Treasures of our Town
Embark on an exhilarating voyage through the heart of America's captivating towns and cities with the enthralling travel podcast, "Treasures of our Town." Join your experienced hosts, Craig (Seemyshell) and Joshua (Geocaching Vlogger), as they unveil the hidden gems and extraordinary treasures that lie beyond the surface.
Delve into a world of cultural exploration as our hosts guide you through historical sites, natural splendours, and extraordinary local experiences. All their travels are guided by their love of outdoor games like Geocaching and Munzee. Whether you're a seasoned globetrotter or a curious beginner, our captivating city tours and off-the-beaten-path destinations will ignite your wanderlust and leave you inspired.
Are you ready for an unforgettable adventure? Tune in now and prepare to immerse yourself in the allure of "Treasures of our Town." Let us ignite your curiosity, fuel your desire for exploration, and set your spirit free as we unravel the secrets that make each town a true treasure trove.
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Website - www.treasuresofourtown.buzzsprout.com
Email - treasuresofourtownpodcast@gmail.com
Treasures of our Town
"The Boring Town Challenge" w/ Jeff Wagg
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Jeff Wagg returns to the podcast with a special travel challenge as he explores three supposedly "boring" American towns and reveals the fascinating stories, attractions, and historical significance hidden within each location.
• Bagley, Minnesota (pop. 1,305) offers beautiful Lake Lomond with its haunting loon population, the legend of "Green Jenny," and Minnesota's longest-used prison
• Sandwich, New Hampshire (pop. 1,466) served as the filming location for "On Golden Pond" and features incredible fall foliage due to its remarkable biodiversity
• Unity, Oregon (pop. 43) wasn't officially a town until 1972 when ranchers needed a water grant, and now features rentable fire towers with 360-degree views
• All three locations demonstrate how even the smallest American towns contain unexpected treasures waiting to be discovered
• Jeff shares his own approach to finding fascinating stories in seemingly ordinary places through research and appreciation for local history
• Each town has limited geocaching opportunities (1-3 caches) likely due to small populations of active geocachers
Visit our Patreon at patreon.com/treasuresofourtown for exclusive content including Jeff's "golden nugget" advice on finding interesting aspects of any town.
Welcome to Treasures of Our Town
Speaker 1And I have to start off with a question . You're chasing 70, . Given that you're from Australia , doesn't that sound very hot to you ? Shouldn't you be chasing 21 ?
Speaker 2Do you love to travel ? Do you love road trips ? Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA ? Hi , I'm Joshua .
Speaker 3And I'm Craig . Welcome to Treasures of Our Town . It's the podcast that explores unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United .
Speaker 2States . Guided by our love for location-based games like geocaching , join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations , uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way .
Speaker 3On today's episode , josh , we have a very special returning guest from over a year ago and he has been given a very , very special travel challenge . Travel challenge , josh . It's so intriguing it really is . And I will say this he gave himself the travel challenge too . So it wasn't just us , it wasn't our idea , it was actually his idea , mate . It was his idea , and you will hear his beautiful , beautiful , beautiful voice and dulcet tones very , very soon coming up . So , uh , yes , although , josh , if you click on this and listen to the show , you've already seen who it is by reading this is true .
Speaker 2So it is one of our favorite guests we've had on this whole show and that is jeff wag . We've actually had people contact us and say , hey , can you bring jeff wag back ?
Speaker 3exactly , so jeff has fans out there and they want to hear him on this podcast and jeff , he has his own podcast as well , called built to go , a van life podcast , and I even say it . I said I start to say it like him because I listen to it every single week as well for him . So I start to say it like him too . So you to it every single week as well for him . So I start to say it like him too . So you'll hear him say his own VanLive podcast . Exactly the same , josh , but anyway , jeff Wagg , he's going to be on it very , very soon . Meanwhile , before we get him on , josh , what have you been up to , mate ? We've got to do our delays and our upgrades .
Speaker 2Yeah , we have to do our delays and upgrades . Well , I just had my delay just now as I couldn't get my headphones to work , and the reason why is because the headphones I've been using get this this is travel related are the ones that Delta Airlines gives you to watch the movies ?
Speaker 3Joshua .
Speaker 2They're literally worth like probably three cents , joshua Johnson .
Speaker 3I know .
Speaker 2Why .
Speaker 3Why . And now you've got a really nice set of headphones too , very professional looking , and you said that they're your headphones too that you're wearing . I know I should have been using them the whole time . I've never seen them on you . We've been doing this show for over two years now . I've never seen them on you , but anyway , okay , here's my real delay .
Speaker 2Yes , what's your real delay ? Did you know that ?
Speaker 3No , there's always a day for every day . I didn't know the record store day . Did you do record ?
Speaker 2store day . Yeah , I don't think . I've ever talked about this , In addition to geocaching and all the things we do . I love collecting vinyl records . You didn't even know that . You've learned something new about me today , Craig .
Speaker 3I knew that , josh . I've been to your house , I've seen all your records do not have .
Speaker 3So if people don't understand as well , joshua johnson , he sits there in his lounge room with no television not one ounce of television in his lounge room at all but a record player on a really old school , beautiful , um , like dinette sort of area or whatever it's called , I don't know what it's called like something sits against the wall and then he's got all his records all lined up , all his vinyls lined up , and you've even got a holder for the for the uh , for the album cover that the record that's playing on the wall too so yeah , that's right see , oh , you have such a great memory .
Speaker 3You think I don't really you think I don't actually go through your whole place while I was there absolutely , I did so .
Speaker 2That's really creepy . That's really creepy .
Speaker 2Craig um but here it is actually yeah it's actually my delay because I had to get in line to get the records I want . So the deal with record store day is to support local record stores which are kind of like , well , they they've having a re-emergence of popularity , but yes , it used to be kind of a dying breed when vinyl was not cool . But vinyl's's cool again . Yeah , it is People , young people , even young people are collecting it , yeah , yeah . So on record store day they have exclusive vinyl records that come out just for that day and they have limited quantities . Wow . So people line up at the record store . I lined up at two and a half hours before the place opened up , really Excited to get my . I had a . It was a certain record I wanted and I got up there and the store only had two copies and guess what ? I was the third person .
Speaker 3I didn't get it . Oh no , that is definitely a delight you missed out . It's like when you were a kid , josh , and you lined up all those times for that brand new toy for Christmas and your parents went oh , they ran out beforehand , yep .
Speaker 2The couch patches their dolls .
Speaker 3Was there any punches thrown ?
Speaker 2Was went up . They ran out beforehand . So , yeah , the couch patches their doll . Was there any punches thrown ? Was there any punches thrown with ? No ? No , no , yeah , everyone's very polite , very polite . It was actually a lot of fun . You don't know who you're going to stand in line next to , and I met some new friends . It was . It was actually a lot of fun , so it wasn't a really bad delay . Craig , yes , what was what's your delay ? This it's still . It's still the same , it's still my ankle .
Speaker 3It's still in . It's still the same . It's still my ankle . It's still in pain . I've still got to dress it every single day as well . I still get stabbing pain in my actual heel now rather than the ankle itself . So mind you in saying that I can't complain too much , because our guest
Jeff Wagg Returns with a Travel Challenge
Speaker 3today as well , he's still held up after his ankle surgery that he has had . We'll ask you about that very , very soon . Meanwhile , josh , my upgrade . I'm going to concentrate more on the upgrade because it's much nicer . I'm just chilling at the moment in good old sweet home Alabama , chasing the 70 , as they say .
Speaker 2Josh , wait you went back south . You went south again because you were in Missouri . Yeah , exactly I was up in Kansas . Yeah , kansas .
Speaker 3Missouri . Then I came down and St Louis , et cetera , and then I came straight down south back to a good old sweet home , alabama , for a little bit and then I'll head back up to St Louis in a couple of weeks' time to pick up our good friend Rob , the president of Munzee in St Louis to go to Uranus Josh , yeah , of Munzee in St Louis , to go to .
Speaker 2Uranus , Josh . Yeah , I've been to Uranus a few times . Who's Uranus ? Oh Uranus .
Speaker 3Uranus . Yeah , yeah , I've been there a few times , so exactly I'm sure it's coming up .
Speaker 2I'm sure Jeff has been to Uranus .
Speaker 3Oh yeah , jeff's been everywhere , man , and we can ask him that as well .
Speaker 2So exactly your upgrade . You didn't say you upgrade that . You know I don't talk about my day job very much now . You don't on this podcast , because you know I talk about my geocaching and stuff like that . But I'm I'm a I'm a speaker for young people and today I hung out with 60 juniors and seniors in high school and I talked about the importance of living your life with purpose . And you know a lot of people , you know they look at the youth and they're like , oh , there's not a lot of hope for the youth . And let me tell you , hang out with me for a day and you will be so impressed with these young people and how , uh , how amazing they were and um and uh , it was just . It was one of those days where you're like you wake up and like that was a great day spent so , um , really really great day with with about 60 juniors and seniors talking about stuff that actually matters .
Speaker 3Molding the lives of future American leaders . Joshua , good job , I'm trying , I'm trying . Yeah , exactly , exactly , very cool , very cool . All right , josh , should we get into our guest ? Yeah , I'm so excited to talk to Jeff Wagg . Do you want to do the introduction ?
Speaker 2Josh ? No , you should , because you're like a super fan of his . You listen to his podcast every week . I'm fanboying . You should do it , I'm fanboying .
Speaker 3All right , no further delay . Here is the man himself , jeff Wagg from Built2Go . Jeff , good day , mate . How are you , buddy ?
Speaker 1Well , I'm well . Well , I'm mostly well . But thank you for having me . I have to start off with a question . You're chasing 70 , given that you're from Australia , doesn't that sound very hot to you ? Should he be chasing 21 ?
Speaker 3This is true . Oh , look at this . He's done his research as well , although Jeff does . He's very astute because he does do international travel as well , don't you Jeff ?
Speaker 1I do .
Speaker 3You do know the Celsius and Fahrenheit conversions . I know it quite well too . It's quite easy to do in your head now , but I still don't do the whole metric conversions with the distances with miles versus . That's still too hard for me . So , yeah , I don't do that . But yeah , chasing 70 for me is yeah , it's , it's , it's the common term here , so I use the common terms . You know , Craig , Craig , you're chasing 70 . Yeah .
Speaker 2And you know we don't talk about the weather on this podcast but now it's too late . Guess what it was here in Minnesota today , where I am right now , guess what the temperature was 70 .
Speaker 372 . It was 72 .
Speaker 2Why are you not up here ?
Speaker 3Well , I wonder , you're busy molding the people , the future Americans .
Speaker 1Oh , that's true , you don't have time for me so .
Speaker 3I'll come down south where people have got time for me .
Speaker 1That's true . Just for the record here , it was not 72 in Chicago today , it was 45 .
Speaker 2Oh , wow , yeah , it's coming for you .
Speaker 1You're going to get some warm weather . It's coming your way .
Speaker 2You need it Meanwhile .
Speaker 3Jeff , what have you been up to mate ? As I said before , you've got an ankle injury . What happened ? Tell everyone about it .
Speaker 1So I took a bunch of people to different parts of Europe in November on a big , on a big wet , in a big wet van , as I say , on a river cruise and , um , that's a lot of walking and a lot of cobblestones . And when I got back I found that I was not recovering , basically I was losing the ability to walk . So I went in and they found a torn piece of cartilage from , actually from twisting my ankle at the City Museum in Missouri , which is a place that people should pay attention to and that cartilage had turned to bone . So I actually had a little piece of bone in my ankle and they had to go in and slice and dice and cut it out . So I have been laid up since January 27th and I'm just learning how to walk again .
Speaker 1Oh , wow , and I have not been in my van since January 25th at 4.31 pm . Wow , and I've got a little jonesing problem . I'm a little , yeah . And then I went to see my van last weekend and I drove all the way from Chicago to LaSalle County , illinois , and because of traffic it took two and a half hours and I pulled up and there was my van and it was still there and no one had messed with it all winter long and it was beautiful . And I got out and I had left the keys in Chicago and I couldn't get into my van and I thought , oh well , surely there's a way to break into a 2011 Mercedes Sprinter . And then I was like I could just break the window and I'm like what are you talking about ?
Speaker 1You can't break the window of your own van and then I thought I should go get the keys . It was a five hour round trip and so , yeah , I drove away and I left my van there and I'm going to try again this weekend . But , yeah , I have an issue right now .
Speaker 3Let's just say that and , yeah , I have an issue right now . Wow , let's just say that . And there are Josh . There are a few actual listeners , our listeners as well , and they went over to Jeff after listening to him on our podcast over 12 months ago , nancy being one of them . Tivia , she was one of them as well . She listens all the time . She's also a part-time van lifer as well . Oh , welcome Nancy . Yes , yeah , and she's actually laid up again with a knee surgery . Oh gosh .
Speaker 1And I'm very sorry to hear that you're having these ankle issues because you know , I know this isn't a van life podcast , but van life is very adaptable and you can adapt to things like this . And the whole time I'm laid up with my ankle I'm thinking you know , if I were in my van I could cook , I could do everything because I'm in my van . But when you're not set up like that and you have an injury , then your whole life is like you can see it but you can't do it . So I have a lot of sympathy for you and your current struggles .
Speaker 3I hope they end soon . Thank you , sir . Thank you , I have adapted quite well and , as you said , everything is almost in arm's reach anyway , when you live in a van and you know where everything is . I cook for myself , I clean everything else as well . I've got my fridge , I've got my stove , I've got everything in the van and most afternoons I'll get to my spot early in the afternoons now and I'll get in my , because I've got a swivel seat and the passenger seat too . So I'll swivel the passenger seat around and I put my foot up , uh , and raise it , and maybe some ice as well , and every single afternoon I do that and it seems to just relax everything , including my own mind as well . So , yes , that's important , exactly , exactly so . That's , that's the van life stuff . That's what's been happening there . But let's get back now , jeff , to uh , to first of all your built to go van life . Apart from you being laid up , what else is happening with your podcast ?
Speaker 1Well , the podcast is doing great . I have my international listenership is growing quite a bit and , to be clear , I'm not doing any marketing , I'm just do . I'm a guy with a van who wanted to listen to a podcast while he was working on his van and I couldn't find one that was in the style I wanted , so I just made it , that's it , and I do it and people listen and as long as they listen , I'll keep doing it . And uh and so , yeah , things have been interesting and , um , I've been having a problem lately because people ask me to put in a news segment . So I , I need a little van life news in there and the news is difficult right now .
Speaker 1Let's just say that , and I I will put in bad news stories if they're appropriate , but I don't want them all to be bad news stories . So I reached out to the listeners and said help , I need you guys to find me good news . And they did . They did . This week I actually was able to put in several good news stories , so I was really appreciative of that . But right now I am so eager to get back on the road and I have so much travel planned this year , it's ridiculous .
Speaker 3And I don't even know how I'm going to fit it all in , so we'll see . Very good , very good . Josh , do you want to do want to tell everyone as well , all the listeners now , what this show actually today is about , like what jeff . Jeff said it was jeff's idea , and then you pick the places too . What , what's , what's going on , josh ?
Speaker 2well , we , we wanted to give you guys some opportunity to research some amazing places that you may want to travel in the future . So jeff reached out to us and he goes challenge me . Challenge me , yes . And he's like find find what you believe are three of the most boring places in the United States . Just give them to me , just lay them on me , and I will tell you why . They're not necessarily boring , or maybe we will find out that they actually are boring .
Speaker 3I don't know , we'll see . Well , josh , you picked the three of them out .
Speaker 2I did pick the three of them out .
Speaker 3So just to let everyone know , we've got one in Minnesota , we've got one in New Hampshire and we've got one in Oregon . So they're the three different states and we'll talk about exactly each one very , very soon . Should we just jump into the first one ? What do you think ?
Speaker 2Sure , let's jump into the first one . The first one is in my home state and , fun fact , I've been there . Fun fact I've slept overnight there . Okay , the one , yes . So Bagley , minnesota . It is in Northwestern Minnesota and let me tell you there's not a lot of up there , and the reason I went through there , in case you're curious , is that long ago , when I was actually a youth minister long ago , and we took a bike trip from the top of Minnesota , from Canada ,
Exploring Bagley, Minnesota & Its Hidden Charms
Speaker 2all the way down to the Twin Cities with about 20 teenagers , and Bagley was one of the stops where we camped overnight . So all I know about Bagley is there's a lake and there's a campground . That's all I know . Jeff , jeff , jeff , you're going to have to , you're going to have to tell us more , because I it was fine , it was fine , but yep , there was , there was a lake and there was a campground . Tell us , tell us about Bagley , jeff . Inspire us , get us excited about visiting Bagley .
Speaker 1So , of the three places you gave me , this one is of this Well , I'm ranking them from hard to easy . This one was the medium one .
Speaker 1Okay , wasn't exactly easy but it wasn't that hard either . The campground you probably stayed at was the Bagley City Park and Campground , which is a beautiful campground right on Lake Lomond , which was named after Loch Lomond in Scotland , and it is well known for its fishing . It's also occasionally home to loons , so , which will be a theme here in a moment . But , yes , that alone to me makes the place interesting , because if you've never encountered loons , especially while camping , it is one of the most eerie , creepy , weird things in the world .
Speaker 2They make this sound and hello , mr Editor if you would like to put in the sound of a loon call , should I , should I try ? Should I try ? I mean ?
Speaker 1I'm from minnesota , that's not bad yep kind of like that there you go .
Speaker 1You don't need the sound effect anymore , we have it . But imagine that at 4 am and echoing across the lake really loud , and if you ever get up close to one of these birds , they're really weird . Most birds have hollow bones so they can fly better , but loons don't . They're one of the few birds that has a solid bone structure , so it's incredibly hard for them to take off and they actually need a runway . So if you watch a loon take off , it'll start at one end of the lake and just kind of paddle as fast as it can until it can get up enough speed to slowly climb into the air like an overladen 747 , and then it's okay . They're very cool , very strange birds with bright red eyes , and to me that alone is enough reason to visit Bagley . But wait , there's more .
Speaker 1Bagley was founded in 1898 , and it was named after the Duke of Clearwater and Clearwater is the county and the Duke of Clearwater was a man by the name of SC Bagley and , as you might guess , he was a timber baron , because this is the woodsy , or formerly woodsy , part of Minnesota . They did cut down a lot of the trees . Most of them have grown back now , and it's also the South Dakota part of Minnesota . So pretty much yeah it's . You know I found a lot of references to Sisseton in Bagley and Sisseton is in South Dakota . It means land of the fish scales . That's a whole other story . However , bagley itself is fascinating in its history because SC Bagley , who the town was named after , hated being called the Duke of Clearwater . Therefore everybody called him that even more . And do you know how a place gets its name Like ? There's a formal , actual way a place gets its name in most cases . Do you know what that ?
Speaker 2I , I mean somebody , somebody votes on it or somebody goes there and go .
Speaker 1I declare the bagley that definitely happens at one point . Okay , but the name of record that we use today comes from the post office , and that is why there's a lot of confusion in old place names , because a lot of towns had to change their name when the post office was made . Because you know we already have a Lincoln , illinois and you're one of 17 of them , so why don't we choose a name that's unique ? And they didn't have zip codes back then , so Bagley really didn't have that problem . There weren't that many people living there . So in 1898 , when they decided to make it a town , they did so and they just named it after the richest man in town , which was fairly common . However , what happened in 1898 that made them want to make a town ? And this is an answer that applies to many , many , many towns in the US , and that is the railroad you got .
Speaker 1that is the railroad you got it , the railroad . Wow so nowadays ?
Speaker 1we think of interstates as being the thing that makes a town a place . Right . So the interstate goes to your town , you're great . And if it misses your town , well over my shoulder here I have a route 66 sign and you can see what happens there . Uh , route 66 dried up because I-40 replaced most of it and people just whizzed on by . Now there's still a lot of nostalgia there . But Bagley was one of the lucky ones . The train went there and that's why , basically , there's still a town there . Now they have the longest used prison in the state of Minnesota in Bagley .
Speaker 1And it is a tourist attraction now . Wait , wait , say that again the longest used Used prison , or well , I mean jail . Yes , it's certainly not a penitentiary , okay , it's a few cells . They were built in 1905 and they were used until 1998 . And you can imagine what something built in 1905 to hold prisoners would be like in 1998 .
Speaker 2Oh , my God .
Speaker 1So , yeah , that's a thing you can visit and , you know , hopefully for just a short while . Yeah , so that's a thing . They have an awesome cabin you can rent . It's on Airbnb . It's called Farm by the Lake . It's a wooden cabin , okay , Right on the lake , with water and water sports stuff and everything you need , and it's open 24 7 , all year round so you can do your winter sports there , because lake lawmond you can do ice fishing , you can do snowmobiling , cross-country skiing , all that stuff .
Speaker 1So did I happen to mention this place is beautiful ? I mean , most of minnesota is beautiful , but this place is definitely . You know , you're right on the lake with the trees and it's absolutely a gorgeous place to go . Another reason you might want to go there is because it is on the edge of the white earth nation reservation , which is home to the shooting star casino . So , hey , at one time this was the gambling hub of Minnesota . Gambling's a little bit more loose and available now , but yeah , at one time that would have been a reason you would have gone to Bagley . And there's one other interesting . Well , there's two other interesting things . One of them is there's a legend in Bagley and it's the legend of Green Jenny , green Jenny , green Jenny legend in Bagley . And it's the legend of green Jenny , green , green Jenny . Green Jenny is the spirit of a girl who drowned in a Creek that led to Lake Lomond , and now she wants company .
Speaker 1So she comes out of the reeds and algae and grasses and will invite young girls to join her in the lake . Maybe by force ?
Speaker 3Hmm , that's a rumor I've heard .
Speaker 1And then there shall be more green jennies and gales and abbeys and all these other people . Anyway , it is a truth that if there is a body of water anywhere in the United States , there are legends or monsters . You can have both , but there you have to have one or both , but there's gotta be one or the other , and Lake Laman does not let us down . The other thing is this Bagley classroom , and this might appeal to you , josh .
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1They built an outdoor classroom that seats 40 . That's kind of like an amphitheater right on the lake and they do all kinds of lectures and things out there in the , in the wilderness . Basically , I mean , it's in the town but you're in trees and the lake is right there and the idea is that you will be educated not only by the lecturer but also by your environment , and that's a cool thing . So , with all that , this little town population 1305 , that really isn't , you know , a growing concern in any way . It's certainly not Minneapolis . It's a pretty cool place and if I'm up there again , I will certainly drive by and , you know , maybe throw a few dollars in the casino . Oh , and , by the way , I will stop after this , I promise .
Speaker 1The White Earth Nation is famous for growing wild rice . Oh , yes , oh , so good . They do grow that in Lake Lomond and in the Virens . Their reservation is quite large . But , yes , wild rice and if you're not familiar with what wild rice is , listener , wild rice has nothing at all to do with rice . No , it is a substitute for rice , but it's basically the seeds of a grass that's native to North America .
Speaker 2And it's grass that grows in like marshlands . It grows in the water and if you've never had chicken and wild rice soup , it's so good . Here in Minnesota we have wild rice burgers . I mean , it's delicious , it is so good .
Speaker 1It's definitely a Minnesota thing , but it is really good and it's actually better for you than white rice , and the reason they call it that is it kind of sort of looks like rice , but it also grows in the water , which is a rice thing . So that is Bagley , minnesota . Wow , and I didn't have to dig deep for that . That was fairly easy because it's a cool place .
Speaker 2So this is a podcast guided by geocaching . I'm going to have you guys guess I'm going to have you guys guess I'm going to pull up the map for all these . Okay , yeah , how many geocaches would you guess are in Bagley proper ? Not outside , but actually in town . I'm going to say five , I'm going to say 15 . Okay , the answer is three . Three , however , get this , jeff .
Speaker 2Two of them are in the city park that you mentioned the very first thing , you mentioned the place that I slept , yeah , and then the other one is on it . This get this . This is cool . So if you're looking for adventure , the other one is on lake lamont , on an island , and it's called . It's called lake lamont kayak island adventure . So that's a kayak and you go to this island and you find a geocache .
Speaker 3You wave to the beautiful loons and , and , and and to green jenny as she tries to flip your you have that problem too .
Speaker 3I'll stay away from green , jenny , but uh , but if you're , if you're a listener out there and you know a little bit about geocaching , but not as much um the . Probably the reason why as well is that there's not actual a geocacher player in that town , because in order to hide a cache , you have to be in a certain vicinity in order to keep up maintenance . So you can't hide a cache as you're passing through a town , for instance , unless it's a virtual or a earth cache . That's the only two . So , and there are three traditionals . Are there , josh ? Just traditionals .
Speaker 2There is one multi and two traditionals . Oh nice , Nice .
Speaker 3Oh , that's worth it , then that's worth it too . So , and if you're into the paranormal , by the sounds of it too , because I do watch a few paranormal stuff , youtube stuff as well too . So van life , van life and paranormal hand in hand for some reason . I don't know why .
Speaker 1I wasn't going to mention this , but nearby to bagley there is the hundred , the haunted hundred acre woods , oh , which some tiktokers have been presenting as a real thing . But it's actually a halloween attraction where you go into the woods and stuff jumps at you and stuff . So , uh , oh I'm sure josh can attest to this if you've been in the minnesota woods at night alone . You really don't need any paranormal stuff . You can go to the Ojibwe um traditions of the Wendigo or the Wendigo , however you want to say it , and stuff like that . That's where that stuff is from . Uh , but yeah , no , it's , it's creepy enough .
Speaker 2When you're camping up there , it just you hear stuff . I mean you hear the bear , the bear situation . It just it creeps , it freaks me out . It's , it's , it's wild . Uh , literally it's wild . And can I say one more thing before we move on from ? Bagley is jeff . I'm so glad you started with our state bird , the common loon , because they are the most fascinating birds .
Speaker 2They really really are . And each you know we have 10,000 lakes , which actually we have way more than that . Yeah , you do . And every get this Craig , every lake , almost every lake , just has two . It just has two loons . It's like their lake . Oh really , it's fascinating A male and a female two of them , and that's it .
Speaker 3What happens when they breed ? Where do ?
Speaker 2Well , the babies all show up . Yeah , the babies show up , and then they fly and find another lake .
Speaker 3And find another lake . So if there's 10,000 lakes , that means there's 20,000 loons . That's it . There can't be any more loons than 20,000 loons . Tough math there , Well here's the .
Speaker 1Thing .
Speaker 2A lot of baby loons . Don't make it , because the eagles will swoop down and they will get the babies . Yeah , yeah , no , that's fine .
Speaker 1And you know if you've ever been to an airport there's like one plane on the runway at a time . I think it's similar to that with these loons . Because if there were several loons on the lake . They'd be smashing into each other as they were trying to take off .
Speaker 3They got little landing lights and everything on the lake their eyes . I like it . I like it , Jeff . We we want to go for the hard one or do we want to go for the easy one ?
Speaker 2Well , let's just go down and then maybe , when he's done explaining it and convincing us that it's not a boring place , we can decide if that was the hard one .
Speaker 3The easier or hard one the easier or hard one that makes sense . In that case , then we're going to go to New Hampshire , and this time I wanted to have . This name was made and it's in sandwich New Hampshire .
Speaker 2I like the name . I like the name . I had to pick a name . I'm really curious about the name . I've not done any research on this . So , Jeff , that's your job .
Speaker 1So , as it happens , you picked a place that's my home . What I mean ? I grew up in that area . I grew up in Salem Massachusetts , but Salem Massachusetts considers New Hampshire . We would say New Hampshire . So actually , craig is not far off of the pronunciation that we would use . I mean , I used to have the Boston accent . I've messed it up now but we would call it New Hampshire or we would call it Cow Hampshire , because growing up in the 70s , that's all that was up there .
Speaker 1Like if you saw cows , you were like , oh , we crossed the border into New Hampshire , but that said it was our summer playground and I can't say the word on the podcast because I believe you do not have an explicit tag . Yeah , now we don't . But the first word is mass , relating to Massachusetts , and the second word is if you take a shovel and dig in the ground and if you put those two together , that's who we were from Massachusetts coming up to New Hampshire in the in the summers . So we spent a lot of time there , uh , and I did summer camp up there and everything . However , uh sandwich is fascinating because it has a direct relationship to Hawaii . Not only Hawaii , it has a direct relationship to a number of islands in the deep South Atlantic , just North of the Antarctic circle , and do you know what that connection is ?
Speaker 3Everyone eats sandwiches . I don't know .
Speaker 1You are closer than you might think Really . Wow , is it the ?
Speaker 3spam . Is it the spam ? You can put spam on your sandwich , oh really , wow , is it the spam ? Is it the spam ?
Speaker 1You can put spam on your sandwich . This is a good point , but no , it's actually far longer than that , because when Hawaii was quote unquote discovered by Captain Cook , he owed a favor to the Lord of the Admiralty in England , and that was Lord Sandwich . Yes , and this man supposedly invented the actual sandwich . The legend is that he there was some leftover meat and he just wanted lunch and he asked his butler or someone to just bring me a couple of pieces
Sandwich, New Hampshire: On Golden Pond & More
Speaker 1of bread to put that on there , and that's where the sandwich came from , apparently . Who knows , however ? Sandwich Mass , oh , not Sandwich Mass , sorry , wrong story , that's a different story . Put that on there and that's where the sandwich came from , apparently . Who knows , however ? Sandwich mass , oh , not sandwich mass , sorry , wrong story , that's a different story .
Speaker 1Sandwich new hampshire I happen to be going to sandwich mass in a few months . That's why it's in my head sandwich new hampshire um is actually named for the same reason that the cook islands . I'm not I hope you guys can edit this the sandwich islands , which later became the Hawaiian Islands . Actually they were the Hawaiian Islands first and then they were renamed the Sandwich Islands and then they became the Hawaiian Islands again when we came to our senses . Named after the same person fourth Earl of Sandwich , I think , was his official title and he was the Lord of the Admiralty and that's why people owed him allegiance .
Speaker 1Now you probably realize that Captain Cook did not visit New Hampshire . So what's going on there ? Well , they were cutting up land and giving it out willy-nilly and if you've ever been to New England you realize it's named like old England . A lot of places in New England have their counterparts in England and Sand , new hampshire , uh , was basically given to the sandwiches the lords of the sandwich , that are all of sandwiches and it was just big , useless piece of land and they just said here's , here it is , and it's one of the biggest parcels in new hampshire given to somebody like that . The weird thing is , if you look at a picture of the city and it's it's drawing of the city , like the outline of the city on a map . It's shaped like a sandwich . It's shaped like a sandwich with like a bite taken out of it and it's just a coincidence , but it's a little weird , yeah so so there's that going for it , but actually there's a ton going on here .
Speaker 1I was so excited to see this because this is first off , it's absolutely beautiful . Nothing against Minnesota . I love Minnesota , but new England is where I'm from . It is home to me , and one of the things I love about new England is it's biodiversity .
Speaker 1These woods in New Hampshire , when you go through this part , you are surrounded not by , you know , as in the Pacific Northwest , you're surrounded by 600 Douglas firs and a couple of redwoods . No , you have 300 different species of trees all around you . There's beech and hornbeam and oak and birch and elderberry and on , and on , and on and on . And growing up as a kid , I learned all these tree identifications and then , as I traveled around the country , I was like what is up with these forests everywhere ? There's nothing in here except one species .
Speaker 1And that's actually true . It's how the country , the country's natural history , formed . So New England has an incredible amount of biodiversity , especially in this area , because it's far enough south not to get up into the colder regions that kill off a lot of species . Like Vermont doesn't have quite the biodiversity that New Hampshire does . That said , the big thing in Sandwich that everyone goes there for because it's a tourist attraction is Squam Lake , s-q-u-a-m Lake . It is Squam Lake S-Q-U-A-M Lake and if you're a movie buff you have probably seen Squam Lake because it is where they filmed on Golden Pond .
Speaker 2It's a 1981 movie with Jane and Henry Fonda and Dabney Coleman too .
Speaker 1Yeah , a whole bunch of famous folks . Weirdly , I was camping on the lake next door which is Lake Winnipesaukee , which is the biggest lake in that huge tourist area . Lake Winnipesaukee , and some of the people that I was camping with went on a field trip and actually bumped into Jane Fonda as she was filming this movie , that's how old I am .
Speaker 1However , squam Lake is a huge , huge tourist attraction . So this place , even though its population is only 1,466 people , if you go there on , say , july 4th , there's 10,000 people there . It's quite popular . Now , all that said , what else would you go there to see ? I mean , okay , there's water , there's woods , there's camping and stuff . Well , it has a little bit of an interesting history . There have been some famous people from this tiny little place that no one's heard of , unless you're from New England . One of them was John Wentworth , who was the mayor of Chicago in the late 1800s . I've never heard of him and I live in Chicago , but he's supposedly a famous person . The more famous person is Claude Rains . Who's Claude Rains ? Well , if you're a movie buff , you know that he was in the movie casablanca and he is the cop who said round up the usual suspects , that guy , who's supposed to be french , is from sandwich , new hampshire . Wow , it gets a little weirder than that , though . There's somebody else who's there and and do you guys know the show ? That's incredible .
Speaker 2I've heard of it .
Speaker 1Okay , so you guys are a little younger . All right , you're a bit younger than me .
Speaker 1That's incredible . It was a big show that was on in the eighties and late seventies and it was just incredible stuff . It was a magazine style show where this week on that's incredible We'll have a dolphin who can sing baritone and , you know , here's a man who can drink an entire two quarts of beer in one gulp . That was actually a real thing , um , and they would just do this stuff on the show . And , uh , the host of that show was a man by the name of John Davidson , who was also the host of the a hundred thousand dollar pyramid , which was a big game show in the seventies , and he was in Edward scissorhands of all things .
Speaker 1That guy's still alive . He's 83 years old and he bought an old barn and sandwich and he filled it up with couches and a stage and he's like hey , seven o'clock , everyone bring some food and beer and we're going to do stuff on the stage and called club sandwich . He's been doing it for years . You just go and you hang out with this tv star guy . Wow , sadly this is his last year . He just announced he's turning 83 , he's old , he's sick of it . So if you want to do that , this is your summer you can go to the website . Just look up club sandwich , you'll find it wow , go to the website and you you can
Speaker 1actually just go and sit an old couch and have some live . That's incredible . And uh , he's also a musician too , but as many of these musicians go , his career point other directions , but anyway there's that . There's also the chapman sanctuary in visney woods , v-i-s-n-y , visney , and that is just a beautiful recreation area with lots of hiking and you can do it in the winter , you can do it in the summer . It's famous for its bird watching . This is a migratory route through there , like much of Minnesota , and it's wonderful .
Speaker 1Now they also have the Sandwich Fair , which was a fair that had been going on since 1887 . Apparently , in 1886 , somebody had a lot of cows and they were like , I want to show my cows off , and some guy just like brought all his cows out and people came and looked that's a nice cow , you got there and then that became a tradition and that's been going on since 1887 . So it's an actual , it's a whole fair , nothing like the Minnesota State Fair which I went to and it scared me because there were so many people , nothing like that , but a very quaint , nice , quiet little new england fair where there's crafts and things , and that is a really nice thing , and that is in october , and why that matters is because the first week in october is the peak foliage season in new england . Lots of places have pretty foliage in the fall . But remember that biodiversity I mentioned .
Speaker 1That's what makes New England the best place on earth for fall foliage , because there are so many different colors mixed together . You don't like if you go to say , utah in the fall you get these big swaths of yellow because the aspens are turning , and if you go to the Pacific Northwest it doesn't change because all they really have is conifers . But New England you get I used to call it um . There's this one spot in Vermont I drive through and it looked like you were driving into a bowl of Froot Loops , and Squam Lake will offer you that , so you can go to the fair and you can just be surrounded by color and it it's yeah , it by color and it it's .
Speaker 3Yeah , this was the easy one . I'm sorry I have to it's obvious .
Speaker 1Now , you guys know this is the easy one , but , um , but it it's , it's , uh , it's a really cool place and it made me nostalgic and I thank you for making me do that one because , uh , lots of cool stuff there . Oh , another , another one a famous astronomer by the name of adelaide Adams , a female astronomer in the 1930s . Her canoe tipped over in the lake and she died .
Speaker 2Oh , wow .
Speaker 1So , but like even then , in the 1930s this was a very popular tourist attraction place .
Speaker 3So anyway , love it and I love all of New England . Is that haunted now as well ? I'm sure the astronomer from the lake I'm sure's strong like she , comes out to the stars every single night I do have a haunted story about squam lake and it's personal .
Speaker 1um , you , you have probably heard of stephen king , yeah , um , and you have maybe heard of his book and several tv series and movies called the mist . Now , that's set in Maine , obviously , but my grandmother used to , way way back in the day , work at these big summer lodges . She was a waitress and you know she'd live at the lodge all summer and she said that one day on Squam Lake she woke up and they couldn't see anything . This mist had taken over everything . This super thick mist , taken over everything , this super thick mist . And when she read Stephen King's the Mist , she knew exactly what he was talking about , because that phenomenon of that unbelievably heavy mist is actually a real New England thing . The stuff that happens in that mist , not so much .
Speaker 2Very good . Okay , craig , we need to react . Well done , well done , jeff . Yeah , that , um , I'm convinced . Okay . Now , when I look at the map , I mean it's clear , this is just a beautiful area , oh yeah , especially for nature . So , and craig , I'm you know you haven't seen . As you know , craig doesn't watch as many movies as I do . I love , I love a good movie location . Yeah , true , especially when you live in a van . You got Dan the movie on golden pond , oh yeah , is the when you watch it ? There's , it's the . It's not a lot goes on , okay , but first of all it's a masterclass in acting Henry . Not a lot goes on , okay , but first of all it's a master class in acting Henry Fonda . It is his last performance and I believe he won the Oscar for this performance . And so all-star acting , amazing acting . But the lake , the lake and the cat it's a character .
Speaker 2It's a part of the movie , it's a character of the movie . You look at that and you're like , oh my God , this place is as close to heaven as you can imagine when you just look at this beautiful area , this beautiful lake . So when you said on Golden Pond , jeff , I was like , oh my , this is heaven , this is beautiful .
Speaker 3No , it's Iowa Just saying .
Speaker 1To be fair , some of it was on . They filmed some of it on Lake Winnipesaukee , but most of it was filmed on Squam Lake , because Lake Winnipesaukee is the true huge tourist area of the region and Squam Lake is kind of its quieter cousin . So the people who don't want to go to the world's largest arcade , which is in um where's beach , which is in Laconia , next to Lake Winnipesaukee , um , who just want to actually be out in nature and on the pond which isn't a pond , it's pretty big this is the place they would go and that's why they chose it to film on Golden Pond . So , yeah , add that to your list there . Josh and Craig , both of you I have the sense that Josh needs to do more traveling . I don't know .
Speaker 2Yeah , he does Well , so you can believe , I've never been to new hampshire .
Speaker 2it's one of those states that have . I've not been yet . I have to do a trip the northeastern trip to that , and here's the thing I'm gonna say . One more thing I want to react to . This is like I I did look up the uh , the club club sandwich . I looked it up and I'm like totally unexpected . When you see this place on the map , you wouldn't believe that there's . It's like a nightclub , yeah , like there's folks . It looks like a kind of a folks singer sort of place . So it's really cool . Yep , um craig , do you have any reactions to sandwich ?
Speaker 3absolutely and , by the sounds of it , yeah , october is the place to , to the time to visit . Yes , it'll be busy , but you , I'm sure you'll be finding places there all over the place , even when you're just driving through the hills and the winding roads and stuff as well , and you see all the actual foliage . To me , it's all about the colors , the colors and the foliage . So and yes , josh , I too , I'm missing two states , and they are Maine and New . Hampshire .
Speaker 2Dude , we got to make a trip , we got to like , even if it's just a long weekend we got to , we got to do it .
Speaker 3There's my two states .
Speaker 1I'm missing , so fly into Manchester , new Hampshire , manchester I get my accents a mess Manchester , new Hampshire , rent a car , whatever , and take Route 93 up . Well , I mean , there's a bunch of ways to go . You're going to go to Vermont too , because I'm demanding it , but you want to go up Route 93 into Vermont to Dartmouth , where Dartmouth College is , hanover , new Hampshire , it's right on the border . And then you're going to take what's called the airline across the entire state of Maine and you're going to end up in Calais or Bangor and then you can go see Stephen King's house . But it is , it's absolutely gorgeous . It's a totally different part of the of the country that it really . I mean , we are very fortunate to live in the United States in the sense that this country has so much variety . I mean , if you compare Miami to , you know , seattle , iattle I mean just just the big cities , but they're so very different and everything in between . Anyway , lots to see and do out there , absolutely so do we ?
Speaker 2we're going to do our geocache prediction , is there ? What are the ? What are the number of geocaches in sandwich proper ?
Speaker 3okay , you go first this time , Jeff , because I'm looking at the map and it is a big area . It's a big area but it's mostly woods , yeah , but then again , geocachers love woods , you see , that's the thing , and I don't know how many people actually live there in terms of geocachers live there .
Speaker 1The more geocachers that live in there . I'm going to stick with 15 . It's a nice round number . I like it See .
Speaker 3I'm going up to the 100 mark for this one .
Speaker 2Whoa In sandwich proper in the town I'm talking about oh in the town , oh in the town . In the proper within city limits .
Speaker 1Yes , which does include a lot of woods , for what it's worth I mean it's big- I'm going two then , if that's the case , I'm basically 15 .
Speaker 2Yeah , well it's . It's hard to tell where the where the line for the city is if you look at sandwich , if you zoom in , so there's like north sandwich east sandwich there's center sandwich . There's a lot of sandwiches , sandwich landing , but if you zoom in on sandwich it doesn't .
Speaker 2There's zero , zero geocaches wow , in the town proper yeah , there is a little lake outside of sandwich that has one called little . It's not a lake , it ? Yeah , there's a little lake outside of Sandwich that has one called Little . It's not a lake , it's a pond . It's called Little Pond . Laughing Trout Pond is the name of the geocache . There's one , I'm guessing . I'll count that there's one , however , because it's just woods , woods , woods everywhere the place , everything outside of it . There's hundreds of geocaches all around , in all the woods around there , but sandwich proper , there's one One , wow .
Speaker 3One in sandwich proper .
Speaker 1And again , like you said , you can't just travel around the country creating geocaches .
Speaker 3You have to tend it and there's only 1,466 people there . That's right . So the percentage of geocaches compared to muggles is quite low . Yeah , there's lots of muggles . Exactly , and I love how .
Speaker 1Josh , I love how Jeff knows all that terminology too .
Speaker 3Jeff , have you actually found a geocache or two ? How many ?
Speaker 1Oh yeah , no , I've found tons . I used to do it quite a bit . Sanibel Island , I think I found well , there's so many on Sanibel , but I at least 40 of them , which is a large number . It's dozens of them , and now they're all gone .
Speaker 3The hurricane that whole island is completely different now , and I found one on my property in vermont um .
Speaker 1We had six acres up in richmond vermont and there was a guardrail . It was it's very hilly and it was at the top of the hill and in the guardrail I found a geocache that I didn't put there .
Speaker 2It's pretty common . That's a pretty common place to hide .
Speaker 3And there's another one near my other property too Normally sometimes , and I'm not a fan of this as well , but when people attach them to fence lines as well , I'm not a fan of the fence line hides because that is the person's property , so I'm not a fan of that .
Speaker 1Yeah , I was okay with it . You know , like I don't want people traipsing through my property all the time , no , no , but where this was ? I allowed it , but I never found the owner . I never figured out who it was .
Speaker 3All right . Now , Josh , we're going to go to the hard one .
Speaker 2Most difficult .
Speaker 3Most difficult . And that did Jeff . That did sound quite easy for you . You had a lot of information to it . We're now going across to Oregon , and in Oregon would you class it as a unity in Oregon ?
Speaker 2Unity Unity .
Speaker 3Oregon .
Speaker 1I have to ask you why you picked Unity Oregon .
Speaker 2I like the name . I wanted to pick one out in the West , I wanted to pick one in the middle , I wanted to pick East . So I love Oregon , I just love Oregon in general . And yeah , I did do kind of a Google search of like boring cities and Unity did actually come up .
Speaker 1That's how you get to Oregon , right , because there's boring Oregon , which is home to the Sasquatch Research Center , so it's anything but boring . Yeah , so I , boring oregon , which is home to the sasquatch research center , so it's anything but boring . Yeah , so I I didn't pick boring or a goal that would have been for that reason , yeah , it was too easy , too easy . So , uh , unity is an interesting place because they all are , and I , after we're done , I will explain how all places
Unity, Oregon: The Town That Almost Wasn't
Speaker 1are interesting and how you can find the interest . But , um , unity was settled by ranchers . Um , people have been people . We have this issue here where people somehow , throughout american history , only means european immigrants . People have lived here for thousands of years , but the european immigrants started settling in the area in the 1850s . In fact , there's a sod house in some guy's backyard that dates back to like 1848 and if you you're not familiar with sod houses , they're just what they sound like . It's a house made out of sod with a roof . It's got a wooden roof , but the side it's built out of sod because that's all they had to build out of . If you've seen the movie Dances with Wolves , there's a prominent sod house in the features in the story . But there's one of those in Unity and it's not an historical mark or anything , it's just the guy's backyard . He uses it as a storage shed and that sets the tone for Unity .
Speaker 1Unity has a really weird history in that even though they got a post office in 1891 , they didn't have a town . Got a post office in 1891 , they didn't have a town , nobody actually bothered to make borders or say this is the town or come up with this plat or anything . Yeah , nobody really cared , they were just getting along their business . But then they cared and it was for a specific reason and it was a 1972 . That's when unity Oregon became a , an official place , not just unincorporated , and the reason is they needed their water main fixed and they couldn't get a grant unless they were in official place . So the 75 people who lived there went through the process of creating a town council and getting a mayor and becoming a town and thus unity Oregon was born and they got their grant and they put in the water and everybody quit their jobs the police force , which was like one old guy on a Harley or something . He resigned and then the county had to take over , like it always had , and I've never heard that story before . A town of convenience , a town created just to get public money . But that's what happened in Unity . But that doesn't mean the town doesn't have an identity .
Speaker 1People have lived there for a long time and this was a difficult place to find information on because they don't have the history that most towns have , in that it's not written down . Most towns have an historian or somebody . There's usually a museum in these little towns . There's one in Sandwich , there's one in the county near Bagley and there's one in the county near . Where are we Unity ? Yes , I forgot where we were . That's how I am In Unity as well , but there just wasn't anything written down because there was no official anything . No one was even recording whose land was whose . It was like when the shotgun comes out , you know you're off , you're landed on somebody else's land , ranching community . But also , what brought everybody there ? Why they were there is because there was a massive sawmill , because they were cutting down all the trees , similar to Minnesota .
Speaker 1Now , if you look at pictures of the air of the region now , unity has no trees except where people planted them . So there's this downtown with trees and then there's no trees anywhere around it . Now , a lot of people who haven't spent a lot of time in Oregon think of Oregon as gigantic trees or they think of Cannon Beach with the big rocks in the water . This is the Idaho part of Oregon . This is Western Oregon , completely different from Eastern Oregon . You've got the Cascades that go down the middle and they separate the state completely and utterly . Different landscape , different geology , different politics , different everything . And unity is on the Idaho side . The people who live there are very proud of their heritage .
Speaker 1I , the way I researched unity was different than I did the rest . I went on YouTube . Okay , I went on YouTube and typed in unity Oregon , partially because YouTube search engine is easier to use now than Google , because Google wants to add context to every single thing you type . And so I type in Unity Oregon and it's bringing up restaurants in Chicago . I don't want that , I want some . You know they're always trying to . Oh , he must . He lives in Chicago , he must want Chicago .
Speaker 2No , why would he want to know about Unity ? That's right .
Speaker 1It's a boring town ? Yeah , anyway , so it is not , though there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here . First off , some of that stuff was time-based . In 2017 , a really interesting , significant thing happened in Unity . It happened in a lot of places , but it was pretty cool in unity . Any idea what that was 2017 ? 2017 , oh 2017 in unity and many other places , but starting in unity and then going somewhere else , oh wow , you have me stumped for just a few minutes oh oh , the eclipse .
Speaker 1Yes , unity is right on the path of the totality . Oh , very cool , yeah , and being so rural , it was an amazing place to see it . I've watched the photos that people took and the way it's situated . You can see mountains in the distance and then there's big flat fields in front and bird watchers were there and they knew that the totality was going to be there and they watched the birds just freak out .
Speaker 1I don't know where you guys were for this , I craig , I don't even think you were in the country . No , I was in australia , but , um , if you got a chance to see , it was amazing because everything turned to night and the animals were like what ? And all the birds that sing in the night started singing in unity . You know ? And and for a lot of people who are the lifers you know they're doing the life lists for all their birds they got to see birds . They couldn't see any other way because these birds come out at night so it's difficult to see them , but this was an occasion where it was only night for three minutes , so the birds came out and there's the bird right down on my list , I mean , you know .
Speaker 2You know what ? I wonder if it sounded like this it did not .
Speaker 1I believe it was a warbler of some sort . You guys have a kinship with the birders , because they're just doing geocaches that fly around .
Speaker 2This is true .
Speaker 3If you ever see the movie the Big Year , I love that movie I've watched that movie .
Speaker 2I'm'm like these are geocachers that are . They're finding birds that are great like movie .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's great . Same concept , absolutely . Also . There's some other cool stuff to see there . I'm a big fan of the video game firewatch . If you have never played that , firewatch is . I've played it several times now . There's just something about the vibe , but the story of the game it's . It's a walking simulator , if you're familiar with that term , but the story is that you're a guy who's had some rough times in life and you're just gonna go do a job at a fire tower for a few months and sort your shit out .
Speaker 3I said shit sort your stuff out . That's right .
Speaker 1Fixture in it there and then , um , and then stuff happens and and you spend all your time in this fire tower , and so I'm really that that aesthetic of the fire tower and the solitude and yet being able to see the whole world , seeing just how alone you are because you can see everywhere and there's nobody there that that whole vibe is present in Unity because they have one of those fire towers and it's huge . They've got this gigantic , tall fire tower . It was built in the 1930s by the CCC and it's next to a ranger station called , not surprisingly , the Unity Ranger Station and it's in this Cascadian rustic style which is a particular kind of architecture . Timberline Lodge , if you've ever been there on Mount Hood in Government Camp Oregon , where the shining exteriors were filmed for the movie , is also this style . It's a little different . They borrow some arts and crafts stuff , but it doesn't matter , it's similar , it's a regional style that's well worth seeing and the ranger station's open and you can go inside and visit and you can stay overnight there . Huh , so you can stay overnight in this old ranger station , but I was not able to get clear information as to whether they'd let you stay in the fire tower or not , because there are fire watch towers in the country that you can rent , and that's a cool thing . They also have a really cool Grange Hall there rent , and that's a cool thing . They also have a really cool Grange Hall there .
Speaker 1It's a . It's a very big building . It's probably the biggest building in town and it has this unusual round roof that is . I'd never seen a roof like this . In Chicago . We have a lot of buildings with round roofs , like an airplane hangar . This is different . The curve it describes is not uniform . The curve it describes is not uniform . The math of the curve would require some pretty advanced calculus to do , and yet they chose that as an architectural style for this building , and what I'm trying to say here is that Unity is a great place for photographers .
Speaker 1There's lots of really interesting things that you can see there . Now a couple other quick things . It has some weird names . There are two rivers that meet in the town , which is probably the real reason people were ever there . It's because there's water . That's always , you know , if you go back far enough in time , there's water in a place Except Birmingham , alabama . That's a whole other story , but it is Birmingham's got a weird history in that . However , we're not talking . The rivers are named Burnt River , burnt River and Jobe River .
Speaker 1Now , burnt River is a fairly large river in the region . It goes through a lot of different towns and no one's really sure why it's called that . One theory is that the rocks on the side of the river look burnt , because this is a very geologically complex part of the country . There's lots of volcanic activity and yet also lots of sedimentary rocks , so it's like a salad of geology . So have I have seen these rocks ? When I went to plush , oregon , on the road to plush , I saw these rocks and they do . They look like they're burnt rocks , so that could be it . The other idea is that , well , this is forest country and whoever named it got there right after a forest fire , and so it was the river flowing through the burnt forest .
Speaker 1We don't know , because nobody was there to write stuff down and they just didn't even care enough to have a town , nevermind write down stuff like that Job river . Uh , nobody knows . But why would you name a river Job ? I mean , there's the river Jordan in Salt Lake City . That's not too hard to figure out . But Job and I'm thinking someone had some really tough times , yes , getting there or living there , and then they wanted to preserve their faith . So they looked to Job , the most tested man in the Bible . This is true , and I don't even I'm not a big Bible person myself , I'm not a religious person , but I know Joe pretty well . Yeah and uh , that's the only reason I can think of they would have . Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , Joe got sick . His kids all died .
Speaker 1I think his wife , wife , wives died Uh yeah , I think at the end , just before the end , he's sitting on a dung heap covered with sores . I think that was the denouement of the story before . Well , you'll have to read it for yourself . But yeah , and that's all I can figure . So currently the area it's almost classified a ghost town . It's not quite because people still live there , but if you look on some lists of ghost towns in Oregon it will come up occasionally , not entirely accurate . It's also still a tourist attraction . People go there for amazing hunting and fishing . So this little town of oh , I left out the best part . Okay , why is it called Unity ? Why ? Because the ranchers did not get along with each other . That's not an uncommon thing among ranchers , you know , their fences are always falling down and their stock is crossing lines . But they needed a post office and they got together and they were anticipating oh , we're going to fight over it . It's got to be the Wilson post office , because my ranch is the biggest and Wilson's have lived here for 30 years .
Speaker 1Well , no , I think McCracken's have the claim to that . After all , we have the best property . Whatever the argument was , they all got down and some old woman in town who was there just to record the minutes of the meeting or something , said you should just call it unity , because for once you've all come together . Oh , and they were like yep , the end Boom unity is born .
Speaker 2Wow , I declare thee unity .
Speaker 1The end Boom , unity is born . Wow , I declare the unity . Exactly right , that was pretty much how it came .
Speaker 2Yeah , in that accent .
Speaker 1Yeah , Pretty practical ranchers . You know they were just like we got a name . Everyone agrees , All right , see ya , you know time to go .
Speaker 3Meeting's over . Exactly , I want to get back to my farm , my ranch .
Speaker 2Josh , what are you thinking ? What's your takeaways from that ? Well , you know the one thing he really , really struck me when he was describing Unity it has a population of 43 people , and you know what he said they're proud of Unity . Oh yeah , they're proud of their town . And you know what ? That's a damn rare thing these days .
Speaker 3Yeah , see , jeff , he's still going on with this . He said this when you were on last time as well . He's still every episode . He's got to get this in . Yeah Well , it's true . I mean , I've lived all over the country .
Speaker 1I mean , I live in Chicago . I like Chicago , I have a lot of good things to say about Chicago , but I'm not proud of living in Chicago . It doesn't make any sense to me . I and I really felt privileged to live there and I grew up in Salem , massachusetts , which is , you know , tons and tons of history , and I am thankful that I got to have that experience . But it's different than pride . I don't know . Pride is a tough word for me . Yeah , yeah exactly , josh .
Speaker 3How about we do this as well , because I'm looking at the time . How about we can ? No , you , you know , not at all , jeff , not at all . How about , josh ? Though we we can end this recording now , and then we're going to ask jeff a golden nugget for our patrons about what to look for in a boring town . What do you think josh do ?
Speaker 2you like that just ?
Speaker 3for patients , just for our patrons yeah yeah , can I say ?
Speaker 2one more thing about unity . Of course you just moved on how many catches done , I wasn't .
Speaker 3Oh yeah , oh yeah oh , you weren't gonna say that , yes , yes yes , no guess I'm saying zero . I'm saying zero in unity that is incorrect . There is one no , that's how many there's one .
Speaker 2It's right on the lake . Right on the lake . It is within the town , town limits . Uh , it is called just just a minute , I've got to pull it up again it is called in Unity . There's one right on the river , just outside of town , but it is called the View of the Dam . So there must be a dam .
Speaker 1Yeah , and they right , they dammed up the Jobe Creek . They dug it out to make a Jobe River . Actually , a bunch of Chinamen , as they called them back then , came in and dug out the river to make it deeper and then they dammed that up and that's where the reservoir is . So , um , but yes , that makes that's . That's right . I've seen pictures of it . That makes perfect sense , that's yeah that's where the cash would be . There you go , and so here's another thing I learned through this .
Speaker 2I hope , listeners , that you you're learning some things . I just learned a travel thing , craig and jeff and this whole idea . I I kind of got into this whole fire tower thing because I was like I want to , I want to see what oh yeah , me too totally . I mean , we got them here in minnesota , I mean fire towers .
Speaker 2I know , I know about fire towers . That's not what . That's not what I realized . The thing that's amazing I got onto the fire towers and what pulled up is all these Airbnb fire towers that you can sleep in these things , and it's like the picture , like it's imagine waking up in a fire tower , overlooking whatever you're looking at , and 360 degree views . Yes , of forest In the sky , I mean yeah . So that's something I might need to seek out is a fire tower , Airbnb or overnight location .
Speaker 1One note on that , though , and the van lifers will know about this the outhouse is at the bottom , yeah , so that morning when you wake up , you're going to be going down 80 stairs and then coming back up .
Speaker 2Yeah , and we know van lifers , because you know a lot of them break their ankles and they can't handle it .
Speaker 1We also have ways to compensate for things like that .
Speaker 3I'll just leave that right there .
Speaker 1Exactly , we have bottles , we have bottles Gatorade's a wonderful product In and out , in and out .
Speaker 2That's a different
Fire Tower Adventures & Final Thoughts
Speaker 2episode , all right .
Speaker 3Very good , very good , very good . Jeff , before we start to wind up , how can people see you ? Where can they hear you ? What's happening at the moment with you , mate ?
Speaker 1Well , if you want to listen to a podcast of me speaking very quickly about 8 million topics a week , you can find that at Built to Go , a van live podcast on all of your favorite podcast feeds . Most people listen on Spotify , but you know it's everywhere . I don't care where you listen and that's every week I will be there and it's at builttogocom . If you need to actually go to a URL , that's two .
Speaker 3Ts not one , Two Ts not three , not one , thank you . That's correct , thank you , I told you I listen see , yes , you do .
Speaker 2You know , Craig , we might need to get Jeff to do like a new voiceover intro for our podcast because he's got that down , he does .
Speaker 1It sounds good .
Speaker 2It sounds way better than I love to travel Exactly .
Speaker 3I will say one more thing , jeff as well . And this is so , jeff , you know our intro music , josh , and our outro music and all that sort of thing as well . I did that through , obviously , with the music , gods and stuff as well . Jeff has actually got his son to do his . Oh , that's cool . And , jeff , I'm telling you now , I started listening from the very first episode . You did I miss Sermouge , sermouge , sermouge , wow .
Speaker 1So , sermouge , I have two children , both of whom are adults now and both of whom are musicians . Fisher Wagg is my older son . He has released a few albums . You can find him on Bandcamp and things like that , and he's actually still performing in the Burlington Vermont area . He's got a new band called we're here to Kill .
Speaker 1There's a name um but simon simon um , simon wag , that's more of an electronic musician and he did all the music for built to go and you can actually see I think you can go to simonwagcom and see what he's up to . He got his degree in , uh , video game , sound design , wow and uh , you can find stuff there but his big thing . If you like the music that's on built to go , you can find a lot more of it if you look at look up sir moosh because you don't call him sir moosh anymore .
Speaker 3And I thought to myself that's because he's gotten older now and he's outgrown the sir moosh . He picked that when he was eight I remember because um as a as a christmas .
Speaker 1This my kids back around 2004, . I gave them all each their own website and custom domain name . I told them pick whatever you wanted , and that's what he picked Sermougecom . Sermouge . I like it . I like it . I don't know what it means .
Speaker 3But okay , well , next time you talk to him , tell him that one of your avid listeners misses Samoosh on your podcast , and you've got to bring back Samoosh . Not just Simon Wagg , you've got to bring back Samoosh as well . So , absolutely , thank you so much for being on the show , jeff . We do really appreciate you , mate and , as I said , you have been a very highly requested return guest as well . We very much appreciate your knowledge , your skills and your travel ability as well . Meanwhile , josh , we're going to record after this . Now for the patrons . We've got two new patrons , though before we go on , I've got to say we do . We do David Levine and DT Charlie Chari , dt Charlie .
Speaker 2Chari . It looks like Chari , unless you forgot the L , but it says DT Chari . But either way thank you so much for the two new patrons as well .
Speaker 3And if so , Josh , if people want to maybe get this golden nugget that Jeff's going to release to the patrons , only how can they do it ?
Speaker 2Well , if you've been enjoying our podcast , we really would appreciate your support . By supporting us , you help us create better content . Keep it free for everyone no commercials . We don't have any sponsors because we don't need them .
Speaker 3Same with Built to Go . Built to Go is the same . They don't have any sponsors . Love that , I do , it's great .
Speaker 2It's great , I love that . So please consider joining us at patreoncom backslash treasures of our town .
Speaker 3And Josh , how can people contact us if they want to contact us directly ?
Speaker 2Feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom , or you can follow us on Facebook , instagram , x and YouTube .
Speaker 3So that's it for our show today .
Speaker 2Please subscribe , rate and review on your favorite podcasting app and , as always , Josh may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing boring towns in the United States and beyond .
Speaker 3See you next time . Jeff , jeff , thank you so much , mate . Thank you , I appreciate you , appreciate you .
Speaker 1I'm just going to stop it now before he keeps going .
Speaker 2Stop it now .
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