As Joshua and I, Craig, hitched our last ride on the southern breeze of Gulf Shores, Alabama, we couldn't help but spin tales of geocaches and Gulf Shore splendor. Our five-day foray, steeped in the warmth of southern hospitality and the rustic charm of state park cabins, has left us with a suitcase of stories and a playlist of local legends. Settle in as we unravel our journey from the serene lakeside retreats to the foot-tapping rhythms of the Flora-Bama nightlife, where the treasure of adventure and camaraderie among snowbirds and locals alike turns every visitor into a storyteller.
Picture this: you're amidst the revelry of the Bama Ramma geocaching mega event, where the thrill of the hunt is only outshined by the spirit of the community. Feel the camaraderie as we share our travel mishaps and victories on the way to this geocaching gala. Imagine the scent of pine intermingling with the salt air as we recount the allure of Gulf Shore State Park's cabin comforts, the laughter that filled the air as we navigated push bikes through the historic Flora Bama Roadhouse, and the ingenuity of artists turning beachside trash into coveted treasures.
Finally, we're pulling back the curtain on the secret life of Gulf Shores' eco-friendly art scene at Swagger Studios, where beach litter is reborn as striking sculptures and bold statements. JD Swigger's masterful hands breathe new purpose into the discarded, crafting a tale of transformation that resonates with the soul of our explorations. Join the adventure as we set out on the geocaching trails of Alberta, where the promise of treasure and the warmth of community fires unite us with fellow enthusiasts. Across beaches, bars, and backwoods, the Treasures of Our Town await - and we're bringing every hidden gem we unearthed straight to your ears.
As Joshua and I, Craig, hitched our last ride on the southern breeze of Gulf Shores, Alabama, we couldn't help but spin tales of geocaches and Gulf Shore splendor. Our five-day foray, steeped in the warmth of southern hospitality and the rustic charm of state park cabins, has left us with a suitcase of stories and a playlist of local legends. Settle in as we unravel our journey from the serene lakeside retreats to the foot-tapping rhythms of the Flora-Bama nightlife, where the treasure of adventure and camaraderie among snowbirds and locals alike turns every visitor into a storyteller.
Picture this: you're amidst the revelry of the Bama Ramma geocaching mega event, where the thrill of the hunt is only outshined by the spirit of the community. Feel the camaraderie as we share our travel mishaps and victories on the way to this geocaching gala. Imagine the scent of pine intermingling with the salt air as we recount the allure of Gulf Shore State Park's cabin comforts, the laughter that filled the air as we navigated push bikes through the historic Flora Bama Roadhouse, and the ingenuity of artists turning beachside trash into coveted treasures.
Finally, we're pulling back the curtain on the secret life of Gulf Shores' eco-friendly art scene at Swagger Studios, where beach litter is reborn as striking sculptures and bold statements. JD Swigger's masterful hands breathe new purpose into the discarded, crafting a tale of transformation that resonates with the soul of our explorations. Join the adventure as we set out on the geocaching trails of Alberta, where the promise of treasure and the warmth of community fires unite us with fellow enthusiasts. Across beaches, bars, and backwoods, the Treasures of Our Town await - and we're bringing every hidden gem we unearthed straight to your ears.
Great minds to collect that I think so too, and I think for our next trip, josh, we've got to do this hands down. You're the first, and then I'll order first the next time and just see if that's actually the case. I got to prove to myself, to you, that I'm not copying what you're doing, because that sounds a bit stalkerish and weird.
Speaker 1:Do you love to travel? Do you love road trips? Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Joshua and I'm Craig. Welcome to Treasures of our Town. The podcast explores the unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.
Speaker 1:Join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.
Speaker 2:On today's episode. Josh, we're sweet home.
Speaker 1:Alabama.
Speaker 2:We explore the Gulf shores of Alabama and a little bit of Flora Bama as well. And I am sitting across from you right now, face to face.
Speaker 1:This is exciting. We're actually in Alabama. Yes, wow, we spent the whole weekend together, like many days. Yeah, let's say Wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, saturday.
Speaker 2:And this is day five.
Speaker 1:Day five together, but we have so much that we have done. This has been just such an amazing trip. Yeah, we have done so much, so much. We've seen so much, we've heard so much the sights, the sounds, lots of sounds. Last, night.
Speaker 2:I know right, and you think about as well when it comes to sights. We're sitting right now in these beautiful cabins and we overlook and gorgeous Frosted Lake, or Frosted with, with fog I say foggy Lake, with a pier outside and etc as well.
Speaker 1:like mate, we can't get any better than this. My wife always says when she travels on social media she goes beautiful, wish you were here. We wish you were here, Listeners, 100% wish you were here. As we're looking out our cabin window, which we're going to talk about a little bit, because absolutely boy have we been treated?
Speaker 2:This has been next level, like media passes we're talking, you know, letting backstage passes, yes, and you know insanely good, well, well treated, even a package. We got little packages, josh, too.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's so many cool things. I'm looking at my care package back here. You've got coffee and all this stuff. It's been such an amazing trip and I don't know We'll see.
Speaker 2:Josh, this may have to be. I'll look to the show notes, mate, it may have to be a two-part.
Speaker 1:A double episode, so you get to hear us talk about Alabama for a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, Because we do every two weeks fortnight for Australians and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, so before we dive in, had you ever been to Alabama before or these last few weeks?
Speaker 2:Yes, you have? Yes, I have. But all I did was I went, I flew into Atlanta, in Georgia, okay, and then went across, directly across East sorry West, I'm getting my directions wrong Directly West into Alabama itself and only to like where the Crimson Tide and the college there and that sort of thing. So I literally it was just one road in, did a few caches etc and got my souvenir, as you do, and then one road back to Atlanta.
Speaker 1:So you've never been this far south.
Speaker 2:Oh no, not in Alabama anyone.
Speaker 1:This is just such a unique area. This is the Gulf shores. I'm looking out the window right now and it's like the Gulf is right there.
Speaker 2:The Gulf is right there. We can almost see, like the Mexican waters, the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're right by the sea, and I had never even stepped foot in Alabama till four days ago. Really. Yeah, I see, I thought you'd been before you actually started. I thought I had, but back in the day we took a road trip from Minnesota all the way down to Florida, for you know, the Disney trip, oh yeah, and as I looked at my path, I we hit Mississippi, but we didn't hit Alabama because we came down through Georgia. So I realized when I got here is like oh, this doesn't look familiar at all. I've never been here before.
Speaker 2:Overall, if that's the case, then this isn't in the show notes, so this is what happens Overall, because you have any states you've actually been to. Now I don't know. I'd have to look.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd have to look over 40 states. It's well over 40 states. If that's the case, then what do you think about Alabama as a general, as a whole, since you've been down here for the last five years? I mean well, I haven't seen all of it.
Speaker 1:No, no, but I'm guessing that this area of the Gulf shores is maybe a little bit different than the rest of the Gulf, maybe a little bit different than the rest of Alabama than the inland, but what do you think about the actual people that we've met and you know, I mean I've been down here. It's just kind southern hospitality and let me just say the Gulf shores is a party down here.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of fun and it's a party for all ages we found out which will get to very. I mean, there's a lot of snowbirds.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of snowbirds down here. There's a lot of retired folks and you know I don't blame them. There's so much to see and do in the. In the weather is beautiful and, yes, I'm just looking right now how many geocaches I've found, or how many I'm sorry. I'm looking at how many states that I found geocaches in. And the count right now is I've found geocaches in 42 states 42.
Speaker 2:There you go, so I think I'm up to 42 as well. We're tied. Have you been to Hawaii yet?
Speaker 1:I have been to Hawaii, but geocaching was before geocaching.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go. So, yeah, that's a big one for you to get. So there you go, and you've got all the Northeast to do, etc. As well.
Speaker 1:That's once I hit the Northeast. Oh boy, like I'm almost done. I just need Hawaii.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's fair enough, Mate. What are we going to crack on with this little podcast and let them know what we've been doing day by day? Yes, the sites, the sounds, the tastes, the people, everything.
Speaker 1:Oh, there, from the, you guys are in for a treat for this podcast because we've got like audio clips. This is going to be a pretty epic episode and you're really going to. You might have a little bit of FOMO because we just had so much fun down here. Yeah, and so the reason we're here, craig, of course, like the primary reason, We've done so much but the primary reason is is we are here for a geocaching mega event mega event which, if you're not a geocacher, then let's be honest, most of you are.
Speaker 1:Most of you are. That is a geocaching event, a big one that has over 500 attendees. It was called Bama Ramma. This is the second year that they've done it, second year in a row, and San Marquis, the leader of Bama Ramma, contacted me several months ago and he really wanted us to come down here. So here we are.
Speaker 2:So yeah, thanks for the shout out to San Marquis, for that too. Thanks for the invite. Exactly, exactly. But, josh, before we start off with all the good stuff, all the great stuff that we've done, your little trip didn't start so great.
Speaker 1:Now this is going to sound a little bit like first world problems, but I was not pleased with my flights. I am a Delta loyal customer and I really, really look forward to my flights because I love flights. It's relaxing and everything about this just kind of was not so great.
Speaker 2:Well, you got bumped.
Speaker 1:First of all, first of all yeah, I was supposed to have a flight that left at five, which meant I had to get to the airport at 3 30. So actually, secretly, I was kind of a little bit happy that I got bumped, because that was really early, but I got on my flight so I got bumped.
Speaker 1:I had, you know, I had picked my seat on my previous flight, so I had to, you know, do a different flight. And, of course, because I had to get a different flight at last minute, I got the dreaded middle seat.
Speaker 2:Oh, cause they just bump into the middle seat? Whichever is spare and free, which normally is the middle seat, which is unfortunate, and that was fine.
Speaker 3:I mean it's okay.
Speaker 1:But then you I don't know anybody who's fly Delta. They have a great like in flight. You know movies, tv shows and the screen and the seat back in front of you and everybody else is, like you know, have their headphones on. They're just jam listen in watching their shows and all mine is just like a frozen screen that says Delta, just frozen.
Speaker 2:Oh, so not the frozen as in the movie, frozen like Elsa but actually like literally not working. It's not working.
Speaker 1:Like and I'm looking around everybody else's working. I'm like, of course I got put in the seat where it doesn't work. So you know, I press a little button Ding the lady can I help you? Yeah, cause I've had this happen before. Yeah, would you please go and reset my screen? Oh, yeah, no problem. And then she walked away. Hour later, nothing's happening. She literally forgot about me. So then another flight attendant came my way after I pressed the button Ding. She goes is there anything? And secretly I was like I want the first one to come because we've already had a conversation.
Speaker 1:So I kind of went all like you know, hey, an hour ago I asked the other attendant to fix the screen. Could you please reset? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I share no problem. In the meantime, the drink cart is going by during this whole process and completely skips our row. No drinks.
Speaker 2:For your row.
Speaker 1:No drinks for my row, no in-flight entertainment. So, she resets the screen and then she's like it should take seven minutes for it to boot, and I'm watching it as it's just like frozen screen.
Speaker 2:How long into the flight was this Cause? It's an hour long. It's not a long flight.
Speaker 1:No, it's a two hour flight, so this is over an hour into flight Now. I only have a half hour left now, so I'm like at this point I don't care and so, and then finally she comes back after it has rebooted and it goes oh sorry, it's not working. So after all that, I didn't get any drinks, I didn't get any in-flight entertainment Again. First world problem, I know. But you know, Josh, you got content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just now you got a story.
Speaker 1:And I got some. I got some Delta points for it too. Only 500, which is only worth $6. I think I deserve more for a $500 flight Hashtag Delta definitely not sponsored. Yeah, Delta, if you're listening. So it did start well. But you know what, as soon as I landed in Pensacola, Florida, it started well because I you pulled up in your mobile house.
Speaker 2:Yes, my converted SUV, yeah, and four wheel drive.
Speaker 1:If you don't know, Craig has been on a road trip across the country, you know, sleeping at cracker barrels.
Speaker 2:Living the life. Yeah, living the van life, but not in a van, but it's okay.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as you're picking me up, I'm recording.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I get in the vehicle and what do I say?
Speaker 2:You say, look at me and go, craig or you go Craig Craig. You're like, take me to Alabama. Take me to Alabama and say, Josh, this is what got me, because I know you and I hear you record and you weren't holding your phone like a normal person holds their phone, like you know, in the vertical mode. So you weren't recording for a TikTok, no, but you were holding it in landscape mode. So that means you're recording for a YouTube video.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I had no clue what you had actually done or whatever. So, yeah, I didn't know itself. Until you get in the car, you settle down, you're relaxed. Yes, you know what was the temperature like here. I know we don't talk about the weather, but on these types of things we have to talk about the weather, because that is one of the good aspects of this location.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're visiting here in the end of February.
Speaker 2:Beginning of March. Beginning of March.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening to this later and it was like a nice 70 degrees here, it was nice and, let's be real, like the weather in Minnesota has been really weird. Today, march 3rd, when we're recording this, it's 70 degrees in Minneapolis on March 3rd. This is it's wild weather, so we've got the same temperature here, as we're gonna sold it right now. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2:That is very strange, that is really strange, but we don't talk about the weather here, so that's over. But we can talk about it if it's a product of the actual quality or quality of the location. We gotta paint the picture we do, we do, so I said take me to Alabama.
Speaker 1:And I did and you did. Thank you, Because I have never found a geocache in Alabama.
Speaker 2:No that's right. We've never been to Alabama.
Speaker 1:So check one. I have to get to Alabama, and I also had to get to Alabama for a special mission that we'll talk about later. I just published a YouTube video about this special mission. I did say that so I had to get to Bamorama, but the first part of getting to Bamorama is getting to Alabama, so I needed to find a geocache as soon as possible.
Speaker 2:And it was actually on the border sign.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, a great cache right on the border in this little space. So we visited a location that we visited not once, not twice, but three times on this trip. It was so epic.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and apparently it's the last road house in the USA.
Speaker 1:That's what they say. The last road house in America.
Speaker 2:And it's called Flora-Bama.
Speaker 1:Flora-Bama, because it's basically right between Florida and Alabama.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you don't know and I didn't know this either but the border line Josh is very strange down here in the peninsula area it follows, it goes sort of like sideways. It actually goes from left to right or east to west, and then automatically just turns straight back down to south again. So it kind of got like a it's a panhandle of a panhandle.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it is kind of a strange border, yeah. But yeah, flora-bama, it's like a world's last road house. They say, Kenny Chesney, the country singer, wrote a song about it. He did.
Speaker 3:You can search for it. He did.
Speaker 1:And this is I mean it's a complex man, it's on the beach. I mean all these different rooms with all these different music venues and all these different bars inside one it's one giant bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, should we talk about Flora-Bama right now?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, we'll get back to it, so let's not talk about it right now, but that's the area that we were, and so I found the geocache Check Done. I now have Alabama.
Speaker 2:And then there's of course Adventure Labs around that area too, so we had to do those adventure labs Totally.
Speaker 1:We were doing the Adventure Labs, yep, and then, of course, I was getting footage from my YouTube channel and sometimes I hand you the camera.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do. Quite often you hand me the camera, tell them what we went out to appear.
Speaker 1:Tell them what happened.
Speaker 2:So, basically, what happened is Josh being Josh. He's like. You know. Give me a b-roll of this, get some footage of this. Ok, get me walking here, get me walking there. I want to talk about this, and that's all normal, that's fine, not a problem. But this time we were out on a pier, but the pier wasn't into the ocean. The pier was into the lake on the other side of the peninsula, right, and so the pier itself went past and onto the pier. Now I'm already in what do you call it Like Florida, alabama? Oh yeah, gea. So I'm in the shorts, I'm in the shirt. It's beautiful weather, it's like it's summer.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm even wearing slides, for instance. Well, not even wearing clothes and shoes.
Speaker 1:Pause Tell the people what a slide is, because that's not what we call them. Oh, you don't call them slides. No, we call them sandals, sandals or thongs. We do sometimes call them thongs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, it was a slip on shoe of sorts. Yeah, your toes are bare, your heels are bare, like it's just one bit of strip going over the top of your foot. There you go. If you haven't got that visual now, you should have, because I can't say thong, because people don't think of other things here in the US. But anyway, I'm there and Josh is like OK, I'm going to go, I'm going to stand here at the end of the pier and I want you to walk back away from me and pan up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the name of the shop when you back up? We should name that shop, we should name the shop. So when we're out there, you know what I'm talking about. I think it should be a backup shop. A backup shop, yeah, we should call it a backup shop.
Speaker 2:Backing it up, backing it up, exactly so. I was doing a backup shop and, sure enough, me being me, I'm halfway, not even halfway through. I think I took two steps. I took two steps.
Speaker 1:There's video proof of this, the video just published today. I left it in.
Speaker 2:Oh, you did. Yeah, I left it in. I took two steps back and, sure enough, one of my footwear. It caught Josh on the boards of the border of the pier and it just automatically flicked into the water. Lucky for me, it floating because they're made out of that floating material, but it was floating away. Now I've got all my clothes on. I've got no swimwear on. I've got my phone in my pocket, luckily Car keys and my wallet. But I turned around and I saw a little boat. That was actually not a little but it was a nice boat. It was tied up to the pier. There was a guy in there and three lovely ladies and I ran over to him and I asked. I said, excuse me, are you like a fishing boat?
Speaker 1:You should have a gaff.
Speaker 2:We call it a gaff, which is a big hook on a stick. He's like no, I don't have anything on there. He goes, what's wrong? And I said I told him the story. What did he do? He straight away disrobed his shirt, bare-chested, pulled his pants down he had swimwear underneath Pulled his pants down, comes running Like what's that guy's name? On the beach. You know the in the old TV show Josh, the old TV show Baywatch, baywatch, what's that guy?
Speaker 1:The Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff, the hoff, the hoff. He was like the hoffer.
Speaker 2:He was the hoff. He was there and he bounded and he didn't just like just jump in and grab it, no, he dove. He dove in Like head first in like a swan dive. I've never seen a dive like this before. To be honest with you, so excited by this guy, he picked it up and then he swam back around to where he could climb up and handed me my shoe back.
Speaker 1:Greg, we actually have a live. Well, we do Clip of this, we do, we do, we actually we thank to be in person and we recorded it. Let's, let's, let's flick to it now.
Speaker 2:Let's take a listen, Josh. We're recording live right now as we speak.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are. We're on a. We're on a pier in Florida, Obama. Yeah, I don't know if we're in Florida or Alabama. I think we're in Florida right now.
Speaker 2:Florida. They call it Florida Obama. Now, josh, I'm there filming you doing some stuff as well. Yes, yeah. And what happened? I tripped over on the actual pier itself and lost my shoe into the water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just floated away in a sad sort of fashion, lucky for us.
Speaker 2:Lucky for us, lucky for us, we've got Navy Nick and three lovely ladies sitting on the boat next to us. Navy Nick, guess what he did, Josh, what did he do? He, he took off. He, he breasted himself and took off his shirt itself. Yeah, he, he took off his pants, disrobed, he took his pants off. Well, he's got, he's got swim around underneath as well. Well, yeah, we're in.
Speaker 2:Florida, and then literally dove in like a swan, diving from the the depths of above down below. He didn't jump in, he dove. He dove right in, exactly right, and got my, my, my, my thong sandal, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 2:Sure, I think it's a slide here at America. A slide, sorry, we call them thongs in Australia. There we go. So no, you had different thing here, I forgot about that. Very good, so there we go. So a big thank you very much to Nick and Navy Nick.
Speaker 1:And this is amazing, it only cost you four beers for the rescue program.
Speaker 2:Well, and and it's, it's, it's content, josh, it's all content.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thank you to Navy Nick and the three lovely ladies we hope you guys enjoy your time here.
Speaker 1:Big thank you to Navy Nick.
Speaker 2:Navy Nick and those three lovely ladies Like, yeah that we run into these girls. Sometimes you call them the fun girls, yeah.
Speaker 1:The fun girls. If you've ever seen the Andy Griffith show, there's an episode called the fun girls where these fun girls show up with Andy and Barney and they all want to just go on fun dates and they are really worried about the fun girls because they're afraid that their girlfriends, Thelma, Lou and Helen are going to find out about the fun girls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But they were fun girls. They were fun girls All of the the sense of the show. So, exactly, there we go. That was that. Then we moved on and we came to check in to these beautiful, gorgeous cabins.
Speaker 1:So we're staying at the Gulf Shores State Park. Yeah, and I don't know what you think of when you think of a state park. You know, sometimes I think rustic, I think like rustic cabins, sometimes like old cabins.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:But we're staying at Gulf Shores State Park and we are staying, Actually we're sitting in them right now. The most beautiful new cabins three bedrooms, two baths, full kitchen, beautiful. We got TVs in every room, Every room. We got a new couch. Oh my gosh. Orange Beach Tourism, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism. Shout out to Kay there.
Speaker 2:Yes, she hooked us up? She really did, josh. Did you know? I'm sure if you knew or not, but we're actually the first people staying, so you're the first person to lay on that bed in your room. I'm the first person to lay on the bed in my room.
Speaker 1:Wow, we broke it in.
Speaker 2:We broke it in.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yes, and the Gulf Shores State Park. Let me tell you why it's great. Now Minnesota, Greg, you can't even have really geocaches unless you get very special permission in our state parks golf shore state park. If you look at the map, if you're a geocacher and you look at the map, we're talking hundreds, hundreds of geocaches, geocaches. The state park is huge and it goes around the lake. There's bike trails and this is a place. If you're a geocacher, you could take a serious, amazing geovacation here 100 percent.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't even let's be honest as well, josh to be able to things that are close by to where we are in these cabins as well. Like, as you said, you can spend the entire day in the state park on bikes and we'll get to that soon because we did do that as well you can spend the entire day doing that and then in the afternoon or evening, you know, wash up, have a beautiful hot shower in your beautiful brand new sort of bathroom, jump in your car and then go to visit one of the many, many restaurants in the area. I love seafood to die for. Yeah, seafood galore, galore. And I'm one of the ones, josh, where, if I'm any further than, like you know, maybe two, three, four hours inland or away from I don't eat seafood from those places. I like seafood on the shore, whether the salt spray you can smell, yeah, the salt spray, and you don't need any extra salt on your fish and chips, for instance, because you just wave it in the air and get some salt from the air.
Speaker 1:You look at that, you're like that's that just came from the sea today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, Exactly it's kind of even still, you know, kicking on the plate a little bit.
Speaker 2:No, no, no but yeah, so you could do that if you, if you came here, and you could do it with because of the size of the rooms. We'd spoke about this. If you've got two families, Josh can stay here because there's a king room and there's a queen room and then the third bedroom has bunk beds. Yeah, so if you had two families like right, two couple adults and they both had one kid each or one family had two you can easily stay here and share the costs because it's quite cheap and we looked at the price.
Speaker 1:It was pretty reasonable for one night for what this is. There's laundry, downstairs, outside we have a little porch area that is all screened in, so no bugs. And then there's there's a pier that goes right out into the lake. It's amazing. And also on the premises of the State Park, there's a restaurant.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:And we hadn't have not had the opportunity to visit yet, but we drive by it and it's a beautiful, like new looking restaurant. There's all kinds of activities planned throughout the State Park. Yeah, you could spend your whole time here and not leave. There is enough to do Exactly At the Gulf Shore State Park and stay in the new cabins. Man, these are beautiful.
Speaker 2:Now they are brand new for one reason, and one reason Only, josh that they actually had the hurricane come through that one, the last one that came through itself, and all the cabins here they all got, you know, demolished and rebuilt and we're on stilts as well. So we're we're on stilts, josh, in case the water gets too high, or so they get gators, josh, the gators can walk underneath the which. We haven't seen any yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm a bit bummed about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're out there. I don't know if I would need to see them.
Speaker 2:But now Josh, I mean we're, we're what you know 20 minutes into this episode. Yeah, have a look at the window right now. The sun has come out, the fog has lifted the glistening I'm talking glistening off the light. It's beautiful, it is absolutely stunning and gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the place to stay. Yeah, like you can stay at a hotel, but this is your. You got the nice mix of nature, but also a really nice, like, basically, apartment. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And to be honest, josh, I looked at the prices. If you stayed in a hotel along the peninsula, there you're probably it's a little bit more expensive than what these cabins are. Yeah, but not only that. I will say this in the last time for these cabins and that is not only do you get the cabins, not only do you get the entry to the state park is all inclusive, but, josh, you get your parking ticket like on for your car Right and therefore you can use it not just within the state parks parks, but the state parking as well along the shoreline.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:That's normally $10 a day yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you want to go to the golf beach, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got free parking with your park pass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing, that's pretty cool. It's all inclusive. Yeah, all inclusive. So there you go, must visit, must stay.
Speaker 1:Oh, one more thing I want to add too. There's like a kitchenette here, like fridge, full kitchenette, so you can bring your food. You don't even have to go out and eat at the restaurants which you should, which you should, but you don't have to.
Speaker 2:You don't have to. There's a Walmart around the corner as well that we can get all your Miller High Life's from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which we did not sponsored. Not sponsored, but if you're listening, so we're still on Wednesday. This is still a rival day. We checked into this beautiful cabin and then we went to the very first geocaching event and I believe that was. It was an orange, orange city orange beach. Orange beach Sorry, it's an orange beach, and it was at a, not a brewery, but a place. I've been to one of these places before and you love I do Love this, I do.
Speaker 2:This place was called the poor. The poor, as in P O you are.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's like you pour your own Beers yes, explain to people what what it's like, because this is really, if you're a beer lover, this is a paradise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and I am, and when I come to say be lover, I love trying all different types of be because, like you know most, as said before most of our listeners, we like collecting things of the digital souvenirs and I'm on untapped the app.
Speaker 2:I'll tell people what untapped is, if they don't know okay, untapped is basically a social media app for beer Drinkers and so every time you drink a new beer in a new location, you can log that be on your untapped under your profile. Your friends can see that you had that beer as well. You rate the beer, you put a photo of the beer. You can do a little. You do a little blurb of how you felt when you drank the beer, for instance. And then, josh, you actually get digital badges. Yeah, you know from the app itself. So again, untapped hashtag, not sponsored, but if you're listening, yeah.
Speaker 1:I do love untapped game of fine, you're drinking. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not, but what it does though.
Speaker 2:What it does, josh, to be honest with you. Yeah, it makes me try so many different types. Yes, like you know, I could. We could sit here and you know, for the last three or four nights drinking Miller, high Life, that's it. But no, you know, I've had, I mean IPAs, I've had Sours, I've had drafts, I've had luggers, I've had all different types. Because I don't want to, I want more badges, josh, or badges and At the poor.
Speaker 1:You get like a little card yes, that you connect to your like Credit card yeah, this is dangerous and then you put the little card in the wall, like wall where the beer pours out Mm-hmm. And then it like charges you how much you've poured, ounce Per ounce, into your glass exactly. And then when you check in on untapped, you didn't say this. This was a like a verified location, yes, so our faces got put on the screen exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Craig's here he's drinking again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there it is. Make sure, if you've, if you got untapped, make sure you have a nice part of yourself. Yeah, one after you've been drinking, just perfect. Yeah, so that was the poor at the wolf over in orange be. Oh, yeah, the wharf.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was not warf, not warf from Star Trek next generation yeah, warf, and Like there's a place that were people like live there. Yeah but it was beautiful. It looked very new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we did a walk after, yeah, yeah, the then finished and we walked up and down the main street. There the lights were on this beautiful red. You did you, I think you put a photo on your yes, I did. Absolutely stunning, and there's that big ferris wheel there which you looked away, craig. We need to go on that, but unfortunately it's closed for the season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. We got a media pass. It was a part of the media pass. It's like I want to do everything on the media pass. And then, yes, I think the night we were very it was open, but then they just like closed it down for maintenance when we went back. No, I think that's what happened. No, but, it's a really cool area lots of shops. The poor is there. There's a AMC theater there.
Speaker 3:So, it's.
Speaker 1:It's a newish area. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2:And if you're a geocacher, there is, like I think, three or four adventure labs down that street as well, which?
Speaker 1:is really nice. So this was just Wednesday. We were tired, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, yeah, we were really tired. Are you probably more tired than what I was? Because you're travel and Wednesday was your travel day, see so yes, so get back to the, the rooms, the cabins, you know fall asleep. Bed was comfortable. I will say nice hot showers, bed, comfortable. Everything was fine. And, josh, are you gonna tell the listeners your most favorite part of the, of the whole cabin here?
Speaker 1:Well, I took a photo when I sent it to you yeah, you know. And then I also put it on the treasures of our town Instagram story feed, and I Knew this was here before because it was listed as one of the things here. There's a hairdryer here of course, there's a hairdryer. This, this is important. I was so happy we had. It was a nice hairdryer. I think it's brand new. I think I was the first brand new.
Speaker 1:And I think I noticed that the cabins here, the cabins where we're staying, mm-hmm. Of course you can book it through the Gulf Shore State Park, but it's also on Airbnb.
Speaker 3:These are an Airbnb, so this is actually also an Airbnb, oh.
Speaker 1:so if you have a Airbnb and they don't have Hair dryer, that's, that's messed up.
Speaker 2:So just to let you know. You didn't see because you haven't been in my room, but there's a hairdryer in my bathroom to separate well, so there you go.
Speaker 1:No surprise this place not one, but two hairdryers, so that made Josh's. Yeah, craig got the king's suite.
Speaker 2:Well, it's only because I just walked through and put my bags.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we didn't we just take it.
Speaker 2:No, I'm fine with it but we will say this as well. We, you know, we had a friend of ours. We spoke to a friend of ours and we said oh, this is beautiful here and he's his wife, said her first thing to come out of her mouth was Did Josh check if there's a hairdryer?
Speaker 1:I have priorities.
Speaker 2:You're being known, josh. People are starting to know your little intricacies.
Speaker 1:So Thursday yes, now Thursday morning, yeah, and we're in this beautiful state park and I turn to you guys, and I'm like guys there's hundreds of geocaches here, good ones too. Hmm, let's explore the park.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that we did. Now that's this another perk, josh, and I didn't know. I'll be honest with you. I didn't know this perk until you brought it up at the time and and they've got Free. Let me say it again.
Speaker 1:Free. I'll say it so people can understand free, free, push bike hire. Push bike hire, that's what you're calling it. Well, what are you push by hire? That's what three bike Reynolds.
Speaker 2:Well, you're. You're speaking to the US, I'm speaking to the rest of the world, okay. Okay, that's great, we're more free.
Speaker 1:So you, that's so funny push bike hire.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that. Yeah, because you hire the push box. Yeah, but it's free and you do it with an app.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it was really. It was really kind of cool. Yeah, because usually when you rent bikes they're in some sort of like lock station, you can't get them out. These were like free standing Yep and we're like people could just steal these or whatever.
Speaker 2:No, they can't there's a little lock on the Tire, so when you can unlock the lock on the tire, through the app, through the app and again and it scared Josh a little bit too, because he's doing the app and he's very, you know, into it and X, but you hear this and the and the lock undead and you like turned around your oh.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like geocaching a bike, yeah, like unlocking a bike, yeah, a gadget cash or yeah and we we got on those bikes and and they were a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:They were a lot of fun. You more fun for you, and you'll see it on the video as well, which I do because, like telling you now, people know you by now, josh. They know that your love of pee, we hone, and they know what you do. And so, all of a sudden, you know Josh is there and he starts to, like, you know, do a little dance as he goes around, and the bike's going side to side, and I was awaiting Josh. I honestly I was waiting for you to sort of flip or fall off for some sort, but, but what got me, though, is that Josh found the bell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't obvious that there's a bell on it, but then I found you guys were using the bell, yeah, when you were passing people. I'm like, oh crud, I don't even have a bell. But no, and then I noticed it was just a little crank on the side, yeah. And then when I noticed that I just kept ringing it, yeah, like a seven-year-old child, and then started singing and dancing, like Because they're the bikes were kind of pee, we hermit ish.
Speaker 2:Now, I think that's spiked on the audio but okay, you can fix it. So yeah, so we. And the reason why you can get these Bicycle hires for free is that you can ride around Josh, around this whole state park. Now, if you're a jikas Because you probably are, there are, how many it's?
Speaker 1:just power trails, it's power every 500 and some feet. I'm happy. You cash, you cash, you cash and it's just a great way to get lots of you cash is lots of fast, lots of fast, very quickly. And there's there people that like the high numbers yes, you want numbers too. Yeah, like this is the place to go.
Speaker 2:And let's be honest, to the actual containers themselves. They're not microbes in the woods, no, they're great. They're great containers, they're ammo cans. Out there, there's like little. There's even a photo boot, or not photo booth, but a very what we call photographic I'm thinking the word photographic one where you know you may or may not be killed like a big mouse or rat.
Speaker 1:You'll see that video yeah photos of that. Yeah, so we spent probably a couple hours Just geocaching and biking in the park We'll take advantage of this amazing location that we are.
Speaker 2:and then, craig, where do we had we headed back of the Flora Bama house and Rightly so, because so when we headed back, so the first time we were there, it was sort of no, it was late, late afternoon, but this time with it we're there in mid morning Josh morning on a Thursday.
Speaker 1:On a Thursday, you're thinking boy, the Roadhouse probably isn't, you know, going on a Thursday morning.
Speaker 2:No, because I thought it. We're just going to be a geocaches there as well, it was a geocaching event.
Speaker 2:It was a geocaching event. That's the reason why we're there. Yeah, so it's geocaching event and by that time a lot of geocaches had come through. So they know, maybe you know one or two hundred Geocaches at this event, because it was a pretty cool scavenger hunt game, which we'll get into a sec. But just what got me was that this place, this Flora Bama place, is like like a rabbit warren. It's just like room after room, yeah, room and bar in Music venue, music venue and another bar, and then an outside bar and a smoking section. And, to the point, josh, we're, we were doing this little scavenger hunt around inside like rabbits ourselves. You know we had to find these letters and again you'll see it on the video. We had to find these letters around the whole place yeah, bras hanging from the ceiling, for instance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about that. The geocaching event was in the dome room. Yes, and this was like, imagine, like a, a Kind of a black box theater, mm-hmm, you get, there are several levels up there and, yeah, there were bras hanging from the ceiling. Like thinking, like the word I have for it is scuzzy yes, but but in a really fun way yeah like cuz it just fit.
Speaker 1:It fit where we were fit the vibe. Yeah, so the event was actually in this in the dome room. Yes, and we'll get to that later, maybe in the next podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because we visit again later.
Speaker 1:But yeah, this was just a really unique.
Speaker 2:It felt so Authentic yes, but I didn't realize. So I go upstairs and I'm looking around for these scavenger hunt letters and here's this woman upstairs because they, you can. You could smoke upstairs, josh, you can actually smoke upstairs, because that everything the cigarette goes up.
Speaker 1:Is that weird for you? A little bit, yeah, because we can't smoke anywhere inside or even really near places.
Speaker 2:Like, oh, you know, 30 feet from the front door, you know, and which is fine because I'm a non-smoker, I'm an avid non-smoker as well. But this woman there, she's up the stairs and she's, she's got a drink in a hand, she's. It's 10, 30 in the morning, 11 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's got a drink in a hand, a big cigarette in a finger and she's Sucking it away and the puffer smoke comes up. And she looked at me. She goes oh, because you can see upstairs, you can actually see down into the dome room area, so you can actually see. You can see what was happening downstairs. And she said me what's going on down there? What's going on down there? I looked over and then realized she's not a geocache.
Speaker 1:Oh no, there were a lot of geocaches there at 10 she was just drinking and smoking and enjoying her time. It's five o'clock somewhere crack.
Speaker 2:Hey, no shade, no shade, just saying that. But that's when I realized, josh, yeah, there was more than just geocaching people there. You know we're there and then, like we walked into another bar area, there's a band playing, and then, yeah, 10 30 in the morning, they've got a band playing. It was packed too and they have these special drinks there. Oh yeah, you want to talk about we wanna, we want our, we want our drinks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we did a scavenger hunt where you had to find letters throughout the Bama Ram and then you had to unscramble them like a good clever Girocash or would. Once you did that, you told them the word and they gave you a drink ticket. That's cool and everybody was like you got to get the world famous bushwhacker bushwhacker.
Speaker 2:I never heard of this bushwhacker before. There were several versions of the bushwhacker there was, there was, but we had more later. We've got the original, first original. What was your idea? Well, firstly, what is the bushwhacker? Do you remember what was in the bushwhacker Tequila, I believe yeah and it's kind of a fruity drink, it's a slushy drink. Yes, and it's a milk slush too. Yeah, more of an ice cream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was more like an ice. It was an ice, it's sort of an ice cream. Yeah, alcoholic drink.
Speaker 2:Ice cream really good. It was very tasty, yes, it was.
Speaker 1:I think the bushwhacker was like that kind of a tropical field.
Speaker 2:Yes, it did. Again suited the area.
Speaker 1:Yeah they had it, but they had a Reese's version of the bushwhacker they had a Like I got a red bull version and there's a coconut. Coconut is like my green daiquiri version.
Speaker 2:It was it was, it was tasty, they really, really and we. We had a couple more a couple of days later, just saying yes, so that was a scavenger hunt inside itself. And then Josh is like okay, we can't just be here any longer, we need to go out, we need to actually do some filming, we need to find some caches.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're gonna be good quality caches as well. Yes, we can't just, yes, sit here with all the all the older generational people watching and drinking at midday as fun as that would be, a hundred percent. And do you think I'll be doing that in my retirement years?
Speaker 1:Yes, I might need to do visit for before I get on the plane. So San Marcus, the leader of the Bama Ram event, sent me all like the best caches in the area, which is really nice, because they hid new gadget caches just for this event. They archive the old ones. Yeah and then they set them up as a venture lab. Yes, smart. Very smart and then they have new ones. So people that are revisiting Bama Ram from last year this is the second one they get new caching adventures.
Speaker 1:Yeah like every year they come. So what were some of the highlights? I know this is not a geocaching podcast, but there are some unique locations.
Speaker 2:Ah, very, very unique locations, and one of which I'm gonna throw to you now because, like anything down here, I find, josh, they like to repurpose things. They repurpose the geocaches, like you just said as well, but one of the geocaches sent us to a location that is. I had never seen this before. Just to be honest, it was an art studio. First and foremost, it was an art studio. Yes now I called it the swing arse, but there's no end.
Speaker 1:No, this is not swinger, it's swigga swigger, swigger, swigger swigger, swigger, there you go.
Speaker 2:swigger, she's with it.
Speaker 1:I have to roll my arse, put your country in it.
Speaker 2:Swigger, it's a swigger, no swigger, oh swigger, there you go close enough, and Swigger was the name of the actual artist himself. Now, what he does? He uses repurposed trash as he's art. So what I mean by that is he'll walk along the beach and he'll literally pick up Josh. He picks up all the cigarette butts that he can find, for instance.
Speaker 2:He then takes them all back to your studio area and it's very well ventilated, because he said it's really bad. He's got gloves on, he's, does it all you know, hygienically as such as well, but then he uses the filter, he uses the what do you call it? The wrapper outside Yep, and apparently there's only two colors on a cigarette. It's like a dirty orange. So, yeah, I know white and a white, yeah. And then what he does is he uses that For different art pieces and then frames them up and it's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you. I think you bought. I bought one. They're so cool it had a lucky strike. That's cover on it. So not only I think he actually found the outside of the lucky strike Container and put that as a part of it. Yeah, I believe my dad back in the 70s smokes lucky strikes so. Yeah, my wife won't listen to this podcast, but it's gonna be a gift for her for.
Speaker 2:No, that's fair enough, mike, but the not only just did that sort of art, but I did notice as well he's had it hanging art on the walls. Yeah, there was like a surfboard, josh. The surfboard was like Made out of cigarettes actual, not cigarette, a cigarette butts and cigarettes that he'd found there for still full cigarettes. And then what he does is he like glazes over them with the epoxy resin and so you can see straight through and so that you can, you can surf, josh. Yeah, on cigarettes.
Speaker 1:It's so cool. You know what? We could continue just to describe how cool we was, but we talked to him. We talked to JD Swigard.
Speaker 2:Oh, I forgot, we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's just hear from him about his artwork and what he does and why he does it. Greg, yes, this podcast is called Treasures of Our Town and we found one. We just found a treasure that was guided by Geocache and the purpose of our whole podcast. You gotta love when this happens. It's so serendipitous.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. Mike. We are at an art studio called Swagger Studios, Swagger or Swagger. Well, this guy we're about to talk to does have Swagger.
Speaker 2:Swagger.
Speaker 1:What are we asking them Bring?
Speaker 2:him in now Swagger. Shady come in, Mike Come in.
Speaker 1:This is the owner and, I assume, the artist of this studio. And right now, guys, this is audio. I'm looking around. I'm seeing a shark created with.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll find out, we'll find out. I'm seeing a crocodile, a hammerhead that you wore on your head as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm seeing shards of glass on the floor with paint. This is a really cool location.
Speaker 2:I find that a lot of it's all reused, josh. It looks so secondhand.
Speaker 1:Yes, jd hello, hello, sir. Tell us a little bit about your artwork. What do we have going on here? This is amazing.
Speaker 3:So I'm from Gulf Shores originally and I really respect where I'm from and I try to take it for granted. And the main point of my upcycled artwork is really to raise consciousness and awareness. In my hometown I have an ongoing problem that we have not only here in Gulf Shores but any town in the world really. I'm picking up beach trash, things I'm finding in the community on the streets, and kind of framing them in a canvas or in a three-dimensional sculpture. I can kind of raise some awareness and it's a bit of activism in itself.
Speaker 1:That is amazing.
Speaker 2:That is really cool.
Speaker 1:So there's like art you got to love. When there's it's like art with a purpose and taking something that's kind of a negative and making it a positive and making it and it's so cool and I've seen on the walls. You know you literally like you go on the beach and you pick up like old cigarette butts and tell me what you do with them. That's amazing, that's really cool.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I appreciate it. I'll have, you know, gloves, of course. And picking up mainly on the beach is the best story. It's the best visual kind of picking something out of the sand. Once I have a cigarette filter, that medium specifically gets broken down. It's where the tobacco is taken out and the actual plastic fibers are taken out and the cigarette filter is kind of flat laid onto the canvas. You see that they're brown and white. Yes, well, that's the only two colors that cigarette filters come in in the entire world really unless you're smoking cloves.
Speaker 3:But the brown and white creates a highly contrasted two color image. So you're really able to make nice visuals with cigarette filters, believe it or not. Like you said, making something beautiful out of something ugly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and this really is something that could be done around the world. Let's be honest, you know I do love here in the golf course as well. You do say the whole theme is leave only footprints. So I love that too. So yeah, all your plastic bottles, all your cigarette butts, all that, give them all off our beaches all around the world.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you're doing a great job here in golf course, mate, I love it, I appreciate that and what brought us into here is actually a geocache that I mean, tell us what we're looking at here. It's a Marble-O Marble, marble, marble.
Speaker 3:Marble, marble, yeah, a giant Marble-O box and it's used as an installation, it's used to kind of use in the community. People kind of walk by a giant Marble-O box, you know, thrown up against a trash can. It's kind of a pun in everyday life. It's kind of raising, you know, awareness. You might walk by a regular sized one that's discarded, but to have this in your face, kind of like I said, punny Marble-O boxes, it's eye-opening yeah.
Speaker 1:Reminds you. Hey, you know, but what is it actually made out of? So it's cardboard.
Speaker 3:A lot of my three-dimensional figures are the anatomical forms made from cardboard stripping, so the cardboard in itself is upcycled. You know I try to use all materials that are, you know, being thrown away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Well, thank you so much for what you're doing your artwork. This is really a great treasure. If you're in golf shores, or we're in golf shores right now, check this place out Swiger Studio. Yeah, it's right next to the Walmart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can't miss it, can't miss it, can't not miss it, so yeah, wow. That guy was so cool, I tell you he's one in a million. There should be more like him. If there's more like him in the world, there'd be less trash in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's making a really ugly thing a beautiful thing, yeah, Like I just really have a lot of respect for that Josh.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you before we move on to the next one. You putting your head inside a hammerhead shark made of like bits of plastic bottles that he'd found on the beach here in golf shores.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool. And why did we go there? Though? We didn't even say why we went there. Oh gee, Remember there was a geocache. Inside that was a gigantic cigarette box.
Speaker 2:Box Like a cigarette packet. Yeah, but it was a gigantic one. It's probably I'm going to say, Josh, it's probably over a hundred times the size of a normal cigarette packet.
Speaker 3:It was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And that box itself was made out of cigarette packs that he'd found on the beach. Wow, wow, very cool.
Speaker 1:We were hungry, we're like it's time to eat some foods. So you know we're not really familiar. We went on the golf shores and Orange Beach Geotourism site because we were like we wanted to find the good stuff and one of the places that was on there I was like if it's on the website it must be good. So we went to the Cove bar and grill.
Speaker 2:Oh, you remember that crack.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it was good, it was tasty, we both got. I've been giving you a hard time all weekend, I know, because I'll order something and then you'll order the same thing, and I know you're not copying me, but I think we just, it's just great minds think alike.
Speaker 2:I think so too, and I think for our next trip, josh, we've got to do this hands down. You order first, and then I'll order first the next time and just see if that's actually the case. I got to prove to myself, to you, that I'm not copying what you're doing, because that sounds a bit stalkerish and weird.
Speaker 1:But we I went to their website because you see some of the Yelp reviews on there. I love. Yelp reviews and everybody was talking about the stuffed avocado blackened chicken.
Speaker 2:I know I love avocado.
Speaker 1:I'm a big avocado fan, then you knew you were going to love this.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I knew straight away. Like I said, avocado was the main, one of the main ingredients. I knew I was going to love it. And a stuffed avocado, josh. It came in its own shell. I mean, it was halved, of course, Right, and the pip was removed, but it came in its own shell and then it had salsa drizzled over the top. It was actually the avocado was cooked in size Well, like it was a baked the salsa dripped over the top, then the blackened chicken over the top, then the cheese grilled over the top With a little bit of crust on the cheese. Dude, that was excellent and there was like a sauce to it there?
Speaker 1:Yes, it was served with tortilla chips Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:It, it was fantastic.
Speaker 2:You can have like your own little dip up with the tortilla chips. And yeah, definitely shout out if again, if that you're in the area, that's a must.
Speaker 1:And you know, as we're eating, you remember I looked over to the side of the wall. You remember what I saw and I was so excited.
Speaker 2:So in a previous trip with Josh he's actually shown me this and what it is it's. It's a jukebox, basically Touch tunes, touch tunes, but touch tunes has an app on your phone that you can secretly. I mean, obviously you have to pay if you want to. You know, like you normally do with when you touch tunes or any jukebox, you have to pay for your. What you select, so you can pay for it, but you do it within the app and therefore then you can secretly pick your songs, so no one knows who's actually doing the DJ.
Speaker 1:You basically can be the DJ of the of the place, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I always take pride in trying to like match the vibe. You do, you really do Like what are these people really going to?
Speaker 2:love yeah.
Speaker 1:And this was felt very country. We walked in there and everything was. Kc Musgraves, I think, was on the touchers, yeah yeah. So we were thinking about all the country songs and the first song I played was Rawhide from the from the blues brothers movie. Had them up, boom, I'm on. Hit them up, Rawhide. We're like. I'm like, oh, these people are really going to love this. They did.
Speaker 2:They come and looked over. They come and looked over and went oh yeah, and then not in their heads, and they liked it. They thought it was pretty cool, and so Tim was with us.
Speaker 1:Minnesota boy, yes, and it's so fun because Tim Tim was just learning about touch tunes too, so he was downloading the app and then he started playing songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, and my first song that I played. I land down under I had to play yes. I didn't really go down too well, but that's right.
Speaker 1:Hey, you have to represent right, exactly, exactly. We took several geo breaks. Yeah, we did, Because now just imagine, between all of this, we're finding geocaches, great geocaches. Yeah, and we had this press pass that K gave us. Thank you K, thank you K. And on this press pass was the what was it? The track family amusement park.
Speaker 1:And that's what's called the track, the track, the track. And we drove by it and what did we see? We just saw not one, not two, not three, not four, not five. Well, probably five, I think it was five, or maybe six, maybe six.
Speaker 2:Go kart, tracks, go kart tracks and they were go kart tracks for all different skill levels. You see, that's why they were spread out, so you had, like the family track. That you can take your kids on Right and you could even ride the. You know the parent and the child sitting next to them as well.
Speaker 1:So cute.
Speaker 2:It's cute and it's slow. But then they go all the way up to the wooded track where you go up over, down, spiral in almost like little jumps. The go karts were backfiring as you're popping it down the hill and trying to break to get around the corner quickly. They had that one, we, we, we did ride on that one, and then we, they had the, the slick track, the slick track, and it was too slick for you, josh.
Speaker 1:I went out like seven times and the thing with these, these go karts, is they don't have a reverse no, so the teenager has to come out like facing in the right direction. You feel like an idiot. You're like sorry, this will be the last time. And then it wasn't the last time, exactly, but yeah, I hadn't been on go karts for a while and it was so cool because this is a Thursday afternoon, yeah, so there, we got the whole place to ourselves.
Speaker 2:Every track to ourselves. You know the go cuts. Are they ready to go? The the, the teenage, as you say, the teenagers, the workers. They're there waiting for people to turn up as well. So again, a big shout out to the media pass for helping out with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the big shout out to the golf shores, tourism and Orange.
Speaker 2:Beach. Now the track family amusement park. Josh, isn't just about go karts, oh no, we did a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 1:We did a bunch of.
Speaker 2:We got a card full of points that we could use, so inside is an actual like amusement area.
Speaker 1:Arcade.
Speaker 2:Arcade. So you've got claw machines after claw machines. Actually, I call it a child casino claw machines. I call it a Josh casino, to be honest with you, because you should have seen Josh, I'll give you the tip now. There was a claw machine in there that I've never seen the size of this claw machine before. It was. I'm going to say Josh is 10 foot tall. This claw machine huge, huge claw machine, right Over six foot in width in both directions and it had these big balls inside and the claw, josh. The claw was the size of me, almost you know. So what does Josh do? He has to go go big or go home. And Josh being Josh with claw machines as we all know from all these other videos that he loves them so much and so he gets the card and he swipes and then he attempts one, it picks it up and it drops and then he swipes a card attempts one, so frustrating it picks it up and it drops.
Speaker 2:This happened no less, josh, than eight times on that one ball At least eight times At least eight times on that one ball. And I'm like Josh, are you ever going to get it Like? He kept on and you're always saying oh, these are rigged for so many.
Speaker 1:Once you get so many done, then the claw holds on stronger for one, but I was a patient. I gave up eventually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then tried another claw machine. Yeah, I tried to win a baby Yoda. And then tried those coin pusher machines. Those are fun. They are fun. I like the coin pusher type machines. They're pretty cool, but we were like a kid in a candy store.
Speaker 1:Track family amusement park. Yeah, shout out to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had other rides there too. Oh yeah, it's a family park Like bumper boats. Yeah, yeah, I saw the bumper boats. I saw there was like a little ferris wheel thing there. There was a roller coaster thing for the kids too. So that was pretty cool. The sheer amount of effects that we did.
Speaker 1:It was just like I know I'm looking through it. It's so crazy.
Speaker 2:I think, to be honest with you, we, I think we closed out this episode after this day Because then, on the next episode, we'll do Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 1:Yes, perfect, perfect, that's perfect. So after we did the track family amusement park, we went to another unsanctioned secret yes, geocaching event.
Speaker 2:It's a secret and it's a secret to non geocaches Muggles. They don't know about this. No, you know, but this place it's in Alberta, which is just outside of Foley in Alabama here. A little bit towards the north. A little bit towards the north. You know, half hour drive north, which isn't too bad.
Speaker 1:Everything was like a half hour away, like the city, the city, every city was like a half hour away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or town.
Speaker 1:But yeah or less yeah.
Speaker 2:So we go to this Alberta place and then we go up and, josh, we were in farmland, like I felt like we're in farmland area, open space. It felt very different, very different, very different indeed. And then we come to the point of the road where the road turns left to right like a Tina section, and you look to your right, josh, and you see an amusement park for geocaches. Pretty much, we see pretty much. We saw the geocaching flag hanging up. We saw a big fire pit. There was people sitting around the fire pit. Places to see, places to see.
Speaker 1:It was the most amazing fire pit I've ever seen, like there was a youth Autorondacks chairs yes, All over the fires and it was a big fire too, like there was a bonfire. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, there was a youth, or what do you call them? Trucks here, yeah, the trucks being you know, the ones with the pickup trucks, yeah, and inside the pickup truck, josh, you saw all these boxes with Randy's.
Speaker 1:Yeah With random names on them.
Speaker 2:Presence Now, presence, geo presence, geo presence for all who attended, amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah and shout out this is owned by some geocachers called the two Loras, and they're just I feel like they're just very prolific. Yes, we would turn every quarter and everybody would be talking about the two Loras.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we met one of the Loras, at least one of the Loras.
Speaker 1:And then she had like a little geo world out in the woods.
Speaker 2:So what she did was I'm not sure if you heard this or not, but with the tour that we did so this little geo tour in her woods area on her property, is all the old caches that she's archived. She's just put them there as their burial ground. The resting place, that's a resting place for all her old caches. It's a cache cemetery. Yeah, josh, there was even what we call a big mirror ball was hanging from in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 1:It was so funny. It was just kind of like folk art kind of out there it was very folky, very arty very Dolls with knives in them. Exactly, exactly. It was wild. I bet you it's a blast there at Halloween.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, yeah. Well, apparently she does host other events, the Jikers' events here all the time.
Speaker 1:During the winter. She said she posts an event every month. Wow, wow, and so, anyway, it's a potluck, there's chili.
Speaker 2:The chili was great.
Speaker 1:People are just having fun. There's prizes about to be handed out, or not? Prizes, gifts, basically and one of the lorries says all right, I hid out in the woods a bunch of containers, go get them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we're like, oh, ok. And then she said, because everyone was like slow a little bit off the mark, there was a couple of people going and she said there's four, no, four, yeah, four prizes to give out.
Speaker 1:There's some. There's containers, but four of them have prizes. She goes don't open them up until you take them back to the fire.
Speaker 2:That's right. So you've got to get one, pick up one and that's it. And all the containers were the same, which was made it handy, and so everyone ran in. Josh and I let people run past me. I'm not in any rush, I'm not in any hurry. So we then walked through and people were just grabbing them left, right and center, and they were shaking them to see if there's anything in them, and didn't feel like anything was in any of them.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, we find out later that there were pieces of paper in all of them. But so, anyway, people are grabbing them left, grabbing them right.
Speaker 3:I'm wandering through, josh because I thought she's not going to make it this easy Josh, so I'm looking for all the hard places where they could be, you know, the ones where a true geocacher would find it and a muggle wouldn't.
Speaker 2:So he said not on the track, no, you know, into the little bushland area and stuff. And then Josh, right at the end of the whole trail there was like this pipe and I'm going to say like a drain pipe. Now I had to get half my body in there. Now I'm a big fella, so I got half my body in the drain pipe because I could see right at the very tip of that drain. Josh was one of the containers. I thought, this is the hardest one it might be something good it might be something good.
Speaker 2:So I'll grab that one, and that was my container.
Speaker 1:Right, so we take them all back to the fire.
Speaker 2:Everybody has one, everyone has one.
Speaker 1:Let's say, there were probably like 80 people there.
Speaker 2:Exactly Everybody had a container.
Speaker 1:She's like all right, open them up. Open them up and everybody's like whoa, whoa, like the people are making noise. Yeah, yeah, and I open mine. There's a $20 bill in it, really yeah, $20 bill People. Some people had $100 bill $50 bills. Well, she's like look a little closer. Ha ha ha, it was movie money. They all said copy or fake on it et cetera yeah.
Speaker 2:They're all fake money. But I didn't get any of those bills.
Speaker 1:I didn't get any fake money or whatever.
Speaker 2:I opened mine up and I'm like, oh, what's this? And it's a little piece of paper. And I opened up a gift certificate, josh, yes.
Speaker 1:I was one of the winners Josh.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And thanks to Spacecoast Geostore that she spoke to as well and they were there, Dale and Barb. Big shout out to them, their listeners and patrons of this show as well. Yeah, they did $50 gift vouchers and there was four of them you got four $50.
Speaker 1:$50.
Speaker 2:$50 gift vouchers from the Geostore.
Speaker 1:You get a lot of Geo stuff for that.
Speaker 2:You can get a lot of Geo stuff, you can get some coins, you can get you know so many different things from Spacecoast for that. So, yeah, so a big shout out to them and a big shout out to the two lawyers as well. That was fantastic, that's so awesome. But before we ended, josh, and after we selected our gifts because you just pick out whatever gift you want from the tray I heard she shouted out I've got another prize.
Speaker 1:Did you hear that one? Oh yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember that she said to everyone she goes, I've got another prize, I've got one one more $50 prize, so the person who can bring me back the biggest pine cone from her woods area. So, josh, there were people out there, right, and there were people, and they some had bigger ones, some had smaller ones or whatever. But some people coming back, josh, with, like, their shirts lifted up and full because they didn't know which one's bigger. They didn't know whether she meant she meant bigger as in size or bigger as in weight. So they had, they had whole shirtfalls, josh. And then everyone came back and there was four judges to judge the biggest pine cone. Yep, sure enough, the biggest pine cone was there and it got a $50, and they got a $50 prize. But, josh, the reason she does that is because she said, okay, all the pine cones now go over in the little pine cone corner for fire starters for future, for future months.
Speaker 1:They did work for her. They worked for her.
Speaker 2:It only cost her $50. And then her woods are cleaned of the pine cones. That's good job. Good job, that's funny.
Speaker 1:She's a smart lady and creative, thinking outside the box mate and we got we did, we did grab a parting present from the truck. We did, we did and we opened it up later and you're going to have to listen on the next podcast what it is. But before Friday ended we were still hungry.
Speaker 2:Even after some chili, I know, and I thought to myself you know, josh, I want, I really did want some seafood, me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tim not so much.
Speaker 2:Tim doesn't like seafood. I think he's might be allergic, but so we found a place that that Tim could be have his hamburger or whatever as well. And yet we could have real real seafood.
Speaker 1:Mine was tasty.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we went to DeSoto's seafood kitchen. We closed it out. We closed at eight, we got there at seven. We yes, we were the last ones there.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:And I got the different kinds of shrimp platter.
Speaker 2:You got the shrimp basket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it was like coconut shrimp, the saute shrimp, shrimp, kebab shrimp, burger shrimp on the Bobby.
Speaker 2:I knew you were going to go into that voice, but I had.
Speaker 1:I had all the shrimp, it was all the shrimp. It was really tasty.
Speaker 2:And I had just a seafood platter to myself as well, again, very, very tasty. It had two types of fish. It had the popcorn shrimp there as well. It had morsels. It even had the Josh. I'm the new, I mean, and my new love is deep fried oysters.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh these things, I can't do them, but I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and deep fried as well, actually takes a little bit of that saltiness off, like I like that Maybe I should try.
Speaker 1:I've never tried deep fried. You should try deep fried. I mean deep fried, anything Deep fried turd is good, Exactly, why not?
Speaker 2:So that was our end of our night For the oh my gosh, we've been having so much fun here at the Gulf.
Speaker 1:Shores.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:And you're just going to have to wait two weeks for Friday and Saturday. And let me spoiler we didn't even. We haven't even scratched the surface.
Speaker 2:We haven't even scratched the surface. I know, I know We've got other interviews.
Speaker 1:We did as well with other people too Before we end this, though, I just want to give one more shout out to the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism and Kay there, who's really taken care of us. If you're wanting a beach vacation, a lot of people are like, oh, I want to go to Florida, I want to go to California. This is a hidden gem, this whole area. You can experience the beach life, you can. There's great music, which we're going to talk about in the next episode, but come on down here, experience all. There is San Marquis. Yes, he does seashell hunting tours. I saw that.
Speaker 3:I saw that.
Speaker 1:You can hang out with him Really cool. Come on down here and come to Bama Ramah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, it's a great time to come down here in February and we'll go into that for next year as well, because Bama Ramah, they're coming back next year, josh as well, in 25. Year three, exactly, for their third year. But Josh, the other thing I will say as well, being down here, being amongst fellow geocaches and fellow friends, we had patrons with us down here.
Speaker 2:Yes, we had a few patrons in here. We had Nancy was here, we had Danielle, and Danielle, Dale and Barb were down here, Tim was here as well, so there was quite a few down here that we really, we really enjoy and thank you for coming up to us, Josh. Again I will say spoiler alert if people get to this part of the episode, they should Next episode.
Speaker 1:We're giving something away to our patrons, to our patrons.
Speaker 2:To our patrons. Only A little prize is coming out to our Patreon. Oh my gosh, a little prize giveaway to our patrons.
Speaker 1:So, yes, so people, if they're on the fence, they should join Patreon in the next couple weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and support it. So if you're enjoying it, you know, yeah, you can listen to it free. We get that. Not everybody can support us yeah, but if you can, if you make this a regular part of your listening experience, if you get value from it, if you get inspiration, you're like, oh my gosh, Now I really would like to go down to the golf shores, like you were inspired. Consider supporting us. By supporting us, you're helping us create even better content, keeping it free for everyone.
Speaker 2:No commercials Nope, this is the only one, yeah, and Josh, I'll tell you now, buzzsprout, our host, send me commercial invitations all the time. Oh really, I'm talking eight or so a week yeah.
Speaker 1:We don't want to mess with that, but we don't want to mess with it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, no, we don't want any commercials for you guys at all. Yeah, we don't want you to need to put that fast forward button at all for the whole episode, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah. So please consider joining our Patreon at patreoncom backslashtreasuresofourtown.
Speaker 2:And on the next episode, Josh, we're going to finish up our trip, we're coming back. We're coming back to the golf shores. We're going to finish it up here in Bamorama and the Gulf Coast as well.
Speaker 1:You're going to hear about all our adventures. You're going to hear actually about the Bamorama events.
Speaker 2:So if you're a geocacher.
Speaker 1:you're like what is that? Like, Yep, We'll tell you what it's like. We've done a couple side events, but the big event is going to be on the next episode. How can people contact us, Craig?
Speaker 2:Oh, you're chucking it to me, Josh. Feel free to reach out to us at treasuresofourtownpodcastgmailcom, or you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the YouTube.
Speaker 1:So that's it for our show today. Please subscribe rate review on your favorite podcasting app.
Speaker 2:And, as always, may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems around the world. See you next time. Bye.
Speaker 1:I'm proud of this podcast. I'm proud of it. That's a rare thing. He's, he's. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of this, proud of their town.