Prepare to be whisked away from the beaten path as we swap treasure maps for wastewater blueprints in San Francisco and dig into the unexpected delights of the road less traveled. The charismatic Dave Barsky, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, drops by to regale us with tales of his global geocaching adventures. From his brother-in-law's 1000th find to his unique initiation into the hobby while filming overseas, Barsky's stories add a whole new layer to the art of uncovering the world’s hidden gems.
This episode isn't just about what's buried beneath the earth; it's also a celebration of the beauty of hard work and the intricate dance of reality TV production. We raise the curtain on what makes shows like "Dirty Jobs" timeless, even in a digital age where streaming platforms reign supreme. With a special nod to the multifaceted nature of 'dirty' work, we share unforgettable moments from the field – whether it's braving the chilly coastal waters of Maine or facing the extreme conditions alongside volcanologists.
So, buckle up for an eclectic thrill ride that's part travelogue, part behind-the-scenes expose. As we explore the challenges of geocaching in snow-capped Switzerland and traverse the black crusted lava of Hawaii's Big Island, we unearth not just caches but the soul of adventure itself. Each tale is a testament to the richness of experience waiting for those who dare to step off the beaten track and embrace the world with open arms and curious hearts.
Dave’s IMDB
Prepare to be whisked away from the beaten path as we swap treasure maps for wastewater blueprints in San Francisco and dig into the unexpected delights of the road less traveled. The charismatic Dave Barsky, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, drops by to regale us with tales of his global geocaching adventures. From his brother-in-law's 1000th find to his unique initiation into the hobby while filming overseas, Barsky's stories add a whole new layer to the art of uncovering the world’s hidden gems.
This episode isn't just about what's buried beneath the earth; it's also a celebration of the beauty of hard work and the intricate dance of reality TV production. We raise the curtain on what makes shows like "Dirty Jobs" timeless, even in a digital age where streaming platforms reign supreme. With a special nod to the multifaceted nature of 'dirty' work, we share unforgettable moments from the field – whether it's braving the chilly coastal waters of Maine or facing the extreme conditions alongside volcanologists.
So, buckle up for an eclectic thrill ride that's part travelogue, part behind-the-scenes expose. As we explore the challenges of geocaching in snow-capped Switzerland and traverse the black crusted lava of Hawaii's Big Island, we unearth not just caches but the soul of adventure itself. Each tale is a testament to the richness of experience waiting for those who dare to step off the beaten track and embrace the world with open arms and curious hearts.
Dave’s IMDB
This one was probably the toughest. It made just about all of us question what the heck we were doing. The wastewater treatment plant for half the city of San Francisco. Do you love to travel?
Speaker 2:Do you love to travel?
Speaker 3:Do you love road trips?
Speaker 2:Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA? Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 3:And I'm Craig. Welcome to Treasures of Our Town. It's the podcast that explores the unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.
Speaker 2:Join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.
Speaker 3:On today's episode. We're going to get dirty with some dirty job locating Josh. What are we talking about? You did these show notes up and then you said, craig, I've done the show notes and I've got someone coming on. And that's all you said to me. And I looked at this now and I'm like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:You're not really a dirty kind of guy normally. No, not normally, not normally. Yeah, have you ever heard that christina aguilera song dirty?
Speaker 3:yes, yeah, it's not that kind of dirty. Oh okay, oh well. What am I doing here then? Like you got my hopes up, mate, oh boy oh boy I was.
Speaker 2:I was pushing our explicit, non-explicit reading. Is that what it?
Speaker 3:is. I don't think any children actually listen to this podcast anyway yeah, you never know, this is true, this is true. They could be in the back seat while mom and dad listen to us in the front. But anyway, it is a family friendly show. What are you?
Speaker 2:talking true. I I have been called, by the way, the the mr rogers of geocaching you are, so you are, or am I the peewee hermit of?
Speaker 3:geocaching, bit a and a bit of b, I dare say, but anyway, anyway we're gonna be talking to a special guest.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so excited.
Speaker 3:Yes, I saw, I saw the name and I went oh josh how did you? Get this guy on our show.
Speaker 2:Oh, because I got connections you do and the cool thing about this guest is he has connections man. He has done some really cool things, and when we were thinking about guests that we wanted to have on for season two of this podcast, I love talking to people that have been around and this guy has been around in such a unique way in, dare I say, a dirty way, see you're teasing it again.
Speaker 3:I'll say this, josh, last year, we love voice as well. We love the voices, we love the good microphones, we love good quality audio, and I'll dare say as well, this guy has a voice, a voice for audio too. You wait to listen to his voice, and to me, to me, his voice is just smooth as silk. It's like drinking a nice, fine whiskey, neat yeah.
Speaker 2:He's from Hollywood. He is All those people out in Hollywood. They just have high production value and this is a high production guy.
Speaker 3:Are you going to bring it on? Who are we going to say, or, and this is a high production guy Are we going to, you're going to, you're going to bring it on who we're going to say, or are we going to leave it hanging?
Speaker 2:for the time being, let's leave it. Let's leave it hanging. Leave it hanging and and then, once we bring him in to the conversation, we will do a full justice to a great introduction. That's for him, correct?
Speaker 2:That sounds good mate good mate, that sounds good. Oh, my gosh, how have you been doing? I've been busy. Oh, I know, and I'm so jealous I'm just gonna say right now I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of, you know, put myself down a little bit, but not really too much. I don't know if I'm qualified any longer. What compared to you? Why to be leading a travel podcast? Because one half of the hosting team of the treasures of our town podcast actually travels. And when I say a lot, yeah, and you know, he gets on planes and all of a sudden, oh surprise, surprise, I got bumped to first class. I don't think you should be surprised anymore. It happens every time. Anyway, first you've been around First class back.
Speaker 3:Yes, last weekend we're talking about Josh Last weekend I actually went down to Florida, orlando Florida as such as well and you love this because you know what we like with travelers as well that I stayed three nights in Florida. Did not stay in the same hotel for any more than a night each time, so we stayed in Melbourne on the first night and then back to Apopka in the second night and that's the other side of Orlando itself and then the third night actually near Orlando Airport, because we had an early flight back. But the reason why I was there, well, we say before this podcast, you know it's guided. Our travels are guided by our love of location-based gaming. This time for me, was Munzee. So there was a Munzee event hosted down there in Florida, in Orlando, florida, and I thought to myself well, why not? Well, actually, technically, my wife said to me I'm going to take us to Orlando, florida on this weekend for your birthday, craig.
Speaker 2:Love that. Happy birthday, by the way.
Speaker 3:Thank you. And I said, oh, why Orlando Florida? She goes, there's a Munzee event down there. So she said it, she brought it up. Oh my gosh, yeah, she's fully converted, she's fully, fully converted, more converted than what I am. Mate, she's into it, she's into it.
Speaker 2:She's into it, into Munzee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every day it's exciting.
Speaker 3:Every day. But the thing is, though and like any other location-based game, no matter what it is Munzee, pokemon Go, geocaching, whatever it is it gets you outside, it gets you breathing, that fresh air starts work. She says I've got a half hour free, I'm gonna go and do a munzee run. So she gets in the car and literally drives around, like in the big area, and then, while she's out, you know she'll see another bouncer pop up. And then she says to me oh, do you want a coffee while I'm out? Yeah, perfectly, you know what I mean. So it gets you out and about josh. And this is this is true.
Speaker 2:This is what I love about our location-based games but yeah, a lot of times when I explain munzee to people, I'm like it's, if I'm doing like the really short elevator pitch, like what are you doing? What's my answer? I'm like, oh, I'm just playing a location-based game. It's a walking game, yes, walking. I say it's a walking game, absolutely. I literally cap munzee's in my neighborhood and my neighbors are like why does he keep taking pictures?
Speaker 3:of signs exactly, and the dogs are walking in front of him, looking back at him and he's going come on, dad, keep walking. But but I will say this enough of the munzee talk to begin with, because I was there for munzee but I've got to give a shout out as well. We always say things that you know that areas where we've been to. Here's. Here is a hot tip for you, josh if you're in orlando, florida, in the western part of Orlando Apopka, directly Apopka there's a place called the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive. Now it's only open Friday, saturday and Sunday for three days. That's, it Only open those three days.
Speaker 3:But it's free. You've got free entry. It includes it's about an hour an hour to two-hour drive, depending on how fast you want to go. You can stop and start, stop and start great for photography. I took several. The photo actually took hundreds of photos there, but only seven or so made them up on my on my list, um. But there's also a free audio tour that you can listen to in the car on the radio as you're driving around. It picks up where you are and actually pinpoints the next audio place. So there you go, and it's free. That's really cool.
Speaker 3:And it's free and the wildlife there stunning, Absolutely stunning. The bird life is impeccable. And then we did go first thing in the morning, so it's still a bit chilly for the gators, but I still did see a few gators.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome. A few gators, but yeah, oh that's awesome. Yeah, so there you go, a pop like a pop car wildlife drive. Great tip how close is that to the naked cache? Because that's on western orlando too. I didn't even see that one, the kiss me something, something yeah, it's near kissing me.
Speaker 2:I know it's near, yeah yeah, the naked cache is right there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, there is a geocache, that that you can do naked. I didn't even see that. You get to the front gate. You get to the front gate and it says there's a little hanger and you hang your clothes there and you hike in. You hike into this land that apparently it's legal to be publicly naked there and you walk to the geocache and you find the geocache naked.
Speaker 2:And you have a little photo op where you hold the geocache strategically in front of you and it better not be a marker, it better not be a blessing tube, just saying it. It isn't, it's an animal can. Okay, that's good, and I did it, and but I actually have a video of it and I was, you know, I knew I was going to do it. I was like, how do I make this family friendly? Well, you'll just have to watch the video. I'm gonna put it.
Speaker 3:Let's put it show notes.
Speaker 2:If you'd like to see I'm putting in quotations. Yeah, if you'd like to see me do the naked quotations? Geocache, it's just delightful.
Speaker 3:Family friendly and naked Josh. Yeah, family friendly.
Speaker 2:I actually more I'm, I'm. You couldn't get any more naked. Oh, oh, it's, I'm like extremely naked, it's like more than like you couldn't even be any more. Like it'll make sense. No, it makes sense.
Speaker 3:Those are off you must see the video. Yes, okay, okay that's my I remember, I do remember, I know what you're talking about, but so also what happened yesterday in the united states.
Speaker 2:This United States, this is a travel thing. It is, craig, it is. I don't know about you, man, but I had serious FOMO, serious FOMO. Not so much for me, you didn't. I watched the social media of our friend Shorty Nitz, jessie, Brown. She went down to Southern Illinois to see the totality of the eclipse and it was amazing. Just the pictures. I can't imagine what it would be like in person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I did see a good not a good friend of mine, but a good guy Peter McKinnon. He's actually Canadian and I follow him on all his YouTube and Instagram and stuff as well. He teamed up. He teamed up with Red Bull Canada. Did you see that photo, josh?
Speaker 2:no okay.
Speaker 3:So he teamed up with red bull canada and they they months of planning this right, they got. He got a shot, and it's not no ai, no edits at all. He got a shot of the two red bull planes going overhead with the. Yes, you've seen that. Did you see it with? I saw it on your social media.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so he got that that was really cool and the I saw it on your social media. Yes, yes, so he got that.
Speaker 3:That was really cool and the reason for it is because that's the red bull logo, is the sun you see with the balls on each side, so it actually yeah, so it goes from there yeah, we'll have to put that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2:That was a really great shot. And here's the thing that's interesting you know, the next time it comes through the united states in in a significant way the full solar eclipse it's gonna be 20 years from now yeah, yeah, if you want to, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 3:If you want to say in 2025, you can, but you gotta go to greenland, I know, but get this greg 2026.
Speaker 2:Guess where it's going through? I just saw it today. Good old sydney, australia, 2026 I that would. That would be an awesome trip. Yeah, imagine that an awesome time to go. But just, you know what I'm nervous. You know what I'm nervous about the eclipse, these poor people that have been planning, you know, seeing this solar eclipse in totality, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, for like years, and then they show up and it's cloudy. Yes, I know, I know.
Speaker 3:The only eclipse that I saw, in totality, josh was in my bathtub itself and it was my foot sticking out from the puddle.
Speaker 2:So that's my totality, just saying and we will not be sharing that on our social media. Well, it's on your social media, but it's not going to be in our show notes.
Speaker 3:It's on my personal social media.
Speaker 2:Wow, that sounds kind of like you know. You were really dirty in that tub, so I think we should move on Speaking of getting dirty, craig, it is time to get dirty and I know you've been just waiting.
Speaker 2:You're like what do you mean, josh? This is not an explicit rating podcast. Well, we've got our friend here who in his past he has been dirty. In the past he is a prolific geocacher. Geocaching has brought him, dare I say, all over the world and he is also the was the executive producer of the show Dirty Jobs. How cool is that With rowe? Yes, you have with us dave barsky. Dave, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm doing great. Thank you for that intro and actually I'm feeling kind of like a proud papa today. Um, my brother-in-law I know that sounds weird, papa brother-in-law, but uh, my brother-in-law, who I introduced to geocaching, just found his 100th find. No, excuse me, 1,000th find.
Speaker 3:Oh, nice, nice mate Nice, you are a proud people then.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, he logged a webcam on Cape Cod, massachusetts, and I've gotten that webcam. I actually did three webcams in one day. There's three webcams at least in massachusetts still right now. So yeah, uh, and he did it and that's awesome. So yeah, he's, he's pretty well indoctrinated man, he's. He's an addict, so you know you introduced him to geocaching, oh yeah, so what?
Speaker 2:what's your secret? What made it stick for him?
Speaker 1:I don't know, maybe in part my enthusiasm for the game. Maybe he just likes getting out and hiking it like I do. That's one of the things. I'm not sure he had a lot of hobbies in the first place. He's a hardworking guy but he really digs it. We've done all kinds of geocaching sets. It's a few years now and he, you know, uh, we've been on hikes. We've been, you know, did a you know easy urban caches when we had to. I don't know if we've ever done an adventure lab together, but I know he's done a bunch, you know he. You know he takes my sister out too. She's not, she's not into it like he is, but she'll still go along for the ride. You know I, I got that with my wife too, so I get it, that's fair enough.
Speaker 3:How did you actually get into geocaching yourself then?
Speaker 1:well, it's funny. Uh, you know we're gonna talk primarily about a tv show I worked on before I got into geocaching, but I did discover geocaching while researching an aspect of another television show I worked on after dirty jobs. Oh, um, I did a show called expedition unknown, which was also on discovery channel, and, uh, I was preparing for a show about um Columbus uh, christopher Columbus.
Speaker 1:There's some controversy of where his bones may be buried or his, his and you know, and we kind of traced where they may be all over the Atlantic, really Dominican Republic, portugal and Spain, and sometimes what we have to do for these shows, since I don't know the subject matter took place a couple hundred years ago or so. We have to do reenactments and I was researching coins that were possibly minted around, um, you know the, you know the columbus era, and in doing so just googled, you know columbus coins, something called columbus geo coin, and I'm like what the heck's a geo coin?
Speaker 1:I had no idea and then I and I dove into that and I found geocaching, dove into that and then I found geocaching. I immediately went to the website of geocaching and I saw the little intro video that they do and I swear to God I probably was. 10 minutes later I signed up for a premium account. I said this is for me. I said this is for me, so, and you know, funny thing is that was you know that was on. Let me see, that was June 25th 2015. And on June 29th, while waiting for my ride to get to the airport to fly to Portugal, I actually got a Starbucks and halfway between Starbucks and my house there was a geocache on the app and that was my first find.
Speaker 3:With a Starbucks in hand.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, and I got to say, though one of the coolest things about my introduction is like so I went to the airport right there, so I had one geocache, but the next day in Portugal, I found my second oh my gosh. And two days later in Spain, I found my third. So my first three geocaches wow, I found in three different countries in a matter of one week.
Speaker 2:Wow, I don't think a lot of people can make that claim to fame. No, no, have you? Have you tried to create a challenge cash around that?
Speaker 1:first three geocaches in three different countries yeah, you know, the know, the challenge cache rules nowadays man.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they even allow it, that would not get approved. For sure they would say that is not doable, that makes no sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one person qualifies, that's you, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's just it. There might be a few in Europe who do.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:There was closer proximity with countries. But you never know. But I'm sure they still wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:No, no well, we're going to primarily talk to you about some of your travels in the united states, because that is the sort of premise of this podcast. However, you mentioned already, you mentioned portugal, you mentioned spain. Where has has geocaching taken you around the world? What are some of your favorite locations that you have actually found geocaches in?
Speaker 1:We want to talk around the world. I want to talk around the world right now, but then we'll go to US soon enough.
Speaker 2:But let's talk outside of the US. Where has it brought you that you're just like wow, I can't believe I've found a geocachier.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. As far as outside of the US, I would say, you know, my job brings me around the world and then I find geocachers on the job. For the most part I've been a few countries. You know that. I've definitely. You know I just had vacations in when I'm able to geocache more. Last year my wife and I went to Ireland and then we went to Iceland. I got Europe's first. Of course, it was like the second day in Ireland hey, guess what? Honey, we're going to drive an hour or so and do this cool hike. But I was working on another TV show back in, I think it was 2016. So it was a year later that I actually went to 12 countries in 51 days and I got a least one geocache in every one of those countries. And I think you know it's kind of funny. It's like you know you'd be wandering around, say, I wonder if the geocache nearby, if I had a break in filming or something like that.
Speaker 1:And in switzerland, um, I was on top of a mountain because we're going to do this thing about hand gliding off the Alps. We went up there, but we went all the way to the top and the snow pack was too heavy to jump from a hand glide and just get a running start. It was literally two feet deep. We're trudging through the snow and recessing it. We're like we can't do this. We have to go lower down on the mountain, which is still fine because the Alps are really tall. But before we got back down on the gondola, I just said I wonder if there's a geocache up there, and I wonder if I could even find it. And sure enough, I opened the app. I got reception on the top of this mountain because I guess you know, just for all the other tourists who might go up there or whatever skiing and there is an EarthCache. I'm standing right on. Luckily it wasn't under the snow, it was in the valley below where there's this 22-mile glacier, and that was cool.
Speaker 3:That's really cool and, as we all know, josh as well like Earthcaches, for instance, as well. They're one of the best types of caches or virtuals to find when you're with other muggles or other people that you don't know about geocaching, like work friends or other friends as well because you can literally say oh, I just need to take a selfie here with this glacier, which is a normal practice for people who travel and unbeknownst to them that you're actually logging a full earth cache. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:Which is good for not bothering them about doing a location-based game. However, if you want to introduce somebody to a location-based game, they're like what you're doing? You're doing science homework. How? How is that fun?
Speaker 3:Guys, I've got to count how many fence posts are along this line. Here for a second.
Speaker 1:Hang on, I love earth caches. They get you know a lot of people you know. Sometimes avoid them because there is a little extra work to do, but I'm sorry. I like to learn. I like to learn about the places I go, whether it's history or geology, and a lot of the times you know what. Guess what they are intertwined history and geology and I try are intertwined history and geology and I I try to do an earth cache in every country I go to and every state I go to.
Speaker 3:Um, I will never, um, I will never pass up a good death I think I think dave as well, because obviously I follow you on your social media pages and stuff as well and you go out, you go a lot out, a lot with that. What's he? I can't think of his name now.
Speaker 2:It's just off top of my head gas station, tuna gas station, tuna gas stationuna.
Speaker 3:What a great geocaching name he has got one of the smoothest voices I have ever heard in my life.
Speaker 2:Again, Craig, another California dude. That's what it is. They all have great voices. That's what it is. Have you heard Fu Manju's voice?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Amazing voice, true, true, just these.
Speaker 3:California performers it's what it is is performer, but I don't think gas station cheer is a performer. Oh, come on, geez, gst is not a performer. Anyway, dave, what I was saying is that I see a lot of yours on your social media. You do a lot, man. You can do a lot of webcams, and if people don't know, understand geocaching itself. Webcams are very unique and they're very what. They're rare nowadays too. I mean, there's not that many around.
Speaker 1:Dave, dropping like flies, unfortunately. You know, I do like the visual aspect of it and I do like the fact that they are so rare. In fact, you know, especially back during the pandemic, you know, when you know, air travel wasn't so cool to do. You know, I like traveling, I like taking long road trips, and I went to visit my mom a couple times in the first couple years of the pandemic and I literally planned my road trips around where the webcams were. I love that and I think I got 60-something logs now and a lot of them. It's only been four years, it's two years since know, and a lot of them. You know, it's only been four years since, two years, since I got a couple of them. They're they're already disappearing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, yeah, uh, I, I, you know, I took my mom on a seven hour drive just to get a webcam. Uh, once, uh, you know, it was great. You know, when my wife and I were in the south of Poland for a vacation this is 2018, I just said, oh, you know, they had a geocache on top of the mountain which we never got to because the clouds were rolling and the storm was rolling, so we didn't, but I was like I wonder if there's new webcams down here, and sure enough four hours away in Slovakia there was. But you know what? I couldn't convince my wife to make that eight-hour round trip just to go to some small village, so you dropped her off in the hotel, and then you were gone for eight hours.
Speaker 3:Is that what you're saying? Well, dave, apart from that, though, what do you think would be your favorite thing, though, about geocaching in general? What's your number one? What's your go-to mate? What's what's so good about it in your mind?
Speaker 1:well, listen, you know, I I like to hike too. I just like getting out and and and it's. I've heard it so many times. I said it independently before I heard it, but I don't care if it's a cliche, I love the places it takes me. Yeah, I just do. Yeah, I'm sorry, it's if, if too many people that I don't care, I am who I am.
Speaker 3:And there's a reason why I say it, because it's absolutely true.
Speaker 2:So there you go. It's pretty much the premise of this podcast, so we are on the same page with you. Well, you are a geocacher, but it is pretty cool that you have been the executive producer of many television shows, namely Dirty Jobs, but also you named Expedition Unknown Straight Up Steve Austin. Oh yes, which is pretty cool, and maybe not as many people know about this, but I watched this show on Netflix Slobby's World. Oh my God, you did.
Speaker 1:It's so funny, know that's. That's another one like the one that took me to, uh, to europe. As I mentioned, was a magic show and you know, and at the time there was a boom for digital stuff back in the mid to late. You know 2010s and you know they started on. You know that that show that the Magician went with around Europe he actually that was for Red Bull. Red Bull was going to have their own TV. You know, platform digitally. That lasted a year, as did you know the Slobby's World one. That was for another whole digital platform, but everything ends up in Netflix.
Speaker 3:Right, or Hulu, or Hulu as well, yeah, I mean. Yeah, just for everyone's information as well. If you're watching and listening to this itself, well, after you finish listening to this, if you want more information, everything's going to be in the show notes. Yep, dave barsky, I've put you, mate, your, your, what do you call it? Uh, imdb. Your imdb links in there as well, mate. And also, you can watch. You can watch everything. All these dirty jobs on hulu too, apparently.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah, dirty jobs. I mean, listen, we stopped filming the initial run of the show in 2012 and it's still around.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it's popular. It's popular, so dirty jobs went for about nine seasons and then you had. Did you have some bonus episodes that it's considered like the 10th season?
Speaker 1:well, it's it. I I think technical. It ran as a uh series from 2005 to to 2012, okay, and you know, the way they break up seasons is sometimes so random sometimes, so I think it was actually considered to be about nine and and what and what. You know what a lot of these you know online. You know things like imdb and others say is just like not always completely accurate, so I don't know what they say, I don't know who does that stuff anyways, but I'm just like there must be a bunch of elves that just sit there and put it because I've never added anything you can change your own.
Speaker 3:You know, dave, you can actually update your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just never bothered to do it, but uh, but, uh, yeah, so, um, so it ran for about and it was a solid seven years working on it, for sure. And you know there's some, you know, in between we had these like bonus episodes, where that we call them repacks, where we just took highlights or behind the scenes footage and just shot interstitial intros to all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Fascinating. So the premise of the show. If people don't know the premise of the show, first of all, where have you been? You need to catch up. You're about you know, you're almost like 20 years behind here.
Speaker 3:We've seen these even in Australia. Josh just saying Right.
Speaker 2:So the premise of the show, just so everybody's on the same page. Mike Rowe would basically go to a community and experience a quote unquote dirty job, sort of a blue collar, working, tough job, often involved. I caught up on something, often involved, usually something fishy or some sort of poop or something disgusting sort of poop or something disgusting. And basically the premise is Mike, you know, does this job, discovers it and basically shows wow, this was a lot more difficult than he expected. Would that be a pretty good?
Speaker 3:premise of Josh as well. It's not just that, it's also it's it's disgusting to one of your senses, whether it be a sight, a smell or a touch feel as well. So that's the other sort of thing. You've got to involve all the senses too. But is that sort of? Are we on the money there, dave, or what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good part of it. I'd like to say that I think it was more of an homage to the hardworking people. And we like to say the intro of the show says doing the jobs you know, doing the jobs that you know, uh, make life civilized for the rest of us. And you know we, you know we started, you know, really playing with the, with the concept of dirt itself, like what's dirty, what's hard, you know, what's what's just maybe mundane but very essential to keeping us alive as humans, even if it's making chocolate, you know, I mean, right, we had some fun ones like that too, but you know it's funny you're going back to. You know what you're saying initially, josh, about, you know, poop and all that stuff. We had a saying a species, feces from every species was that the?
Speaker 2:was that the working title before you landed on dirty jobs?
Speaker 3:not quite, but it kind of evolved into that well, dave, are you saying you've got it in the show notes as well? The first one down we're going to talk about eight to ten of your favorite ones itself, and the first one you've written down was was down east in maine it's lobstering and hagfish fishing yeah, it's, uh, you know you guys asked me to select, you know, certain areas of the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I, you know I, and I started writing these things down. I'm like a lot of them have to do with food and I guess I like food, but I guess I, like you know, I like the areas where there's good food and I like I like the you know, the jobs that you know feature food and, uh, I'm a new englander. I grew up in suburban boston. I still call myself a boston, although I've now lived in Southern California for more longer than I've ever lived in Boston. But down east is a term that a lot of people don't quite know, maybe unless you're from the area. Ironically, it's a northern coast of Maine. It's, ironically it's a northern coast of Maine. It's down east. I think it came from the Acadians which settled the area, the French Acadians who settled the area of Canada and part of Maine, and so parts of Newfoundland are also considered down east, but it's the southern coastal part, so a lot of that will, of course, know maritime jobs and fishing and I, I like going back home and I about to start. I I kind of, you know, once we we really got the show going and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I tried to make sure I was home for the home opener the new england patriots whenever I could go. So I made sure we scheduled some jobs in sept or so, and Maine was, you know, a place where there's a lot of cool jobs like this. So you know we did lobstering on the Harrington River in down east Maine and it's just, you know it's a lot of fun. You know the dirty part of a lot of that is chumming and you've got to cut up some rotten bait to attract the lobsters to the lobster pot and you go out in a boat and you throw them. These aren't big boats. Lobster boats are smaller boats, especially if you're on a calmer river, which we were. For the most part it's a big river but it's just a lot of fun to get out there on the water and eat a lot of lobster afterwards when we're done, I'm sure, but it's a beautiful part of the country.
Speaker 1:Coastal Maine I've got to say Maine is probably my favorite state.
Speaker 3:Really there you go?
Speaker 2:I've never been, have you been, Craig? To Maine.
Speaker 3:No, not Maine.
Speaker 2:No, I've got to get up there.
Speaker 3:If I go up to the northeast, that'll be my main reason, just saying Anyway, I did see I've got to chuck it in every now and then. Dave, I did see that on a follow-up episode as well. After that one and Mike talks about how the people involved here in the show itself, the actual hardworking people, do you get some sort of notoriety out of it. And when you're in Maine, you had two of the young guys, the fishermen there itself, and the first people asked Josh, they asked all these letters come through from all these women saying are these free, are they rich, are they willing to take on other people? Blah, blah, blah. So yeah, so it's just the notoriety of the actual people around these hardworking Americans as well, which is really cool too. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was going to say a lot of times at that point especially, it was a popular television show and even when it got more popular the reruns, you know people would contact these businesses and those were two, you know, strong, strapping, good-looking young brothers, and everybody was. You know they got a lot of attention from the ladies for sure. Absolutely Good guys, absolutely hardworking and you know a lot of people really appreciate that you know in a human, and I'm glad that they do.
Speaker 2:And if we're talking about the same episode, which I think we are those kids, I'm going to call them kids. They were 19 and 17 and they owned the boat, yep.
Speaker 3:That's just wild. And not just one boat, josh. There was several boats that they actually owned as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's what I was like. Oh man, what am I doing wrong? But again, I I get to get to hang out. It made me want to be a lobsterman too. And I just want to say though, you know, again, maine is one of my favorite places and again, I love seafood. And you know, we also did some softer stuff a little bit south, a little bit more south of uh, uh, down east, in a, in a one of the most beautiful towns in coastal maine called rockport, and we did a blueberry pie making with these three little old ladies man, and they were a hoot and they were a big hit too, actually.
Speaker 1:But you did mention the hag fishing which I put down and a lot of people don't know. Nobody knows what a hag fish kind of is. It's like this slime eel they call them slime eels for colloquially and you got to go, you know so, uh, they're and and they are fished for food and they primarily go to the korean market. They're not popular at all in the us, um, but they, you know, we literally got on. You know, not a, not a huge boat, it was. It was probably twice the size of the lobster boat, but it's not one of these, you know big, you know crab boats, you see on deadliest catch or something like that.
Speaker 1:But honest to god, we, um, we left at five in the morning and we were out for 16 hours because we, just to get where the hagfish are, we had to go, you know, I think, at least a six hour drive, uh, you know, out in the ocean. And let me tell you something those things are nasty, I mean what the thing? They call them slime meals because when they get excited or scared, they produce slime like nobody's business. And so, of course, when they're brought, they're caught in the net. You bring them up, you throw them on the deck. They are, they're disgusting, so you know the fishermen aren't dumb.
Speaker 1:They just put them in a big barrel and they they get rid of of the slime, but they bring it back to a processing plant back on shore where a lot of like they got a whole like this giant slide where they dump the barrels of slime fish I'm talking about big oil barrels the size of oil barrels out on this thing and there's just a row of people who grab an eel and what they do is they stick their hand in the middle and swirl it around to coagulate all the slime in one ball and just throw it in a barrel next to them and then they send the cleaner fish into another barrel so it can be processed further for the market.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:That's just insane.
Speaker 2:So, Dave, show after show, it's just one stinky, disgusting slimy thing. Not always you mentioned, sometimes there's chocolate. Not often Most of them are pretty like. I don't have a great. I have a pretty bad like gag reflex, like I smell something. I'm just I can't even handle it. What are you just like through all these experiences? Just like iron, tough, like like? Or is there anything that you're just like? Wow, this goes beyond my level of tolerance for disgustingness.
Speaker 1:You know, compared to most people I know, I do have quite a strong stomach. Nothing really ever. When I was younger, maggots and things used to bother me, but you know, by the time I got the dirty jobs. Not so much, and maybe we'll talk about that later because we did do other jobs in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1:You know the surround of maggots. However, um, you know, we did have, you know, a lot of incidents, let's say, I mean, uh, we had a couple cameramen puke, you know, even on the water. You know, sometimes, you know when you're, when you're around, you know slime meals and you're on unstable ocean or whatever, even a bay, one of our camera peeps in Monterey Bay once we were harvesting kelp for abalone out there and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, when people ask me this, my mind unfortunately goes to one particular thing. It was fairly early on, I think it was like the second year of the show. Uh, in san francisco, believe it or not, um, we went there often, but this one was probably the toughest. Um, uh, it made just about all of us question what the heck we were doing.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, oh, my god, the, the waste water treatment plant for half the city of san francisco. Well, yeah, I'm telling you, man, the thing, here's the, here's the thing, it's fully automated. We just need maintenance guys. You know, there's like three maintenance guys go around a golf cart making sure everything's cool and stuff and they flicking switches. But if one of the giant pumps breaks down and someone has to um has to lower a uh uh. They lower a hook down on it from a crane, but someone has to go into the chamber to attach the hook to the top of the pump so they can lift it out and repair it.
Speaker 1:There's these three giant pumps in a tank that is probably 45 feet high, and the pumps are just about 30 feet high or something like that, and what you have to do is they drain out all the water and whatever other liquids are in there.
Speaker 1:However, all the solids are still in there and they're not quite so solid. I mean, look, this is everything Everybody's flushed down the toilet. So you literally have to get in this chamber. It's really one of those submarine doors where you have to open it up with a circular unlocking device. But then you have to open it up with a circular, you know, unlocking device, but you know, then you have to get it open because it's hard, because there's so much human waste in there, and so you've got to take a giant hose and squirt away the human waste so you can get the door open. You know, and that's on the other side, so you know, and it's splashing everywhere, you know, all over us, and but the thing of it is that was pretty scary because a couple times there was so much gas there we had to exit the chamber twice and we did have gas masks on.
Speaker 1:But it was so bad they had gas warnings, gas detectors, we ran out of there twice. Bad, you know they had. You know gas, you know warnings, you know you know gas detectors, we ran out of there twice. But you know, once you got, you know, unfortunately, once they cleared it enough and the gas was clear enough, you get in there, but the only thing they have, because they don't go often they just throw down two by fours to walk on over a literal sea of crap so, dave, are you?
Speaker 2:are you just like in these moments? Are you holding the camera? Are you like down there with a camera?
Speaker 1:yeah, depending on the situation and how big the space is. Yeah, I was. I was basically the third cameraman. Uh, we had two real cameraman. Uh, doing the job. Never call myself a camera, but you know I've I've shot second camera and third camera from a lot of the shows that I've done like that one in europe.
Speaker 1:There was just two of us, but yeah, um, and that one, uh, I wasn't at that point yet we didn't have a third camera, we only had two. So I just, you know, I just I just stood around and I still, stupidly though, I went in there because it's my job to figure what's going and I have to direct things and make sure everything's going. You know, I'm doing my job, but I literally threw out every single art of clothing that night that I wore.
Speaker 3:Oh, I can't imagine Directing though, dave, were you like. You know, mike, just pop down there and pick up that piece of corn, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean the show itself. You know it was great because you know Mike was so natural, so good and he, you know he didn't require a lot of directing at all. I mean, you know, he, just, he really uh, knows how to hold a conversation and that's basically. You know we used to call it. It's basically, you know, you know, a talk show in a sewer. You know that's basically what 30 jobs was. But you know there were things like that. You're right, craig, I would just, you know, hey, I'd like like off, you know, like he'd see me point to something that he knew it was worth talking about, if you see me point, and then he'd just pick it up and play with it and figure it out what it was and ask what it was. And it was, you know it was that kind of stuff we had, like you know we had a real, you know, early on. The whole crew really jived really early and you know we had signals We'd Josh, I did see as well.
Speaker 3:I did watch one of them in Hawaii, of all places, dave as well. And this is a show whereby and forgive me if I'm incorrect, but as an executive producer, you're normally supposed to be just behind the scenes just producing and that's it. But because it's such a small crew, as you said before, you pick up a camera here and there, you do some direction whatever, but you're also in front of camera as well. And this one I'm talking about on the big island, hawaii, mike starts off this, uh, this episode. Just to get you premise too, just if you haven't seen it he starts off the episode and he's pouring coffee, because this is a coffee episode he's pouring the coffee and he's in.
Speaker 3:He's in like a nice little, like a hugh hefner sort of style sort of uh shirt, and then, when he gets a coffee, he's handing the coffee to all the crew. So the camera guys and Dave, you're sitting there, mate, and you're in your Hugh Hefner best as well, even with a Texan cowboy hat on in the middle of Hawaii. And so my question for you, though, is that how often did you guys actually get involved and get on air, get on, on, on air, on on the actual show itself?
Speaker 1:well, one of the things you know I always told the cameraman first of all when we started, was never turn off the camera. You know, I don't care if you got to put it down or whatever. Put in a place, you know you got to rest your shoulder, whatever. Put in a place where you can still shoot whatever action is, just give it a, put it on a wide shot, let it roll um, because we had some unique stuff going on and you'd never know what would happen, even if it was like something that you know, an accident happened that wasn't us. It all could be potentially good footage that could yield story, and you know.
Speaker 1:But when we started airing, a lot of people were like, well geez, if Mike's getting this dirty, how dirty is the camera crew getting? And Mike was like, huh, we got to, we got to start putting you guys on the show more. So we just kind of started doing that and and and. At the end a lot of shows we'd we'd have what we call a call to tape and where we'd ask people to send in their dirty job. You know, hey, send in videos of your dirty job or just write us a letter or whatever, and maybe send in videos of your dirty job or just write us a letter or whatever and maybe we'll, uh, come and visit you. And you know we started putting the crew in those and then it just became oh my god, you know, our cameraman doug just fell into a pile of dead fish heads and let's just roll on that. And, and you know, mike would just riff on them for five minutes and that would be content that we just integrated seamlessly into the show that's no, I love it love it all right.
Speaker 2:So I just want to let everybody know where we've been now so far, because we're kind of jumping around here, yeah, we're jumping around. We started in maine lobstering hagfish, then we went down to, you know, san francisco, california, sewer inspection, waste treatment plant, and let's just say I've heard I've never been to san francisco I've heard it's a great place. The sewer maybe not a place to visit, but but san francisco, the san francisco treat, come on, there's something, there's. It's got to be lovely there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're.
Speaker 3:We're waiting for you, craig, to crack those jokes, yeah um, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going political mate, I'm just saying San Francisco. I've been to San Francisco several times and I will say this the places I did go to, like Pier 9 with the big seals, pier 39. 39, sorry, 39. Pier 9 is in Australia. Pier 39, yeah, that was great. And again, there's a webcam there too, dave, as you know, but also Josh as well, I think America's sort of windiest road that goes all the way up. It's used a lot as well in different movies and whatnot too. So, yeah, the world's windiest road goes up there too. I can't even think of the name of the road Lombard Street. That's the one Part of.
Speaker 1:Lombard Street.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've walked up lombard street and yes, there's a cache on on the bottom and the top as well. So there you go so let's jump over.
Speaker 2:We've already started to talk about the big island of hawaii. I'm just curious, dave, you know as you're you know scouting these locations, are you kind of like adam sandler, where he films all his movies in hawaii so he can just like hang out in hawaii?
Speaker 1:well, I mean, I did tell you, you know, I'd, you know I'd end up in new england every september, just so I could yeah, that's true yeah so it's kind of like that, yeah, uh, but you know, hawaii no, that that wasn't we.
Speaker 1:We went to hawaii twice during the show. The first time was for the big island in 05, was one of our earliest, I think it was for the second season, and we shot four jobs there, I believe. And, uh, I will say this, one of you know in my position is you know, you know I, I was, I became, you know my title, became executive producer. But, event, I started off as the field director and I was always the field director, even though I had a different title. Um, but you know, uh, in my job I usually had to fly out earlier to scout all these things and just get an idea of what the story was, what the job was, what kind of things we can have mike do and learn about. And so, uh, you know I, you know I want the big island is a big place and you know I, I needed a whole weekend out there and you know my wife happened to come out with me for the scouting and you know. So we had a great time, and why, you know.
Speaker 1:Granted, you know we went to the, you know the Big Thunder Mountain Coffee, and you know we met those people. She came to all the scouts with me and learned a lot about things. But that's one of the best parts of my position on the show. I got to go earlier and check things out, enjoy these cities a little bit, because, you know, on the show I got to go earlier and check things out, enjoy these cities a little bit, because sometimes I'd go to wherever I had to go and it'd only be an hour scout. Usually I tell them it's two to three, but sometimes I get it and it's fun. But you never know what's going to happen the day of, and then I can enjoy the city before anybody else gets there.
Speaker 2:So in the big island of Hawaii, you mentioned a volcanologist, a word a volcanologist is that a real word. Yes, it is, it's okay because um google is like spell checking it here. Oh okay, there we did I?
Speaker 3:maybe I typoed it when I put it on there I don't know, but you should know, josh, you're, you do earth caches, you should know what yeah I, volcano is. Yeah I know right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm assuming this is somebody that studies volcanoes. Yeah, so how is that a dirty job, how is that tough?
Speaker 1:It's more of a hard job and the main reason is the heat. I mean it's hard to get close to lava. I mean, one of the greatest things about the show is we had access to so many cool places that nobody ever sees.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just crazy. A lot of TV shows get that, but you know we just, you know we got to meet real people who did them. So, anyways, you know there's an active lava field on the Big Island. It's so amazing and it's great. You go there and you see where streets used to be and where they end and there's this black lava around and there's a signpost knocked over that's burnt up and you know.
Speaker 1:So you know we had to walk out onto, you know, the uh, black crusted lava, and even that, though, when you get closer to where it's actually coming out of, you know whatever hole it's still open, you're I mean, I think a couple of the soles of our shoes literally melted on. Wow, the, the, the, the cooled lava. You know, supposedly, but I mean, even if you're wearing, you know, a protective suit, which the volcanologist and mike dawned that day and what they had to do is they actually took the giant thermometer and stuck it into the molten lava where it was coming out to see how hot it was, and that gives an idea of how it's flowing, and there's all kinds of science-y things that I still don't even remember. But yeah, it's very hard to do, just because it's hard to get close to something so damn hot Sounds very sweaty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's for sure, dave. Have you been to all the islands in Hawaii? Have you seen them?
Speaker 1:No, I've only been to. I've been to Kauai twice. We actually went to Kauai for Dirty Jubs as well. I've been to the main the big island, of course and I've been to Oahu.
Speaker 2:Oahu.
Speaker 1:I have not been to Maui, though.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I've not been to.
Speaker 1:Lanai, and I think there's probably one other I'm getting, but anyway, there's a lot of little ones.
Speaker 2:What's your favorite island in Hawaii that you've been to?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's tough. Honestly, I got to say it's the big island and I think that's one of the reasons why I chose to talk about this on the show, because it's kind of underrated. You know it's's got. You know it's got it's it's touristy things minimally, because you know a cruise ship will go in there to kona. You know it's also got some. You know it's got the four seasons. But you know I just, like the really remote parts of the north part of the island, really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:We stayed up there my wife and I, when we were traveling around just to do it. You know we went on little hikes and all that kind of stuff. You know, helo, I didn't spend a lot of time in helo. I think we stayed over there for the show, um, and probably when I was scouting, though I, you know I stayed in different hotels with my wife when we scouted. But, um, I just love it because it's got so much and it's got a couple webcams on it as well that I have not gotten. That's, oh, what the real tragedy of of of my career is. I didn't start caching until 2015.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And our show ended. Dirty Jobs, anyway, ended in 2012. And we went to every state at least once for dirty jobs. Wow, and I was not a geocacher during that time.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's painful.
Speaker 1:Absolutely painful.
Speaker 3:You have to pay your own way now. That's bad. Or find another TV show. It's painful, absolutely painful. You have to pipe your own wine now. That's bad.
Speaker 1:Or find another TV show which I've also done.
Speaker 2:I visited Hawaii, I think, five months before I found my first geocache, josh, but oh darn shucks, I have to go back to Hawaii.
Speaker 1:This is true, I know this is true, I got to get those webcams. There on the big island there's only three states I have not found a geocache in at this point. So you know, I just I still Alaska and Hawaii. In Alaska I've been to umpteen times too, for the show and for vacation or visiting. I've been to so many times. But also my third state that I have not yet found a geocache, believe it or not, is Washington State. I have not found Really that is my last one what Really, what I know, what I've been there so many times.
Speaker 2:Seattle, that's the home. I know you haven't even been to HQ. I know I haven't. That's a trap. Okay, I know.
Speaker 1:However, I got it figured out, guys, I got it figured out. I like to get different icons from my geocaching milestones. I am at 18 and change right now for fines. I am going to make my 20,000 fine HQ. Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2:I thought you were going to say ape cash, ape cash. No, I'll probably get that along, yeah that's tougher.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I don't know, I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'll probably get it during that trip.
Speaker 1:That'll be 20 000 and one there, or you could save your 30 000 for the ape cash in brazil oh god, that's what I might do, although we almost my wife and I almost took a vacation down down there. Um, last year we went. We went to Ireland and Iceland instead, but you know, who knows, I don't know if I can wait that long to get the other eight. No, in fact, you know, I'm definitely gonna. You know I, I told you know a former guest you had on the show, annie Love, that I was going to make my 20th thousandth HQ. And she said, oh, that I was going to make my 20,000th HQ. And she said, oh, great, let me know, we'll have an event for you and everything. I was like, oh, joy.
Speaker 3:I was about to say make sure you let them know, because they will. They'll host an event for you or give you a cake or something, especially if you're Dave Barsky, exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know um it. It was featured in a movie called somewhere in time, starring Christopher Reeve. Because they're really. They do not allow cars on the island and people get around on bicycles and they get around on horse-drawn carts and somebody's going to clean up the poop from the horses that walk around all day. Wow.
Speaker 3:More so than they do, because I know in New York City obviously they go around and around and around New York City there itself, but they've all got bags already tied to the backsides of all things. But you know, that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they haven't found that technology in Mackinac for some reason yet it's a great place. I love it there.
Speaker 2:So that's funny, because I think I saw a different episode about collecting horse poop, but this was like there was an episode where they were like there was something attached to the horse and they were collecting the, the poop and the urine and there's a scene where he's like turning, uh, like opening up something in the urine, just like it was disgusting it was.
Speaker 1:That was the thoroughbred episode.
Speaker 3:We didn't okay yeah, wow, yeah, I just josh I hope people aren't listening to this and sort of literally heaving in their cars as they're going to work, just saying.
Speaker 2:But anyway throwing up in their mouth again if it's any consolation.
Speaker 1:Horse poop and cow poop are the easiest poops to deal with this.
Speaker 2:Is true, they have kind of a sweet smell. They say yeah you.
Speaker 1:Oh god, I don't know if I should tell this story, but uh, go on, go on um, you know, we, uh, we did a dairy farm in pennsylvania once and it was like in january and it was literally zero degrees outside and it was stone cold. And we're shooting in this dairy and there's cows all over the place and and obviously, uh, and, but I gotta tell you something, it was so cold and we, you know, we, we just, you know we wear to protect ourselves from the monk, we just put those fireman boots on right. But you know, we didn't think about how you know thin those boots really are so you can move. It are. My toes were freezing, my feet were freezing, but you know what's warm. Whenever I saw a cow going to the bathroom, especiallyeing, I would run over to it and put my feet under it because it was so darn warming.
Speaker 2:It was great.
Speaker 1:Also, I would have got frostbite that day, so cow urine saved my thought.
Speaker 3:There you go and you cover it. Anyway it's not necessarily going on your bare skin, and I tell you.
Speaker 2:I've been to the state fair when cows pee. I mean it's not like a trickle man, oh no. It's just, it's a lot of it's a fire hose.
Speaker 1:It's a fire hose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that's. Great.
Speaker 3:I thought you were going to talk about something about the actual you know the actual cow pets themselves being like big ice pucks out in the field. But you know no, but they stay warm on the inside as well. Just saying they stay warm on the inside too, yeah.
Speaker 1:But Mackinac is awesome because another thing we did they have this beautiful bridge up there that spans the lower peninsula of Michigan into the upper peninsula. It's a Mackinac bridge, they call it the Mighty Mack and they do lots of cool maintenance on there and we had, again, one of those great things that you know you have so cool access that nobody gets to see. You know they have to do a lot of things like change light bulbs on the top of the bridge sometimes and they've got to crawl into the pylons and scrape out rust and these are tight spaces. You know that's another aspect of Dirty Jobs that we featured a lot is how impossible it is to move to do these very hard jobs sometimes. You know, we went into that, we were on top of that bridge and it was just spectacular. I mean it's one of the coolest things we've ever done. And you know, and again, mackinac island so cool.
Speaker 1:We, we became friends with a bunch of people there, um, you know, like the owner of the grand hotel and and also a, um, uh, a woman who owned a salon there I'm still friends with and in fact we used to. You know, you asked, josh, if there's things you just, you know scheduled because you like to go to hawaii. We looked, we looked for reasons to go back to mackinac island and when we we went back a couple times and it's again I told you about. You know, sometimes we'd have these specials and we'd just show old footage or behind-the-scenes stuff. We went to film there just for one of those shows once and it was outstanding and unfortunately I got myself in a little bit of trouble. I decided to. My friend was a salon owner, as I said, and I volunteered to do chest hair waxing as a segment.
Speaker 3:Oh, I remember this one.
Speaker 1:I don't recommend it. I almost passed out twice. It was so painful.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. And yet people do it all the time, like not just chest but other areas of their bodies as well.
Speaker 2:Just saying. So, this is fascinating. So Mackinac Island is actually almost smack dab right between the upper and lower peninsula, that is correct Of Michigan. It's basically in it's in Lake Huron pretty much it looks like. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes, and the cool thing I mean again, there's no, no, no, no cars allowed. But you know there's a nice little town there, but all around the circumference of the island there's a there's, there's a trail we can ride your bike and you can take the horse around college. You know, my wife and I did that and of course I've looked at it since I've been, and there's geocaches all along the trail, the entire it wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I got another reason to go back exactly, and you and you only get there by boat. Is that right? Boat or plane?
Speaker 1:Boat or plane. Very small private planes can go in there as well.
Speaker 3:Very cool, there you go. Very cool, there's a place to put on your bucket list, josh. Yeah for sure, not necessarily to actually clean up the horse poop, but anyway.
Speaker 2:But you got to avoid it.
Speaker 3:There could be worse things like sewers in san francisco oh yes, this is true, or maggots josh as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's move on. We got, we got to kind of move here. We got we do. Here's the deal. Then we got three more and then I would look, you know, dave, put two. That are two places that are very close to our hearts. Yes, and I would like, if dave time, I would love, to record those as a special bonus feature for our patrons. What do we think?
Speaker 3:of that. That sounds perfect If you want to hear them. You're listening to this now and think, oh, what are they going to talk about? You've got to join the Patreon. That's all it's going to say. There you go. All right, Josh, Speaking of maggots, we're going to move on to the maggot one.
Speaker 2:We're going to a beautiful state, a state that I've been, and that is Idaho. The notes say this Locomotive building Sounds like a tough job, maybe not dirt, maybe dirty, I don't know, but the one that sticks out to me. We've talked about it already maggot farming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like the last one. Josh sticks out more for me. The bird suet maker and bug breeder, oh yeah, which also involves magnets. That involves the maggots as well.
Speaker 1:A lot of maggots in Idaho, though I agree, it is one of my favorite states. It is so beautiful, my God the mountains there the plains, there, everything is so great, and that's one of the reasons why I put it down. It's not just because the dirty jobs were so interesting and they were, but put it down. It's not just because the the dirty jobs were so interesting and they were, but I just. Uh, I don't think enough people talk about idaho and how beautiful it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know this, of course, you know southern valley skiing and all that kind of stuff. But, um, yeah, up in the uh, I don't know stovepipe top part of um of idaho we went to just outside of Bonner's Ferry for the first time we went to Idaho and there's a guy who actually breeds maggots for fishing.
Speaker 1:Fishing, Fishing yeah, it's fishing bait, man. It's just got these rows and rows of carcasses, fish carcasses, and the flies lay eggs in them and they feed on the desiccated remains of whatever animal you happen to put in there.
Speaker 3:How did you go, dave, knowing you were now past history after about half an hour ago, when you said that the worst thing you could remember was maggots back in your childhood sort of days? How did you go with this one? Like I said, I think by that time was maggots back in your childhood sort of days. How did you go with this one? That's the case.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I think by that time, you know, my stomach grew a little stronger. I think I've actually eaten, you know, maggots, since you know that time so yeah, yeah, but the tough thing about it was the stench of the place and the heat of the place. First of all, he had heat lamps inside and you had all these really disgusting desiccated animal parts in there and fish parts, and it was also what they produced. It was very ammonia flavor, yeah.
Speaker 2:Smell, you did taste it.
Speaker 1:You did taste it, it was that thing.
Speaker 2:So that was very tough to deal with the heat in there inside this barn and it's like one of those places where you know when you were in the sewer in san francisco, you're like you got gas masks on. But I'm sure in a place like this is like this is normal life for them.
Speaker 1:They're like yeah it's just like yeah, what it is 100. I mean there's a lot of places where, like that, they just you know, they come accustomed to what you know, whatever they have to deal with in their job. And you know, one of the interesting things I thought about that, the maggot farm was. You know, to make the maggots more attractive to the fish, he put red food coloring on some of the food so that he produced like pink and red maggots, so the fish would see them Fascinating.
Speaker 3:Put them on your hook. Yeah, More expensive, Josh. The pink maggots and red maggots are more expensive than the upgraded maggots. Yeah, you get more of a 75% chance of actually hooking a fish with a red maggot than what you do a white one. So there you go.
Speaker 2:All right, let's go to the next one, craig.
Speaker 3:Next one. Well, that's the case, then we're going to go. We're going to stay on the fishy subject, josh, and we're going to talk about one of my personal delicacies oyster farming. Now you look at this oyster farming, you think oyster farming, that's not going to be that dirty job. Oyster farming, I mean, let's be honest, it's hard.
Speaker 1:The shucking of the oysters is quite difficult, but oyster farming Dave, yeah, I mean, it's very interesting, and part of the reason why I picked this again was maybe the location in South Carolina, a place called Shem Creek which was outside of Charleston. Um, I, again, you know, I'd go out and, uh, you know, scout these things before the crew. And this was sort of earlier, this one of the earlier ones we did, like the first season, and I got to tell you, um, I discovered this little place right on the Creek called called Reds, and man, I, I, you know, I love love oysters too, I love all kinds of seafood and, again, a lot of the things that I'm talking about today are seafood related, like lobsters. But uh, yeah, and you know, it's just there's some. I'm not a big fan of humidity and heat, but I gotta tell you, at night you got that warm caress of the sun, um, you know sunset and and and the humidity that you can just sit and relax and drink your favorite beverage at any establishment, including your own porch, and it just feels wonderful to be alive.
Speaker 1:And and that's one of those places that really I really found this place called reds. It was right off the right on the creek and for like literally 10 bucks you get a giant bucket of oysters and there's probably at least 20 oysters in this thing, wow. And the first night I went there I ate the whole thing myself easily. And the thing of it was it was a type of oyster I've never had before. I'm not talking about the variety, I mean they were big as my palm, they were huge. It was a type of oyster I've never had before. I'm not talking about the variety, I mean they were big as my palm.
Speaker 1:They were huge. They weren't, you know, the smaller ones, they were big as my palm. And the way they prepare them there they steam them which I've never had before and it was so amazing. The way they steam them is they take a wet piece of burlap like a burlap sack. They take a wet piece of it and they they in an open fire, they put a a steel plate, they dump the oysters in the burlap sack and envelop them and they just let steam them in the wet sack. And they are so delicious and every like you know 50th one there'll be a crab, a little baby crab, inside of it and you pop that in your mouth and it bursts in your mouth. It was like a delicacy, it was delicious.
Speaker 3:Josh, in one of my recent trips I went down to the peninsula of Virginia and again I stopped at one of the places because it's an adventure lab and I've never had this before. But you guys have here, or they had in Virginia, the deep fried oysters as well, and they were divine. They were really, really good. And you know what they say, rob, as well. Rob, sorry, dave, about the oysters and stuff, how they were a strong aphrodisiac. If you don't swallow them fast enough, you get a stiff neck. But anyway, we're going to move on.
Speaker 2:Before we move on. So Shem Creek. I did a little research. It sounds pretty wonderful. You can actually there's outfitters along this creek that you can rent paddle boards, kayaks, and you can like literally paddle through the creek, encounter wildlife, birds, dolphins yes, dolphins in the creek. That's fascinating. And occasionally you can encounter manatees throughout this uh, throughout this shem creek.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like a really lovely place to be yeah, shem creek, I enjoyed every night I went to reds, that's for sure all right, we're going down, we're going to end this, but again, patrons, patrons, you get L extra a little bit here.
Speaker 1:Tarpon Springs, florida yeah, you know I wanted to pick out another place again. It's. You know coastal environments was a lot of great seafood yeah, I'm catching a trend here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the water. Like I said, maine is my favorite state. I'd love to live in coastal Maine.
Speaker 1:I love the seafood there. You know the job we did. There wasn't so much a food-based aquatic thing, but it was very unique. Tarpon Springs is mostly famous for its Greek population and there's lots of great Greek food there, that's for sure. We had that in spades, but I've heard it before the show.
Speaker 1:A band I really like, a heavy metal band from the 80s, is from tarpon springs, believe it or not. A band called sabotage, and I've heard of it so I was like, oh man, I'd like. In fact, unfortunately, um, one of the uh, the guitarist uh, passed away on the highway there and they named the highway after him. He had an accident. Some drunk driver hit him some tragically, but um, and you know he had came from a big greek family there there as well, but they, they farm sponges from the bottom of the bay there and you know not, you know they don't, they don't, they don't carve them up and make them all nice and pretty.
Speaker 1:So one of these those raw, amorphous sponges that are really nice and abrasive that people like to use for, you know, for for exfoliation, and it was just a fun little day on a boat and you know you dive, and fairly shallow water, depending on how you know where you have to be, and you'll walk on the bottom and just pick up the sponges off and and then they dry them out and shore. But it's, it's. It's a great little, great little town and I'd highly recommend going there. It's, you know, of course, it's you know again a nice place just to relax with your favorite beverage and have some great food and that's uh right.
Speaker 2:That's not too far away from tampa, north of st peter's not just north st petersburg very, very cool. Well, here's another thing that's special about you, dave right now, as we speak, you are planning you are a part of planning not one, but two geocaching mega events. One is coming up very soon and that is spring fling on may the 4th in los angeles. Right outside it's the park, is that's right by Dodger Stadium? Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you get a great view of the stadium right from the top of where we have the mega.
Speaker 2:I've seen the pictures and I'm like I've got to make it to Spring Fling. I've heard great things about it. Can you tell us anything about this year that people should make it a priority to get there?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a couple things, um, uh. First of all, uh, it's on may the 4th. We all know what that's supposed to be star wars day. Although that's not real star wars day. I'm one of those. I'm a huge uh, the original trilogy fan and I grew up with I had action figures. I was a kid. I saw it in the theater on my seventh birthday. Wow and uh, yeah, it was. It was so amazing. But anyways, may the fourth is now star wars day and we're gonna have some a lot of fun star wars themed things.
Speaker 1:Uh, there, uh, it's such a great interactive social um, uh, mega. You know it's not like it's very interesting, you know it's. It's kind of a more local thing. But though, we we have some, we have some. We've had some people come from out of the country, out of state, you know, good, contingent, from Arizona. So it's still sort of local, but you get to meet so many great people and this year we're going to have, you know, josh went on another podcast earlier this week and he hinted to Josh Fu Manju, our fearless leader. He hinted to something that's never been done before in Omega, some big surprise that I am privy to and I'm part of and I can't tell you anymore.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's going to be some very special guests. Now this is coming out Dave, april 15th.
Speaker 1:So I'll back so get, get, get I'm. You're gonna want to be there for a lot of reasons this year, including that thing.
Speaker 2:I can't talk about the guests that'll be there what I've heard about this event is that they have a lot of fun things to do during the event games and activities, I think, gadget caches. Of course, there'll be Adventure Lab. Yeah, nobody leaves. Yeah, nobody leaves.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. Sometimes you go to Omega and they'll do a couple things.
Speaker 2:You'll sign a log and you'll go off caching.
Speaker 1:There's just so much to do to keep you there. It's insane. The first year we had it we were like, wow, Everybody's staying.
Speaker 3:That's kind of crazy. That's what happens, though, when you actually make a mega event on one day whereby, literally, yeah, you need to stay, otherwise you're going to miss out. If you want to come early or stay later to do caching around the area, by all means, but that one day, stay on site. I like it, dave, I like it.
Speaker 2:So stay on site. I like it, dave, I like it, so I would love to attend. Probably not this year because, probably not, because three weeks later we will be in flagstaff. Yes, arizona, both me, craig, and you, dave, we'll be together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't wait to see you guys again for me.
Speaker 3:Last time we were together, dave, we'll say I just talked to josh before the show as well. We're in Yuma, mate, remember? In Yuma, yeah, and we saw you doing the cucaracha as you were coming back across from Mexico with your margaritas. You had several margaritas. Well, I'm glad you reminded me of that because I don't remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I was going to say you had several margaritas as well.
Speaker 3:I don't know where they were from. I don't know where they've been now, but anyway, joke, that's a joke. That's a joke, yes, joke, joke, joke for everyone out there. Um, but yes, where are we going now, josh? Where are we going?
Speaker 2:you just mentioned it before we're going to flagstaff for the super I call it the super bowl of geocaching, which is geo woodstock 20. It's a big one. It's a big, big anniversary. I'm so excited. I've never been to flagstaff. Greg, we're getting on a train, we got a, we got dome car seats and we're taking a train to the grand canyon and it's gonna be. I'm just very excited and, dave, you are a part of the planning team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for that, yeah yeah, my, my crazy friends who do spring fling actually are hosting geo woodstock and flagstaff fu manju josh. Uh, he's hosting three weeks later, another mega, one of the biggest on the map, and I literally, when that was announced I saw that on social media I texted him. I was like dude, are you freaking insane? But if anyone can pull it off, he can, and the team you know ShareBear64 and PhotoMom, who are the three you know. The leaders are great and, yeah, I'm involved in that as well. Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to get to take that train ride. I'm going to be so busy, you know, getting everything together for the mega. It's going to be my first year with stock. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1:What my first?
Speaker 3:year with stock. I can't believe it. Yeah, yeah, I've just been busy. I'm just very, very busy sometimes. On josh, you said you said we've got a prolific geocacher on, yet here he is. It hasn't been to hq, he hasn't been to a geo woodstock yet, you know yeah, I'm gonna be in a heavy way this year.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you that. Though, and it just occurs to me every time we get together the three of us, it's only in arizona. What's going on with that? This is true.
Speaker 3:This is true although you and I dave, you and I. When I first met, you remember that was in california, mate yeah, that was right we went out for beers by afterwards and cashing afterwards as well, after an event. That was pretty cool and it was really fun. 18 that was. That was 2018. My goodness. Yeah, josh, do you have any announcements to make for?
Speaker 2:us. You know what I can actually make announcements. Yeah, we can, we, can, we can. I don't have any secrets in my life, no At all. So this is an official announcement for all you fans out there of the treasures of our town podcast.
Speaker 3:Or just listeners.
Speaker 2:One of the two or just listeners, one of the two. We're gonna be at geo woodstock and at two o'clock on the main 2 pm on the main stage, we are doing a live treasures of our town podcast on the main stage at geo woodstock for the second year in the in a row day. In the last year at geo woodstock, we were on the main stage at the Bluegrass Museum and we did it, and so we're excited. We've already discussed the topic. I'll tell you what it is, no secrets. We are discussing all 20 of the previous Geo Woodstock locations and we're going to just talk about where Geo Woodstock has been over the past 20 years.
Speaker 3:So if you want to basically join up and come and see us live and be involved in our discussion as well in the podcast, come and see us 2 pm, mainstage, geo Woodstock. Be there, because we're going to talk about the 20 Geo Woodstock locations and especially, josh, if you've been to several or one or two or three or all of the 20 Woodstocks before that, come, come, sit down and actually voice your opinion on the past Geo Woodstocks and let us know your opinion on what the last Geo Woodstocks were, the locations they were at, what you enjoyed about them, et cetera, et cetera. So come and see us 2 pm, main stage, geo Woodstock. Be there or be square, josh.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I am going to be there too, not just at you, woodstock. But, um, I, josh, I texted you and I was not joking. Um, given you know my television producer background, fu manju has, uh, nominated me and just pretty much told me that I'm going to be the stage manager right yes, yes. So I'm going to make sure your podcast gets off on time.
Speaker 2:Thank, you and you can help us make sure that that we can get our podcast into that soundboard so it actually sounds like our podcast, because last year it was just kind of it didn't work very well.
Speaker 3:It was a great live experience, but it wasn't great re-listenability If you have any issues with the toilet system or backed up or anything. We've got Dirty Jobs Dave Barsky there to fix all the other feces issues too. So there you go.
Speaker 2:So if you're thinking about going to Geowoodstock, stop thinking about it and join us. It's going to be a big one. It's a Super Bowl. Dave, are there almost like 2,000? Willa Tens Are we over 2,000?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we're over 2,000 now it's going to be epic. It's such a nice town. I know you haven't been there, man. It's a. It's not you're. You know a lot of people think arizona hot in and dry. This is on a mountain, flagstaff is a mountain and it's all in the pines.
Speaker 2:It is beautiful place yeah, that's amazing, and 2000 will attend basically means there's gonna be 3 000 people there, because, oh, yeah, at least there's, there's, you know, couple accounts and stuff like that, so we're really excited about it. Can you believe it, guys? I've never seen the grand Canyon.
Speaker 1:I've never seen it.
Speaker 2:I, I went around the um, I was at a dinner party and we were in January and we were going around like what you know, what are you going to manifest in 2024?
Speaker 1:And all I said is that, guys?
Speaker 2:this is the year I see the Grand Canyon. There you go, Never seen it.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen it either, Josh. You haven't? No, of course not. I'm Australian. I've only been here for two years.
Speaker 2:I thought you've been everywhere.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. I've only got. What have I got now? 42 states up my sleeve, so that's all in two years, that's pretty good, though that's not bad, is it? That's not bad, but anyway, josh, let's talk about our Patreons too, because we want to see some Patreons out in Geo Woodstock.
Speaker 1:And if you're a.
Speaker 3:Patreon and come separately and see us as well whenever you can. Josh. We might have to do something for the Patreons at Geo Woodstock.
Speaker 2:We might have to have to give them like a special, like yeah, trackable, or a little a little.
Speaker 3:We might do a little meetup too, possibly we'll see.
Speaker 2:We'll see a meetup, a patreon meetup. We haven't even talked about this. This is like a live meeting. Okay, exactly if you've been enjoying our podcast. We would really appreciate your support. By supporting us, you're helping us create even better content. Keep it free for everyone, no ads, so please consider joining us at patreoncom backslash treasures of our town that's cool.
Speaker 3:Now, dave, before we get going with this one itself, mate, uh, how can people find you? If they want to find you, reach out to you, etc. And go from there?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know, I I don't do a lot of social media, but uh, I do, uh do geocaching, uh, photographs and stuff, as you know. Cra, as you mentioned, on my Instagram I guess it's just at the Twonky the Twonky, that is my handle, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:that's your handle, I think so. Links are in the show notes anyways. Other than that, josh, how can people?
Speaker 2:contact us if they want to contact us. Yes, please contact us, so we don't feel like we're speaking into the void. This is so different than YouTube. Why can't there be comments for podcasts? There just isn't. So feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom, or you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter X and YouTube.
Speaker 3:So that's our show for today. Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcasting app.
Speaker 2:And, as always, josh may your travels always leading to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems, and sometimes dirty places, around the world. See you next time. Thanks, dave, bye.