned after a while to forge dad's signature pretty good. Sure, mom's, forget about it. Couldn't do it. Dad's was perfect and he did it the exact same way every single time and it's perfect. If you look in the dictionary under the perfect signature, you'll see my dad's name. It's spelled out just the way he did it. It's perfect, like. If you look in the dictionary under like the perfect signature, you'll see my dad's name Spelled out just the way he did it. It's perfect. I don't know where he got it from, because I did not get that gift and so because it's perfect and done the exact same way every single time.
Speaker 3:You perfected it. You can learn to fake it. I did perfect my mom's. I never used it for anything nefarious.
Speaker 2:Well, if you used it, it was nefarious, right? It's like a white light.
Speaker 1:It's good for us.
Speaker 3:So here's one Teenager went and spent the night at a girlfriend's house. We were going to go to a dance and my mom got wind that I was going to go to a party. Lived in a very small town. They were business owners in the community. I was going to go to a party. I had no intentions ever of going to the party. Who knew? Anyways, guess who showed up at the dance.
Speaker 3:Mom, Mom To make sure I was dancing. Guess who was dancing. I love to dance. I had no intentions of going. Parties weren't really my thing. I don't think I went to my first party down at the Whoop-Dee-Woos. If you're from Lapine Oregon you know where those are. They're behind Dairy Queen.
Speaker 1:We have a very large Lapine Oregon crowd. At any rate, I rather dance. Was she surprised to see you there?
Speaker 3:Oh, very surprised to see me there.
Speaker 1:She went so that she could say I went to your school and you weren me there. Oh yeah, so she went so that she could say I went to your school and you weren't there.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then you're there and she's like well crud Yep. Did she have to sneak out the door? No, I popped her balloon. See, I feel like my mom would have been like I went to your school and you weren't there.
Speaker 2:I would have been.
Speaker 3:I was dancing on the floor.
Speaker 1:I was a wallflower.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I love to dance.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love to watch people dance, yeah.
Speaker 3:Again. I don't think I went to my first. I don't even think I went to the Whoop-Dee-Boos until I was after I graduated. I finally went, probably maybe senior summer after I graduated, and it was lackluster. It just wasn't my thing. I'd rather go to the lake and party at the lake than a road, the road, I don't know what, the road I guess you could drive your car and it was bumpy and whoopty and it was rolling hills on this dirt road in Lapine. I guess that was the thing.
Speaker 1:Eric and I had to go up to a body shop today and drop a vehicle off and on the way back was, I guess, whoop-de-woo, whoop-de-woo, and it was. It was like 60 mile an hour road but two lanes very narrow, and you know me, I'm going, and so we get over one of the woos and it was a woo, and then the tires hit the pavement and, uh, it was. It was quite fun yes which is why I think the kids went to this place to party.
Speaker 1:I should say I was in my private vehicle and I wasn't speeding, but anyways, yeah.
Speaker 3:I do think, and I know I said the words whoop-de-woo, but I do believe that's what it was called.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in dirt racing, whether it's car or motorcycle, they have those ruts. Yes, and they call them the whoop-de-woos. Whoop-de-wo or the whoops for short Right yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, again, it was buying Dairy Queen, which I think at this point has all been housed Like they built housing development so I no longer believe that that's the local hangout anymore.
Speaker 2:So what I learned from my early days of Forgery. Allegedly Is after a while.
Speaker 1:Creative licensing.
Speaker 2:Creative licensing. Yes, the teachers don't look and match up signatures. They really don't. They want to see a signature. If it doesn't appear to be a 12-year-old signature, okay, thank you. Yeah, because they're going like thank you. Yeah, exactly, they're not at a bank where they're putting out the signature card and matching it up Line for line.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, no forensics huh, no forensics, no forensics. That's funny, we have a signature card on file with our bank but it's digital. But it looks nothing like anything I ever signed, Because I tried so hard to make it look nice.
Speaker 3:Right and I'm like, but I'll never sign anything like this. Who's the only one that can probably contest your signature Is you. I guess that's what I always say. I'm probably false, probably an illusion in my head, but I'm like.
Speaker 1:There's a few of those we used to sign Illusions Back when I was doing sound and we were doing installs. We would go to Lowe's and buy materials and stuff to hang speakers and lights and all that stuff, hang speakers lights and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So we would go there and at the time and I don't know if they still do it, I don't think they do it anymore but they used to actually print like you would sign the screen, but then it would print the receipt, print the signature on the receipt, and so Christy was the wife of the guy that owned the company and she also did all the accounting and bookkeeping, so she got all the receipts and so we would just start saying stuff like we'd sign, like hey, christy.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's, hilarious Like sorry for the Coke purchase. Like you know things like that on there and back at her place she'd be like about those signatures. We never stopped. I assume they're still doing it to this day. I hope my legacy is continued.
Speaker 3:There you go. Let's hope you, Jerry. Did you do any forgery?
Speaker 4:No, I didn't Creative licensing Creative licensing.
Speaker 1:When you're perfect, you don't have to right, I guess.
Speaker 4:Eric you. I don't remember any forgery in my history. I had other things that I did growing up but never Go on.
Speaker 2:I just want to be clear. I didn't do any forgery.
Speaker 3:Oh, you just noted.
Speaker 2:I just understood that they weren't checking if I were to do forgery or creative license.
Speaker 1:I made a note when I was late. You know I never did that.
Speaker 3:Really kissing the boy out back in there late. I don't want to hear about that stuff I had a friend's high school I had a friend in high school.
Speaker 2:When I went to high school, they still had time stamp machines. Right Time clocks, yeah, for kids. Well, when you would come, when you miss a day, okay, and you'd come in the next day, you had to bring your note to the front office and get a readmit slip. Yes, and they would timestamp the readmit slip. Ours would do the same, and then you had to go to every class that you missed and the teacher would sign it and it would go back to the administrative office at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:So if I had friends who would go to homeroom so that they wouldn't get marked out of school for the day, but if you did that you couldn't then go to the office and get a readmit slip because you were actually in school- that day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we had a friend that worked in the office and would give us a stack of blank readmits.
Speaker 3:I mean, would give them a stack of blank readmit slips.
Speaker 2:I mean, we'd give them a stack of blank readmit slips. We had a friend who was an artist and would draw the time stamp on the readmit slip. I love it. Never once did I get caught. I mean, did they get caught?
Speaker 1:No, the notorious them.
Speaker 2:The notorious them.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious. That's usually when I use my mom's signature. They didn't care. No, they didn't, you's hilarious.
Speaker 1:That's usually when I use my mom's signature.
Speaker 3:They didn't care. No, they didn't. You're here, who cares? I?
Speaker 1:would show back up for school the next day. If I missed a day and I remember in elementary school certainly I brought a note back. But once I was in high school they couldn't care less. You just show up the next day and they'd literally say like, did you bring a note? And they'd literally say like did you bring a note? No, okay, I mean like it's just, it was an unexcused absence, which okay, Is it going on my permanent record? That's literally what they, you know.
Speaker 2:Patrick, I was looking at your permanent record today and I noticed that you missed a few days in high school. For us, if you missed homeroom it would trigger a phone call to your house. That's why we had to go to a homeroom before they had to go to a homeroom before they skipped out and hopped the fence and ran off.
Speaker 1:I never had a homeroom like a real, like homeroom. We had first period but never had a homeroom.
Speaker 3:We had a first period no homeroom.
Speaker 1:I never like middle school, high school, never anything like that.
Speaker 2:But I think my sister did home was like our second period class, whatever class it was.
Speaker 1:yeah, that was your home room so if you had biology second period, that classroom was your home room. Yeah, we, I see, I see, but no, we, they didn't even.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I never skipped school and on the day that you could skip school like it was senior skip school day I didn't skip school. Of course, on my senior year I only had half days, so I was out by 11 am because I had a and I already had all my credits done. I graduated with honors. So I can't say that you know, mom showing up at a dance to see if I was still there signing mom's name was anything that prevented me from graduating high school, or in a good manner.
Speaker 3:It cracks me up. Those are the things that we did do.
Speaker 4:The biggest trouble that I ever got into was so when I was in 10th grade I used to smoke A lot of people know that what Cigarettes? Okay, and I had my old car. What kind Marlboro Reds, yeah nice.
Speaker 1:Classy, classy.
Speaker 4:My mom had a key to my car while I would drive to school and I had an old beat-up El Camino. Well, I would drive to school and I had an old beat-up El Camino. And one day I'm sitting in class and all of a sudden I get a note from the teacher and the note just says your mom borrowed your car.
Speaker 3:She'll have it back before the end of the day.
Speaker 4:Oh, and your cigarette's from there and I left them sitting in the middle of the console.
Speaker 1:Oh no, How'd she handle it?
Speaker 4:So I was sweating bullets the entire day, of course you were. When I get out of class I go running down there, the car's in the parking lot exactly where I left it, and as I walk up to the driver's side door there is a pack of Marble Reds that is all squished and smashed, laying on the ground Did you ever talk about it, oh talk.
Speaker 1:She didn't talk, she talked with that belt.
Speaker 4:Let me tell you, Because I walked in that door and it went to swinging and it never hit my butt. Once it was my back and legs.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 4:But it still didn't stop me from smoking. I was going to say did it stop you from smoking? And she knew it wasn't going to yeah.
Speaker 1:It was proving a point. I told you I tried so hard when I was in high school to smoke, and I just it just never took. I just couldn't, couldn't get down with it, Didn't like it. I tried, though man, all the cool kids smoked Really.
Speaker 3:I wanted to smoke so bad and just I didn't think they were the cool kids I know and well, when I was going to school, all the cool kids smoked, All of them.
Speaker 3:We had a hallway that had to walk in front of the gym and it was also the hallway that had the soda machines. So if you wanted something different, spend your own money. You had to walk down. Well, all the jocks and popular kids hung out in that hallway on the 12-minute break it was a bigger break. And at lunch hour they'd hang out in that hallway on the 12-minute break it was a bigger break. And at lunch hour they'd hang out in that hall. I hated walking down that hallway because they were all sitting there. It was like they were watching you walk.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're on the runway.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I hated walking, even as a senior, with my fellow senior friends who were jocks and all that the popular kids. I was a drama and choir geek.
Speaker 1:You were dramatic.
Speaker 3:I was but to walk down that hall was so nerve-wracking, I don't know. Just one all I don't know that.
Speaker 1:I had that in high school, but I went to the nerd school, so half the school was performing arts, magnet the other half of the school was not education, what do they call it?
Speaker 1:academics, academic magnet. So with really smart people are extremely talented people neither, which was me, so I just kind of like bounced between the two. You know, I could play saxophone, so I got along with the artistic people and I was reasonably smart when it came to math and science, which got me with that group of people. I was great at English and literature. I just hated it. Oh, like it's so funny how, like when we put an email out or a newsletter out in the company, I am such a stickler on making sure it's good and looks nice and yada yada. In high school, if you'd have told me I'd been doing that, I'd have been like you're so full of it, I don't care, I hate this stuff, I actually hate it. But nowadays it's like no, you've got to have good grammar, you've got to have not when you're talking. Certainly, because on this show I've proven.
Speaker 4:I can't do that, I just hit a little button for.
Speaker 1:AI when it's going out in print. Ai is not always right.
Speaker 4:I'll write it out and then I hit AI and let it rewrite correct grammar and punctuation and all that, and I'm done.
Speaker 1:I still have fun with AI, but sometimes it's a little confused. I did like we were playing around with it in london, wasn't it? Yeah, and I know where was it? No, I'm sorry, yes, in london, but no, this time was with y'all uh, mel and vince, and I was like give me a jambalaya recipe. And it gave me like a traditional northern louisiana with tomato and all that stuff. No, no, no, give me one that doesn't have all that. And it spit one out and I read through it and I'm like that's a really good recipe, like they kind of nailed it, like I don't know, it's fun. I'm still worried about where it's going creatively and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I'm glad the writer's strike happened and it's over with, because I could see that getting really ugly really quick, because that stuff it's getting so smart, so quick. Remember when Siri was an idiot and now she's like smart. Not yet but she's getting there.
Speaker 4:Come September? Oh no, be smarter. Beginning of next year. It's been pushed back, yeah. I've already been running the beta, but it's better than what it was, but she's going to be getting really smart, Interesting, Good.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always said she needed to go to college. I mean the fact that they only gave her a high school education. It's like, what are you doing For? A while I think it was grade school. There was a moment where it was like hey, siri, call Eric, and she'd be like texting Vince, I hate you and it's like what? That's not what I said. What are you doing? For a little while there she was a little.
Speaker 4:He still yells at her every day. That's funny.
Speaker 3:I asked her today for a zip code. Not once in any of the four suggestions she gave me did it even give me a remote area where I'm like never mind, I'll just Google it myself with my fingers. And keyboard.
Speaker 1:Here's one that's fun. So my phone is actually a second phone. I had water damage to my previous phone, so all that about you can take it into the water, it's all crap. You can't take an Apple into the water.
Speaker 4:Yes, you can, I have.
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 1:In the water.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can, I have I have In the ocean, I have too.
Speaker 1:Purposefully, and when I went to Apple to get something done, they said I'm sorry, you have water damage and we won't cover it under warranty.
Speaker 1:Interesting so it still worked fine. I never had an issue with it. But the issue wasn't even related. It was a camera lens that was cracked. It had, Anyways, so $100,. They sent me a new phone because I did have the warranty thing. So I have a new phone, and when I set it up I was in a rush and so I just said no, Siri, I don't really need her. So I didn't set her up. She just magically started working and I'm like what's fascinating? I've never turned her on, never set her up, but she's there now. Wow, I'm not upset, she is handy, but it's just interesting, that's all.
Speaker 3:Very nice, that is creepy.
Speaker 1:But that's not what we're here to talk about.
Speaker 3:No, what are we here to talk about?
Speaker 1:We're only 30 minutes in and we need to start talking about what we're here for.
Speaker 3:Summer recap.
Speaker 1:Summer recap, part three Trois, trois, tres.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's Vince and I's turn.
Speaker 1:I believe it is, and we're going to start in May and action.
Speaker 3:Well, may, may happened Our summer starts in early June.
Speaker 2:No, it started in May.
Speaker 3:Okay, what happened in May?
Speaker 2:So in May we went camping.
Speaker 3:We did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just south here down by Circleville. We did, it was a test run.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was Trying some new things. We did a little dry camping. It was fun A little dry camping.
Speaker 2:Don and Jerry visited us for a day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, came down what was that Circleville. We went camping. Oh, it was us. We were camping with our guys. That was in May. Yes, with y'all. Yeah, that was to tell us friends if things were going to work out.
Speaker 1:We talked about that on the podcast, didn't we? Yeah, that was one of the last things we talked about.
Speaker 2:Did we talk about what happened at the lake?
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh did we.
Speaker 4:With you, your little whoopie-wop.
Speaker 1:So that's where we started, that's where our summer started.
Speaker 2:That's where our summer started was with the camping trip With an oopsie. And then early June we were going to Cincinnati for a baseball game.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:We were going to watch the Reds and the White Sox play, I believe.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 2:And we decided to make a weekend out of it. It's Thursday night baseball game, let's make a weekend out of it. It's Thursday night baseball game, let's make a weekend out of it. So we took the RV, found a campground there near Cincinnati, in the stadium, and camped again. We didn't spend very much time in the camper.
Speaker 3:It was Tucker's Landing. It was the closest thing to the city. Everything seemed to be very far out.
Speaker 2:Did they pay you for that?
Speaker 3:No, I'm not endorsing, but their campground was very nice.
Speaker 1:What would you endorse?
Speaker 3:Well, okay, it was nice, it was clean, it was all concrete. It provided the services that we needed.
Speaker 2:Provided a place to park the RV and call it a night. That's right.
Speaker 3:The only thing that would have been nice is if you had your own fire pit. They don't have your own fire pit. You have to go down to the community one down along the river bank. But the whole rv park was on the river, so it was very nice. The views were gorgeous. Again, it wasn't too far from where we chose to play, whether that be cincinnati or on the kentucky side, which go ahead, so it was. It was within driving distance. Again, all the other ones I checked out were like 30 miles away from cincinnati. They don't have anything close and I think that's because it's all city, so went for the weekend yeah, went for the weekend, had a great time watched the baseball game we did, that was fun it was fun.
Speaker 2:Then we went down uh, that was thursday, friday we went down, uh, into town. We did a walking tour of um breweries in Cincinnati. Part of it was going into a lagering tunnel where it was, back in the day, underground tunnels where they actually lagered the beer, which basically means they aged it. So a lager is an aged beer. That was a lot of fun, a lot of history there. Even though we're not big beer drinkers, it was still a lot of fun. Uh, we just hung out around downtown for a little bit um it was like a two-hour tour.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed it well, that's better than the three-hour tours it is. I've heard bad things about two hours was a little much.
Speaker 3:The guy was really stretching his verbiage at the end Like we were all done, but he was trying to give you your two hours that you paid for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he got very Shakespearean. He's like and now this thus no.
Speaker 3:But it was nice, it was really nice. I enjoyed myself.
Speaker 2:So we also did a couple other bars in the Cincinnati side and across the river on the Kentucky side in Covington Kentucky, a couple other cool bars Did a steamboat tour up and down the river. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 2:It's fun to see the river from a different perspective, you know, from the water side versus on the shore.
Speaker 3:They were doing a game and when we went by they do fireworks or a cannon, or maybe they just screamed, but it sounded really cool from the water's side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did sound really cool. I think somebody hit a home run so they did fireworks, fireworks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was really neat to be on the water to see that during that time.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, because baseball games they do like one a night, so you, went to the one before.
Speaker 2:there'd be another one the next night. So we went to one on Thursday and they had, yeah, almost every night. We did the Steamboat Tour on Saturday, so it was an earlier game. It wasn't the later 7-10 game, it was like a 5-10 game, I think.
Speaker 1:Was it the same teams?
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 2:I think it was.
Speaker 1:If.
Speaker 2:Thursday yeah, Thursday was a late game, so Saturday would have been the same team.
Speaker 1:Yes, Because when we went out to Atlanta and saw the Boston versus and the Braves and the Braves, that was the same thing. They played like three games back-to-back.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It was such a good game. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, just a clarification. But Steamboat, I'm curious too Authentic, real Steamboat or a really nice fake?
Speaker 2:No, it was an authentic, real Steamboat. That's cool. It was a smaller one. I'd never been on a Steamboat this small before. The one that we went on in New Orleans was much larger. This, the one that we went on in New Orleans, was much larger. This was a smaller steamboat, but it was just. They had a dining room that wasn't open because we weren't there for the dining portion of the tour. We were just there for a couple hours up and back riding the boat, so that was fun. Did they have a cocktail bar open? The cocktail bar was open.
Speaker 3:Yes, I thought the history that he provided was pretty cool of of the river and how things worked. I can't remember all the history but I could just remember being in that moment and going. I didn't realize x, y and z or how long something took to go from point a to point b, because they had markers and when you hit a certain marker you knew you were like halfway there, you're almost there, and just the history behind the ohio river, because that's what it is on, on travel and the economy and way back when, and that's kind of what we did. We did like the historic talk tour, um, or. Or they shared history from both sides because you know that divider is the state line, um, or how the river is more kentucky than it is ohio yeah you would think it'd be kind of like let's just divvy it down the middle, but kentucky has more of the river than ohio has in their state line.
Speaker 3:Interesting, yeah, it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed the history behind what he was sharing.
Speaker 2:So Cincinnati was a lot of fun. A lot more to it than just Cincinnati when you take into account the Kentucky side as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree.
Speaker 2:So that was a lot of fun, and I think the next weekend or was it two weekends later we went to the air show here in Columbus.
Speaker 3:Oh, we did do that.
Speaker 2:Only we didn't. We did the bootleg version.
Speaker 3:We did do it. Was this the same one that we did? Yes, the same one, different planes.
Speaker 2:They didn't have the Blue Angels, they had the Thunderbirds, thunderbirds.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:So we didn't actually buy tickets and go inside. There's a lot of industrial area down by the Rickenbacker Airport. It's a tiny little airport in Columbus, tiny relative to commercial airports. It is a commercial airport but it's got like two gates and it's where the discount airlines fly out of Columbus versus John Glenn International.
Speaker 2:Airport it's definitely a cargo airport. Yeah, a cargo airport, because that's where all the industrial Amazon is, down there, all the big warehousing and stuff is down in that area, down in Obitz, if you've been to Luz and Obitz, a mile down the road, further down is where Rickenbacker is. So lots of industrial, lots of grassy areas, so lots of industrial, lots of grassy areas. So we joined a bunch of folks on the grass field or front yard or backyard of these big industrial warehouses.
Speaker 3:We're all closed on the weekend. We're all closed.
Speaker 2:On the weekend set up our chairs and hung out and watched the planes. You couldn't really hear the announcer, which we figured we couldn't from out there anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 2:But you could see the planes were going right over your head. You could see what was going on. That was a lot of fun. So we're sitting there enjoying the air show and there's traffic going by and motorcycles are going by, and Melissa says to me these annoying motorcycles, exactly.
Speaker 2:If we need to get another motorcycle. Before we came on the road, I had a bike when we first met and sold it when we came on the road and she had ridden with her ex-husband on the back of his bike and so I'm thinking, okay, this is just going to be a fleeting thing, we're not going to buy a bike. So as we're driving home from the air show, she sees more bikes. She's like what kind of bike would you want? So I tell her what I'm looking for and I you know, look, go on my marketplace and see what you can find. She starts rattling off bikes and pricing and stuff. So a couple days later I'm like, well, maybe she was serious. So I grab, hop on marketplace and I find a bike that I like and the price was right. It was a 2013 triumph trophy with 16 000 miles on it. Um, I started doing research. It's the style of a sport touring bike, which is the kind of bike I like. I started doing research and it's a great bike. Everything I read says it's a great bike.
Speaker 2:I send over the marketplace ad, thinking nothing will come of it. She says call the guy, see if we can go see it. I'm like, okay, she's getting serious. Her very next text is I'm looking at financing now. Okay, she's serious. So I send the guy a message and later on that evening the ad comes down. Okay, well, missed that one, we'll look for a different one. Well, the next day the ad is back up. Maybe the cell fell through. Yeah. So I hop back on and send a message hey, I'd still like to come see the bike. And he's like well, come on up, the bike's in Akron. So we're in Columbus, the bike's in Akron About a two-hour drive. Is that crazy, not crazy? So we head the deal. So we went back up.
Speaker 3:Just the weekend before 4th of July.
Speaker 2:The weekend before 4th of July. Yeah, we went back up. Yep, the plan was for me to ride the bike down. I was going to drive the car, but there were thunderstorms in the forecast and I hadn't ridden in four or five years. We thought better of me riding the bike down the thunderstorms. We actually rented a U-Haul trailer here in Columbus for $15 for the day. Went up and got it and brought it back.
Speaker 1:Is it just a generic flatbed or I've seen some that are like small, four motorcycles.
Speaker 2:U-Haul does have a motorcycle trailer. It's a 4x8 trailer. It has a wheel chalk in the front of it. They'll only rent those for one. I'm sorry, um, local rentals. Okay, they have a five by eight and some of those have the wheel chalk. All of them don't. But you can still get a motorcycle in that trailer yeah and it works just fine. So the four by eight was perfect for us. It's small, lightweight, perfect for us, so very cool. Um, we got human bean that weekend we did got human bean.
Speaker 3:that weekend too, we did get human bean.
Speaker 2:that weekend Our favorite coffee place.
Speaker 3:I was so excited.
Speaker 2:It's not Starbucks, we got probably two minutes of rain the entire trip there. So it was, but you know.
Speaker 1:So it was money well spent.
Speaker 2:Money well spent 15 bucks for the trailer for a day. So it was easy. It was an easy decision to make. Went up and got the bike. $15 for the trailer for a day, yeah, so it was easy. It was an easy decision to make. So I went up and got the bike, yeah. The next day I went for a little ride. So I'm working on getting my sea legs back. I haven't ridden in a while.
Speaker 1:Proficiency.
Speaker 2:Proficiency.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to put Melissa on the back of the the bike and I'm still trying to figure out what I need to do and things haven't come back yet. Yeah, new to me bikes I'm trying to learn that bike still too. So, um, the next weekend we didn't go out because the next week was fourth is lie and where do we go?
Speaker 2:we went to visit my little brother in peoria, illinois yes, yeah, uh, so we found another campground in peoria um. Was it sponsored by catapult east side of the Peoria, illinois? Yes, yeah, so we found another campground in Peoria Was it sponsored by Caterpillar. Just on the east side of the west. It was not.
Speaker 3:It was On the east side of the lake. It was sponsored by Triple Dipples.
Speaker 2:Triple Dipples yeah.
Speaker 3:That's the cheesecake place that we've sent so many drivers to. If you're ever in Chillicothe.
Speaker 2:Illinois.
Speaker 3:It's called Triple Dipples. You can get trucks down in that little downtown. You should go over and check out their cheesecakes, their little mini cheesecakes. Yes, selfless plug for Triple Dipples.
Speaker 1:I have been told about these.
Speaker 3:How long have we known each other? How long?
Speaker 1:have we known each other About?
Speaker 2:six months.
Speaker 1:About six months. I've been hearing about it every single day, two or three times a day. For six months. They go, they have a vehicle, they can freeze the cheesecakes and bring them back. And they were like no, they were like oh, Patrick and Eric would love these. No, it's Jerry's favorite dessert ever.
Speaker 3:No, it's Don's favorite dessert ever.
Speaker 2:No, had you not been in Europe, maybe we would have bought you some.
Speaker 4:They do freeze well, we've been doing pretty good. We were gone for a few minutes Freezers last a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They do.
Speaker 2:He actually sells them frozen just for that reason.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it was just pure spite, pure spite, no.
Speaker 2:Pure spite, pure spite, no, pure spite. On my part it was pure spite. I don't know what it was for her. On my part it was pure spite. But we are doing pretty strict keto.
Speaker 3:We are.
Speaker 2:So we weren't going to eat them. We let him know we weren't going to eat them, so usually he sends us home with a bunch of them.
Speaker 3:And when I mean a bunch like his whole store freezer collection, exactly pies, or whatever he makes.
Speaker 2:Seriously, we're like just, no, just no, I thought we were friends.
Speaker 3:Our wheel tire might not have been so good, so we said no we had just started and we didn't want to mess it up.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't be able to it's only a six-hour drive, so feel free to hop in the car tomorrow morning and head up there.
Speaker 3:It wasn't bad. It's a beautiful drive.
Speaker 1:Look at Eric Eric's like hey, he's like hey, Jerry we got to stretch the legs in the Acre, don't we? There you go.
Speaker 4:Yep, you know. I'm ready for a run today, are you, I think, the?
Speaker 1:real trucker couple.
Speaker 3:Steve and Darnisha. They've been there.
Speaker 2:They have been there.
Speaker 3:One other team that brought us some. Why can't I remember?
Speaker 2:the name. Yes, I remember that team. They're not with us anymore. They brought you some.
Speaker 1:Yes, they brought them to us at Expo last year. If you are listening to this and you're going through there on your way to Columbus, Ohio Foreman's.
Speaker 3:The Foreman's did the Foreman's bought some for us.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they you're delivering to Caterpillar up there in Peoria whether it's East Peoria, Peoria, plenty of Caterpillar places. Swing through Chilli Coffee and grab some cheesecake, and if you're going to return to Columbus, just remember Jerome Barrow your favorite maintenance guy, don Patrick and Eric.
Speaker 1:We all love and adore cheesecake.
Speaker 2:We should have done it.
Speaker 4:It never hurts brownie points, does it? The phone number will be at the bottom of the screen.
Speaker 3:Give us a call.
Speaker 4:Any one of us will come out and meet you.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, we'll meet you anywhere, vince is at the yard Monday through Friday 8 to 4.
Speaker 2:Oh, if you reach the yard they'll go straight in the trash.
Speaker 3:We did stay at a campground there. We did stay at a campground there.
Speaker 2:We did stay at a campground there on the river. They call it the Peoria Lake.
Speaker 3:It was a lake, but it's part of the Illinois.
Speaker 1:River Like a dandup section of the river. It is Kind of like an old offshoot.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that was the Millpoint Campground, completely different campground than Tucker's Crossing in Cincinnati 100 degree. It was very, very rural. There were no concrete pads.
Speaker 3:Nope.
Speaker 2:We were told to pick a spot out of like three or four different spots.
Speaker 3:It was very nice.
Speaker 2:So we picked the flattest one we could possibly find. You'd have your fire pit. You did have your picnic table. Full hookups, of course. Really nice, really quiet.
Speaker 3:I'd stay there again in a heartbeat. I'd stay.
Speaker 2:No Wi-Fi, though. That was an issue, so you had to make sure you had a different spot where they had Wi-Fi so you could work, if you needed to or get Starlink.
Speaker 1:Well we wanted a.
Speaker 3:Riverviews and the Wi-Fi just didn't come that far out Didn't come that far? Yeah, so I think Closer to their office you might have been able to get Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:Well, I was noticing, because I looked at Starlink the other day. They had some kind of sale or something and I was like, all right, let me see what they're talking about. I didn't buy anything, but I did see that their travel version of Starlink can be turned on and off.
Speaker 2:Right, so you're not paying for it all the time. That was very nice. You only pay for it when you use it.
Speaker 1:So that seemed pretty slick. I could see it, because it's expensive.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if I'm taking a big you know week-long road trip, it's really not that expensive?
Speaker 3:Did we have Wi-Fi at Mill Point? Not at Mill Point?
Speaker 1:Tucker's Crossing. Tucker's Crossing we did Okay, so Wi-Fi at Tucker's Yep.
Speaker 3:But it was all concreted. Like Vince is saying very different. In Cincinnati, all concrete, yes, Peoria, not In Peoria it was not concrete.
Speaker 2:No, so very different Big shade trees. It's just gorgeous. It's beautiful, just gorgeous. I love those campgrounds and again, right there again on the water, on the little inlet. So it was nice and calm.
Speaker 1:How was the?
Speaker 2:fishing? I don't know.
Speaker 3:We didn't bring the kayak.
Speaker 2:We took fishing poles both times.
Speaker 3:No mishaps, this time no mishaps.
Speaker 2:So we did go to a minor league baseball game on 4th of July Awesome and watched the fireworks after the game. That was a lot of fun. They have a great big fireworks show that you can see from all over the city. It's right on the river, see it from all over the city. So it was fun to watch it there at the baseball game and they broadcast it with music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Very cool.
Speaker 3:It just. It was pretty cool. I would have sat in different seats had I known where it was.
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 3:However, where we sat, you could still see it. It was still awe and amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, you just have to turn and sit sideways.
Speaker 3:You do when they allowed you to come down onto the field it would have made more sense.
Speaker 2:Duh makes sense to go down the field, or you have a perfect view or if you sat in the first baseline yes, your seats were facing the river and I thought it was cool that because they catered to both sides of the river.
Speaker 3:It's either peoria or east peoria, depending on which side of the river, and they talked about it both, so those fireworks were viewable from either side of the river, from either city. So I thought it was. And how long did it last?
Speaker 2:It was at least an hour, 45 minutes an hour, 45 minutes an hour, yeah, of fireworks, yes Of fireworks. And they were put to music.
Speaker 3:And we're not just talking instrumental patriotic music, we're talking rock and roll, 50s music, today's hits country patriotic. I mean, every boom went to the music. They had it dialed in an hour's worth of fireworks.
Speaker 2:It was pretty amazing.
Speaker 3:That's a lot, that was worth a baseball ticket, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Which was not expensive as minor league games go.
Speaker 3:I know, and you had a seat, you had a seat.
Speaker 2:The fun part, though, was going back to the campground after the baseball game At night.
Speaker 3:No, traffic no.
Speaker 2:Well, there was some traffic, but it was traffic in the air. There was a mayfly hatch. Oh, if you've never seen a mayfly hatch, there's got to be a video on YouTube somewhere of mayflies hatching. There are millions of them and they swarm and it sounded like it was hailing on the car. That's how loud these things were because they hit and they pop. It was just insane. So, as we're driving on this road, that was the Rolling Hills when we went uphill and the headlights shone up.
Speaker 3:It looked like it was raining.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would light them all up and it looked like it was raining black rain. It was just that many of them.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:We get back to the RV and they're all over the RV.
Speaker 3:Every RV that's there is covered, everything is covered.
Speaker 2:So you have to brush them off and go inside with hooks so they can come in. They don't bite, they're not going to cause any damage or harm, but they've got to be an inch long, at least inch and a half long, with great big wings. They're on everything. So next morning we get up, go outside and there weren't as many, but they were still covering all kinds of stuff. They only have a shelf life of what like 24 hours, 24 hours, yeah, shelf life they only live they 24 hours, 24 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shelf life, they only live they only live, so you got to catch them in 24 hours, dip them in the chocolate, go ahead and get the candy made Exactly Before they go bad, or catch them and put them on a hook and throw them in the water, so they live in the water which makes sense because it's the river.
Speaker 3:That's why there was such a big hatch. I've known them as periwinkles where I grew up in Oregon. They're actually like a hard-shelled cocoon about an inch and a half two inches long of a cocoon. They live on the bottom of the water. Fish eat them, but when they hatch they hatch up over the river and then create swarms. They hatch a couple times a year, is what you read. I don't know what good they're for.
Speaker 2:No, I think they hatch in May, June, somewhere in that area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they said their last big hatch was Father's Day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, like the next day when we went out and played, everybody was like, did you see the hatch? Like that was the talk of town, was the Mayfly hatch. So it was wild. Vince had never seen anything like it before.
Speaker 2:Yes, we hung out with my little brother and his family for a little bit, had some good food, tried some new restaurants that he wanted to try Distillery there we tried. We hadn't tried before. So it was fun. It was fun. Then Sunday we made our way back home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had human bean on that trip too we did. We got it in.
Speaker 2:Indianapolis, we did.
Speaker 3:Just for the record, human bean is like our jam from Oregon. Oregon has a lot of human beans and the further you come east there are just not very many. And right now in Columbus, ohio, there are two hours in any direction from Columbus. So Indianapolis, akron, is it Youngstown or beyond youngstown out on the 70 yeah, the one that we went to out there I'm trying to hear what's up.
Speaker 2:It's beyond, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not youngstown, not youngstown, zanesville, beyond zanesville uh, and then the next one is lexington, so literally they're so far away. So when you're 15 miles or 5 miles, you go and get one, and if you're confused why they are going to a human being.
Speaker 1:It's a human bean.
Speaker 3:Like as in.
Speaker 1:Mr Bean, as in a baked bean, yes, a black bean, a coffee bean, a coffee bean, which brings me to my next point.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Their trademark is on top of all their coffees. They give you a chocolate-covered coffee bean, which brings me to my next point. Yes, their trademark is on top of all their coffees. They give you a chocolate-covered coffee bean.
Speaker 3:Yes, they do.
Speaker 1:That is the best part.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:So you could also go to Costco and buy chocolate-covered coffee beans. It's not even the same and then put that on top of your Starbucks.
Speaker 2:Wow, no, their coffee is better than Starbucks coffee, is it I?
Speaker 3:Starbucks no, their coffee is better than Starbucks coffee. Is it Very Hands down?
Speaker 1:The only time I was there, I had one of the frozen mocha chocolate.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I didn't do that. The chocolate chips and the froth and all that. I just do an Americano and their espresso, it was pure candy.
Speaker 1:It was delicious.
Speaker 3:It was good, it was a coffee milkshake.
Speaker 1:I loved it.
Speaker 2:I was spoiled when I was there, but I guess that leads us into our ending of our summer. Was that the last, the only travel we did until?
Speaker 3:the August trip.
Speaker 1:It was no. No Well, maybe y'all, but not you.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:So together we did.
Speaker 3:Peoria and then that brings us up to like two weekends ago, but there was a you trip in between.
Speaker 2:I was trying to suppress that trip because, believe it or not, that trip was more traumatic than the tipping over in the kayak trip.
Speaker 1:I believe that Well you had a smile on your face when you tipped over in the kayak. I was having fun and I was in my element.
Speaker 1:We had a team that was out in Maryland maryland, maryland maryland and their truck broke down and while they were actually at the shop waiting, um, they had a terrible family situation happened. They had to go home and they're like we're gonna be gone for a while. So they actually packed their stuff and it went home. We're hoping they come back soon, um, but they're, they're sorting that out and and our thoughts and prayers are with them during this time. But because of the shopping, we had to wait for the truck to actually get repaired and then you made the trek.
Speaker 2:I made the trek to Baltimore and then about two hours southeast of Baltimore to get the truck Yep and everything went splendid.
Speaker 1:Everything went fabulous.
Speaker 3:Let's move on to the next trip.
Speaker 2:So the plan started on a Monday for this.
Speaker 1:As in Monday On.
Speaker 2:Monday. The plan was to go head down there once the truck was ready and get the truck. So shop says truck's ready Tuesday. I wasn't going to book a trip until the truck was ready. The shop said truck will be ready Wednesday. It became Thursday, it became Friday trip until the set the truck was ready. Um, the shop said truck be ready wednesday. It became thursday. Then it came friday. Well, the shop's not open on weekends. I couldn't go down friday to get the truck, so I went on sunday and to fly from here to baltimore, from columbus to baltimore is columbus to detroit to baltimore yes so it was a plan was okay.
Speaker 2:I'll leave columbus on sunday night. I'll be Columbus to Baltimore. Is Columbus to Detroit to Baltimore? Yes, so it was a plan was okay. I'll leave Columbus on Sunday night. I'll be in Sunday evening, be in Baltimore late Sunday, early Monday morning, get in the truck and head up on Monday. Well, on Friday, yeah. Was this fabulous?
Speaker 1:I believe the polite phrase is meltdown.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Was it a.
Speaker 2:Microsoft meltdown. There was a meltdown on Friday which caused all kinds of issues and carnage with the travel system.
Speaker 1:Just a global meltdown. Just a global meltdown.
Speaker 2:No biggie Right? No huge deal. So we thought it was all taken care of by Sunday. Nah, so I fly out of here Sunday evening to Detroit. Get to Detroit like 9 o'clock.
Speaker 1:In the morning, in the evening, in the evening.
Speaker 2:Okay, my flight from Detroit is supposed to leave at like 10. I get off the plane.
Speaker 1:It's a nice easy walk over. You got time to kill.
Speaker 2:I get off the plane, take my phone off airplane mode, bling, bling. Oh, my flight's been delayed till like 11. Okay, well, we'll go find a bar and have a cocktail and figure it out. Well, it's Sunday night. In the airport in Detroit, there's nothing, everything's closing, everything's closing, everything's closing. No one's got food. The one bar that was open was like yeah, man, you can have a seat Last call.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:I can deal with that, yeah, and again, you're driving the next day, so right now it's fine, now it's fine, you're just getting to Baltimore and going to hotels. Right, I went to a hotel in Baltimore.
Speaker 2:I got it all worked out. Actually, my plan was get to Baltimore, get a hotel room right there at the airport, get the rental car and then the next day I had a two-hour drive pick the car up, so I wasn't going to try and drive at midnight the two hours. I figured I'd do it in the daylight and just be safe. So I get another alert about an hour or so later. My flight's now been delayed till 11 30. Okay, just a half hour, I should be okay. This happens again. Flights delayed till one o'clock. All right. Now I'm like okay, that sucks this ain't going.
Speaker 2:We're not going nowhere. The airport was full. There were hundreds, if not at least 1,000 people in that airport at 1130 at night on a Sunday and nothing's up. And everyone's having the same problem. The guy sitting next to me at the bar, like I've been there for two days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, his name was Norm. Right, his name was Norm. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Other folks were coming up and walking around and everybody's talking. The name was Norm. Yeah, exactly, other folks were coming up and walking around.
Speaker 1:Everybody was talking, they'd been there for days and I'm like I can't really complain a whole lot.
Speaker 2:I've been here for a couple hours and these folks have been stranded here since Thursday, friday. It's just insane. So come 2 o'clock, my flight gets canceled. And you were like surprise, surprise, Surprise, yeah, surprise, surprise. So at this point I noticed on my phone that it had been canceled. It hadn't been announced yet at the gate. So I walk over to the gate and stand in line and there's nobody there, no customer service up there, nothing. I just go over and stand in line because all the other Delta has three customer service, specific customer service desk in that terminal. Yes, in different parts of the terminal. That terminal is like a mile long, literally Cheech, and each one of those the line was 50 people deep. This is at 9 o'clock at night still.
Speaker 1:And these are not gate agents. No, they're literally just customer service, just customer service. They have nothing, no other job.
Speaker 2:Yep. So I figure, instead of going to one of those desks, I'm just going to go stand here and wait for somebody to come over. About 15 minutes later, someone comes over. Again, there's no announcement at the gate that the flight's been delayed, it's just all what you get on your phone. So he comes over, he starts working it out, and I ended up getting confirmed on the 10 am flight the next morning and on standby on the 7.15 flight 7.15 am 8, 7.15 am.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're hoping for the 7.15. I'm hoping for the 7.15.
Speaker 2:So there's no hotel rooms, so there's no even need to try and get a hotel room.
Speaker 3:Not at 2 in the morning.
Speaker 2:Not at 2 in the morning and I can find a hotel room. I get a meal voucher, but that was useless because everything was closed and nothing would be open in the morning before that 7 o'clock flight. So let's say you're on that 7 o'clock flight, the meal voucher's useless. So I went and found a corner and I set my alarm for 6 am and I laid down and I couldn't sleep. So I literally walked the airport the rest of the night, nothing else to do.
Speaker 1:The seats are uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:What am I going to do? Just sit around. So I just went for a walk and had a nice walk.
Speaker 1:So you know Detroit Airport. Now I do. I know exactly what food items what stores are by every gate.
Speaker 2:I mean I don't know if they're any good because they're all closed, but I know they had a map in my head of Detroit.
Speaker 1:Airport, but you see how clean each one got right, I do.
Speaker 2:yes, exactly, they left trash in that floor.
Speaker 3:We don't eat this one that one's crystal clear what time did you make it to Maryland?
Speaker 2:I got the 1715 flight.
Speaker 1:The scary part there was there were a bunch of folks on standby.
Speaker 2:There were a bunch of folks on standby for that flight. We watched them whittle the list down to nobody. They're like okay, folks, everybody's been assigned a seat. You're all good to go. There's two names on the board. Still Yours, yes, and and I don't know. I don't know who ordered a name. I didn't care.
Speaker 3:John Smith.
Speaker 2:So I walk over and I say hey, my name was on the board still and you guys had assigned all the seats and they grabbed my boarding pass. And they'll say, oh yeah, hang on, bl on, and he had me boarding pass and I'm good to go.
Speaker 3:So it was a little stressful for a second. Yeah, you almost were going to go for the 10 o'clock.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you were about to go Hunger Games style. You and the other guy had to fight it out. Fight it out for the last time, exactly so you sat behind the pilot, behind the pilot in the jump seat behind the pilot.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. I gave him some pointers on how he could be a little smoother. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they love that.
Speaker 2:They love that. I work with them on the backing. It's like you know, just maybe you want to get out and look.
Speaker 1:And they're like you know, we're not doing anything right, we're literally not doing a thing.
Speaker 2:The yokes are going by themselves Like, yeah, that's all right. So I got to Baltimore about 9.30. I got the rental car, had to push the rental car back, get to the hotel that I had booked for the night before and I go in and I say, hey, I was supposed to be here last night and I just got here. Hopefully my room's ready and I can extend it for a day, because there was no way. With no sleep, I was going to try and drive the two hours and then get, hop in it was a tractor trailer, by the way Hop in this truck and try and head back to Columbus or Medina. So yeah, my room was still available. They sent it for a night. I went and got some sleep.
Speaker 3:You text me, you're like I'm out, peace out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm done, and it was like a 12-hour sleep. By noon I was out.
Speaker 1:Were they cool or were they kind of giving you a little hassle? No, they were cool.
Speaker 2:The room was paid for it was.
Speaker 1:I know I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying it's probably one of the most travel-less people in this group. They're not always cool. Oh, I get it.
Speaker 2:I get it, I, I get it.
Speaker 1:I've gone to some hotels and they're like hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you were supposed to be here by 11 and it's 1102. Yep.
Speaker 2:Or 258.
Speaker 1:We don't check until 3. Right, oh, I totally get that.
Speaker 2:She was cool with it. Cool, that's nice. She was cool with it. I love when you have a good customer service so far, yep, it really does.
Speaker 1:It also so far.
Speaker 2:Yep, it really does it also helps when you're polite and not rude to people. I'm not rude, I wasn't saying you. I was just saying in general, the, the royal, you it helps it helps with the royal you the royal you if you are polite to people and realize that they have a job to do too yeah and they're not trying to just be mean to you, they're just trying to do their job.
Speaker 1:I butter people up. I I put on the southern charm. Yeah, yeah, I totally, because I know they probably got yelled at by the previous customer, so I am all about being nice.
Speaker 1:I had a guy. We were driving and I go to a thruway station. He asked me for something but I couldn't make out what he was saying. He's yelling the engines are going. I just couldn't follow him. He's like go park and come back in here or whatever. So I go in the park and I grab my permit book and I do my logging stuff because I've got to log all that stuff and I get out the truck and I walk into the place and I hand the guy the paperwork or whatever and he's like I was super nice and polite and he's like you're good. He's like I'm sorry, but again, it's just because I was being nice.
Speaker 2:He's like you're good.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, he's like. I was like I didn't even say, like I was ready to say, like I really just couldn't understand what you're saying. I'm sorry, I didn't even get. He just realized like just me being polite and kind of like, whatever he's like, you're not that guy, so but it didn't mean such a great story On a side note though I heard you mentioned tractor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know high field trucking. What we do run tractors John Deere's yeah, what? No, john Deere's tractors. We've run tractors for about a year and a half now.
Speaker 3:So this is what you're going to go pick up.
Speaker 2:So I was going to pick up a tractor. They're beautiful tractors, 144-inch custom sleepers. They're big mama jamas.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But are they nice? Very nice, they drive good.
Speaker 2:They drive great. What about bumps? They you know bumps are bumps, you know. Yeah, but they handle the bumps very well, very well, enough power. Plenty of power.
Speaker 1:They're not like those gutless wonders that the big guys have?
Speaker 2:No, they're not the gutless wonders. These things have plenty of power. I was pulling an empty trailer so I can't say I was running fully loaded up the hill at 65.
Speaker 1:But you're pulling an empty reefer trailer, empty reefer trailer. It's got some weight on it.
Speaker 2:I had no problem getting around people that were slower than me.
Speaker 1:Were you ready to send Melissa to Swift to go get her six months experience?
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, yes, wherever she needs to go to get her experience, she needs to go.
Speaker 1:There was yeah so back in 2010 I think 2012, something like that um supes freight liner built two, maybe four, of the tractors that are just like them.
Speaker 1:Uh, they the bolt 144, 150 inch sleepers uh, cascadias, beautiful trucks and he built them on spec just to sell Right and nobody was buying. It was just like a weird time in the economy. Nobody bought them and so he ended up having the frames on a. He sold two extractors and the other two he sold. He had the frames stretched a little bit more and he put like 14-foot boxes on them.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's weird.
Speaker 1:And sold them as expediters. Wow, and for a long time they were out there running. I know one of the people that bought one of the trucks I don't know if they're still driving or not. They're with Landstar and they actually would run six months and then they would take the other six months off. Wow, and they would go and reapply and do the whole thing all over again.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:And run six more months during the busy season and they'd take six months off. But they owned the truck outright.
Speaker 2:They'd already paid it off.
Speaker 1:When they had the loan, they were running all the time Sure, but once it was paid off they were sweet rides.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine?
Speaker 1:that thing with the 14-foot locks, beautiful. I'd tear the highways up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're really sweet trucks. It was a nice ride all the way back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really was Uneventful, from Maryland to Medina to Columbus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of it was uneventful. The biggest thing was turning off of a two-lane state route to another two-lane state route where the angle was I'm going this way and the other road went this way. And so when I got to the intersection, it was a I don't know 36 degree angle that I had to make a left turn onto. Is that better? You're basically making a U-turn. I'm making a U-turn, but I couldn't see oncoming traffic from my right side.
Speaker 2:Even though I tried to set up where I could be that way, I just couldn't. It was just not the right way. So I knew my left side was clear. So I basically drove like I was going to make a right turn to be able to see clear across where I was coming from, to turn back to the left to make that turn, probably ready to slam that brake on in case you see something.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, definitely, Definitely.
Speaker 2:So that was probably in the first 30, 45 minutes of my journey. So it was okay. How do we get this done? When I got to Medina I had to park the trailer, so backing was a bit of a challenge. I hadn't done it in quite some time with the trailer. I think you know the U-Haul trailer I backed, but that's a different story.
Speaker 2:But it was one of those things again where it comes back to you and just stopping to think about what I was doing. Okay, if I turn the steering wheel this way, I'm going to turn this way. I need to move it so far or I'm already too far into it where, if I it more, it's not gonna get me out of it fast enough. So I need to pull up. But also I had my trainer's voice voice in my head saying if you don't move the back of that trailer, you're not gonna do anything. Yeah, so you got to move the back of that trailer where you need it, so you got to get a little further than what you need to do. So that took a little bit of time. I mean it probably took me 10 minutes to get back to get parked. Some people are like 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:That's crazy how we're doing that. Okay, fine, took me 10 minutes get parked, uh, and then I shut down for the night there at medina. Um came down. I came back home the next morning. It was just. It was a long day, I had the time, I was tired, so I shut it down and got some sleep.
Speaker 3:That's safety, though it is safety. We've always practiced safety it is safety.
Speaker 1:I've done that. I've pulled over the side of the shoulder Not the shoulder, but pulled off at a rest area or whatever. So I'm one of these people. I can do a power nap. Yeah, if I'm really tired, I can do a 15- 20 minute nap and I wake up and I'm golden for four or five more hours like be nice not I eric hates it.
Speaker 1:He's like I don't understand it. That's, it's insanity. But I'm telling you, if I'm dead tired like just dead tired 15, 20 minutes of just like comatose sleep, I wake up and we're good to go. Let's do it. I get angry. I'm angry when I wake up and usually my naps are like two to three hours. And then I still wake up angry. If I do two or three hours, I'm miserable.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I wake up angry all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, in the morning she gets up, does the coffee has a ritual right.
Speaker 2:No, no up. Does the coffee right? No, angry, don't talk to me. Oh no, I don't. I don't talk to her in the morning, I do. I literally do not talk to her in the morning so you go with, go your separate ways, your first first conversations like how was driving to work?
Speaker 4:I can take a two-hour nap after work. Don will wake me up, have dinner and then I could turn around and go right back to bed, oh he does it all that all the time? I can't, I can't. I used to could.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Easy I used to. Could I've lost that ability?
Speaker 3:I would piss off because I could have done so much during the two hours. Even though I was tired, I wasted. That's the way I feel. She's got FOMO. I missed something, so I could have been doing things Mowing the lawn, washing the dishes.
Speaker 2:I could have been a contender.
Speaker 3:I could have been doing so much in two hours instead of half in the nap. I don't have that issue at all and just waiting for bed.
Speaker 1:I don't have that issue at all, because I know that if I'm going to take a nap, I'm done.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I took a nap today 22 minutes, that's what I slept my alarm for 22 minutes.
Speaker 4:And it recharged me. It takes me 22 minutes just to fall asleep.
Speaker 3:Seriously, amen, high five.
Speaker 4:Even if.
Speaker 1:I'm dead tired. Honestly, I probably slept for five minutes, but look at me now Like I'm wide awake and with it and everything.
Speaker 1:I don't mind it. If I'm taking a nap, it's because I need one. I I'm not one of those people who's like, well, it's kind of a lazy Saturday afternoon, let me go take a nap. I don't do that, I'd rather go do something. Or if I'm not going anywhere, then it's like, well, let's go in the backyard and have a drink and do some weeding or something. You know what I mean. Yeah, I need two to three hour block out, for in case of a nap, that's a Sunday, after dinner, after church, after dinner. No, that's a nap two, three hours and then you wake up and you feel miserable. I used to do that all the time and I'm like I will not do that again. You're talking about a thanksgiving christmas day now any of those well, I went.
Speaker 1:I mean, we were like, you know, every sunday we went to church, sunday morning and sunday night. So it was go to church, then go to like a high-end, super nice restaurant like Ryan's Buffet, or maybe the Piccadilly, or maybe the Golden Corral when the Golden Corral finally came to town or Western Sizzlin' I don't know if that.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I used to work at one.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 4:Got a winner over there, Ding ding.
Speaker 3:I was 16.
Speaker 1:Dishwasher Got a winner over there, Ding ding Out with 16 dishwasher.
Speaker 4:Really, they had dishwashers.
Speaker 1:Yep, it was not the ideal model of hygiene, but you could get like a $3 steak Nice. It was not bad.
Speaker 3:It really wasn't terrible. I'm all up for Waffle House.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 3:I just want to see if I can get your goat.
Speaker 1:But I mean, so you do that, and then you go home and you take a nap. And then you get up in two hours and then you know like get ready for church and go back and just be miserable, I never understood. I hated that. So when I finally grew up and went to college and then I started going to a church that only had Sunday morning service, I'm like this makes so much more sense Like Sunday night. You're done, you're wasted.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Unless it's like a small group, because I did some of that stuff where you're just hanging out with a group of your peers and it's social and whatever. That was cool, but to do the whole rigmarole it was like this is brutal yeah, but the two, three hour thing I just can't. I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 3:I don't have any so we're almost up on fall september. Do you consider that fall, or is october fall?
Speaker 2:depends on the weather. Okay, like the weather tells me whether it's fall or not, so so no weather.
Speaker 3:Just we're basing seasons off of.
Speaker 2:September 21st.
Speaker 1:Okay, I say September. I used to say late August.
Speaker 3:So we have one more vacation that we took in this summer. If we're going to start September-ish as a new season, Tell us about that vacation, pray tell. So we went to the Rogue Valley in Medford Oregon.
Speaker 1:You did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did. I went with you and Eric and Vince.
Speaker 1:We did.
Speaker 3:We did, we just did it like the beginning of August.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 1:We did.
Speaker 3:Where were you? I don't know.
Speaker 1:The last few weeks have been a blur.
Speaker 3:So for me, I had my older son and his girlfriend playing from Arkansas. It was super fun. My younger one and his wife currently live there. The bestie lives there. We all hooked up at an Airbnb. It was a beautiful aged older.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the word I want to say. It felt like we took over Grandma's house and Grandma left.
Speaker 3:It totally did. It suited our needs.
Speaker 1:Tons of bedrooms.
Speaker 3:Three bedrooms, four bedrooms, kind of an attic-y space with like a kid's zone. It was really cool. We didn't have any kids, but three bathrooms, the kitchen it just was set up really cool.
Speaker 1:Had a pool and a hot tub, thank you. I was like can we get to the pool already, which is really what I wanted you know.
Speaker 3:so after we were done playing for the day and the activities, I had planned that we could retire to the house and have pool and fun and shenanigans, which we did, which pool volleyball was a really good time Pool volleyball, pool volleyball, it was the worst. Made up rules. If you all have made your own games in life with family, it's a lot of fun. Patrick and Vince had made up volleyball rules the night before and they got us all in there, but we did limo wine tour if you haven't done it.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh.
Speaker 3:It's not Casey's limo. What is it Shoot?
Speaker 1:I wanted to give him a shout out you know what the link will be in the description it will be.
Speaker 3:So he does not just the wine tours, but he'll pick the wine areas in the valley that you want. So, whether that's Applegate or Ashland or the Eagle Point area, we did the Applegate, which I absolutely loved.
Speaker 1:And even if you're driving and you're there for the weekend, because they had some truck stops there. They did, and you happen to be there for the weekend and you know you're not going to be driving and maybe you're going to get a hotel.
Speaker 3:Yes, this would be a cool thing to do Again, if you're driving and if you're going to be there for the weekend. This is a cool way to kill a Saturday and he does different things, different holidays, Like he does like Halloween for the lights and the things and Christmas for the lights. I mean he does different things.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be just a wine tour, no, I mean any kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And he's super nice, very nice Accommodating.
Speaker 3:Quinceanera Quinceanera, or dances, or proms. I mean, he does all sorts of things with his limos and he has different sizes for different groups. Yeah, he accommodated our 10. It was a four-hour window. He took us to three vineyards, two of which were Vince and I's suggestion, because they are our favorites. Again, it was out in the Applegate Valley. Do your research. It's in the Rogue Valley but it's called the Applegate Valley Right off of I-5.
Speaker 2:Just north of California. You're in a car, do it Oregon border. So we did that.
Speaker 3:We had a lovely time. They are dealing with wildfires. I felt like the smoke blew out for a majority of that day.
Speaker 1:It did.
Speaker 3:And then on that day we retired back Again pool and barbecued and then, Saturday we did one of our favorite locations, which was Mimosas. A little bit of a wait. I thought it was worth it. I don't know if anybody else does, but it was fun and go ahead. Absolutely, it was worth the wait, yeah, because it's like You've heard us talk about it.
Speaker 1:Not only is it a place that means something to y'all on a relationship slash, spiritual, slash, great memories of. It was the best Mimosas I've ever had. It was good Mimosas they actually do private label champagne so they actually dialed in their recipe to make sure it goes well with the fruit juice and they had tons of options.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they did and you could do pitchers, you could do pitchers, crafts, large, small, like tons of options.
Speaker 1:I think we also got if I'm not mistaken, we got an extra bottle of champagne. We did Because we wanted to like when you got halfway down, you just top off the champagne, not so much the fruit juice and it worked for everybody it worked for everybody. It was a lot of fun. Again, none of us were driving that day. We were in the limo. Not in the limo, we were doing the jet boat tour.
Speaker 3:No, we were in a jet boat.
Speaker 1:that day We'll get to that in a second, but it was a lot of fun. The food was pretty good. If you eat outside, you take the gamble right, you do. But they had these really cool. They looked like fans but they weren't fans. They didn't blow any air, they were just shiny and they spun around and they sat on the table and they kept the flies away.
Speaker 3:All the flies were gone. It was the coolest thing ever. I thought, the misters helped too when they started the misters behind us, that kind of killed the fly population.
Speaker 1:The sun also moving, helped tremendously, so on.
Speaker 3:Saturday after mimosas, we went down to Rogue Jet Boats and what we chose to do was a two-hour scenic tour. It's two hours down the Rogue River or up and down total.
Speaker 1:It was longer than two hours.
Speaker 3:It's supposed to be two hours.
Speaker 1:I know, but it was closer to like two hours 45 minutes, so they talk to you about the history and the whatever, and they have to navigate the river accordingly.
Speaker 3:They do some tricks and you get wet. They do also a brunch and they do a dinner. We opted not to because we had had brunch and then again, at the end of Saturday, we went back to the Airbnb and we, you know, played in the pool and had a good time, and that's where we did the pool volleyball. It was fun.
Speaker 4:It was good times.
Speaker 3:And then the three of you flew out on Sunday. I stayed the following week and on the following Saturday I did a baby shower for my youngest and his wife, who are expecting their first. So exciting. That is our summer and it has been a great summer. I am looking forward to September and what it holds.
Speaker 1:I agree, but you're not getting off that easy. So I am.
Speaker 1:I love music, parks and Jerry and I and Eric too, we have that that thrill ride, roller coaster. Let's get crazy gene. I don't know what that is, but we do love that stuff. I will do the tallest, fastest, scariest upside-downest twist-your-round roller coaster. I don't care what it is, I will be scared. You can ask Eric, there have been times I've been in line legitimately nervous about what we're about to do. I'm still getting on it, I'm still doing it Right and I love that stuff. I hate when you go to a theme park and you do a water ride, so like the log flume or something like that, where you end up like going down the hill and it does the big splash and you get wet.
Speaker 1:Someone I'm not going to say who, because Melissa told me not to use her name did not tell me, or Eric, that this was a wet event. She said we're doing a scenic boat tour. A scenic boat tour Does a scenic boat tour to you sound like you're going to be not splashed a little bit? Soaked, completely Trenched Just what? Listen to these words 100. Just Soaked, completely Trenched Just what? Listen to these words 100. Just, they're accurate words. Just, the only part that was dry was the section between my bottom cheeks and the seat I was sitting on. Everything else, completely soaked. And so I didn't know that until the first spin. No, so I didn't know that until we were heading over for mimosas and your oldest son wore a bathing suit and I'm like should I have done that? And he's like we're going to get wet. And I'm like okay, well, I didn't know that. And he's like but not every seat gets wet. Lies of the devil. Not every seat gets wet, lies of the devil not every seat gets as wet honestly he wasn't lying.
Speaker 1:The pilot, the captain stayed dry the whole time so we go in this thing and the river, the Rogue River, is very shallow, it's wide, it's very shallow and there's a lot of rapids and stuff. There were a ton of people out there doing like legit rafting and there's rapids and stuff and it looked really cool.
Speaker 1:We said next time we go we definitely want to go back and just get some rafts and hang out and you know he's having to avoid all these people and they're very safe. At no part did I feel like they were going to hit someone In.
Speaker 3:At no part did I feel like they were going to hit someone In the deeper sections, in the deeper sections At the calmer, calmer, deeper.
Speaker 1:They do these crazy tricks with their boats and everybody gets drenched Just complete.
Speaker 3:Oh, I thought you were going to say crazy. We all started screaming.
Speaker 1:Complete saturation and again. Normally I would be livid and I wasn't really thrilled. I was kind of pissed a little bit that this was what we were going to be doing and I really wasn't thrilled with it. But there, is something about the combination of going 40 miles an hour and getting completely drenched and having full sun and it being 117 degrees.
Speaker 3:It was a hot day. It was so hot it was miserably hot.
Speaker 1:You're underselling the temperature. It was a hot day. It was so hot, it was miserably hot, you're underselling the temperature, it was probably 127. Every time we got wet it was pure bliss. Yeah, it was. It was like, oh, thank you. It was so hot that it was like, oh, this is nice. But I can imagine if you're there on like an 80-degree day it might be miserable. It is. If you're there on an 80-degree day. It might be miserable.
Speaker 3:It is If you do the dinner one, you want to make sure you pack yourself some kind of a sweatshirt or something that you can keep dry and maybe pull out and keep yourself warm after you're wet and then try to tuck it back in the dry before he does it, because he does forewarning before he's going to do it, he does, give your heads up.
Speaker 2:So it's not a surprise, not when he slams the brake, Not pack your stuff away.
Speaker 3:Time no but I'm just saying it can be chilly. So you really want to make sure it's a really hot day if you're going to do the dinner one. Brunch Brunch is doable. It, if you're going to do the dinner, one Brunch is doable. It may not be peak hot time when you come back, because if you think about brunch times, brunch is definitely doable. We did like a two to four, so we did peak time of the day.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, but by the time we were done.
Speaker 3:I was dry.
Speaker 1:I was mostly dry.
Speaker 3:A couple of spots were a little wetter.
Speaker 1:We got so drenched I mean like fully drenched to the point where I'm like we should have brought towels because we're going to get the seats wet. And the car we had didn't have leather seats, it had cloth, and I'm like you know, no one wants wet cloth seats, and so I was nervous about that.
Speaker 3:But again, by the time we got to the car it was pretty dry. I get wet.
Speaker 1:I don't think mine did.
Speaker 3:I think it's the way they've got the boat built.
Speaker 1:So they did say ours was the newest. Our walls were a little higher, and so I think it kept the water off of the ground. It just got on our upper clothes.
Speaker 3:That's okay If you're a driver and you're watching this. It is in Grants Pass, Oregon, so I don't believe that there's a truck stop in Grants. Pass there isn't, no, the only truck stop I'm aware of in the Rogue Valley that includes Medford and Grants Pass, and Ashland would be the Pilot. Yes, there are other places.
Speaker 2:There's a TA down there too. So if you're coming up I-5 out of California, there's a TA that's actually pretty large. Yes, a little further up in Central Point there is a pilot, but it's relatively small. Yep, rent a car, find a place. That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 3:Find a place, wherever that place may be, Rent a car, and if you put the jet boats on your list of things to do, I don't think you'll be disappointed. You should start it off with mimosas. It's there in Grants Pass my opinion some mimosas. They're farm to table everything's local for their food. Uh, totally shouting out I. I thought we've always talked about it. They hold a special meaning in our heart.
Speaker 2:You can actually uh so um. The grants pass is gonna be 20 miles from that pilot, so you need a car. However, when it gets to grants pass, you can find parking and you're able to walk between mimosas and the jet boats and everything that's in that little area there.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of cool history in Grants Pass if you chose to dig a little deeper the food in mimosas is really good too, so if you're like, well, I'm driving, I don't want to drink, so I'm not going to go to mimosas. That's just part of it. The food's really great.
Speaker 3:We had people that were with us, uh, that didn't get any alcohol to drink. They, uh, and they do savory and sweet.
Speaker 1:Yes, they do savory sweet um their list of daily specials everything is a mile long.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 1:I know we talked about brunch and dinner. People might be a little confused. You don't eat on the boat, you actually. They have a beautiful because you pass it.
Speaker 1:We didn't stop there, but we passed it a beautiful section a lodge, lodge, a lodge right on the river, where it turns, where it bends, yep, and it's just a gorgeous piece of property. The lodge is actually quite a bit up, pretty high, and so it's a good little walk to get there from the river and you have this beautiful scenic view and everything. So you would go there and then you would eat or have your brunch or have your dinner and then you would come back and do your boat tour back, and so it's not.
Speaker 1:you're not eating on the boat. There's no food or drinks or anything on the boat.
Speaker 3:No water. I think you could drink water Water only no alcohol.
Speaker 1:They're hard.
Speaker 3:No smoking, none of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but it's. But honestly I mean like I can't imagine anything but water.
Speaker 3:And you want to sit in rows three, four, five and six.
Speaker 1:Five is pretty good in my opinion it's a little moist and make sure you sit on the outside if you really want to have fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right, you do what you will. Anyway, I had a really good time and I am so glad that you all got to experience Rogue Valley with us.
Speaker 1:I am too, but can we talk about two more things?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Three more things the Rogue River Valley, the wineries yes, my note on that. I like wine but I'm a very traditional Merlot or a Cabernet or a Pinot or whatever. I don't really care for the peach wine and the fruity stuff and all these fancy things which is real popular here in Ohio and early in the South. The wine is like real legit, award-winning, delicious cabernets or merlots or things like that. Like the chardonnays. It's really good traditional flavor. So if you've been to like a place that had strawberry wine or whatever, they don't have that here. This is like real deal good stuff. I would be like super impressed with the quality. It was very good. Thank you, the two thing. The smoke is no joke.
Speaker 3:In the summer.
Speaker 1:If you don't want the smoke early summer, they said, is pretty, and they said fall or spring are beautiful as well. Winter gets a little cold and snowy, so maybe we'll avoid that, but um, not as beautiful out in the vineyards either. Yeah, so spring, early summer or fall, and they said it's about a month, month and a half, where it gets real smoky. Uh, that was no joke, that actually it didn't bother me the first couple days, but the last day we were there it was actually really bothering me in my sinuses and everything.
Speaker 1:So when we landed in Salt Lake, I literally felt like oh, I can breathe again. Like it was the craziest thing. I just never I've seen that kind of smoke. I've never been in it. It was wild. And the last thing is volleyball in the pool. So I know what you're thinking. We've all been there. You get the volleyball net, it goes on either side of the pool and then you have a regular volleyball and you just form teams and you play volleyball right. We basically did that, except we had no net.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:And no volleyball.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:And no teams.
Speaker 2:Well, to start? Well, to start, it wasn't. It was just you and I, and we used a beach ball and it's a small. It's a smallish, it is a small Peanut shaped pool I mean it was, it was big enough or kidney shaped pool.
Speaker 3:Kidney shaped pool.
Speaker 1:Ten people would be comfortable in it.
Speaker 3:It was oh sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but more than that It'd be a problem.
Speaker 3:You had six. You had six for your teams.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we did three and three Yep, so we ended up having to use someone's shoes Shoes To note where the net would be Yep to where the net would be. So we had no height clearance? Obviously no, but because we had rules no spiking Right.
Speaker 3:No spiking in volleyball.
Speaker 1:We used a three-foot diameter beach ball ridiculous thing, and that was our ball. We played with.
Speaker 3:And you couldn't double tap it.
Speaker 1:You couldn't double tap it. Volleyball rules, yep.
Speaker 3:And if it hit the outer edge, it was out.
Speaker 1:If it was outer edge, it was out Of the pool. Of the pool, yep, and we had a great time. It was a lot of laughs, it was so much fun and everybody was involved, because even if you weren't in the water you had two judges a judge on either side
Speaker 3:because sometimes it was very scary, because there's no net.
Speaker 1:There's no net. You have to be watching.
Speaker 3:And then there was the scorekeeper, because it was hard to keep score, even though if you were the judge and there was one section of the pool where there were steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the pool where there were steps, the steps were actually built outside of the pool, so it is out of bounds it was crazy.
Speaker 2:We had a good time.
Speaker 1:The scorekeeper had to keep his eye on that, or her eye on that, to make sure if the ball went in there. It was crazy.
Speaker 3:If you're not making your own family games during family time, you're not doing family time right? That's what I got to say.
Speaker 1:A lot of laughs. My team- lost.
Speaker 2:Very sad that your team lost.
Speaker 1:Barely.
Speaker 3:Every time? No, because we flake went three games.
Speaker 2:We won the first time you won the first game.
Speaker 1:We lost the second game. Bad, it was a beating. Yes, you did. The first game was a beating. The second game was a beating. The third game was cut throat.
Speaker 2:We went by two, I think right. Yeah, it was one by two. We went pretty high on that one yeah it was pretty wild. It was so much fun I was very proud of my team for being victorious. Yeah, that's because you have fingernails involved.
Speaker 3:She had those nails down. Heather's got beautiful long acrylic nails and she figured out how to. Because you think to hit a regular volleyball pretty hard, well, of beach ball you barely have to barely touch it, like you could just stick one finger up and it's gonna do something.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you any times I scored y'all points just by hitting it a little too hard.
Speaker 3:She just figured out this way to put her finger up and let the ball hit the nails and it would bounce just the right amount of distance. If you gave it a full, flat hand, it would go out of bounds and way beyond. She just kind of cat clawed up. I'm like you got it going on, I cat clawed up.
Speaker 1:I'm like you got it going on. I can't tell you how many times we scored just by jumping backwards and letting the ball fly.
Speaker 3:It was a good time, it was fun.
Speaker 1:It was very fun. I enjoyed that a whole lot. Oh man, just the energy, the energy was great.
Speaker 3:It was good.
Speaker 1:We were going to play more, but we had to shut it down because quiet hours kicked in that last game was darn near silent.
Speaker 2:It was. It was crazy. It was very quiet. It was a silent game, very quiet it was fun.
Speaker 1:It was a blast.
Speaker 3:So it's been a fun summer. It sounds like it I am looking forward to fall, but it's been a fun summer yeah it sounds like a great summer.
Speaker 1:So in the past couple weeks that we've been, I know we released one of these each week, but we actually filmed the first two back-to-back, and then last week you were in.
Speaker 2:Oregon.
Speaker 1:Medford and Eric and I we actually left Medford, we had to fly straight to Atlanta and go do the Elite Fleet with FedEx Custom Critical Big shout-out to George and Teresa Burton who drive with us. They actually won the award this year. They were our Elite Fleet drivers and they've done a great job. They actually won the award this year. They were our Elite Fleet drivers and they've done a great job. They won this Hold on a second and they've been with us for a while and I can't think of a more deserving couple. They really work hard. They bleed FedEx Purple and it's just what a great reward. So thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1:And so we were out there and did FedEx Springs, all the fleet owners out there and we did four days I think four days there and had a great time, got to speak to a lot of people with FedEx and higher managements there and everything. So people we don't normally get to have face-to-face time with we get to do that and really had a great time out there, learned a lot about. You know, if you see the news at all, you'll know that FedEx is going through some changes, fedex Corporate is, and got a chance to kind of pick their brains and kind of see, you know, how does this affect us and what's going on and stuff. And I got to say I can't really get into specifics, but I'm really excited about the future. There's some really cool things coming down the pipe. We've got some really smart people in really good leadership positions and I am very excited about things that are coming. That's really good to hear.
Speaker 1:It is is it's been a couple years of like weirdness and who knows what, but I I am really happy with the direction that things are going now. Uh, eric and I did that and then we uh flew back home. On thursday came back to get to the house. I took a 20 minute power as one does. And then we jumped in the car and headed out about an hour outside of Columbus and did the Travis Tritt concert, and can we talk for?
Speaker 1:a second about what an amazing not artist, not singer entertainer. What an amazing entertainer. This guy was Travis Tritt. I mean, eric barely knows his music and just had a smile on his face the whole time. He engaged with the crowd. He did a big thing for the troops. It was just stinking awesome, just awesome. He did a gospel song in the middle of nothing, in the middle of everything crazy. He just burst into a freaking gospel. It was great. It was just everything you'd want it to be. It was really really good. And the opener was War Hippies, who I've never heard of. We got to see War Hippies. I'm like I don't know who this opening band is. I've never heard their name. It's kind of silly. Right, war Hippies. And they came on stage with fire. It was amazing. It's a guy playing acoustic guitar. He's a Marine, a veteran Of the United States Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:Yes, he served in Iraq he served in Iraq and just a great guy hearing his story. Everything he's talking about it was super pro-America, it was not political, which I love. That he didn't go down to those places didn't alienate the crowd, it was really awesome. So he's playing guitar, he's a singer-songwriter the guy next to him is one of his best friends, he's playing fiddle and he's got the long gnome-looking beard.
Speaker 1:Zz Top beard, top beard, easy top beard, thank you yeah, he's playing fiddle, he's freaking phenomenal, and then it's a drummer and that's it that's the whole band and they put a great show on, didn't they, eric?
Speaker 1:I mean, like it was awesome, I downloaded their music. I I sent I think I sent y'all a text. I know I I sent Jimmy and Kelly a text. I'm like y'all got to check this band out. I mean, they are really like just on fire and so, yeah, we had a great time. And I got back home around 1 o'clock in the morning we hit the ground running. It's been a week, hasn't it, eric? It's just been. Oh, it's been a week. Yeah, it's been yeah. And then I had to go the very next day. My little mishap.
Speaker 2:Your little mishap.
Speaker 1:My little mishap.
Speaker 2:Yes, you could have had a day, but no.
Speaker 1:So when you're going, going, going, going, going, going, going, going going, which was great, it was a lot like we did the thing with y'all in the Rogue Valley. But a lot of the travel was work over the past month and I'm so fortunate to be able to do what we do, but it was a lot of back-to-back work travel. I just didn't map my days correctly. I didn't check my calendar. I was just thinking I need to be in Fort Worth for Monday morning, I'll leave Friday, and just completely ignored the fact that, like that's too many days, you don't need that many days. So I left Friday morning. I drive down to Fort Worth, stop at my normal hotel in Memphis.
Speaker 1:You've been there, you've stayed there with me before I go to breakfast the next morning. It's Holiday Inn Express. Love Holiday Inn Express.
Speaker 2:Great place.
Speaker 1:I got to wake up. I stayed in Holiday Inn Express, so I go down there, go to breakfast, and they got, uh, this big gospel group that's down there and they're talking about sunday service and everything and I'm like you know, it's kind of late because they should have been in service already yeah, I had to do my 10 hour break.
Speaker 1:So it's like nine o'clock, 9, 30 in the morning and I'm like why are they still here? And so I'm like that's kind of weird. Then I was like, oh, maybe it's a monday revival or something, and then they said see you at church tomorrow or something like that. And I was like what's going on? And it just dawned on me.
Speaker 2:I thought maybe you had set up something with AA where they're going to leave the truck.
Speaker 1:Which I've done before. Hide the keys.
Speaker 2:I've done that before and you just swap the truck and keep on moving.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I have done that before, so that's not crazy thought. And uh, I had not done that, I was just I just completely spaced out on on the travel times and everything.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh my gosh, it's saturday. So I got down to uh fort worth at what time, like 8 pm on on saturday and uh ordered some takeout, had it sent to the room and then then spent all day Sunday. I had big plans. I love Academy Sports. If you're in the city that has Academy Sports, I love Academy Sports. I like to buy my shoes there. Their prices are way more reasonable than some of the other places.
Speaker 1:So I'm like I'm going to go to Academy Sports, I'm going to find me a new pair of shoes, because I think I mentioned on the podcast a couple weeks ago, I blew one of my shoes out in Europe. So I'm like, all right, I need to get a new pair of shoes. And then I also want to go to another restaurant you can only find there, and there was another store. I can't remember what it was, but there was somewhere else. I wanted to go while I was there as well, and I did none of it. I stayed in the room, I watched television. They had the cool thing, which I love Hotels are starting to do now, where you can sign into your Netflix account.
Speaker 1:So I signed into my Netflix account and just watched Netflix all day, ordered, ubered in my food, and so I was texting Eric. He was like, what are you doing? He's like watching Back to the Future, part 3 or something. And I'm like, oh, I'm watching whatever stupid movie it was I was watching Red or something and that was it. It was just like that's it. I just vegged out and did nothing, and it was awesome.
Speaker 2:That was my weekend last weekend, without Melissa Holm. Yeah, I had a plane. I needed to go get some wine.
Speaker 1:I texted you. You never responded back. So I was like, well, he's either dead on the motorcycle or he's done.
Speaker 2:I was just done. I spent the weekend watching the John Wick series, so that was fun. I'd seen one through, three, three. I didn't really I don't know if I wasn't focused on it or what, but I couldn't remember a whole lot of it. So I did go back and watch two, three and four, because I hadn't seen four yet and I just enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:The action, I mean storyline. If you're watching for the story, you're watching the wrong thing. But the action, along with the story and how things play out, I thought was a lot of fun. So that's what I did once she was gone. So I guess we all three kind of had our own private movie watching weekend.
Speaker 1:You can only push so far before you gotta have a break. Yes, I agree, Y'all know what this means. Right, Don't say it. Next week we have to like have some facts. Prepare shows Track knowledge.
Speaker 3:Next week. We have to prepare shows, we have to get the production meeting going again.
Speaker 1:Jerry, y'all.
Speaker 2:There are some standbys that we always fall back on right.
Speaker 1:Yes, lost Travels, that was number two.
Speaker 2:Number one was going to be weather and number two was going to be nude travels. Lost Travels stops are opening up. I thought you said nude travels.
Speaker 1:And I'm like why are we in? I thought you said Nude Travels- they have opened some this summer.
Speaker 3:Some Nude Travels no Nude Love's Travel Stops. They have opened some this summer.
Speaker 1:I did see that too, barstow. No, save it for next week.
Speaker 2:So if you want to hear more about Love's, we may or may not talk about it next week. Tune in, we may or may not talk about it next week.
Speaker 1:Tune in, it's been a lot of fun catching up. I can't believe it took three episodes. The original idea was hey, can we meet one day for like a three hour recording session and then Jerry's going to break it up and it'll be fine and it spanned you had a long summer we went so long on the first recording that when you got to the second one, I was done, you done. I was like I just don't have words left today.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, it's Word. Quota was done.
Speaker 1:Yes, the fact that we had a three-part summer said it was an epic summer. Can't wait to see what fall has in store. I already know some things coming up. I know some things we're going to talk about and yeah, I can't wait to do this some more Next week. We will be back. Same place, same time.
Speaker 3:I want to know what y'all have been doing during the summer. Drop it in the comments.
Speaker 1:Yes, share.
Speaker 2:Send us a text message, send us a two-hour-long video.
Speaker 3:Do an email, give your highlights. Where should we go now? What's the?
Speaker 2:email address the Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 3:When you say the I-C-T-H-E-E, that is the the.
Speaker 1:The Outer Belt no Pod. No the the Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom. There, you go, eric the. Thank you Jerry. Outerbeltpodcast at gmailcom. There you go, eric the Ah, thank you Jerry.
Speaker 3:The Outerbelt Podcast. Like and subscribe. Share, yes, share it over to your Facebook. Some of you have all been starting your own company Facebook groups. I see you, we see you. Share this over there, get other people interested that you're trying to promote to or share with or whatever you're doing on your business Facebook pages.
Speaker 1:Absolutely it. Cross-promotion is a great thing. There he said like and subscribe. If you see a button in front of you, press it. Everything helps. If you don't like what we're saying and you think it's ridiculous and we need to go back to whatever A we're doing that next week, but hit a thumbs down, I don't care. Yeah right.
Speaker 3:It's part of the algorithm.
Speaker 1:Part of the algorithm. Let's do it Like I said leave a comment, shoot us an email. If you want to talk to us about truckingiltrottingcom, you can go. Drop us a. Set up an appointment to call us. You can get our phone number there. Maybe at the bottom of this our phone number is there as well. Call us any time, day or night. I mean we'll only answer during business hours, but you can call us whenever you want.
Speaker 3:Leave a voicemail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, leave a voicemail.
Speaker 3:Leave a voicemail.
Speaker 1:We do call everybody back and it's so much fun doing this, doing this job, doing this show. Just I'm brought up. I can't wait to keep doing this.
Speaker 3:I'm looking forward to some articles in the upcoming weeks and what's happening in any industry.
Speaker 1:I am too. Jerry want to say anything.
Speaker 4:No that was about it.
Speaker 3:Facebook, Instagram Website TikTok Are we Yep?
Speaker 1:There we go Until next week. Stay safe, make good decisions.
Speaker 2:Don't leave money on the table.
Speaker 3:And keep those rules of tournament. Bye, thank you.