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
There's No Place Like the Southwest...
A simple plan to tackle Nevada’s ET Highway turns into a cross-state quest for awe. We kick things off in Phoenix and climb toward Flagstaff, chasing a crisp horizon and a stop at a veterans memorial built to catch the sun at 11:11 on 11/11. The Grand Canyon delivers that familiar shock of scale from new South Rim overlooks, and then Route 66 starts pulling us back in time. Seligman feels like a living postcard, Kingman frames your car under an iconic sign, and Oatman steals the show with wooden storefronts, a daily shootout, and wild burros who wander the street like they own it.
We veer into California for Joshua Tree National Park and watch the landscape morph into Dr. Seuss silhouettes and boulder gardens. Earthcaches push us off the road to touch geology, and the golden-hour light makes even the cholla glow. On the way back, a roadside cache under a giant Coke bottle and a plane casually landing for supplies remind us that desert highways never run out of surprises. Then it’s Vegas for a quick reset, where budget-friendly beds come with steep fees and the food is pricey but memorable. We meet friends, pull the slot lever once, and wake up early for the main event.
Nine cars. Thousands of caches. A system that replaces every container and turns a blank desert shoulder into a well-oiled route. The ET Highway demands patience, spare tires, and teamwork, but the payoff is huge: a full sweep logged and a convoy full of stories. Tonopah adds color with dinner at the Mizpah Hotel—said to be the most haunted in America—and a stroll past the Clown Motel and its neighboring historic cemetery, where hand-stamped plaques record how lives ended in stark detail. It’s a raw counterpoint to the neon a few hours south.
The finale is pure future: The Sphere and The Wizard of Oz in 16K. The tornado brings wind and cold across the seats. Snow drifts from the ceiling. Apples drop. And flying monkeys become drones circling overhead. It’s the classic film, intact, surrounded by AI-extended worldbuilding that turns watching into inhabiting. If the Grand Canyon is a natural wonder that humbles, this is a man-made wonder that lifts your jaw and won’t let go. Hit play for the full route, the geocaching tactics, the small-town gems, and a cinematic experience you’ll be talking about for weeks. If you enjoy the journey, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review to help others find these hidden treasures.
https://sunshinehousecoffee.com/our-story
Viva Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry. You're gonna be blast your ears. I did back up a little bit from the mic, but thank you.
SPEAKER_01:I do appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Do you love to travel? Do you love road trips? Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the US today? Hi, I'm Joshua.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Craig. Welcome to Treasures about Town. It's the podcast that explores unique and chummy towns scattered through the United States.
SPEAKER_03: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_01:On today's episode, Josh, it's all about me.
SPEAKER_03:It's all about you. It's all about Craig. It's all about Craig. Craig, the world traveler, or the US traveler for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_03:It's all about Craig. It's all about Craig.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that it got there. There we go. There you go. Now you start to sound like Tim Minnesota boy. Um, I I did I did three three different states over a 10-day cache slash tourist vacation. Oh my gosh. So it wasn't all about geocaching, it was tourism as well.
SPEAKER_03:I am very excited to hear about it because I am sure this is going to be another one of those episodes where I am uh very jealous because I thought about going on this trip, but it just wasn't in the cards for me. And then what you did on Sunday, you know my love for this thing. You did it, yeah, and and I was not there because you know my love for this thing, and I'm reteas you know, I'm sure this is gonna be towards the end of the episode.
SPEAKER_01:It will be at the very end because the Sunday was the last day before I flew back.
SPEAKER_03:You see, so yes, yes, yes, yes. But before we get to that, we need to get to our delays and upgrades. Boom boom.
SPEAKER_01:Did you like that? Do you like the sound I do uh in the edit, Josh? You like it? I like it.
SPEAKER_03:I like it so much.
SPEAKER_01:It's very cool, very cool.
SPEAKER_03:Puts me in the mood, puts me in the mood to get on a plane and go somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Uh mate, do you want to start off with it or do you want me to? What's what you like?
SPEAKER_03:I will start with my delay. Yes. Because you know, we don't talk about the weather on this podcast unless it truly is an upgrade or delay. And so, Craig, this morning I woke up. I had to go to work early this morning, worked with a bunch of eighth graders all day. Yeah, eighth grade. Is that your delay? No, it's not. They were delightful. Um, but I had about an hour drive south. It was negative 12 degrees Fahrenheit this morning.
SPEAKER_01:Negative 12 Fahrenheit. Well, see, I can't do the negatives to Celsius ratio because they're they're different. They actually do meet, you know, they do meet up, Josh. So the Fahrenheit and Celsius meet up in the negatives. I think it's about negative 24, but they're actually the same temperature. At negative 24, they're the same temperature. So yes.
SPEAKER_03:Well, most Americans that are listening to that will know that's really cold. It's cold for me. I I live in Minnesota, it's cold for me.
SPEAKER_01:If it's cold for me, when 32 Fahrenheit is freezing point, 32 Fahrenheit is freezing point, negative 12 is like what's that? You know, that's that's 40, 42 degrees or 44 degrees lower than uh than freezing point. Wow.
SPEAKER_03:I think Mars might have been warmer today. I think so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's quite possible. We should ask Elon, but uh, but anyway, mate, uh, my my upgrade, I'm gonna keep that and hold on to my upgrade because my upgrade itself was this trip, you see. So uh that was my upgrade. What was your upgrade, mate?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it was Thanksgiving week last weekend. Yes, and my son Hayden, my youngest, who went to college in August, he had not been home since August. So this was the first time he came home. He flew home, so we got to have Thanksgiving together. He was here for five days. So that was really nice to see Hayden. He is thriving at Western Kentucky University. He's really enjoying it, but he was glad to be home, sleep in his own bed, have a very full, very full pantry. Uh, he was really happy about all the food that uh we purchased before he got here.
SPEAKER_01:Like any uh 18, 19-year-old boy would be, you know, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_03:So it was interesting because some of the problems came back as he came back. For example, things like the toilet paper disappeared faster. Uh he drove my car and ran into the into the grill inside my inside my garage. He ran in and scratched a part of my car. Like these are the things that have come back. There are problems too. There are delays. But overall, overall, I was really happy that he was back. So that's my upgrade.
SPEAKER_01:Very cool upgrade. Very cool upgrade. But I've only got one delay, and that delay is remember over the episodes we talked about my chicken coop? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:The last two episodes we've talked about the chicken coop. Muck, muck, muck.
SPEAKER_01:It's still going, it's still going. It's still under construction. It's absolutely still under construction as well. And did you notice, Josh? We actually had a uh a listener reach out to us in regards to that too, which we'll talk about at the end of the episode. But there was other another one uh regarding the uh uh the chicken coop and chicken math. And they actually studied, they studied and found out chicken math because they studied it at uh Texas University. Uh and it's still there doing a uh bachelor, not bachelor's, what does it call it, a doctorate or something like that in in farm science, and uh and they know exactly what chicken math is. So thank you for reaching out uh in regards to that too. So uh very, very cool. I had someone on my side, so there you go.
SPEAKER_03:And basically, basically, chicken math is just like them multiplying, right? Or you can do it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, because yeah, that's what it is, because you go, you know, you you round it up. You go, you get four, and then you go, oh, fours might as well get five. You get five, you go, you know what, we can do another five and round it to ten, like double digits. You get you get ten, and one, then one you know dies or something else, and then you go, oh, we've only got nine. Okay, let's get another six, you know. That's what you said. It makes it 15. That's that's chicken. So that's how it works.
SPEAKER_03:You can't get enough, can't get enough chickens.
SPEAKER_01:No, you can't get enough eggs. The eggs are delicious, Josh. I'll tell you that right now. Eggs are fresh, fresh, fresh farm, fresh eggs. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so let's get into this trip. We are talking about your adventures to the southwest of the United States. We have traveled together, we've been in Flagstaff, Arizona together. We've we've actually talked about like the Grand Canyon, but it sounds like we've you expanded your horizons even more in the southwest. So tell the people, first of all, Craig, what what was the thing that motivated this this trip, what kicked it off? Why, why did it happen? Because I know I kind of know why, but it looks like you, I mean you expanded it beyond what what the the I think what I think is the beginning reason why you decided to do it. So tell us how did how did this all come about, this trip in particular.
SPEAKER_01:So uh 12 months ago on the GCPC, the geocaching podcast, which I'm a co-host of with Scott Burks and and Chad as well. Um, we all came about, three of us came about and said, Well, next next turkey trip, next turkey uh part, like Thanksgiving trip, um, everyone wanted to do the ET Highway, the extraterrestrial highway. There's 4,000 geocaches in this highway, in which you are quite welcome to do the leapfrog thing or you break it up between people. And so uh Scott came up with the idea and said, Look, let's let's do a patron where anyone who's a listener of the show can come and join us over that period of time. Because the the uh Thanksgiving was on a Thursday, you see.
SPEAKER_03:So they he's it always is on a Thursday, by the way, just so you know. It's always it's always Thursday.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, there you go. Well, this is awesome Thursday, yeah. And so he said you get you had to take the one day off the Friday. So for one day off, you get four days off of work, you see. And so that's what Scott said. It was a good idea to have one day off work and get the four days off and do this turkey trot, we called it turkey trot. And so that was the idea and the the uh the reason I went to sort of that sort of area. The ET Highway is north, probably about an hour and a half to two hours north of Las Vegas in Nevada itself. It is uh literally a lot of dirt roads, I will say that.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of areas, it's the middle of nowhere, it's really is it there's a certain beauty in the desert. We've talked about this, but yeah, it it's it's pretty there's not a lot out there.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, apart from apart from 4,000 gear, right?
SPEAKER_03:And I'll just say this too, Craig. You know this. I have done the ET Highway, but it's I have I'm very it's I have a I'm ashamed to say, guess how many I got of those 4,000. I think you got did you get five or ten? Like 12, 10 or 12.
SPEAKER_01:That's the one. That's the one.
SPEAKER_03:I did get that old one. I got that old one that you got up on the hill. Yes, that was cool.
SPEAKER_01:That was cool. Well, yeah, well, I'll I'll talk about that oldest uh later on in the show as well. Because I put it this way, Josh. I'm almost, almost not here talking to you right now because of that oldest. But anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's a very rocky, rocky way up there. I remember that. Yeah, yeah. I should I have a video of it. I should share it with I'll put it in the show notes, but then the video doing that cash. Um, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01:That was the main reason for the trip.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, and so you flew from sweet home, Alabama, like you always sing on another podcast, yeah, and you flew into the city, I believe, of Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. So and the thing is that, and as you said, Josh, I expanded my trip in terms of I thought, well, I'm not just gonna fly into Vegas on the Wednesday, you know, uh, do the the do the turkey trot, do the 4,000 caches and then fly out on the Sunday. No, I wasn't gonna do that. I thought, no, I'll fly fly into Phoenix on the Sunday beforehand, spend a few days traveling uh Phoenix, Arizona, along with California, or depth in California, and then back into Nevada, um, did the ET Highway and then flew back on the Monday. Um because the Sunday flights after Thanksgiving were very expensive. Oh, I'm sure they were. I'm sure they were. So I did it for the Monday instead. So that was my trick.
SPEAKER_03:So you got to Phoenix. Did you do anything in Phoenix, or were you just heading straight north like the next day?
SPEAKER_01:Or no, that same day we landed. I got myself a really nice, a beautiful Hayacar.
SPEAKER_03:Haya car.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. I was waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03:For those that don't know that, that's a rental car.
SPEAKER_01:That's a rental hair.
SPEAKER_03:That's a rental car. I I'll do the translation for you all.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Thank you. Um, it was a 2000 uh no, yeah, 2026 model. So it was next year's model, Jeep, but it wasn't the big that wasn't the the Jeep, it's like a Jeep smaller looking Jeep sort of thing, but still it was still kind of lifted, which I'll tell you now, was good for the ET highway.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. So, did you drive that beautiful drive? I've done it a couple times. The beautiful drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff, yeah, which where Sedona is like right there. Did you go through Sedona, beautiful Red Rocks? I love that drive. You did that again.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, it's a beautiful drive. I hadn't I hadn't done that drive yet before. Um, because I remember I met you with Flagstaff. I was already in Flagstaff when I met you. So I hadn't done that.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. You did not do the wait, you did do the oh, we met the geocach. GeoCat. GeoCat. And you came down a little bit to the south, but you didn't do the full drive.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So this time I did the full drive, all the way up and doing a few caches along the way, uh, having stopping, grabbing some lunch, uh, etc. as well. So because it's an early flight, and then made it all the way up into flagstaff. And I'll tell you, Josh, the the it kind of felt like a little second home because I'd been there for so long in flag stuff. Yeah, 18 months ago for Gia Woodstock last year. Yes, I'd been there with my car getting it fixed, if you recall, as well, for over a week before you turned up. So I uh I kind of knew Flagstaff in and out, to be honest with you, because it's not that hard to have a place uh to go either. So I showed uh I was a bit of a tourist as well to uh to Jennifer as she was with me.
SPEAKER_04:Uh huh.
SPEAKER_01:And uh I was saying, like, where the uh on the corner of Winslow, Arizona, where that song was actually made in Flagstaff, not in Winslow, Arizona, it's made in Flagstaff, Arizona.
SPEAKER_03:So by the hot dog place.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but the hot dog place is still there.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, cool. Yep. I really am a fan of Flagstaff. That would be a place that I I would live. Uh there's there's just many places that I really like in the United States. When I visited there last two summers ago, I really enjoyed it. There's the dry air, um, it's a little bit cooler because it's higher elevation. Yep. I yeah, I really I really liked that that city, it has a lot to offer. So, how long did you spend in Flagstaff? Did you stay overnight there?
SPEAKER_01:Overnight. Yep, cool. Overnight in Flagstaff. Um, and I'd forgotten Josh as well. Because we were there, last time we were there, it was geo woodstock sort of time. So it was a summerish sort of location. And I still recall their being on the tip of that mountain uh in Flagstaff. It was the snow. Remember, there was still snow? Yes. There was boys wore like snowboarding down in shorts and no shirt, if you remember that too. So yes. Well, now we're getting into you know November, end of November at that as well. Oh, it was chilly. Oh, I'm sure it was.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I'm sure this they weren't in um just shorts and no shirts. No, no, not at all, not at all.
SPEAKER_01:And but you can tell it is actually a snow town because you've got a lot of places there, like uh the hotels, etc., do have all the racks, etc., at the front, so you can put your your boots and your your your skis and lock them all up out the front so you can have them off your car and they're not bring them inside, all that sort of stuff, too. So yeah, you can tell it's a snow town.
SPEAKER_03:Did you take Jen up to where we were, that that ski area where the where we went? Okay.
SPEAKER_01:No, we didn't have we didn't have that much time because I wanted that it was only an overnight stay. Um, and by the time we got, as you know, everyone out there, every listener right now, if you geocache, you understand that a two-hour drive is a four to five hour drive for us.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Especially when you're with another geocacher. So if you're not late, if you're not with another geocacher, it's kind of you feel kind of guilty and you're like, Yeah, you feel guilty about stopping. But if you're with another geocacher, they're like, let's go. Exactly. It takes a lot more time. So, did you visit the Grand Canyon once again? You were very close.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Before that's the next day, but before I've got I've got to mention this as well, Josh. Remember, we always say that geocaching takes us to places we ordinarily wouldn't go to.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, that's pretty much what this podcast is about.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Guided, guided. We were we were going up towards Flagsa from Phoenix, and uh there was a pretty cool virtual, you know, high favorite point virtual. We had to stop at. Now, the virtual, I had seen this virtual on Instagram and I didn't know where it was until we rocked up and went, This is the virtual, or this is the location I've seen on Instagram. What it was was a veterans memorial. Okay. There's in this veterans memorial, there is uh big pillars, like concrete pillars. There's like six or seven concrete pillars, and they've all got like a circle of such in them at different angles and different heights. Now, on the 11th day at the 11th month, at 1111 a.m., the sun shines perfectly through all of the holes, and the shadow on the ground is the eagle and the coat of arms of America. No, yes, no way unbelievable the amount of work for celestial work, and that's gone involved, and uh that is absolutely incredible. It's it only happens on the 11th of the 11th at 1111. But you weren't there 1111. No, you got pretty you got pretty close, close, close for no cigar, and it and it was cloudy when we're going through too and rainy, so there was no sun. But uh, but I thought to myself, wow, that's I'd just seen it on Instagram and I thought this is the place right here. So the place again, geocaching takes us, uh, you know, that we wouldn't ordinarily go to. Loved it. I just thought I'd have to say that one too. So whoever the CEO is that, thank you. Big shout out for that. That was really, really cool.
SPEAKER_03:But that's a really good virtual, that's really neat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like really, really sweet. I can just imagine, Josh, how busy it would be on the 1111.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. It's like it's like how it got crazy busy when there was like the full lunar eclipse, you know, where the cities, the cities in the path, path of totality. It's like they were just like packed.
SPEAKER_01:I'm thinking it's the same in uh in Pennsylvania when Punks A Tony Phil gets uh brought out in the south shadow. That's sort of busy, I can assume. So that's right. But yeah, that's cool. Uh no, so yeah, stayed in Flagstaff, Arizona, and then we headed off the next day. Um, again, we went uh slightly north and went along the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Josh. This time I drove there instead of uh getting the training train like we did too.
SPEAKER_03:I love the train. Oh, that was so fun. We did the dome car. Go back and listen to that episode. Uh it'll be the Geo Woodstock episode from two years ago. That we took the train, the the Grand Canyon train to the Grand Canyon, to the South Rim. So you're back in the same spot where we were, the South Rim.
SPEAKER_01:Almost, almost, because I I started, I I did like because we had a car, then we could actually drive the South Rim and stop off at so many other lookouts all along the way. Oh, neat. That's neat. So that was the that was the really cool difference for me, was that I actually went to places of the Grand Canyon that I hadn't been to before. You know, and and that was that was for me was the highlight of that day itself. So getting all the different other places um along that rim. And of course, our Munsies are still there too, Josh.
SPEAKER_03:Are they still there? They didn't they didn't leave us?
SPEAKER_01:No, they're still there on the uh on the south rim. I checked.
SPEAKER_03:So good. Those virtual, I think they were virtuals, they didn't disappear. Thank goodness. Thank goodness some some uh Munsey god didn't pull them away.
SPEAKER_01:I know, right?
SPEAKER_03:Meaning, meaning you or Rob pull them off the map.
SPEAKER_02:My virtuals got muggled.
SPEAKER_01:That was really cool, and again, there's some really cool earth caches um along there and a virtual as well, so that's really, really nice. So after that, Josh, we uh drove all the way down and through to um uh what was that called? Oh, I can't hear the place now. Oh, Seligman. Have you heard of Seligman in Arizona?
SPEAKER_03:Selig Seligman, Arizona. I have not. Tell me more. I have not.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so this stop, this stop, uh, as you go from uh from Flagstaff to Kingman, Arizona, you can get off um and go the Route 66. It actually is, it's supposedly the where Route 66 actually began, in terms of the idea of Route 66, was in Seligman, Arizona. I got told by an uh fellow Munsey player, Vadotech, to uh to jump on and have a look at this place, and he told me to go here because there's a famous ice cream shop that I had to visit and I had to get ice cream out no matter how cold it was. So I said, absolutely, we're gonna go there. So uh we drove into Seligman, and I'm telling you, Josh, I stepped back, I step back into the into time, into the 80s, 70s and 80s, 60s, 70s and 80s. This is old school Route 66. Nothing has changed. I'm talking the signs are still the need. On. I'm talking, you know, there's stuff everywhere. So the the ice cream shop that are there, we pulled up uh to the ice cream shop, the parlor out the back. It was like this Rue 66 walkthrough museum that's just free and open. You can just walk through and take photos. Um, really weird stuff. I'm talking about, like in terms of you talking about the toilet seat museum. Remember, we went there as well? Yes. This had didn't this didn't have the toilet seat, this had the entire toilet uh museum. So there was there was potties everywhere that you could all sit down over, take some photos with, etc. That was really cool. But no, Seligman, I will say Seligman is one of those places again off the highway where if you decide to have a rest break, have a stop, have grab a few caches, etc., this is the place to go. But for me, Josh, the ice cream place had closed full winter. I know. The owner was even there walking out the back, and I said to him, Is this the ice cream place? And he said, he said, yes, it is, because it's closed for the winter. He closed like three or four days before we got there. I was like, wow. I said, you don't have anything that you can open up and sort of and he said, No, we don't. We got rid of everything for the summer, so for the winter. So I know, I know.
SPEAKER_03:So Seeligman, if we're pronouncing it right, Arizona, it's a little town, 700 people is a population.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_03:I am I am looking at pictures. If you closed your eyes and you never have been to Route 66 before, and you close your eyes and you imagine what it would be like, this is it. It really does. It looks exactly it looks like exactly off the movie Cars, pretty much.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, and that's what they go from as well. And they they play off that movie cars as well. So really, yeah, absolutely. They've got um like murals and stuff like that too in the town where they play off uh what's a yeah with the the dump truck guy and cars and then different characters, yeah. All the different characters and cars is in the actual town as well. So that's really cool, and on murals and stuff too. So loved it, loved it, loved it. Got some really cool photos um in there as well. So again, spent some time doing that before heading further to Kingman, Arizona. And we stayed overnight at Kingman, Arizona.
SPEAKER_03:So are you heading west, farther west in Arizona? Okay, you're making your way to Vegas, baby.
SPEAKER_01:Vegas. Well, no, we actually made our way to California first and then back into Vegas.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow, the long way around the long way around.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and there was several reasons for that. Now, uh, first reason is that uh Jennifer had never done Arizona, Nevada, or California. She'd never been there, never catched it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so this was the first time that she had seen the Grand Canyon, first of all. Absolutely. What was her I always like to talk to people about this. What was her reaction when she saw it for the first time?
SPEAKER_01:She was literally gobsmacked, blown away, couldn't actually talk about it, stood there in awe. Um, I did I did she did see because I never told her about the trip. I just said, you know, you come in on these are the dates. She had no idea where we were.
SPEAKER_03:So you had planned this, yes. Yeah, okay. So she didn't know that that was happening.
SPEAKER_01:She had no clue about the trip. Oh, that's hot. Apart from the ET Highway, that's all she knew about. That's all she knew about. She didn't know where we were staying, she didn't know the things we're doing, she didn't know the Seligman, she didn't know the Grand Canyon. Um, when we were driving to the Grand Canyon, for instance, you know, uh past uh past Flagstaff, etc. Yeah, there was signs, and she looked at me and I went, Oh, just close your eyes or just forget that you saw the signs. So she knew you can't, yeah. She figured it out on the way there. But no, I I did say to her, I said, you'll see it in movies, you'll see it on TV, you'll see it in photos, but nothing beats being there. It is like you're standing in a three-dimensional painting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it doesn't look real. It's hard, it's hard for your brain to uh fathom something that an object that large. That's why I think it makes our brains go, whoa, amazing.
SPEAKER_01:It is, it is, and it's it's amazing, Josh, too, because I'm gonna uh shout to one of the things we're gonna talk about right at the end of the show, and that is this here was a natural wonder, and then right at the end of the uh the trip as well was a uh man-made wonder that I'd seen too. And it gave you the same feeling. I'll say that. It gave you the same feeling. You will I'll get to that very, very soon. I'm jealous.
SPEAKER_03:All right, overnight stay, Kingman, Arizona. Yeah, tell me what's what's in Kingman? What is that again? We're on Route 66 still. Route 66, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, and Kingman dives headfirst into that Route 66 feeling. Um, there's the best one of the best parts of uh of Kingman as well is the the tourism center, the the visitor center in Kingman, Arizona. It really plays heavily into the Route 66 stuff to the point where there's another virtual cache uh where there's a drive-thru Route 66 sign that goes over the top of the car. It's a black and it's got six Route 66 on top, and so you can park the car there and get uh get selfies and and have other people take your photo and stuff with your car in between the big Route 66 sign. That was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03:Um that is cool. I see that. I saw I'm looking at pictures right now. Yes, and you know it's really interesting, Craig. You know, you I feel like you have seen most of Route 66, but it hasn't been, I don't feel like it's been in sequential order. No, no, it's like different pieces of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I've and you you you we all know that there's that Route 66 Adventure Lab, you know, um going across Route 66 or 100 adventure labs or something. I've done like maybe, maybe Josh, 15 or 20 pins, not adventure lab, not completed adventure labs, actual pins of the adventure lab. So you know how there's five pins per adventure lab, right? I've done 15 pins. I have not completed one Route 66 Adventure Lab yet.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm sure though you were picking up, and Jen was probably picking up you know, when you could or when they were there, or did you ignore the adventure labs? And there gotta be a lot of adventure labs. I mean, for those who who don't know, there we've talked to Scott on the show. Uh, there's a whole route of it's a power trail of adventure labs on Route 66. Um, so did you do a lot of those, or did you kind of like, oh, there's so many?
SPEAKER_01:We kind of I kind of bypassed the adventure labs a little bit um because we had touristy things to do, uh, more so than than the adventure lab sort of style. And we did stop for physical caches and stuff as well, because uh, if you are a jig caching and you know about then adventure labs do not count towards locations such as state um you know uh things and stuff like that too. So they don't really count apart from just you know actual fines, that's all it was. So I thought to myself, no, we'll leave it and then one day, one day, Josh, we'll do the entire Route 66 for the purpose of doing Route 66.
SPEAKER_03:If that's are you talking about like me and you will do it together? Is are you inviting me right now? It's me and you taking the road? Life is a highway. I'm gonna ride it all night long. We'll see my shell.
SPEAKER_01:How warm are you in bed, Josh? Because I was taking the van, just saying so.
SPEAKER_03:Can I bring Goliath? He can he can sleep, he can sleep between us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he can fit. Goliath can fit, actually. I don't know about you, but uh Goliath can fit, put it that way. So um, no, King of Arizona, again, it plays high into that Route 66 feeling. And speaking of Goliath, too, he would have loved it. He would have loved it. And that's why the reason for it is next to the visitor center, there's a little dog park. Inside the dog park, Josh, there's a miniature version of that same Route 66 sign that your car goes under, but for dogs, so you can sit your dog under the Route 66 sign and get a photo. I didn't have a dog, so I had to do the sitting myself. So I sat there under the Route 66 sign like a dog and uh and got a photo. So that's a lot of fun. A lot of fun, but but no, you again, Kingman, a lot a place where you could easily spend two or three days, you know, doing the adventure labs there, doing some caching there, and enjoying the whole highlights of uh of Route 66. So But Josh, the next day looking at the next picture again. That's uh that's the one I'll put I'll put my picture in the uh in the show notes as well for that. Um uh the next day, Josh, because we stayed in Kingman, Arizona. The next day again, Jen didn't have any clue about where we're going. She just got in the car aimlessly and put a seatboard on, and I drove. That's it. We continued along Route 66. Now we went the old school Route 66, and I I even said to her, This is this is actually Route 66, and she's like, really good. Yeah, the highway's over you know, half a mile away. Right, so you can go the highway. A highway's got two lanes in each direction, the whole lot. The old Route 66, one lane in each direction. It's windy, it's bendy, it's there's potholes, there's this. I said to her, Can you imagine back in the day? This was how you traveled across country was on this route.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Took a lot longer, a lot longer, and a lot more slowing down through these little towns, I'm sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I I even said to her as well, with that with back in the day too, we didn't have the cars that are as reliable as today either. So you can understand that you know you would have had to stop a lot more often, you know, to to fill up with gas and to to if the car's overheating, if you know mechanics and all that sort of stuff, too. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But there was uh but there's one place, Josh, we went to that is my number one town that I've ever visited in the United States. My number one, yes. Oh, that is that is big. That's okay. Okay, and and this town, Josh, there's people who live, it's in Arizona. There's people, there's people who live in Arizona their entire lives who've never heard of this town. Wow. Never heard of this town. It is Oatman, Arizona. O-A-T-M-A-N. Oatman, Arizona. You go up through the hills on Route 66, going through different areas. You get into the town. This town, Josh, is uh literally like a one-horse town. There is it's wooden um shop fronts on each side through the main street. The main street is the only street through town. Um, there's nothing else there apart from these wooden shops and people, the the locals there as well. But the most important thing that it's there, uh call they call themselves uh burrows, Josh. Have you heard of Burrows?
SPEAKER_03:I mean Wild Burrows Burrow in New York is like a neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that's a new thing. No, wild burrows, also known as donkeys, Josh. There's wild donkeys roam free all through Oatman. Really? They're just wild? They're wild donkeys. They've got names, of course. The the locals know their names and they're always walking around, but no one owns them. They are absolutely um, you can interact with these donkeys. These donkeys are very, very, very friendly because you can't you can buy food for them, but you gotta be careful because sometimes they can be very, very friendly and bite. So there were people getting bitten on the backs, there's people having plastic bags that were the donkeys that would tear open the plastic bags, you know, looking for food, that's what they do. Um there was two um junior donkeys there, like the baby donkeys there with them as well. And the the babies they can't have the same food because it's like it's like a I don't know, it's like a grass hay that you get, like a greeny hay that you give the donkeys, and that's what they really like. Um the the the young ones can't have that. So the locals have stuck a stop sign on their head saying, Do not feed me, it's bad for me. And so they've got these little these little stickers on top of their heads saying stop, do not feed me.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny. But that's really funny.
SPEAKER_01:But I'll tell you, this is a wild west town. If you look at old westerns, this is the town that you'd uh you'd have. It looked like to me a place where you'd pay money to go to at a uh uh what do you call it, like an amusement park, for instance. And there's in the white you ride the rickety roller coaster out the back, you know, and it's a gold rush. Because it was born from the gold rush era, you see, so that's the reason why it's there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the minute you get into that town, you hear this.
SPEAKER_01:Even better, even better, Josh. Twice a day, every single day, the town stops for a shootout.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I that's cool. I love that. I was gonna ask that actually, yeah, because that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, there's like a shootout.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a couple of the shopkeepers close their doors, get up in their their little country, their their western outfits as well, with their chaps and their big hats and uh and their gunslingers and all that sort of thing, too. Now I'll tell you, Josh, these guns that they have, they're real guns, but they have blanks in them apparently. So they are loud, they're real, you can smell them like it's just you know, and they they don't mind just letting them you know rip through the crowd, they don't care. It's like whoa.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. I have a question for you. Remember when we did the train ride and on the way back from the Grand Canyon train ride, the yes, the the thieves robbed the we got robbed in the train. And really, they just like you could see horses. It was kind of cool. The horses were running alongside the train, and then the train stopped. Yeah, and the criminals robbed us, and all they did was they were just looking for tips. Rubbed us some tips exactly. So after the gun shoot the shootout where there were their tips like hats. Oh, yeah, they came around with hats.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they came around with hats because that's how that's how they keep the town uh uh you know running is is through the donations and generosity of the the tourists. Um that's the only way this this town survives now is on tourism. Purely and simply tourism, that's all it was. But I will say the the cowboys and any the cowboys that we saw in the uh what do you call it the the train ride were much cleaner and much younger than the ones I saw in open Amazon.
SPEAKER_04:Oh really?
SPEAKER_01:I'm talking, I'm talking these guys almost had like a you know a walking frame as they were slinging guns around and and then uh one one would hit a wall or something and dust would fly off his costume too. So it's like it was it was a sight to behold, absolutely sight to behold. But no, and you can have lunch there, Josh. Now the lunch there, oh wow, in the local hotel. You know, you've seen them around the the the world now, but especially in the US, you got those old hotels, whatever, and everyone signs their name on a one dollar bill, and they put it all up and around the the the all so every wall, ceiling, the whole lot is covered in these one dollar bills in this hotel. Uh, food there was delicious, and they have burrow chips. Josh. Weird burrow ear chips. What that is, is that they slice up a potato very finely. Okay, but not too fine. So it's not like a lays, it's probably about five lays put together, basically, but it's a real potato, so it's not a potato chip, it's a real potato. They then fry that particular potato, and then those are then next to your your meal, these uh burrow ears, they call them. So that's absolutely delicious because they were still soft in the center, but crispy on the outside, and they're a full like a belaise-looking chip. So very different to normal French fries.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, that sounds like it. Yeah, that sounds delicious. Yeah, that sounds like a cool place. I'm looking at pictures right now. You're it's a wild west town. It's cool that there's donkeys wandering around. Yeah, it looks yeah, straight out of the like Back of the Future 3.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Um Doc Brown and Biff Tannin.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that.
SPEAKER_03:That's I love that kind of stuff. That's cool.
SPEAKER_01:That was really cool.
SPEAKER_03:And it's your favorite town of the US now. It's number one.
SPEAKER_01:One town, my number one. And the main reason, the main reason, Josh, it is close to my heart is because it does remind me of my grandfather, my my late grandfather. Um, growing up, all my my childhood, every weekend I would visit my grandparents' place and I'd, you know, my grandmother and I, we're we were the closest uh bonding that you know, between two sort of you know, uh relatives there was. So my grandfather was a bit left out, but every Saturday night, because he never used to play cards or any of that sort of stuff, we used to play cards, he would be out in the lounge room watching his Western movies, yeah. And he'd call out, You guys keep it down in there, I can't even hear my movie, you know, that sort of thing, too. So he was the grumpy old man in the seat that is still like you have those memories of him. And I think to myself, Pop, you know, look at this. Look at what I'm seeing, Pop. Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm in the movie. I'm in the movie now. Like, what would he think of being in a place like that? He would literally just lose his mind.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, he would think it's cool.
SPEAKER_01:So that's the reason why I think as well. It's it's very close to and dear to my heart.
SPEAKER_03:That's really cool. All right, you went to one of the cool oh, okay. What more thing?
SPEAKER_01:What a full a full adventure lab stage is in there as well in open Arizona, and a couple of cool caches are in there, including inside inside the uh one of the stores, and you walk in, and and we walked out, and I'm looking at the phone, and then she comes out. The lady comes out, she goes, Are you geocaching? I said, How did you know? She goes, Well, you're looking at your phone's funny. Of course. He said, It's in here in the urn, and so it was in like the caches inside in the urn as well. So that's really cool.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I love a good indoor geocache because they're so unique.
SPEAKER_01:And the fact they put it in an urn, that's exactly that's funny.
SPEAKER_03:Um, was there a container in the urn, or just like there you just you looked in the urn and it was that the logbook was in the urn?
SPEAKER_01:Just logbook and trinkets were in the urn by itself. Well, that's funny. That's funny because we did obviously we do a geocaching uh along the way along that route as well. Um, and there was one cache location there, which was out on a point that you had to walk out to. Beautiful view overlooking all of gorgeous Arizona. Um, but the whole point is like a uh like a cemetery, but they're all there's no actual graves, they're all literally urns sitting on on the ground with yeah, with their with their ashes in them and everything as well. And and me being me, I looked and went, oh look at that, looks like an ammo can. And I I picked up the lid uh and looked, no, there's a plastic bag full of ashes in there. I went, oh, sorry, my bad, put it back down.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, sorry, whoever that is. Sorry, Bill, sorry, Bill. Put your back, Bill. Put your back, Bill. I'm looking for the cash.
SPEAKER_01:Can you point me in the right direction? But yeah, there was uh so things like that again, you won't ordinarily find though without the hobby which we love. So um, and one other one was again inside. A cache was inside this uh this you know souvenir shop sort of style, middle of nowhere. But the best part about it is that no one really drives this Route 66 that we're on. It's very rare to see a car go past. We we were there for like maybe 20 minutes and one car went past. But the best part is right at the front of this old school gas station looking um souvenir shop was an official Route 66 painted sign on the road. Perfect photos. Absolutely, and no cars driving past. You can take as much as you want, get the right angle you want, get the right lighting you want, and you can get a perfect photo of you sitting on the road with the Route 66, an official Route 66 sign painted right in front of you. So again, really cool, Josh. Really cool.
SPEAKER_03:I'm so jealous. I know I want to I want to do a Route 66, like I want to do the whole thing, yeah. And like and I but I really want to do it. I don't want to like rush through it like in a week. I want to like do a month like in a month and like do all the little silly things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Because it's like sometimes it will Take you about a month as well because you do stop at all these little stops. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And it's just like roadside attraction heaven, really. And just all this like quirky, quirky and kind of cheeky, uh touristy things.
SPEAKER_01:So we even spoke about the blue whale, for instance, is on Route 62.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Blue Whale. I know, I haven't been there yet. I blame Minnesota Boy. Remember, remember why I have been there. Minnesota boy said, Oh, I don't want to go to a blue whale. I'm like, yeah, really? And now then he saw the pictures of it, now he he regrets it.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, that's what I mean. There's places like that all along Route 66, but uh, but now we then headed off into California. The reason for California was uh Joshua Tree National Park.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay. So before you begin, I'm just gonna say this. I've been to Joshua Tree. This is one of the most magical, like mysterious, very different uh national parks. Like it's unlike anything. The trees are like these, it looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Like the trees and the rock formations. Uh Joshua Tree is a really unique, interesting, deserty national park. And I'm so glad. Is this the first time that you've visited uh Joshua Tree?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, cool. I'd never and that's another reason why we wanted to go because we're kind of so close to it anyway. And I thought, what's another national park that I haven't visited? And it's Joshua Tree National Park. And that's been that's been high up on my to-do list. Um, my my son's name's Joshua as well. Uh and so uh that's been high on my to-do list for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, what a great name.
SPEAKER_01:What a great name.
SPEAKER_03:One of your closest friends is named Joshua. It's all making sense now. It's all making functions. Why we're friends, yes, it's making sense why we're friends. You're really attached to the Joshua, yeah. Um so unique landscapes, the tree, the ja the actual Joshua trees are just really unique. I mean, look if you've never seen them before, Google Joshua Tree trees. They're it's almost like a doctor's, you're walking into a Dr. Seuss book, and when I went, I had to play the U2 album Joshua Tree as I'm driving through. I had to. I had to. It just I don't know, it seems like the right thing to do. But tell it, tell me about your experience there.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, we did the we did the drive-through uh the the national park as well. But we what I loved about it is as you said, Josh, they are like Dr. Zeus movies, the trees themselves, but no tree looks the same. They are all in different angles, different designs, and different heights. There are ones that look a bit sick, there's one that's look uh look okay. Um, and some of the earth caches that are there make you get out of the car and have a wander around the particular rock formations to do the earth cache. And while you're doing that as well, there's a few that are have been downed, like the actual Joshua trees are down and they're dead, but the skeletons have you seen a Joshua tree skeleton, Josh?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I know there's a a rock formation called skeleton rock or skull rock. Did you go did you visit did you visit that? I think that's an earth cache. Did you do that? Yeah, it's that's it's a rock formation. It looks like the gooties like skull.
SPEAKER_01:It does, and you actually can climb up into the eye. Yeah, climb up and get photos in the eye of it. That's really cool. Um, the skeleton of a Joshua tree itself is because it's uh it's more like a cactus to a certain degree. Um, so it's very light, very flimsy, very, you know, and it it kind of looks very um mosaic sort of style with the way the skeleton is, and it's very it's got like holes in it, very woven basket sort of style, too. Looks um I nothing like I thought about would look. I thought it'd be you know a Joshua tree, so it'd be a log or a bit of wood. No, it's all hollow inside, so yeah, very, very unique.
SPEAKER_03:There's also a very unique cactus there, and I'm gonna mispronounce it. I'm sure you saw a lot of it. It's the it's well, it's spelled C-H-O-L-L-A. Uh the chula uh chola, chula, chola. People are gonna write us. But it's a really unique cactus, and I remember when I was visiting there, it's like the sunsets at Joshua Tree are just amazing, and how the sunsets like like uh go through these cacti. It's it is a beautiful place for sunsets and with the with all the trees and all this stuff. So yeah, it's yeah, if you ever get that way, it's worth just driving through. It you don't you don't need to spend like you don't necessarily need to camp there, it's a desert. You could camp there, but it's worth it's worth just driving through, yes, especially if you are doing it um during sunset, I think.
SPEAKER_01:So or even sunrise too. Sunrise is beautiful as well. Either those two, the the the golden hours are really, really nice. So uh yeah, so we know we drove through uh the Joshua Tree National Park. Um we stayed the night at Joshua Tree as well, stayed the night there too. A um an old it's an old hotel we stayed at, or I should say old motel, but they'd been refurbished and done up. Now, uh because of Joshua Tree National Park, uh, there's a lot of rock climbing there too. So inside every one of these rooms is all rock climbing gear where you can hang your ropes up and all that stuff. Oh, yeah, it was it was very unique. Even even the uh even behind the the bathroom door where the the toilet paper is, the toilet paper was was slung about with a uh like a bungee cord. That's funny. Very, very cool, very, very cool indeed. So that was really awesome. Um so we yeah, we stayed there and then moved on back up north, back to Vegas. Now, on our way back to Vegas, on our way to Vegas, because again, it's not that far from Josh Tree National Park to Vegas, it's like three hours, three and a half hour drive. Um, but on our way back, we stopped in at this really random roadside stop. Again, there was a really cool cache inside inside the road stop as well. Uh, it was like a this uh big Coke bottle, um blow-up coke bottle, and you had to you pick up the coke bottle underneath was was like a number thing that you had to get a number for, and then the the combination code was there. So it was a lot of fun. Oh, that's cool. But the best part was, Josh, as we walked out, we heard this coming through. Well, what the what's that? Looked up. A plane is landing right next to us. A plane. Why? Like a little like a little plane, and someone's flew their plane and landed it to get like some things from the store in their plane. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
SPEAKER_03:And where was this? Was this it near Joshua Tree?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, just north, just north of Joshua Tree on Route 66 still. So we're still on Route 66, we're back on Route 66. So that's funny. The other thing Route 66 does have is very much like um the ET Highway. They do have thousands of geocaches along Route 66 as well. So there are like physicals, traditional, so thousands along there too. So but no, headed back up and into Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_00:Viva Las Vegas, vivo Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, yeah, but last year. I did back up a little bit from the mic, but thank you. I do appreciate it. Oh, viva Las Vegas. I've been to Vegas, uh just so we can relate here. I've been to Vegas like I think, gosh, I've been there two times, I think. Yeah, uh, two separate times uh for different reasons. But you drove in and all right, tell us, tell us. I mean, tell us what you can tell us because everybody knows their slogan is what happens in Vegas, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's true, that's true. And and and funnily enough, um, yeah, Jen, she was talking to her kids throughout because she's got a 17-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son, and uh she was saying, like, you know, oh we're we're going to Vegas now, and the daughter was very, very unhappy. Why aren't we there? I want to be there. And she's like, You don't see your cash, they want to see Vegas. And uh, and then the daughter turned around and said, Well, what happens if Vegas stays in Vegas? And Jen's like, Where did you learn that? It's their it's their actual town slogan, slogan. That's what I thought. So um, we did the whole we did the touristing in Vegas. So we we went we only stayed the one night before we headed up to uh headed up to PT Highway. So we did the touristy thing in Vegas. We stayed at the Luxor Hotel because you know that's actually one of the cheapest hotels there, I'll be honest.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Okay, I'm just curious, what is uh just a typical a typical room at the Luxor? Like on a like what how much is it?$20.
SPEAKER_01:$21 a night at the Luxor. But but they want you to gamble. No, yeah, but you gotta pay$50 a night in hotel fees, like uh the the the resort tax, they call it.
SPEAKER_03:And and probably parking and like they probably nickel and dime.
SPEAKER_01:20 20 bucks a night for parking. So in the end, one night at the Luxor was 91 bucks, including parking. Not bad. It's still not bad for for the hotel in which it is, it's it's pretty, pretty good. So and I've never I'd never I've never actually gambled at all in the US um since I've been here for the last four years.
SPEAKER_03:Did you do any gambling? Did you put anything in a slot machine?
SPEAKER_01:I put some money in the slot machines, and that lasted five minutes, and then we left. And then I left. That was it.
SPEAKER_03:So um you could have, you know, it would have been better just to go into the uh give them five bucks, uh go in the back room and get kicked in the nuts and call it a night.
SPEAKER_01:Pretty much, pretty much.
SPEAKER_03:It's pretty much what it feels like to lose money gambling.
SPEAKER_01:But in saying that, we we were there with other Giacachi friends as well. Uh Shane and their name. Oh, yes, we of course. We yeah, we were there with them because they had to be in our car to do the ET Highway because of the way we do the highway. Um, so we met them in Vegas and they had already been there for a couple of days beforehand. That morning, Josh, they actually went into a poker tournament, like a player poker tournament or whatever. Shane won the poker tournament in the casino, Las Vegas. He won. What? How much and he won some decent money in the tournaments. So he didn't tell me, so I don't know exactly how much it was, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We're talking about it's probably thousands, I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, yeah. So they they they he won that. And uh and Garnet, she came ninth, apparently, so eighth or ninth. So an actual fact, Shane knocked her out uh in ninth position. So she wasn't having that. Exactly. You're on the lounge tonight, you're on the couch tonight. Um but no, so yeah, they are very good at poker, apparently.
SPEAKER_03:That's really cool, and that's interesting because you know, a lot of not a lot, several geocaching events have poker, they have poker runs, but they also have poker tournaments that people gamble geo coins. So I bet that they do some geo Woodstock.
SPEAKER_01:Geo Woodstock this year in uh the Giga, the Giga event this year, they had the the night after. Remember when we were doing the on stage with uh the family feud, they were actually having a poker night with Geo coins there. Yes, that's right. Shane won. Oh my gosh, he won he won over 40 Geo coins that night. So there you go. Over$400 of geo coins.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, he's he's a decent player, he's legit. He's he's like pro. Is he pro or is he like semi? Is he a pro? Like no, no, he's got a real job.
SPEAKER_01:He got he's got a real job. I think he plays a lot, but he's got a real job. But anyway, we picked him up there. Um, we had dinner with him as well. I will say the dining and entertainment experience in Vegas, yeah. It is pricey, Josh. I will say, it is pricey. You're gonna have to take your wallet and your credit card, but I'll tell you now, we had Vietnamese the first night they were there. Yes, it was like you know, 75 bucks a head for this Vietnamese food, so it is pricey, but it was delicious, Josh. It was to die for, and yeah, yeah, we're talking about the the Wagyu beef stuff and like all these different sushis, and oh man, like it was delectable, absolutely delectable. And um, so there was that. Uh yeah, make sure you take your wallet. That's all I'll say. I mean, yeah, you can't you can you can buy, you know, there's the$25 hot dogs, for instance, in there too. Nathan's hot dogs and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like because of the accommodations are fairly decent, I I think it ends, it can be a pretty reasonable, especially if you don't gamble, it can be a pretty reasonable reasonable location. Oh, yeah. And I've I've thought about honestly taking just a day trip to do what you did at the end end of your trip, just to do just to do that, because that's such a unique thing. Again, we're teasing it, we're teasing it, we're teasing it. It's coming, it's coming. But let's move on to the ET highway now.
SPEAKER_01:The ET Highway. So the next day we drove up to the ET Highway. As I said before, it's about two and a half hours uh starting. Start the ET Highway is two and a half hours north of Vegas. And uh, once you get there, it says extraterrestrial highway. There's stickers all over the sign there for it and stuff as well. It's really cool. And that's where ET0001 begins. I need that cache.
SPEAKER_03:I need that cache. You know, I've done the ET Highway. We never got to that cache. You never got number one. That number one is like that's at the sign that's like iconic. We I didn't get that one. I need to go back. I need to go back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but you started there. We still we well, we didn't start there because what happened is because we we had nine cars in total. Now, instead of doing people normally do it with two cars and they do the like the leapfrog thing. So one car will drive around, they'll pick up the cache. Now, these caches are designed, they're designed for to never have a DNF. What you need to do is you have your own containers with your own logbooks in your containers, for instance. As you go to one, if it's smashed or it's broken or it's not there, you then replace it with a brand new one and you log the find. If it's there, you pick it up, you still replace it with a new one, you take it back to the car, and as you drive to the next one, the person next to you behind you is stamping or writing the names down in that logbook and you replace the next one with that one, replace the next one with that one. And that's how you do it. It's so smart. Normally you do it with I said two or three cars, and you do the log property. Nine, nine cars. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I'm really curious about this. How did it work out? Did it work?
SPEAKER_01:Perfectly. It worked perfectly, perfectly. So, Chad, from one of the uh the other co-hosts on the GCPC, he organized um these in little sections, sections about 80 caches per section, and you had like three sections per car per day. So you're finding, you know, 200 caches in a day, which is very easy to do when you're in these cars. You just got driving between the sections, but three sections a day is very easy, and um, and literally you are 527 feet, whatever they are, apart, one tenth of a mile apart, literally one tenth of a mile apart. You're going in and out. Sometimes you don't even get back on the road, you just you sit on the shoulder, just drive the shoulder. Um, you know, sometimes if you're in a car with uh you can actually leave the door open, for instance, and just go jump in and if you're in one of those caravan, like the people who you just jump in and out of the van, you know, that sort of thing, too. So yeah, it worked out very, very well. We then stayed in uh Tonapar, the uh town there, which is closest to it. The closest biggest town was Tonapar. We stayed there for the two nights. Well, and that was our that was our junction, our home par base. We'd have an event in the morning, like a coffee event, and then we'd have an event at night, so you know, for dinner and stuff, uh, including the uh the Thanksgiving night. We had dinner there too, and we had this dinner at the most haunted hotel in USA. The number one haunted hotel in the USA.
SPEAKER_03:Where is it? Ms. Pa Hotel. Oh, it's not the one I was thinking of. That's the other one I was thinking of.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, this is this is we're talking about this is a hotel where you go in, there's a bar. Uh it used to be um, like it used to have a bank downstairs, and you can walk through the actual safe still. Like it has it all open, it's beautiful, it's got uh carpet area. Um, you know, they've got a brewery, a local brewery there, so you can get local beers as well. Um, and they do have a fairly decent uh meals there, like a bistro sort of style meals, which is good. We did have um like a turkey dinner. The four of us did have like a nice turkey dinner on Thursday night. So it was it was nice, but the uh America's most haunted hotel, famous for its lady in red ghost. She is seen several times walking up and down the stairs, and apparently she was a prostitute murdered on the fifth floor back in the day. Whoa, that's creepy. Some of the other spirits are very playful, including the bank robbers that come out of the basement because bank robbers got shot in there there as well. So there's still bank robbers that are in the basement, apparently. Their spirits are in the basement there, too. Um, other unexplained phenomena that happens around as well, but it's it's it is quite luxurious, Josh. It is done up really nice. It's got the old school sort of axe minster carpet uh you know on the floor and you know that sort of thing, too. So very cool indeed. Uh Mizpa Hotel.
SPEAKER_03:I'm looking at the building, right? The building is cool. Oh, yeah. This isn't a rundown place, this is a nice place.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You so you stayed here.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. We just oh you just you just visited. We just stayed, yeah. We just we just visited for dinner one night and stayed in an Airbnb. It's classy. It's classy. It is. I probably wouldn't stay there because of the spiritual activity. But that's just that's just me. Um but Josh, what you were referring to is literally two blocks down the road. Two blocks down the road, it is home to the clown motel, the infamous clown motel. Josh, what do you know about the clown motel?
SPEAKER_03:I just know that it's a clown-themed hotel. I was actually thinking about going on this trip, and I was wanting to actually look at some of the rooms. And there's like different theme rooms. It looked like there was a pennywise room. It was fun watching some of the live footage that was coming out of the trip here because Scott Burks was like going into the rooms and showing a little bit like what the rooms look like. I mean, it's not like a super, it's a motel. It's not like a super fancy, but it's it's uh it's exactly what you would probably envision it to be. It was kind of you know, I don't think it was run down, but it was like, but yeah, it is text.
SPEAKER_01:There's text in the carpet, you know, to hold the the corners of the carpet down. There's you know, that's all part of the parcel of the theme of the whole place. Um but you go in, you go into their uh the the area where you check in, etc. as well, and they've got like a like a museum and and gift shop in there as well. And it's now home in the actual gift shop itself, it's now home to over 2,000 clown statues and items inside the the lobby itself. Over 2,000 now. They started with 150 clown figurines, and now they've got over 2,000. Um I think it was opened in 1985 back in the day. So uh there, there you go. So the clown. But one of the best parts about the clown motel, next door to it, there's a chain link fence. You can see the chain link fence from every single room. In that chain link fence is one of the oldest cemeteries in America.
SPEAKER_03:It's funny because I did a Google Earth search because I wanted to see what it looked like from the air, and I was like, oh my god, I saw that. I was like, oh my gosh, there's a cemetery next to it. Of course, there's a cemetery.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Um, again, a pretty cool um adventure lab at the clown motel and the cemetery as well. But what I loved about the cemetery, Josh, is that so this again, this was was an old mining town back in the day, and we're talking, I'm talking back then, I'm talking 200 years ago, Josh. There's people buried. In there from 200 years ago. But every single one is pretty much, you know, the uh the the railroad um um pillars that what do you call sleepers, railway sleepers. They're like old railway sleepers that are in this the in the crossing, like in the sign of a cross for signifying each each one, each but there's a a metal, an old metal plaque in the the middle, like nailed in, and in that metal is a metal stamp of the person's name and details and how they died. So this is Bill. Bill dropped dead out the front of the local chemist on the main road. Then this is this is Sam. Sam fell off, Sam fell off the uh a what do you call it, a carriage and then was run over by a train. You know, that's that's funny.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny because in the movie Back to the Future 3, Doc Brown uh he sees his gravestone, and that's why that's why Marty has to go back and save him because he realizes he gets shot. But the tombstone says, here lies Doc Brown, who is shot in the back by Brewford Tannen for a 50 uh over a dispute of$50.
SPEAKER_01:So I didn't realize that that's a real thing. That's a real thing. That is a real thing. Like these things happen. Um, and even to the point, Josh, we're talking, I said, it's 200 years ago, okay? So there were there were crosses that were on the the edge of the chain link fence on the other side, and it didn't say here lies, it said uh like all the Asian community that died in the area are not buried in that cemetery, they're buried over the fence, and they just said over the fence lies Chin Li or like the Asian names because they weren't allowed to be buried with the rest of them. So yeah, yeah. 200 years ago things were different back then, remember? Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, okay. So that's that's really interesting. Are you do you regret do you regret that you didn't stay in the clown motel, or do you feel like there was an event there so you got a sense of like what it was like?
SPEAKER_01:So I can throw it, I can throw them under the bus, and that is this that uh we organized our trip at Tuna Par and stuff as well. We organized it with Shane and Garnet. So the four of us were there organizing our trip. Uh, and we're gonna stay together, we drove together, that sort of thing as well. Uh Shane is totally, and he's the winner of all the poker tournaments, but cannot stand looking at a clown, has clown phobia, but he braved it out and actually walked in. We did actually did a to a little tour of the clown motel, and he walked in to the clown, and I could see Josh, the hair on the back of his neck stood up so stiff, and I thought he had a mullet for one second because his hair on his neck was so stiff out that he was so like and he's his fists were clenched the whole time he was inside. So it is a real fear.
SPEAKER_03:Um it's chlorophobe, it's called chlorophobia.
SPEAKER_01:Chlorophobia.
SPEAKER_03:That's not that's not when you drug someone and no that's chlorophyll, that's different.
SPEAKER_01:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Chlorophone chlorophobia. Wow. So yeah, there's no way he's sleeping there. No way.
SPEAKER_01:He said he said he'd rather sleep in the cemetery next door than anywhere near the club hotel. So that's uh that's a real thing. So but no, we actually stayed we stayed in a beautiful Airbnb with a with a log fireplace, and it was a TP style. Remember how we stayed in the TP style one in when I say TP, I mean like a pitched high-pitched roof in Flagstown? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like that. It was like a nice high-pitched roof. So it was really cool.
SPEAKER_03:That's cool. So before we move on from the ET highway, how many caches did you act find? Did you find them all of all 4,000? Or did all 4,000?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, over over 4,000 have been found and have been logged. Wow, that's what happens when you have nine cars.
SPEAKER_03:How uh did it take two days? Was it two days?
SPEAKER_01:Nine cars, two days. Two days, nine cars. There was some issues along the way. One car got a flat tire, another one, another car got stuck in mud as well. Um and had to be sort of and they can't be winched out, you know, there's nowhere to winch because you're in the desert. So yeah, things like that were happened. And so there was some some people stayed back because I was staying back on the Saturday. Some people stayed back and did the extra bits that that weren't covered, so in the in the two days.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, so yeah, you really did the whole thing. That was that's impressive. Have you logged them all already?
SPEAKER_01:I have not yet. Um, but apparently, apparently, you can log them all on G SAC, but GSAC is only on PCs, not the Macs.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so that's tough.
SPEAKER_01:That's tough. Yeah, so I've got to find someone with a PC.
SPEAKER_03:Or a lot of or a lot of time. Okay, so then you went back to Vegas, babies. Vegas, a little bookend.
SPEAKER_01:This is what we're referring to in the beginning of the show. Are you ready to do that?
SPEAKER_03:I don't even want I don't even want to hear it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, again, remember Jen had no idea that I had organized any of this.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, she was probably so excited to see this.
SPEAKER_01:Well, she didn't even know, so she wasn't excited because she didn't know about it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but one, but what I'm saying is when you approach the thing, when you approach the man-made wonder thing. I'm then she was like, Oh my gosh, we're going here.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the best part about Vegas, Josh, is that you can't see much apart from what's in front of your face. And we walked, so where the Luxor is, the Luxor is down near the southern part of the actual strip itself. So we walked north from the Luxor. We took our entire, because we left there at like, you know, nine o'clock in the morning. I said to her, we're gonna be walking a lot today. So we walked north all the way up the strip, crisscrossing the strip, you know, going through all the different hotels and you know, going through the the hotel where there's the gondolas inside the hotels, and you know, having a cup a cup a cup of coffee in like an Italian restaurant there, and you know, you hear the the gondolas singing in the background, and there's the fake sky above your head, and all that sort of stuff. So she's I like that. She's mesmerized, Josh. She's mesmerized by everything. So she had no clue about what the finale was. The finale. We walk around the corner, and there it is, in all its glory. Yes, known as the sphere.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, the sphere. And you're thinking maybe, you know, the sphere has concerts, the sphere has you know, I think there's tours, but there's a very special thing happening at the sphere right now. And you guys know if you listen to this podcast for any amount of time, I have a love for this movie. You saw a movie in the sphere, and we're talking like uh observing seeing a movie unlike any movie you've ever seen in your life. Sure. Ever seen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, though, I couldn't keep it a secret from her because it's on the outside of the sphere in the promotion. So yeah, absolutely. You know, of course. The movie is The Wizard of Oz. Classic. The Wizard of Oz, absolute classic. So as we're walking up, this sphere is glowing, and it's glowing in the old sort of school, um, you know, that that orange tinging dusty look, and then you have that and she's riding her bicycle with Toto on the back around the sphere, like it's incredible. That's the one, that's the one. But uh, but no, so you she knew straight away then. She's like, Oh, we going to I'm like, okay, we you got it in one, so yep, no worries. Um it's very Josh, I'll tell you now, it there's not not one bad seat in this place. Oh, I'm sure you know, you can get the cheap seats, the cheap seats are over 250 bucks for the cheap seats. Yeah, the expensive seats are over a thousand dollars, and you'll see just as much for each seat as you will. So it makes a difference. It's a big screen. My suggestion is you know, pay for what you can afford if you want to see it.
SPEAKER_03:So it's gonna be a cool experience regardless.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 16k resolution. This thing was 16k resolution. Now, as you can understand, if you're looking at a TV screen, Josh, and the TV screen is you know, a normal TV screen, think about this. It showed the actual movie on this screen. The actual movie was shown, but in order to show the actual movie, they had to get AI to make up the rest of the screen, including the ceiling behind you and around you. So now, if you don't want to know any more about it, then I suggest uh you know, you just say, you know, thanks for thanks for listening and off you go now. Thanks for being patient.
SPEAKER_03:Bye.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna be some spoilers, exactly. Because I'm only gonna do spoilers though, because I I need to tell you, Josh.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I know I I know because I see these on social, I know a lot of the spoilers, so you're not I know I know because what I when you right before the day, I knew the day you were going, I texted you and I said, Grab an apple for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's all that's it. The first thing you your first thing you see is obviously the size of the screen and the everything, and you're just in awe of it all. And you're looking around, your neck's like getting sore. You're looking everywhere you look, you can see. Um, the second thing was when the tornado hit, Josh, it started the tornado started coming, the seats were rumbling, Josh. You could actually feel the vibrations through your seats. It got chilly, like it all of a sudden the temperature dropped by I'm talking 15, 20 degrees. The temperature dropped. So cool, the wind started blowing, pieces of paper started flapping everywhere. Leaves, leaves started flapping everywhere, and everything was flying everywhere, like you were actually in the middle, and the the tornado actually came up on screen like the eye of the storm, and it went really soft, and then you hit again and it came back again, too. Like you actually felt like you were part of the actual tornado. Wow, it was absolutely insane.
SPEAKER_03:So unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah, it's I've seen TikToks of this of people's reactions, like they get their they're showing it, but they show themselves experiencing it.
SPEAKER_01:You're right, like it's like they they're in a storm, they're they're in the storm. Uh you got so it's they class it as 4D, uh four-dimensional feeling, right? So the you got that, you got the tornado coming through, and but I I just thought, you know, that's pretty cool a tornado coming through, but no, there's more, Josh. Oh, yeah. Um, when there's when there's there and there's the um the snow starts falling in the movie itself, yeah, it snows on you in the cinema. When the apples start falling from the trees, the apples fall from the roof of the cinema. Like obviously they're not real, but uh, you know, the apples actually fall from the roof of the cinema.
SPEAKER_03:Did you catch one? Did you catch any of them?
SPEAKER_01:No, we didn't catch one. Oh, bumper.
SPEAKER_03:There's only there's only like a handful of it wasn't that many, but there was it was like you were aware, you were aware that they were falling, but you didn't grab one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there were that many. But Josh, what I thought was amazing was you know the uh the winged monkeys in the movie. Everyone loves the winged monkeys.
SPEAKER_03:The flying monkeys, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The flying monkeys, the fly, everyone loves the flying monkeys. Well, they had all these flying monkeys come out on the screen as well, which is all really cool and stuff as well. They have real flying monkeys, Josh. Yeah, I'm talking 12-foot size flying monkeys, amazing, literally flying around over your heads and buzzing around. And what they are is actually they're drones because they're not actually attached to anything. What they're not attached to strings? No strings. There's no strings. I didn't know this. I didn't know that. They are drones because then they all they all go when they go down the bottom, they go down and they land at the bottom. They all land one after the other. Actually flying, actually flying monkeys, real flying monkeys.
SPEAKER_03:I gotta, I gotta do this. I gotta tell you, I gotta grab a I gotta take the day off one day and get a cheap$50 allegiant flight.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_03:Go go to the movie and then go back to the airport and go home the same night. It sounds like that's worth it, especially if you like Wizard of Oz. I mean, you know, when we were in the Space Coast, I was like, hey Craig, can we go to the Wizard of Oz Museum? That's right.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yep, exactly, exactly. So yeah, you I'm telling you, Josh, you need to do it. And it is it is exactly the same movie, there's no difference. I did watch on YouTube the making of like a bit of the making of it, like emotional, and they show you how the AI figures out the actor and how that person acts in real life, and then when they walk off screen, they don't actually walk off screen in this in the sphere because the screen is so big, they stand in the doorway that would have been there, and they still act like they normally do act. So it's the AI makes them act, you see.
SPEAKER_03:So it's so funny because there are I've watched some of that documentary too, or some of the behind the scenes on that, and there's some film purists that are don't like this idea because they're like, you're messing with you're messing with art. And I'm like, you know what though? This is a whole new thing, art. You still have the movie. The movie, if you want to watch the movie, you can watch the movie, but this is just like an enhanced fun thing.
SPEAKER_01:But the thing is about the movie, the movie's not altered in any way, like it's the actual original film. Same actor. Yeah, yeah. Judy Garland back to life again. And I think they even asked Judy Garland's uh grandchild or grandchildren, um, and before they even did it, and the grandchildren agreed and said no, yeah, she would have loved that, so yes. You know, so that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03:You know, speaking of Judy Garland, Judy Garland, he she plays Dorothy, right? And at the end of the movie, she gets back to Kansas by saying, There's no place like home. There's no place like home. And you know why she says that? She says it because she's proud of her town. And that is a rare thing these days. It's a damn rare thing these days. She's proud of that Kansas town that she lives in. She's she lives in the country, but I was I was wondering how you get that in.
SPEAKER_01:You know that, don't you?
SPEAKER_03:Uh the whole time. I was thinking about it the whole episode. I was I was waiting for Dorothy to say there's no place like is it? Was it that's a creep? Come on, you gotta admit, Craig. That was creative.
SPEAKER_01:That was very, very creative. Because you even got me for a little bit too for a second there. I thought I was like, wow.
SPEAKER_03:I know you were like, where is he going? Usually you're like, okay, here it comes, but this time you're like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Anytime you're like wondering what what's anytime you're wondering what's going on, usually I'm going in the direction of saying the phrase.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. You're saying your phrase, exactly. Uh, one thing I will say as well, um, is that after we saw that, we stayed one more night at the Luxor as well. Luckily, we're at the Luxor because Luxor is right near the uh airport. Why? We had to have a two-flight trip home, including a layover in Houston, because you know, Pensacola doesn't have direct flights.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:All well and good, everything's fine, no dramas. You know, we woke up in the morning, we had time for breakfast and everything as well. Except, Josh, we were sitting at breakfast and I got a text message saying your flight is delayed. And it's delayed to the point where you've got five minutes after landing before the next one takes off.
SPEAKER_04:Oh boy, stress.
SPEAKER_01:And says it says, What would you like to do? And of course, there's one there says, you know, oh, you can leave later tonight and get the red eye through Chicago and then land the very next day in Pensacola. I'm like, that's that's that's long and that's late. Or Josh, come early and get the earlier flight to uh Houston and have a longer layer in Houston. That's all well and good, except it was one hour away, and we were sitting at breakfast. So guess what I did, Josh? We took it. I said, let's do this. We've got an hour, let's go. And so we did like a we thought we were um I made it fun, like we're on the uh amazing race. Yeah, we're gonna go back to the room, get the bags, get the bags, go, go, go, get the get to the Uber, send to the Uber. We've got like 50 minutes to get to him. He said, No worries. He sped there, Josh. He was really cool too. He was excited, sped there, went through, had to do a bag drop because we had to buy an actual suitcase because we had so many souvenirs. So wow. So we did a bag drop as well, sent to the guy at uh at the uh the uh United, uh, you know, urgent, do a bag drop. Yep, no worries, just go, go, go. He says we had to go through security. Luckily, I'm TSA, so we got through TSA line instead of the other line. Um, but even worse, we weren't in the right terminal, so we had to then get a like we had to get a bus thing from the terminal to the terminal we were through. That's the terminal. Oh, I tell you. We made it as we got to the gate, they were calling our names. Yeah, they're like, where are these people? And we would come running to the gate and they're like, Oh, you're here. And so that was cool. So so yeah, it was like the amazing race, and then we had a five-hour layover in Houston.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, sounds like that was the best option. If you wanted to, you could have left the Houston Airport and taken Jen to the beer can house, the greatest location in Houston.
SPEAKER_02:Love that we love that beer can house.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. There's an episode about that too. So go back and listen. But uh, but anyway, Josh, so that was my entire trip. Thank you very much for listening, and thank you to everyone for uh out there listening to my my adventures this time and my trip.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, that's really cool. Yes, it sounds like a lot of fun. There's many aspects I was very jealous of. Yeah, but it is what it is. I got to see my son. Family's more important. Um, so that was the right choice. It might maybe wasn't as maybe as fun, but it was my right choice.
SPEAKER_01:Well, when your car gets dented instead, so it's like Yeah, and all the toilet paper's gone. But it is it is what it is. You know, you gotta do this thing sometimes where you've got uh Thanksgiving isn't just about family, it's about friends sometimes too. So this is true. This is true. We had we had friends giving uh for this year instead. This is true. Speaking of our friends, Josh.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, speaking of our friends, yeah, if you're enjoying our podcast, we really appreciate your support. By supporting us, you're helping us create even better content and keep it free for everyone. We don't have any commercials yet. So please consider joining us on our Patreon. It's at patreon.com backslash treasures of our town. And we just want to thank all our patrons for all their support. A big bill did come recently for uh our Buzz Sprout high uh Buzz Sprout thing, and so we're we're not you know it it fluctuates, and I think we're at a little bit of a lower level right now, so uh we surely do appreciate your support. So check us out on Patreon. There's golden nuggets there. We give little bonus foot footage or clips every once in a while.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Uh Josh, we did have uh Brian from Texas, he's the one that reached out in regards to the chicken math. Yeah, Josh, one of our uh listeners who reached out to us, uh 2XR Cody. Now it was a long email, but I'll basically summarize, and that is I'm catching up on older episodes. I just listened to the one where you visited Floresville for Texas Challenge. Remember the Texas Challenge, Josh?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I remember it very well.
SPEAKER_01:That was a really fun trip. It was, and you mentioned stopping by Sunshine Coffee House in Jordenton. Remember because I love my coffee, Josh. I think that's what it was, too, because I love my coffee so much. And this was a pop.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and there was a geocaching event uh hosted by Captain Math. Remember? That's true.
SPEAKER_01:That's true, that's true. Um, he said that moment hit me a lot harder than I expected. I'm like, what? And I had to look through. Interesting. Sunshine Coffee House is owned by my best friend's mum. My friend passed away a little back in 2017, and I haven't really been the same since. She opened the coffee house in honor of her two children, and hearing you recognize it, even briefly, felt like the world acknowledged his story in his tiny, unexpected way. I was actually at work when I was listening and had to step back for a moment and take it all in. Uh completely caught me completely off guard. Um, but it was really mean in a meaningful way. So thank you very much. If you ever want to know more about the heart behind that place and their story, he gave me uh the shuttle shinecoffeehouse.com and the story about it too. Links are in the description. And thank For your kindness and attention to you give to all the small towns and the people who make them special. This episode found me on a day I really needed it. So there you go. Thank you, Cody, mate. Thank you, buddy.
SPEAKER_03:That's awesome. That's that's that's why we do this. I love that that idea. I love that idea of uh I I appreciate that he acknowledged that we focus on small towns.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:And um and so that's that's really cool. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And speaking speaking of small towns, uh, right now I am talking to a guy that has a web series where he features he features small towns. I'm in conversation with him. It's not locked in yet, but very possibly possibly soon. The next the next episode will involve this gentleman as he talks about as he travels to small towns and really he really features the treasures that are of these small towns. We might talk to him, might talk to him in the next episode or coming up.
SPEAKER_01:And if you've got a if you've got a question for him or for Josh or myself, how can people contact us, Josh, if they wish to?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmail.com. Or you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or our Buzz Sprout site.
SPEAKER_01:So that's it for our show today. Please subscribe, rate, review on your favorite podcasting app.
SPEAKER_03:And as always, Josh, may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems around the world. See you next time. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.
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