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
Top Fun in San Diego on Signal's Island
A city this generous doesn’t just welcome you—it hands you a map and dares you to follow your curiosity. We land in San Diego on a points ticket, grab a budget Turo with unlimited miles, and set off to turn the weekend into a living treasure hunt built around a geocaching block party called “Signal’s Island.” From push-scootering through Balboa Park’s Spanish Revival plazas and the new Comic-Con Museum to logging Adventure Labs woven into art, gardens, and a towering zoo statue, the day unfolds with pace and purpose.
The coast ups the stakes. In La Jolla, a sunrise sea-kayak tour becomes a geology lesson as we bounce through surf, trace a fault line between limestone and harder rock, and make the call to skip churning cave mouths—then pivot to Sunny Jim Sea Cave via a hidden staircase inside a rock shop. That same spirit of play leads to a rare webcam cache on a tide-lashed pier and to a plate of ocean-fresh fish tacos at Duke’s, where the view is pure Pacific. Community fuels the journey: we swap stories at a beach bonfire welcome, run into TV producer Dave Barsky, and hear that Mike Rowe listened to our Dirty Jobs episode and loved it.
San Diego’s Navy roots open a pop-culture loop. We eat barbecue at the Kansas City Barbecue—the Top Gun bar where Goose pounded “Great Balls of Fire”—and later chase a virtual cache at the restored Top Gun House in Oceanside, complete with a Kawasaki out front for that Maverick shot. The block party itself delivers real activities: gadget caches tied to Adventure Labs, a coconut cream pie contest, path tag left-right-center, and costume flair worthy of Gilligan’s Island. Add an omakase-level meal at Sushi Ota and a CITO cleanup on Imperial Beach, and the weekend turns into a model for city adventures that blend exploration, service, and story.
Ready to build your own San Diego treasure map—packed with geocaches, sea caves, pop-culture stops, and unforgettable bites? Subscribe, share this episode with your travel crew, and leave a quick review to help more curious listeners find the show.
With the skipper to the millionaire Okay, okay, you got me going.
SPEAKER_01:Do 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_04: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_01:Guided by our love for location-based games like Geocaching, join us as we venture to some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.
SPEAKER_04:On today's episode, Josh, apparently you used to, not me, but you were stranded on Signals Island in sunny San Diego, California. Not necessarily a town, more of a city, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01:It's a city, but it's a great town as well. I mean we can use those words interchangeably. Town, city. It's a little bigger than a lot of the places we cover. Although, although, Craig, we covered Kansas City. True. I don't know how big Kansas City is. I would say it's probably about a million people. Can uh San Diego proper, a million people. So it's not it's not huge. It's actually smaller than Minneapolis. We're not where I'm from here.
SPEAKER_04:So it's funny when you say a million people because I mean there's only 20, 24, 25 million in Australia. That's it.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Yeah. There's some perspective right there. But before we get into my bucket list location that I spent this last weekend, and it's very fresh in my mind. I'm so excited to share it with this audience because this trip was very, very much guided by location-based gaming. And we'll get to that. But we gotta talk about our delays and upgrades.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, of course, of course.
SPEAKER_01:Delays and upgrades. So, Craig, let's start with the with the the unfortunate delays. What do you got going on, Craig? What's what's happening?
SPEAKER_04:Well, you want to start with my delay, Josh. My delay is literally a physical delay. And what I mean by that is I've done my lower back in again. I haven't done it since, oh, I'm gonna say six or seven years. And uh I woke up about five or six days ago now, and oh, what's that? Oh, I can't straighten my back properly. Oh, I can't walk properly. So yeah, I've had uh it's it's more of a muscle spasm rather than any chiropractic sort of work. So it is actually muscle spasm. Um, I do know the difference because I've had lots of back issues in the past with my work, and um, so all I'm doing basically now, Josh, is just trying to settle down a little bit, uh, take a couple of the uh muscle relaxant tablets here and there, and uh there you go, take it a bit easy.
SPEAKER_01:Take it a bit easy. And you what about you, mate? What's about you? Oh, my delays. Yeah, uh, things are pretty good. My only delay is that I am just so darn busy right now. Last last week I had a long weekend, and then you know, when you get a long weekend, you take PTO often. It doesn't make your work go any less, you just have to start making up for the time that you were away. So this this week was very, very busy, and I I got in to record this podcast just by the skin of my teeth. We were able to get it in, but man, these two weeks go by really fast, Craig. It's it feels like we just had an episode, and here we are again. And I love I enjoy recording this podcast. I love uh sharing our travel adventures, but it's a lot with the YouTube channel and work, yeah, and uh and also the the podcast as well. So mine is just like it's kind of boring, but I'm just very, very busy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, and and and with your type of work, Josh, as well. It's not like the type of work whereby, yeah, you know, you have a day off or whatever else, and work still goes on. No, no, no, you've got to catch up on the days you had off, too, don't you? So it's one of those sort of jobs.
SPEAKER_01:So yes, and today, and today I spent the day with 150 fifth graders. Oh, wow, wow. I led I led several dance parties. So today, today was a physical exhaustion sort of day, not as much as mental one, but it was a great day. But I am I am beat. I'm ready to, after we're done with this podcast, I'm ready to cook myself some dinner because I haven't even eaten yet today. So hopefully I can stay pretty focused. But that's that's my delay. What about your upgrade, Craig? What is your upgrade?
SPEAKER_04:My upgrade is that uh for the last probably a week and a half now or two weeks, um, I've stayed at an actual beautiful campground down here in the south of Alabama. And I thought to myself, well, I'm either gonna drive around every day and park in the local cracker barrel, park in the Bass Pro, park in another cracker barrel, park in an uh uh Walmart. Or Josh, I can pay up some money. It's like 35 bucks a night. That's all it is,$35 a night. And I've got full um control here in terms of my or my electrical my water. They've got free bathrooms here as well, so I can have my shower every single day. They've got free laundries here too. Oh wow so yeah, so there you go. I can get my laundry done too. So I've been spending the days, literally, Josh, spending the days just chilling a little bit in the van. And as I said, lucky for me though, that uh I had I had decided that a couple of weeks ago, and uh and then my back just went on me, and so I was you know, perfect. It's like, well, I don't have to be worried about it, I just literally stay here anyway. So that sounds setting down some roots, Josh, for a while.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that sounds absolutely lovely. And you know, if you go back and listen to our podcast, but the Gulf Shore, what a beautiful area. Oh, yeah. We've actually stayed uh in a kind of a it was a cabin, but it was a very nice cabin. But uh great places, I'm sure that campground's great, and it sounds like it totally is worth the$35 with everything you quit.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly, exactly. One more upgrade, Josh, and that is uh last weekend I had uh hosted a geocaching event uh here in in Alabama as well. And um it was gide USA. So uh I had all I had vegemite trials, so people had to have a slice of vegemite on their bread, or they they had Tim Tams, and and uh I had then had a trivia, an Australian trivia as well. Um surprise, surprise, Josh, there was one young lady. When I say young lady, I'm talking maybe 10, 11, 12 years of age, she knew almost everything about Australia as opposed to any of the adults. And I was like, wow, she really did shock me. She's she's really got a thing for Australia, and I didn't even know that. So she was she was really cool.
SPEAKER_01:And that was at the two Laura's house, that's what their caching name is, and they have the most incredible um fire setup, a bonfire setup. And you said that on the last episode, you said that they had they had improved it. What yeah, what was it like now?
SPEAKER_04:It's it's still the same, it's it's new and improved, so still the same setup, etc. But they're they're new pallets that are around, there's new spools that are there as well, and stuff like that too. So all the timbers all new around it. But Josh, it started to pour down rain, and there's no covers there. We all fit though at the back. Laura, she's got this uh big pool, above ground pool area, and there's a pool deck where you go up and walk on the pool deck, and the pool deck's all covered in. We all squashed in amongst the pool deck and spent the uh afternoon there nice and tight in amongst the pool deck. So that was really cool. So yeah, cool. Yeah, big shout out to Laura for hosting, uh, help hosting as well. So she did a good job too. So that's great. That's good stuff. My upgrade is well, you're gonna segue.
SPEAKER_01:This is a great segue. My upgrade was my whole last weekend in San Diego, and we are going to have a show where Craig, you're essentially going to be interviewing me and my experience in sunny San Diego. And first, before I say anything, Craig, I'll just say this. It's really kind of cool. People really connect us together now because there was certain many people that said when they saw me, they were like, Oh, Josh, it's so great to see you. Where, but where's your Aussie friend? So we are Robin to your Batman. Yeah, we are a duo. I don't know, you might be Batman. I may be Robin. No, no, no. I'm definitely not Batman. But um, so I'll just say this, Greg. You were missed on Signals Island, where we were stranded. And it's stranded in such the such a the best way. And I'm really excited to share because San Diego, California is certainly one of my bucket list locations. For years, I've been listening to another geocaching podcast, and I'm sure many people that are listening to this one have listened or heard before. It's one of the longest running podcasts in the world, is Podcacher, which is the home of uh Sunny and Sandy Podcacher. And uh San Diego is their home. And when when somebody lives there and they have a podcast, you hear about it a lot. Just like just like for you and I, like I live in Minneapolis, so you hear about Minneapolis a lot. And so I for years I've been listening to Podcacher, and I've just heard all the cool things about San Diego. And then I even told my friends, I was like, I'm going to San Diego for the weekend. And a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, that is maybe the one of the top five places I've ever visited in the world. So there was a lot of anticipation, a lot of excitement around visiting visiting San Diego.
SPEAKER_04:When it comes to California in general as well, there's a lot of you know, uh there's a lot of hype about LA or um or or what do you call it, the one up top north from that um uh Sacramento? No, it's Sacramento, but there's uh the bridge. What do you call it? Uh uh San Francisco. San Francisco, San Francisco. Bingo. Um there, they're the ones. So there's a lot of talk about all that, uh, and that's very popular. But I find personally, Josh, that there's that's a lot. There's a lot of traffic in LA, for instance. There's a a lot of other things happening in San Diego. I lost it again.
SPEAKER_03:No, the other one. Oh, San Francisco. San Francisco, yes, I lost it again.
SPEAKER_04:See, there's a reason why it's I'm deleting it in my head for some reason. Um there's a lot of other issues in San Francisco as well, but I haven't heard any drama or any problems with San Diego down south. And so uh I'm really looking forward to it. And one thing I will say, Josh, is uh as you know, I follow you on all your social medias, and uh one thing I do love is is your Instagram uh stories, Josh. Whenever I see you go away and you do you do your Instagram stories very well. So when you talk about these things now, I'm gonna sort of close my eyes and picture those things that you showed in your Instagram stories as well.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, my Instagram stories were in full effect because I saw and did so many cool things. I really tried to pack in as much as I could into those into those four days. And I'll just say our good old friend, ChatGPT, came in strong again for the win because I'd never been there before. I didn't know a whole lot about it. And so I fed it um a prompt that said, okay, I'm gonna be from San Diego from this time to this time. And then I plugged in all the geocaching events I wanted to go to. I plugged in all the times. I said, I have to go to these geocaching events and be there for that time. But ChatGPT, if you were me and you were never gonna have the opportunity to visit San Diego again, create me an itinerary Thursday through Sunday of all the things and all the places and all the things I should eat and what and do. And I didn't follow it to a T, but uh Craig, I followed it pretty darn close and it didn't let me down. It didn't let me down. I uh I love the robots for travel planning.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And we've we've done an episode on that too, uh back in the day as well, Josh, when it comes to you did the same thing when you went up north in in Minnesota as well. So that's really cool. Um, but you can also use uh utilize ChatGBT now as well for your flights. If you want a cheap flights too, they can actually show you they go through all the flight itineries too. So there's another little tip there for you. Um and Salem, I want to fly from um you know Minneapolis to San Diego, these are the dates, and these are the rough times I want to get there. Give me the cheapest price. It'll go through all the uh that's all the cool all the United and and Southwest and all the ones for you, and actually get you get you all the lists for you too. So it does that as well.
SPEAKER_01:That's cool. And another thing I had to do, you know, sometimes when you have them to make the itinerary, it's kind of a narrative forum, but then it asks you like extra prompts. They're like, Oh, by the way, would you like me to make a little chart or whatever? Yeah, like a readable one or that's an itinerary. So it's like, yes, an itinerary that didn't have like all the details. Yeah, and sure enough, I did that. I had to make the chart, I saved it to my camera role, and I just I referenced it several times. I was like, okay, I gotta go to this restaurant next. And yeah, um, so it was it was a big winner. And speaking, speaking of airlines, this this um trip started with an airline. My favorite airline, I know we have different favorite favorite airlines. You are a United guy, right? Oh I used to be. Oh, you're fading away from New United? Well, maybe. We'll just see. Maybe. Okay, okay. I haven't flying for a wall. Yeah, okay. Well, in the past you were a United guy.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I am a Delta man. Okay, so I do have the Delta uh uh American Express card, so I get I get I get the points. And it feels so good, Craig, when you when you um redeem those points for a free plane ticket. So this one, this one was a free plane ticket. Oh, and Delta has really done some improvements. You know, I've always talked about I've actually had some complaints about the the backseat entertainment experience. I've had you know, I've had some rough goes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you had one one where it didn't work at all. Set there raw dogging it. Raw dogging it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, don't want a raw dog flight like that. No way. But Delta has done some upgrades to their backseat experience. I mean, it's the same screen, but the software is different. So get this. You can log on to your Delta Sky Mouse account in the back of your seat. So you have a you start with a QR code, you you scan it, it logs you in, and then on the screen, it's like, hello Joshua. It the back of the it knows me. Yeah, and here's the cool thing you watch your movie. Okay, so let's say you're watching a movie and you get through half of it. Yeah, and you because this often happens, you you get through half of it, you have to leave the plane. Well, on your return flight, you you log back into that screen and it knows exactly where you have left off on all your shows.
SPEAKER_04:That's cool. That's cool. Like like Netflix and uh and the Google and all those ones where they show you where you're I like that. That's really cool. That's really cool. So there's a little chat. So you had no issues with your backseat this time.
SPEAKER_01:It was a very good backseat experience this time. I had a oh my god, I uh the travel gods were with me. I had we had the whole plane was full. I love what they said. The whole plane was full, and guess what? There was one middle seat open, and the one it was right next to me. Oh, and the and the lady on the I was on the aisle, the lady on the window, we were fist bumping, we're like, oh yeah, we did it. We made it. We we bonded over the fact that we got uh the lucky empty seat. I could manspread. Yes, yes, I know.
SPEAKER_04:I know you do that trick with your uh if you're in the center center aisle, uh you do the trick with the armrest as well. You can put the armrest up too. There's a special way you did that. Yeah, so for sure. Absolutely. So you got a free flight there, Josh. So this is on Thursday, we're talking about. So you got a free flight there. You landed in San Diego, did you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 10:30 a.m. Because I was like, okay, if I'm taking the whole day off Thursday, I'm getting into San Diego. And and the nice thing is my flight take took off at 9 30, and then I got up at 10 30 because the time changed. When you go west, it's like, yes, I get two extra hours, which is great. So I got there at 10 30 and I beelined it to. I don't know if we've ever talked talked about Turo on. I'm sure we have. I don't think we have. Turo is the Airbnb of rental cars, and so basically it's an app just like anything, and you you can find cars, people just have their own cars that they rent out to people. And I I found, and it's usually Craig, it's like half price. Yeah, so get this. I mean, San Diego for uh four days was a hundred dollars. And get this, Craig, unlimited miles.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's insane.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, for geocachers, we we're great at abusing the unlimited miles. Absolutely, absolutely we go everywhere, we go everywhere. And so when you go to these turros, it's kind of it's just like an Airbnb. It's like you have to get the key. You have to basically geocache geocache the key. Yeah, because there's like a little lockbox, so it's like trying to figure it out and you know, a gadget cache or whatever. And you get into the get into it, and uh, and I had just like this little, I think I it was a Chevy Spark, which it was a it was small. Now I had the option to do a what is this one of those smart cars? I've driven one of those smart cars. Have you ever driven a smart car before? Those little little ones. No, I wouldn't be fine. Well, I rented one of those once and I felt like I'm I'm one little turn away from death. I mean, those things, it's like driving a go-kart. Yeah, and you drive that on the highway, you're just like, I'm gonna get run over. So it was small, but it wasn't as small as the smart car.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And so I remember just as quickly the tour that you and I did that time as well. Uh first time I've ever done a tour, it was with you. And uh the actual owner drove the car up to us, and he had someone driving behind him, picking him up after he dropped the car first.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes they just hand you the keys, just hand you the key.
SPEAKER_04:We didn't have to even geocache the keys. Oh, that's nice.
SPEAKER_01:I like that too. I had to actually take an Uber to uh Chuck E. Cheese to get this one.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's all right. Chuck East. But it was fine. It was fine. So where'd you get straight after you go into your tour?
SPEAKER_01:Beelined it to Balboa Park. Now, Balboa Park is it's like imagine Central Park for for, but it's for San Diego. It's a huge park, and actually, Craig, it's actually bigger than Central Park in square miles. Yes. Wow. Um, but this is a beautiful place, and this is a place that I heard about a lot on Podcaster because Sonny and Sandy spent a lot of time there. And so, you know, I before the trip, I texted them and I was like, hey, I'm gonna be in town. Um, I've I've heard about Balboa Park so many times. So that's the first thing I'm going to do. And when they heard that, they're like, Josh, we're gonna take the day off and we're gonna meet you at Balboa Park, and we're gonna show up with um little push scooters, not electric, not the electric, not electric, not actually the push but push scooters, and we're not talking about razors, no, these are these were fancy, they were wooden on the bot on the on the thing that you stood on, and they had like actual real tires that you had to blow up. So these weren't like Mickey Mouse razors with plastic wheels. Yeah, these were it was like a bike scooter basically. And wow, he brought three of them, and we all afternoon we just scootered all around Balboa Park.
SPEAKER_03:That would have been good.
SPEAKER_01:It was really cool, it was really cool. And um, to let me just describe Balboa Park. So if you go to San Diego, you can't miss this is one of the can't miss, Craig. Yeah, um, this is actually the home of the San Diego Zoo. So the San Diego Zoo is actually in Balboa Park, so and that's the largest zoo in the world. So that should tell you wow, that should tell you um how big Balboa, and that was just a part of it, Craig. So this is the home of the San Diego Zoo. The most beautiful architecture, you walk around there or scoot around there like I did, and you think you're like scooting around in like a European country. That it's like this the style of the architecture is like feels I don't know, I I might be giving false information, but it felt very like Spain, like Spain, Spain, kind of uh kind of feel. And also, I I heard that there were museums there, but Craig, I was I was not anticipating how many museums there were. There were over a dozen museums in this park.
SPEAKER_04:And we all know Josh, you love you love your museums.
SPEAKER_01:I know. Well, it was major FOMO because I didn't get to go into any of them because I didn't have time. Oh I didn't have time. I mean, you could spend, and here's Craig, you could spend one day in one of these. It's one museums. Yeah, we're talking about art museums, we're talking about there was a performing arts building there, there was a um natural history one, so like very similar to like the uh the night at the museum type of you know what it reminded me of, Craig? It reminded me of Washington, DC on the on the mall area where all those Smithsonian um museums, all those free Smithsonian museums were on the national mall. That's what it felt. I was like, I was like shocked. I was like, oh my gosh, there are so many museums here, and I didn't get I didn't get to go into well, that's not true. I got to go into one. The newest one. Get this, Greg. The newest museum in the Bellbo Park is the Comic-Con Museum. A Comic-Con? Wow, okay. Comic-Con Museum. Wow. Yeah, so if you don't know this, where have you been? But Comic-Con is that's where the most famous Comic-Con is in San Diego, right? And so they have an actual whole museum that sort of represents the fact that Comic-Con is in is started in uh yeah, San Diego.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, that's cool. Yeah, and you would have loved that, Josh, too, because we all know what you're like with your pop culture. And uh I know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, just you wait. We're gonna get to the pop culture. We're gonna get because there was something really cool for pop culture. Um, so anyway, this park filled with physical geocaches, okay, adventure labs. Like a lot, I did probably a lot of adventure. I'd say probably got 20 finds of adventure labs. So I did probably four different adventure labs as we were scooting around. Um Sonny, uh Sonny and Sandy created actually an adventure lab that was like the game clue. All right. So here's your here's your geocaching content for this. Well, there's gonna be lots of geocaching content. But this was one of those ones where you go to the location and then when you answer the question, it opens up a video. And he created like this almost like radio show, and you have to listen to the radio show, and then it tells you the three the three things that it is not, right? So it's not not the it's not the lead pipe, it's not the this and after you go to all five, you eliminate all of them and you find out who who did it, where the what yes, and then that you put in those numbers into a geo checker, and then it gives you the final chords for the final. So it was really, it was really well done, and that was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_04:And just for everyone else uh around the world, if you're listening, uh Josh is talking about the game they call here in America Clue. We call it Clue.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_04:Cluedo? Cludo, it's called in Australia. Cluedo, yeah, not Clue, Cludo. There you go. So lots of adventure labs, lots of geocaching, Josh. Um, yes, what else was in there?
SPEAKER_01:The botanical garden. There was so there's free stuff too, Craig. The botanical garden was amazing. It was an open-air botanical garden. There was a whole art market, like where you could buy um wares of people that were creating like different crafts and arts. Um and then it was this was tough. I was outside the doors of the San Diego Zoo, and I just didn't have time to go in. I guess it's quite expensive. It's like$80 for the whole day.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, this is this is the biggest zoo in the world.
SPEAKER_01:This is the San Diego Zoo. But Craig, there was a really cool virtual geocache on the outside, which was like a giant statue of a lion standing on one foot, literally, like its two hind feet were in the air, yeah, and then the front, one of the front paws was in the air. So it was standing on it almost looked, yeah, but it almost looked like it shouldn't be able to stand up straight because it was so it was really cool. You had just all you had to do is get a picture there. So not that I spent the whole afternoon in in um Balboa Park. You can't miss it, and I didn't even scratch the surface, Craig.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, uh I if you're comparing it, Josh, to um to the the Centennial Park in New York as well, then uh you don't you don't I don't see that many movies or TV shows, etc., in this Balboa Park. I see a lot in in Central Park, New York. Um, but you but do you think it'd be movie worthy like this sort of location? Oh yeah, like like oh yes.
SPEAKER_01:It's beautiful, it's beautiful. It looks different than Central Park. Central Park has a lot of those bridges and arches and stuff like that. And found. But it's very similar. Yeah, because Central Park has a museum in it, and yeah, so it really reminded me of Central Park of California, basically. So that was pretty cool. No, so then I spent the whole, I spent the pretty much the whole day there. Yeah, and then um I decided to stay in an area called Liberty Station. And I actually stayed in an Airbnb. Now we've talked about our Airbnbs a lot. And I kind of because I was traveling alone, if we you know, when we travel together or travel in groups, we usually get like a house that we have the whole place to ourselves, right? But sometimes if I'm by myself, I don't mind like just renting a room in a house, right? Instead of like having the whole house myself.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So this time I I just rented a one room in a in a house, but it was really nice because it was really separated from the rest of the house. I didn't see anybody else. I didn't see any owners. It wasn't like one of those ones where you have to you feel awkward and you have to like hang out with them.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. You sit on their couch watching TV.
SPEAKER_01:You're like, hey guys, making breakfast. No, it wasn't like that.
SPEAKER_04:And pancakes for one, yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this Liberty Station, again, the Liberty Station Park was where the block party event was, and we'll talk about that in a second. But this whole area used to be a navy training center. So the the military, the navy is really big in San Diego, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about that later because it connects to pop culture. But this was but this was now converted, it was no really no longer a uh naval training area, but they took a lot of these buildings and put really cool restaurants and like parks, and like it was a very popular, really nice, fancy, fancy Craig, clean area. Uh, there was a place called there was a brewery, Craig. Ah, there was a brewery, and it was called Stone Brewery, and I got some local brews. I had a great fish and chips at Stone Brewery, it was the nicest restaurant, and that was actually suggested to me by ChatGPT, and it didn't let me down. It was a big open-air patio area, this huge patio area and had delicious fish and chips. And what you know, when the fish when you're closer to the sea, the fish is always better.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. I'm I'm I'm one, I'm a big person for that, Josh. If I can't if I can't drive to the ocean or the body of water within sort of a half an hour to an hour, I'm not having fish and chips in in a restaurant. No, no, no. Yeah, I've got to be within it within an hour's drive. So, you know, things like when I went up north with Michigan all that, absolutely, because they've got the big lakes up there and stuff too. But down here in Alabama, oh man, the fish and the seafood down here, don't get me started with that. But anyway, uh keeping on with yours, I'm not digressing.
SPEAKER_01:Good. We'll talk more about fish and we'll talk more about seafood because that was a real highlight for me. But speaking of the sea, Craig, yes, it's Friday now. That was just Thursday. That was my first day. That's the day I got off the plane. Yeah, I already did so much. You would have been tired. Yeah. Well, oh, well, just that was it was just scratching the surface. So Chat GPT, I was really I asked, I wanted to do something, Craig. I didn't just want to eat, I want to do something. So it suggested to go to La Jolla, which was a little community, a little beach community uh north of San Diego, not far, like a half, it was literally a half hour from my from my Airbnb. So went to La Jolla, which is a beach town. I did the smartest thing I did, Craig, is I booked so I booked a sea cave kayaking tour. And a sea cave kayaking tour. So there's caves because of the oceans banging into the rocks, banging into the line limestone, after years, it started carving out these caves into the side of the of the shore, right? And so you can take these kayaks inside these these caves, and that's really the only way you can really access it. Yeah, and so the smartest thing. Here's your tip for you if you're gonna do something like this, like you're gonna do an excursion like this, do it, do the first one, do the first one of the day for a couple reasons. First of all, your guides are fresh, your guides are like they're they're ready to go, they haven't led five groups already, no, so they're fresh. Also, like in these ocean towns, parking is a problem, like it's really hard to find parking. But if you're showing up at 7:30, 8 a.m., parking was not a problem. Found parking right away. And so, Craig, I took I did sea kayaking. No, I've done a lot of kayak kayaking in the past. I own a kayak. Um, I live in the land of 10,000 lakes. I've done a lot of lake kayaking, but Craig, I've never done sea kayaking, it's different.
SPEAKER_04:See, Josh, also when you say going early and going first, I've noticed when it comes to weather around the uh around the ocean's areas, it's calmest in the morning. Uh it then gets picks up during the lunchtime and then in the afternoon. So you may get bigger waves in the afternoon, you may get rain, you may get all that sort of stuff too. So yeah, first thing in the morning is actually a good tip, Josh. Um I've seen you, I still remember you kayaking, Josh, on in Alaska. The video in Alaska you did with the kayaking through the uh through the icebergs.
SPEAKER_01:That was kind of that was kind of sea kayaking. I take that back, but it was different because that was like a cove. There were no way, there were no waves. This one is waves. So the different thing about sea kayaking is that once you get out there, it's fine, but you have to kayak through the surf, which was a lot, actually a lot of fun. I didn't even come uh mistake. Okay, here's a tip mistake. I didn't, I should have worn my my uh swim trunks. I wore pants. Oh boy. I know it weren't. Well, I didn't, I you know, kayaking usually I don't fall in, but I forgot that this involved the Getting through the surf. Smashing through waves. Exactly. So I was soaked. I was so actually. If you follow my Instagram, I don't know if you saw the picture, but that day I put my pants out, hung it outside and my underwear outside the window of my car, and I drove around with my underwear flying in the wind to dry them off. It was work, it worked. It was a very good strategy.
SPEAKER_04:Superman, you wear the underwear on the outside.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So the sea kayaking tour was awesome. My guide was Desiree. I I decided there were lots of outfitters in the town that I could chose. But you know what? You know, the I for some reason, this is what I always do. I always pick the OG. You know, I always pick the one that's been running the longest. The longest. Because you figure they got it down. They've been doing this for 30 years. Yeah, so I picked the original working on the original. And they're still doing it. Yeah, I did the OG. So um if you look it up, it'll be it's like La Jolla kayaking. Like it was very general. Um, that's the one I picked.
SPEAKER_04:Now, Josh, when you did this sea kayaking stuff as well, because as we most of us know who are geocaches out there, um, especially when it comes to erosion, waves, sea caves, was there any earth caches uh that you could do that?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, good question. Because this is another thing about having a guy. I could have rented a kayak and I could have just went out there.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_01:But the guide, they know everything about the area, they know everything about the ecology, they know a lot about the geology. Desiree, our guide, was like a geo nerd. Like, and of course I told her about geocaching, and she was kind of geeking out about it. She was like, What? I was like, and then I explained to her, there's this thing called earth caching. And so literally there was a right on the shore, there's a fault line right there. So there's a literally a fault line between the limestone, like the hard stone and the limestone. And I and then sure enough, I looked on my phone, and what is there? There is a earth cache there, all about the fault line. So um, so I I had Desiree take a video of me. I said, You won't believe this, but right now I am completing an earth cache and I'm doing it from a very different vantage point. Yeah, and that is obviously rather than onshore. So yeah, that was that was really cool. But there was another earth cache, Craig. But before I say that, um, there was a problem, and I was bumming. I was bumming. So Desiree, we're getting all ready, we got our helmets on for the whatever to go out there, and she goes, Well, bad news, guys. The lifeguard says that it is too choppy, too wavy, it is too dangerous for us to go into the caves.
SPEAKER_04:Oh you could go out there, but you couldn't go inside the cave.
SPEAKER_01:I got to we got to go to like close to the opening of them, but we couldn't actually go. And and believe me, when you if you saw it, it was dangerous. Like you could have gotten killed in there, like it was intense waves. Smashed against the rocks. Yes, exactly. So I was bummed. But then then I met a geocacher and I took I was explaining to them. And by the way, I bet this geocacher at a webcam. I'll talk about that in a second. Um, because webcam, very rare. Um, and he was telling me, Oh, Josh, it's okay. You can go into a sea cave. There's a one, there's a sea cave you can go into, uh, but you don't have to kayak. It's kayak to it. I'm like, what? Really? You can walk down inside it from the a stairway. There's a stairway down to it. Oh, and so this is a place, and I'm so glad geocachers are the best, they know all the stuff. I look on the map and I see, oh my gosh, there's another earth cache there. And I realize it's it's this earth cache that you can walk walk to, and you can go to it's a rock shop up on the top of the hill called Sunny Jim Sea Cave. Sunny Jim Sea. You go in there, I paid$15, and the guy gives you the rules, and then you walk, you're going inside. This is so weird. You're going inside a building, and then inside the building, there's an entrance into the cave. And you walk these steps all the way down, all the way down to the shore, and then you're at there's a platform, and now you're inside of a sea cave, and there's like a sea lion in there, and sure enough, it's it was an earth cache. I had to answer a few questions. So that was so I I did get to go into a sea cave.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, inside that's really cool. That's really cool. You were saying before, Josh, uh just earlier about webcams. You said they are super rare. There's there's a limited amount around the world. There's only two webcams active in Australia, both in the same city.
SPEAKER_00:I know, I know. That's it, that's how rare they are.
SPEAKER_04:They are, they really are. Yes. Um, I love my webcams, Josh. I remember when you and I were in Florida and uh and we did that webcam in Florida on your video as well. We're down there for Munzie at the time too, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Um, that was the one that was in my that was the one that was in my comic book.
SPEAKER_04:If you remember the one they had the fish, the fish were hanging on the that's the one, yeah, with the shark and everything is that's really cool on the uh on the on the shore, on the goal on the coast itself. The space coast, that's what it was. Um, but Josh, you were talking about webcams in in San Diego. Yes, which one was?
SPEAKER_01:So here's the thing a lot of geocachers, they seek webcams out. They're like, I gotta find all the webcams I can. And that that's legit. I'm not one of those people. I don't webcams are okay, but I don't seek them out. Okay. However, it's really fun. This happened to us when we were in Florida, Craig. It's really fun to look at the map and see the little pin that's like a different color, and you tap on it, you're like, oh, what is that gray pin? Yeah, you know, it's like different. And you look, you're like, oh, oh my gosh, it's a webcam. Right here, like so. I like to almost be surprised by the webcams rather than seek them out. And this was the exact same thing. I was just looking, I was like, oh, there's something else. It's a gray pin. I and clicked on it. Sure enough, there's a webcam, and it was right on a pier. And this was so it was crazy. It was one of the best webcams I've ever I've ever done because it's it's the camera is facing the ocean, okay? And then the pier is kind of like on the side a little bit, and so it's what you can go on your phone, you can find it. But this one, the tide was so far up that I literally had to go almost to my waist in water to get on the camera to get on the camera. I'm like waving my hands around, and I'm like in the water. It was so it was very it's just comical.
SPEAKER_04:Keep your phone out of the water to get the screenshot. Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I got a TikTok of it. I'll I'll make it, I'll create it because I I was able to also not only get video of myself, but I also got the screenshot of me on the yeah on it too. But it was really funny. It was like, and there was, of course, there were other geocachers out there trying. I could tell they were looking at their phones and they're trying to find the spot. I'm like, let me guess, geocacher. And so they're like, how do you know? It's you dead giveaway. It's obvious.
SPEAKER_04:I did I did a webcam, Josh, uh, when I was in Wisconsin, and uh you go out the same sort of thing, you go out on the pier or a rock wall.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, I've done that one. You've done that one as well.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you go out in this road. But the best about that one too is that it actually moves around. You see, so you've got to get it so we it moves around. And so actually, someone's moving around and they do focus on people along the rock wall. So if you're there waving your hands, you get zoomed in on in a rock wall. That's really good.
SPEAKER_01:I've done that one. Yeah, that one's great. That one's on Lake Michigan. Yes, I think in Port Washington, which is just north of um Milwaukee. Yes, that's a great one. That's the one. That's so I Craig. The morning was filled. I did a webcam. I went to Sunny Jim Sea Cape, I did kayaking, and I was hungry, Craig.
SPEAKER_03:So who what did I do?
SPEAKER_01:I consulted my friend Chat GPT. Chat GBT, yeah, and went downtown La Jolla and went to a place named called Dukes, which is like I didn't, it was like a it was a surf theme, surfing themed uh restaurant. And this is the thing, like some people don't love alone solo travel. Like I love Friday because I was just it was just me, myself, and I solo every day. I could do whatever I wanted, I could eat whatever I wanted. I didn't have to, and but this place, Dukes, was very popular, and it was like you had to get reservations. But when you roll in to a restaurant and you're just no reservations, you go to the bar, and so I didn't uh I didn't go to the bar, but there was a bar outside, and I sent you a picture of it where I had my margarita and the most delicious fish tacos as I was looking out out to the Pacific Ocean. Oh, it was just it was paradise.
SPEAKER_04:And when you when you solo travel, when you solo travel too, Josh, you can eat what you want, when you want, how you want. You don't have to ask like you know, you don't have to ask like Minnesota boy, Minnesota boy, Minnesota boy who doesn't like seafood at all. Right, like you know, and you're actually on the sea in San Diego. You want to eat seafood from the sea. So good fish tacos, Josh.
SPEAKER_01:What happened after you fish tacos? Oh my god, it was so good. Okay, then then I headed back into San Diego because this was the welcome. You know, a lot of a lot of events have welcome events. Yeah, it's a community celebration event. Yeah, this one was on a different beach, it was on ski beach, and it was a like a bonfire situation. People were getting their you know, their check-ins and stuff like that. And the theme of the block party that was gonna happen the next day was Signals Island, which was like Gilligan's Island. Craig, please. Oh, Craig, please tell me you've seen Gilligan's Island.
SPEAKER_00:Of course. The world has seen Gilligan's Island. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04:I also love Gilligan's Island as a kid. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I can I can almost sing it.
SPEAKER_00:With Gilligan, the skipper to the billionaire and his okay. You got me going.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. That's gonna be the same. So this was on the beach, ski beach. It was a beach of kind of a lake, and they were like where people skied, water ski. It was just right outside of SeaWorld, actually. So you could see SeaWorld in the different in the distance. There were snacks, and there was a fire, and it was just kind of a social, just like welcome, welcome to the island sort of situation. And the cool thing, I got my package, and I had a little bucket Gilligan's hat. It was so cute, all geocachers with their little bucket Gilligan hats.
SPEAKER_04:It was adorable. How do you know I'm a geocacher? You're wearing a Gilligan. Gilligan hat. Gilligan hat.
SPEAKER_03:It was adorable.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_03:That's really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, Craig. And then you know who I ran into?
SPEAKER_03:I know who you were into. Our dear, dear friend.
SPEAKER_01:He's been on that show before. The man, the myth, the legend. Dave Barski. Barski, who is the exec was the executive producer of Dirty Jobs.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm. Which is back on Netflix, but anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, Craig. I have to tell you something. I don't think I told you this yet. No. So I was talking to Dave Barski. This is connected to the podcast. And he goes, Josh, uh, I need you to know that Mike Rowe listened to the Treasures or a Tom podcast about dirty jobs. Oh and he said he loved it.
SPEAKER_00:We got we got celebrities listening to this podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Isn't that fun? Absolutely. That is really fun. Isn't that fun? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I was like, oh, that makes me that is like that makes my night to know that Mike Rowe listened to our podcast. Listened to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_04:That's and I will say, I will say, so did uh Brendan Giles, the uh piano, piano artist. I'll call him piano artist. He he listened to uh uh treasure there town and posted about it too on his social media a few a few months ago now.
SPEAKER_01:I can't wait to see him again. Um, but here's the thing okay, pop culture. This city, San Diego, you know everybody that listens to this podcast knows it if you listen. You know, I love my movie locations and the movie Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick. Yes, both were shot in the San Diego and San Diego area. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_04:That's really cool.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, it is really cool. So you remember you've seen Top Gun, right? Please, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um the original Top Gun. You remember when Goose is in the bar and he's playing Great Balls of Fire? Yes, yes, I went to that bar. It's a Top Gun bar. Yes, a real bar. Dive bar, and the piano was there was a piano in there, and of course, there was Top Gun stuff everywhere. There were naval, they were naval hats hanging from the whole place. Like, you know, like people that were in the Navy, like, oh, I was on this ship, I was in this platoon, they hang those hats up there. Wow. And um, and we sat down and we had it's actually a barbecue place. So the actual name of it is the Kansas City Barbecue. So we had barbecue in the Top Gun, in the Top Gun Bar. Wow. And uh I it was with not only Dave Barski, but also Pod Team Podcaster was there because they lived in San Diego. Craig, get this, they've never been there before. Really? They'd never been there before.
SPEAKER_04:So so that was that's really cool to actually experience it with with a local that hasn't actually been there before. That I like that too. I really like that.
SPEAKER_01:And Dave Barski that's at the end. We looked at a sign and they sold. I'm not a big, I'm not a big souvenir guy, you know, because I just you know, I just don't like a lot of stuff, unless it's a magnet. But there were little sh top gun shot glasses that said like top gun bar on it. I was like, oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. Barski. And all of a sudden, what did Barski do? Bought two of them, and we and but you can only buy them. You could well choose with, yeah, but it was fireball. And so we took a fireball shot to close the night in the top gun bar. And I'll have a TikTok of that too, because I did, of course, a lot of video.
SPEAKER_04:I'm sure Dave Barski would more approve of a slippery nipple or something like that rather than a fireball.
SPEAKER_01:Like fireball's not good, it's not good. These both Dave and I were both Dave and I are like, okay, we're we're doing it because we're in the top gun bar.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's right. That's right. Wow, Top Gun, that's really cool. That's really cool. And Friday was awesome. It makes sense, Josh, because you know, I I still remember Top Gun uh and Top Gun Maverick. I'm like, you know, like it was yesterday. Um, I loved the movie Top Gun. Um, and yeah, you do, but I thought it was more up north. I knew it was a beachy town, but didn't know it was actually San Diego. I thought it was more sort of LA sort of area up that way. Nope.
SPEAKER_01:No, San Diego, because there's a huge naval presence still today in San Diego. There's like true battleship. You can like tour old battleships and stuff. It is it is a navy town. So that's so that's the reason why they filmed it there. All right, Saturday.
SPEAKER_04:Saturday was the actual block party itself.
SPEAKER_00:I've started the skipper to okay.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, the theme was Gilligan's Island, but it was Signals Island. And this was at the Liberty Station Park, beautiful park. It was on the water. And oh, if anybody is listening that has were was a part of this, uh well done. Well done. I had so much fun, Craig. It was one of those things, you know, sometimes when people go to a mega event um or block parties or whatever, it's kind of like you go there and you're like, say hi to everybody, and there's like then you're kind of done. There's nothing.
SPEAKER_04:You do the circles of the vendors, you do the circles of vendors and say hi to them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. They did so, they did so well. I was there from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. So I was there for like what is that, six hours, six hours? Yes, there for six hours in a little area uh that the event was, and I was occupied the whole time. Like there was so much to do. There were gadget caches. The gadget caches all connected to adventure lab. So you opened up the gadget cache and you got an adventure lab fine. Yep. They had contests, they had a pie-eating con a coconut cream pie eating contest that I lost. Yeah, that I lost. Um, there was a duck race, so you got a duck. They gave you it was the details, they gave you a little duck to race in water, and you get a whole straw. But each of the duck, each of the ducks had a little log book in it, like in their butt. Oh, yeah. So it was they gave you a cash too.
SPEAKER_04:They gave you a cache too with your with your with your duck.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cute.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Um, there was an incredible photo booth. Um, have you ever played have you Craig? Have you ever played left, right, center with path tags or left in general at all?
SPEAKER_04:Do you know what I've I haven't played it, but I I saw it played for the first time uh at Midwest Geobash.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04:When I was up there this year, this year, Midwest Geobash. I saw them all doing it, and they're all and they're all heads down, they're all like in all right. They were worse than playing you know poker. You know, if you play poker, poker have more fun than this, this left, right, center business.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you can win a lot of path tags with this. So basically it's a dice game where you you have you start with three path tags and then you roll the dice, and then you either pass it to left, right, or the center, and then whoever has it left over at the end gets the pot. So you can win a lot of a lot of path tags. Yeah, and I played four times and I lost every time. So there you go. But I had fun. It was great.
SPEAKER_04:Which path tag you use, Josh? Did you use your own path?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, a lot of them. I had a lot of my a lot of them. I had a lot with me. Yeah, and my flash and my flash tag as well. Uh, there were so many all day there were prizes. It was just a great, there were people dressed real like there was a family that were dressed to the nine. Oh, I so much. Like a legit ginger, a legit skipper. There was a woman that looked almost exactly like Mrs. Howell. It was really it was like you got I just so respect when people like fully dive into the to to like the dressing up and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_01:So here's my suggestion: if you are a part of the San Diego Geocachers and you're looking for if you want to do this again, I'm gonna make a promise right now on this podcast. Gilligan's Island, classic television show, right? What is my cla favorite classic television show?
SPEAKER_03:Back to the future.
SPEAKER_01:Wrong. That's a movie, Craig. Oh, you you're gonna be like, oh yeah, of course. You're Mayberry Man. It's the Andy Griffith show. Barney Fife. Oh yeah, it's too old. So yeah, yeah. Well, it's too old for me, too, Craig. It was it came out, yeah, it came out in the 60s. Gilligan's Island came out in the 60s, too, by the way. That's too old for you as well. Anyway, I made a promise. I said, if you do an Andy Griffith show theme, if you stick with the TV thing, I will show up and I will be Barney Fife all day. I'll dress like him, I'll act like him. And you know, Craig, you know I can do that.
SPEAKER_04:I know. I I do. I do. And I do know as well that you need a good half an hour to an hour to warm up before you get out of the car and do it as well. Rob and Tim both know that. Yes. We almost had to go, we almost had to go to a sporting goods store to get you a bullet.
SPEAKER_01:Um, yeah, the bullet's very important. And you saw why the bullet was pouring. Everybody asks when people see Barney, they always ask, where's your bullet? Yeah, it would happen. Yeah, yeah, it was very important. It was a great time. So great job to and that and that Craig, that was the reason I was there. You know, like this was when I found out that Signals Island was in San Diego. I was like, wait a minute, this is my chance. Yeah, this is my chance to go to San Diego. Yeah, so I was there, and guess what? I was hungry again. And so Dave Barski, Dave, our old pal, he's like, Josh, I made reservations at a sushi place. Do you want to come along? I was like, Ooh, sushi. Ooh, close to the sea. That sounds tasty. So we go to this place, Craig. And he drives up, and it's like a strip ball. And I'm like, Well, okay, a strip ball? Really?
SPEAKER_04:Strip ball sushi, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I'm like, you I was like, you I in my brain, I'm like, you had to get a reservation for this place? It's a strip ball. Well, sure enough, you know it's popular because it's not even five o'clock, and people, Craig, were lining up outside this place. The place would call was called sushi oda, like Minnesota, sushi oda. And you go in there, and we sat right at the sushi bar, and Craig, it was the most the freshest, most amazing, really great sushi. Uh, and it wasn't fishy. It wasn't fishy, and that's what that's what Barski told me. He goes, if if it tastes fishy, then it's not it's not good. No, um, it was like high, high quality. And and and you know what? I am I'm kind of a little bit of vanilla bean. I'm but you know what? I have a tattoo that says just try it. And I was so glad, I was so glad I was there with uh Barski because he knew he knew what was good, and he just kept on stuff coming. I was like, oh, this is really good. This is this is a little bit beyond my comfort zone, but still it's really tasty.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, um, yeah, all kinds like all kinds of what was the most unusual thing that was really, really far beyond your there was one that was a little mushy, it was like some sort of urchant or something.
SPEAKER_01:Like it was it was very exact. It was maybe some of the most exotic stuff. I ate it.
SPEAKER_04:It'd be sea and row. It'll be sea or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I just ate it. I didn't really ask many questions because I I was afraid if I asked what it was, I wouldn't even try it because some of it was really exotic.
SPEAKER_04:Sea urchin row is like an orange, like a light orange in color. Um there was a really delicious, Josh. It is absolutely delicious.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, there was a really, really good. Um the first one he he started me slow, and there was a salmon sushi that was like the most beautiful slice of raw salmon. It was so good. I want to publicly thank Barski for that amazing experience. It was the freshest, most amazing sushi I've ever had. It'll uh it's all downhill from here as sushi goes for sure.
SPEAKER_04:That's how I that's it, especially in Minnesota.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then Dave and I went back to uh that brewery and we had some beers at Stone Brewery and uh and chatted up and caught up. So that was a really good time. Thanks. Yeah, Dave was it wasn't even planned, really. I mean, I was like, hey, you want to do this? Want to do this? And so um spent a lot of time with Dave.
SPEAKER_04:It was a lot of a lot of fun, and then come Sunday, the last day before you hit the city.
SPEAKER_01:I have to leave.
SPEAKER_04:You have to go home back to your work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, here's the good news, Craig. This was another smart thing I did. My flight wasn't until 4 30 because I was like, okay, there might be some stuff I want to do, and I didn't want to you know, just get on the plane at 6 a.m. and then just no. Um, so there was a CETO. Oh, perfect for your souvenir. Yeah, cash in, trash out. CETO season two. So I got a souvenir for it. It was like souvenir 402. 402. Wow, 402. How many do you have, Craig? Do you uh 340 something?
SPEAKER_04:343.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, you got a ways, you got a ways to go. Okay. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And this was a seito on the actual beach, Josh. Yes, it was gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01:It was on Imperial Beach. It was really close, it was south, it was close to the Mexico border. It was close to Tijuana, it was like three miles from Tijuana.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, so you couldn't actually see the wall, the the border wall or anything. No, I couldn't see it.
SPEAKER_01:It was a little farther. And it was like a it was it was a great place for a seito because it was kind of a dirtier beach, like it needed some help, help. Yeah, and actually the water had signs that said it was like the water was contaminated, like swim at your own risk. But there were the surf was up. There were a ton of surfers up there, and I was like, whoa, they they're brave, they're gonna, they're not they're not afraid to get contaminated. Um, but it I I love watching the surfers, Craig. Oh my god, it's such a cool thing. Like, if I had a if somebody could wave a magic wand and say, You instantly have a skill, it would be I would I would pick surfing, like for sports, really and then yeah, because it looks like so much fun. It does, it looks like so much fun, but it is very difficult. Or if but if it was arts, I would be like, You can play piano because then I could be hanging out with Brandon Giles and starting my piano on fire. Yeah. Um, so yeah, did the SETO, and then I was with Dave and we did some challenge caches. He's a Dave is a big challenge cacher. He seeks out the challenges.
SPEAKER_04:Dave's one of those ones who's a webcam hound as well. The amount of webcams he has under his belt is insane. He he hunts, he travels just purposely for webcam sometimes. Remember, I think he told us on when he was on our show as well. He's traveled over three and a half, four hours out of his way with his mother to get a webcam. So that was yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he loves webcams. And the webcam that I got the day before or on the Friday, he's probably got it years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah, probably that's nothing for him.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. And he didn't have to wait for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Then, Craig, I did have a little bit more time. Yes, because I found out when I say top gun house, what is what do you think that is? What do you think the top gun house is?
SPEAKER_04:Top gun house. Well, that'd be obviously one of the houses they used in the movie. I'm gonna say it's probably probably the one that uh the Tom Cruise was in in the movie.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so if you remember in the movie, remember the scene where they're playing shirtless, they're playing volleyball, him and Goose playing volleyball. Okay, and they're just and they're they you know they do the cool hand, like the cool high five, and then on the bottom. Yeah, um, right after that scene, Tom Cruise's character Maverick has a date with the woman, the the female Charlie. Her name's Charlie, and she's like a civilian that's an expert in like ships or whatever. Yeah, so he gets on his Kawasaki, right? Yeah, and drives straight from the volleyball game to her house because they have a date where she's gonna cook. Well, this house is Charlie's house.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, it's Charlie's house.
SPEAKER_01:It's the one where he walks in, and the first thing he says, he's like, he's late, first of all. And then he's like, Hey, can I take a shower? He keeps on asking for a shower. And she's like, No, you can't take a shower. He's like, We're gonna eat.
SPEAKER_04:Why does that remind me of you for some reason, Josh? And by the way, do you have a blow dryer?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, can I take a shower? And a blow dryer. So, yeah, so this house isn't actually an ocean side, uh, which is about uh 45 minutes-ish, more like a half hour uh north of San Diego, and it's a beautiful, really nice, really nice beach, a beautiful beach community. And so that the actual house was placed, it was on the oceanside on the beach, but it was kind of coming, it was deteriorating, it was kind of falling apart, and so they were gonna knock it down. Well, a local hotel bought it, yeah, lifted it off of its uh you can see videos of this, lifted it off of it where it was, and drove it down the road and placed it between all these hotels that they own as a destination, and then they remodeled the whole thing and made it, turned it into a pie shop.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, nice, nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you go there, Craig. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_04:Is this the one where I saw a photo of you, Josh, on your Instagram? And you may have been at the front on something.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so in the front, they put a Kawasaki in the front.
SPEAKER_04:The same, the same one, the same make and model that he was on. Yes, same. It was a replica.
SPEAKER_01:Well, everybody that was there was like, he like Tom Cruise touched this. I'm I'm I was like, hey, sorry to break it to you, but it's a replica. They're not gonna put the real actual one out in the elements. So people, yeah, exactly. This one doesn't even exactly. But it was Craig, it was a virtual. It was a virtual and it was great. And so the virtual get this, it was a cool virtual. It was like you have to get a picture of yourself on the bike, and then you have to get the serial number of the bike. Oh so that was actually really hard to find. Yeah, but I found it.
SPEAKER_04:If you don't know your bike, you you don't know your bike.
SPEAKER_01:I struggled. I struggled, but I found it. It's either on the fourth or on the yes, it is, but I still try because it was like black and like engraved. It was old bike, it was wearing off. Anyway. It was a great, yeah. I went all the way up there just to sit on that bike and do that virtual. Um there'll be a TikTok of it. I got a lot of video of it. It's it was quite I'm so glad I did it.
SPEAKER_04:Question for you then, Josh. Will that one make a uh comeback in March next year for our roadside attractions episode? Oh, because I'll tell you now, Josh, my trips, my trip that I've been doing in the last few months, I have been looking, actively looking for roadside attractions that uh I can sort of put in.
SPEAKER_01:See that's smart. Especially since I've since I won last year, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. And I'm telling now.
SPEAKER_01:I think I won this year.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you did.
SPEAKER_01:Was the ball of paint mine? Yeah, I think it was.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. We know, we know you won both so far. But I won over the patrons.
SPEAKER_01:This is a diversion. Sorry. We're about to uh we're about done, people. Okay, don't worry, we're gonna be finished here in a second. The trip's almost over.
SPEAKER_04:Josh is gonna rabbit hole. Here we go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, here's a rabbit hole. Um, you know, I went to the ball of paint. Did I tell you? I don't think I've said it on the podcast. I told the guy, hey, you your your your paintball won our very first roadside attraction march madness. And I had to really explain it. The guy's like almost 80 years old, or maybe over 80 years old. And he got so excited, Craig. And I said, You know what? We thought about sending you like a certificate or whatever. He goes, Would you do that? He's like, Would you do that? And so, what did we do, Craig? I don't think we told the people we sent him that you that that the ball of paint won the very first Treasury Talent podcast. And he was, I'm sure he was very excited because he was like, What he was like, really? He goes, and he this is what he said. He this is so sad, Craig. He goes, Everybody always still tells me they're gonna send me something, but they never do.
SPEAKER_04:And so when I heard that, I was like, You have to, you have to.
SPEAKER_01:And the certificate was like splattered with paint.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes. I saw it. So he should meet a photo and said, Is this all right? That's perfect. That's perfect. That was great. That was really good.
SPEAKER_01:So the Top Gun House, I went up there just for that. And um, and then I had a pizza. Pizza at a place called Odie's, which was really great pizza. And uh the beer sat up at the bar again by myself, by my lonesome. Of course, I ordered I had to order a beer that was brewed in that city. Because that's what that's what we do. That's what we do. And then I made my way south to the airport and I flew away.
SPEAKER_03:Flew back.
SPEAKER_01:What a trip. Oh my gosh, we're at we're right at one hour.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, Josh, you were saying before about roadside attractions and stuff as well. And our patrons now or this year, they had a say in in uh what was going to be one of our roadside attractions as well. And uh so if you want to become a patron to before March of next year to have your say, how can we do it, Josh? How can they be fine?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you've been enjoying our podcast, we really appreciate your support. By supporting us, you help us create even better content, keeping it free for everyone. We don't have any commercials, but Top Gun Pie House, if you're listening. That was the first thing that came. Uh uh Sushioda, if you're listening. We just promoted you. Um we don't have any and we don't have any sponsors because we don't need them, because this podcast is completely supported by listeners. So go to patreon.com backslash treasures of our town, and that is where you can support us. There are different levels, and you will get golden nuggets that only our patrons get to see and listen to.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly, Josh. But if you're one of the the basic out there, the public, the general public, not the patrons, how can they contact us, Josh?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, for all the basic people. Uh feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our townpodcast at gmail.com, or you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or our Buzz Sprout site. Just simply search Treasures of our town and Google, and we will pop up there.
SPEAKER_04:We certainly will. So that's it for our show today. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcasting app.
SPEAKER_01:And as always, Josh. Your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems like Tom Cruise's Kawasaki bike.
SPEAKER_03:See everybody. Talk to me, goose. And before we go, Josh, do you think Tom Cruise is proud of that bike? Oh yeah, he's still proud of that bike.
SPEAKER_01:I would be proud. Yeah, he's proud of his talent too. He's proud of San Diego. Thank you. Everybody's got a good thing.
