Travel

0:00 Welcome back to another episode of a record of my father. Today we're going to be talking about our travel experiences and places. We've been place. Maybe we want to go and I was another thing. I want to talk about is your travel experiences from what your kid vs. Now, and all the places you imagine you go, then maybe now see how that's changed. And yeah, Wow, I think about travel, well, all my travel experiences, a kid were probably more on foot and they're within a radius of the House of about up to.

0:41 I mean, we were we were given some pretty loose rains. So as far as you can walk. Yeah. And a half a day and that's pretty far away. We could go away from home. When I was five six, you know, we would just go out we We stayed and we would go to a park every year. I remember that hungry mother state park. That's where we go every year, whereas ever je, yes in Virginia. And like Southwest Virginia camp out. It was like, if I remember correctly, you could rent a cabin for a week for like 65 bucks. Wow, his real cheap and it was like a two bedroom or something like that and, you know, so it was, you know, it was something that you could economically do for a whole week.

1:25 I mean, it wasn't like the beach because we couldn't. Ford running a beach house or anything like that, but my mom would do this and we started doing this in the late 60s and we would drive down there, and that was the vacation. And that was the travel or occasionally on the way we visit relatives and we'd stay at one of their houses down that way, but that was it. There wasn't. I don't remember traveling anywhere until I met hitchhiked amount. I hitchhiked to Florida when I was 18 in C2, right, 19, yet, Tennessee, or Tallahassee to his liking. What I hitchhiked back and forth to school every day. I hitch like to Florida with a buddy, we hitchhike to Florida in where the order Boca Raton is where we got dropped off the first, right?

2:14 We got one ride. Oh, look at him back from d.c. to Florida. I remember we were out there. It's too, you know, big guys. And people stopped pick us up and then sort. An 82 dip. And You know, we we got this guy in a big Oldsmobile, that was driving a car down to his brothers and we hopped in the back and he said, he'd get us as far as you know. He's going to stop South Carolina or North Carolina or something like that. But then he ended up saying, hey, do you guys want to take over and he let the Buddy as with drive and we drove all the way to Boca Raton, Florida.

2:56 And that's where that's where we came across the bus stops that were, they had, they had a In 1982. They had a colored bus stop and he had a whites only 82. Yes. So when I hear about this, so it all went away is like, no, not at all. And that's it for today. Yeah. Yeah. Florida was just huge segregation, very different. And of course, we sat in the we were when we, we were with the colored bus stop, because that's where we went, because we thought we were like, this is weird. Yeah, you know, and also we had, we had a two-gallon jug of vodka and bitter lemon that we drank the whole way down. So we're really hammering, you know, and he was driving, and it's 8:00 in the morning to, so it added to the, just a spark of it.

3:45 Also, you left it in 12 hours, prior to that, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it was pretty wild to get there that quick. We were eight o'clock. One morning, we were out hitchhiking in d.c. just outside of DC and Woodbridge, Virginia. And we got to ride and it took us all the way. A to Boca Raton and I remember coming in around 7:00 a.m. there. Yeah. So it's about a 20 hour ride. Well, that's fourteen, sixteen eighteen twenty something like that. How do you back we ended up hitchhiking up through Tallahassee. Had a relative that live there that across the state over Jacksonville and then we hopped a train and we took a train all the way back to DC. Did you get a ticket or did you just jump on the train?

4:26 Yeah, we got to take it. I gotta take it when I played poker the whole time. Coming at Tonk as I would remember what it was. I didn't. How to play it, but I've heard of this some silly card game that we played for 10 hours for nickels and dimes and stuff. Yeah, an hour 13 or 20, it was some incredible amount of time. It was, there's a lot longer on the train than it was hitchhiking, which is kind of weird. That is that? No, I mean, no. I mean, I think about like I'm trying to remember, you know, most of my very, very little like road trips to go anywhere. All this kind of, I never went to Canada all that. Till I graduated college and I didn't graduate college. Until I was 20 almost 25. He just just shy of 2524 in a bunch. Where did you go in Canada?

5:15 When did I go to Canada? I went to Canada. Well, I don't know where I went to Canada when I was right out of college roommate and I said, went on a road trip, drove to Canada. And camped out up there where you know it's hard to remember because we were just totally smashed the whole time. We went up there and we we brought our weed along. And remember if it was liking, this is the olden day. We this is not this current stuff that you lunatic Ontario, like maybe, I don't know what we went through. We went across to where Niagara Falls was. So it like, that's wrong, it's all your fault for the first time, okay?

5:57 And then we went into Canada and we You know, it was in the French part. So as Montreal, you know, so it's up there. Yeah, I remember going to get firewood and speaking to somebody and they go 50 and I make that joke to this day and you're like, what the hell is that? It's like we went into this little hole-in-the-wall place. We were trying to find firewood so we could we were on this beautiful Lake in the middle of nowhere and it was like two dollars a night to stay there and we pitched a tent and we just partied for days and we fished and all that kind of stuff and hiked and then traveled around there and most Mostly just got obliterated and started big fires on on on a lake. Sounds like it was a trip. I just took home their Dreadful, Albert all the way to Montreal. Yeah, I was Far, gosh a little more expensive and you know, it's funny those camping is what is it? Now, it's like $50 for slip for only three days, or something like that.

6:49 Wow. Now instead of 24, what was it the week? There was a two dollar today. I think it might have been two hours a day. We thought really, that's ridiculous. It's just a little bit of dirt will just sneak it, you know, it's kind of what I think about now, too. Is the place that I stayed in Alberta to was all just are things like picture on town. There's No cabin or anything. And I'm like, you try to me that much and that was even there. Stay on the field. There's nobody there at all and there's like, multiple, I don't know, like campsites. So you're thinking like your painting, you're asking me this much for I don't know, just do piece of dirt, the nobody's there. I think about camping experiences. We when we were in China, when I was walking the wall, we would go the walls.

7:31 Unlike the top of the mountains and stuff like that you would, but you would go down into The Valleys to Camp during the night. And I remember our guides everywhere you went in China, there was there was in, we were in the across the Northwestern provinces Everything had corn, everybody, grew some veggies, some stuff. So we came down at night, our crew would set up the tent and what they would do is they would pay the farmer to cut down a section of his Field of Corn. Oh yeah. So we could camp there because they had no space. You would have to you had to camp in the frickin street because there was no, there was no unused land, they don't use pesticides or anything like that.

8:16 So I can imagine that I don't have, I wasn't into the form. The Chinese farming at that time. They weren't. I'm so those later. They can later, right? And your retirement that was just sort of like that was a really cool experience because we get up in the we get up and walk around and they have like a little tiny Courtyard and almost every Chinese house, the farmer's house. The remotes were three rooms, there was the big room to welcome you. There was the room to the right, which is the bed in the room, the bed and the room to the left, which was the bathroom kitchen. This is an interesting. Combination, and they had a, like a shower outside. And I remember, I got up early, and I went in there and I went into the courtyard, because that's where they had the well to get water. And they had a the bedroom was one window. One, big giant glass window in the curtains were open. And the whole family was lined up on the bed. You know, there was like, the grandfather, the grandmother, the Sun, the his wife, the sister, the sister's husband, the brother in three kids, all in a row. It was just the oddest thing I've ever seen and I was just like, whoa, they weren't awake yet because like really early which was kind of weird for a farming family to still be asleep and maybe some of them were up but not you know that it's hot as hell.

9:43 It was in it was in the mid 90s with 90% humidity. It was it was jokingly just In the sky exploded. I mean, literally exploded every night. It was just it was very just off the hook. I mean, even the sky exploded, I remember a had as we had a thunderstorm in the thunderstorm is so loud and the lightening was striking. You would see it striking the tops of the mountains around you. This is the humanity. Yeah and we're in a we're sleeping and I like a little forest and the Chinese government. The that local provincial guy came. I'm with the big fire engine and a Paddy Wagon and they were worried about us because this is right before the Chinese hosted, the Olympics and are shining a light on us. And they're telling us that we violated some rule, because we traveled through three or four different provinces and evidently you're supposed to get permission from each individual Province, to travel from one to the other. And we just hired World Expedition at the time and they They were supposed to take care of that evidently they did. I don't think of it and maybe they just lie, you know? Gave the guy that was in charge that had won some money and they just said, no one ever cares but they cared. And so the next morning, We hot, we all break down, all the tents and everything and we hop in the little van that we had and we go downtown to the Chinese jail for

11:15 thus county seat with all the gel said, what province or even at this point. It's in the north. It's where mounts Emmett. I was I don't know what province that is. You can, it's easy to look up. So you don't know the problems you are in and you were going to be arrested in the province that yeah, well, they didn't say we were arrested but we had to report the next morning to To the jail. Did you have somebody that spoke Chinese? He spoke Chinese but he couldn't read it. And this is what was ruined. So, we'd go there and there's in this is like, we're in one of those stretch Vans or something. Not like, yeah, lower van, but the big tall vanity stand up that, right? And he goes in and he said, I've talked to the officials and they're like that we've and they want us to sign confessions, and there's like, 11 of us in there, and the conditions are in Chinese. And, and he said, and we're like, well, we're like what? What?

12:06 Because, you know, you pay for a trip, you go on a trip, you see in foreign countries, leave somewhere and all of a sudden, they want you to sign a confession. And if someone says they want you to sign a confession there's a little bit of fear about well what does it say? Yeah he goes well from best. I can understand which right away. No sane person would sign any of that shit. Yeah but If you don't sign it, we can't leave. So we're standing there. We're sitting there on the bus and everybody's like immediately. Everybody's like hell no, I'm not signing nothing. I'm not signing this. I'm not signing this, so, but I'm like, well, And I asked him, that's what I asked. You know, what would happen if we don't sign it because we don't leave, anybody doesn't sign. It can go, he goes and then we'll try to work that out on what's going to happen, but you will be detained here. And here was this big giant building that I'd gone into just go pee and in come back out and this is where I saw the. I don't know if you have you ever heard of it? It's called an Emmy V.

13:16 And in China, who does that, it's like a Giant RV and it's a mobile execution vehicle. And it was parked like two cars over from us and is just like, and I looked at it and and that's when the guy somebody made a reference to it. I didn't know, I didn't take a picture or anything because I was kind of freaked out by it. Should have taken a picture. And well, I mean, I don't know what the hell they do for you for a loop camping, doing Maria, I don't know, I mean, maybe I didn't want Find out. So after a lot of balking by everybody and when he said well you're going to be detained and people were angry him and they rightfully so his was like well it's not my fault, it's the expedition's company and blah blah blah blah blah you know is basically passed the buck.

14:03 It's not my fault, it's somebody else's. That's what I didn't matter and I was like, very quick. I'm one of those people who like, well, okay, how do we, you know, blaming him is not going to change the situation. We can scream it. Anybody want? We can stab them? We could beat them up really bad. Dad, but how many people are on the door? Besides you? There's a, like, 11 12 of us, I do. So it was not just like you with me. Seth, Seth, Junior, you know, little Seth and a bunch of other people. I always thought it was like, you, three, and then maybe like two other people. Yeah. Australia, we had another Australian Zealand. We had an English waiting, which couple we had South American Argentinian.

14:48 This was like enough people to make a pretty big stir, right? Exactly. But if we all disappeared, no one would have known. Yeah, so did I, we wouldn't have known Cher reason that they may say about it about the government is because and the reasons this guy was doing it and saying that disavow any knowledge that he had been signed paid, whatever is because I guess he hadn't told us superiors and if we got hurt Over there. If we were to get hurt right before this happened, they would have just been executed. Point Blank, That's it. Well yeah. Because it would have been an international incident to hurt an American in China.

15:30 Right before the Olympics. That wouldn't have happened. Yeah, right. Well. So here we were signing confession, so if something did go wrong, their asses were covered. All right, do you think that's what it was about? I, you know, I have no idea what they were all on paper in there in Chinese and you know, whatever I signed. I'm I'm you know, whatever. I don't know. Happy to this day. You don't have like it come you. Nope. They didn't have a copy. You signed it. They took it. Did you ask him? We really. Can I have a copy? Let him speak Chinese couldn't like point out and I'll do some pointing this was not one of those negotiation things you know. Like so if you ever go into a situation where the other guys holding all of the cards. Yeah, well and he knows it that's fair and he's not going to bend Yeah.

16:21 And they're in a military uniform and you know, I always like to make jokes and poke fun and all that kind of stuff like that. We're not doing that. No, not this was not that time. I remember you telling Mom the story and she was like what what that happened. Yeah, you don't happen. What was that mean? Later in there, when we got back to Beijing, after we signed them, we all signed them. They took them and we just went on about our way and it was this at the end of the trip. Where was this? This was like a day before the end. But of course, so then we go back to Beijing and we're in the main Square in Tiananmen Square. And there's no, there's like a couple hundred thousand people there and this is any given day, you know, it's a sunny day, it's warm outside, it's a summer. So a lot of Chinese travel to Beijing, the Farm Workers, come to, you know, see the city and of course there's you know, there's there's a smattering of Caucasian people. Us being them.

17:22 And so your, your C of C of Agents with, you know, maybe a couple hundred and they're all small groups and there's these guys that walk around that are in leisure suits that had. They had flip phones. Then write this down night, early 90s or was it mostly 2005 2005. They still had flip phones. Didn't have the little big, the phones that you and they were all taking pictures of us and it was so funny. Yeah, and I was, and I made a joke with the guy he goes no because he said you could easily. They were like people that followed you, you know how people talk about handlers and how would you go to a country that's got me to Station at they, the people follow you around all like, yeah, like that, this is one of those situations and we had multiple ones that would come by and take pictures of each, one of us.

18:15 And I started making jokes because how easy they were to spot because they're the only people in Tiananmen Square that Are by themselves. No one. Is there alone? Except these guys and all these guys wore exactly the same kind of, they had a powder, blue leisure suit. Yeah, you know, they had the light blue one agreement, the London. No, they didn't blend it at all. They're easy to spot. They were just comical, you know. and, You know, they took pictures and I made a ice, making a joke and then the guy goes, no, don't don't they don't, they don't take it the way that we take it. They don't like you're here, they will? They will pieces.

18:56 I don't, I don't want them to detain you Because I was kind of like, wow, we got away from one. I'm gonna screw it up and do it somewhere else. You know. You would be the one to do. Yeah, I'm the one with the big mouth. It's always speaking at all that kind of stuff like that and that's just, that's that's that was one. That's like a lot of time that I talked about that one story we have. We have so many like that, you know I mean I think about if not I haven't heard that one. I heard the Mev one. Yeah for yeah. But I think another question. So how was your travel plans changed? Over the course of I don't know. Retiring in being like this gung-ho going about climbing mountains to what do you what do you want? Do you want from travel?

19:39 And I still want to, I still want to, I mean there was a thing. There's a feeling that you get, when you Crest the top of a mountain. It's something that I can't like it's a combination of the lack of oxygen with the accomplishment. I used to just, I don't know. It's something it's it's a, it's a, it's a nice feeling. Yeah, and a lot and you get that in life and you know, not only from sex but that you get this from this is something different and it is it is Is a? At peace moment or something that you feel like I'm doing something that's an accomplishment like you say, and it just for some reason, it just it's a big thing.

20:26 When I did, I did Mount Whitney when you and I did Santa Maria in Guatemala, that was crazy when Jim and I did Mount Fuji when I did Kilimanjaro with Jose, that was the last one food. You get Inca Trail and control wasn't a mountain. But it was a trail that was remote and it was multiple days and, you know, we cover Many 12,000 to two or three 12,000-foot mountains, you go up to the top and down. Anyway, just to name a few or that's probably most of them. Anyway, there's just a sense of joy that I get from that and I look back at that and it's like another, you know, and when I, when I do those kind of things, I love to I walk fast and it kind of Walk Alone.

21:17 And when you're in the, when you're in the throes of hiking and walking, you don't talk which is highly unusual for me because I'm just a ratchet jaw. Do work fast and alone already. You might either here all the time. Yeah. But I get quiet and I walk and then I just that to me is a great way to become. I don't know, one with yourself or whatever you call it that medication. Yeah, it's kind of like a neat way to meditate. And if it's a long ways like you, when he walked 12 hours, you know, thought I stole Piney in South America when it did the W that was we walked 20 miles in a day 19. I think maybe 19 and it was that was the second second finger of the W or whatever.

22:10 The third. And I remember coming back we went out at 7:00 in the morning we're coming back at it's like 5:00, it's almost dark coming back and you're just literally one foot in front of the other. It's, you're an AutoZone at that point and everybody's sort of stringing along. It's a long you know by yourself or not by yourself and I remember coming into camp and just just a feeling of Exhilaration even though exhaustion exhilaration together, I can go to sleep now. Is that what that was? Well yeah, it's probably more that than anything. But there is a certain amount of endorphins it just get.

22:54 And it's and it's not like amphetamines. It's more like happiness that just sort of hits for me. I don't know. This works for everybody with that works for me. It kind of happens with travel to, for me, that's my thing. When I feel like and, you know, my wife knows it, she knows it when I don't travel for a little while, I start getting antsy and I'm like, you know, anyone says, Hey and all of a sudden I want to go to the store Nine times a day. I think it's funny though. You've been all these places and yet, you haven't even driven across this country, which is really funny to madinah. Yeah, I'm just, just having done that.

23:34 I mean up, I think I've hit a few of the places and I've new flow. Loan me. Oh my gosh, but it's completely different. Oh, really agree to to to Mark the trail, by by car, or by foot, or by train is much different than flight. Just, I've been up and down the East Coast. up and you know, from here in New York for ten years week every other week, you know, a lot and Down to Florida maybe a lot driving in the early years my brother moved Florida. So I visit there a lot but out west. No not at all.

24:21 You know, flu too shy flat by flown to Chicago. Maybe 10 times 15, 20, California, maybe 50, Seattle, New Mexico visited their drove around the Midwest. Did that drove across the Midwest and Wyoming with you and the yeah. Yeah, horrible South Dakota. North Dakota Wyoming. Yeah, Montana. Yep. And it's Rushmore. We saw that Grant. Do we see Grand Canyon? No. Now you and, I went to the bomb aggrandizement, another downstair Havasu Falls. We hiked to the Bottom camp there for for three or four days, and then came back. It was one of the best things.

25:07 We've ever done. Not on the way down, but on the way back, right? Yeah, we're back those hands. I remember the end of the first day you were unhappy because it was 160, reasoning 707. Yeah, that's what I had on. Exactly 107. And I have two or nine or eight forty-five miles and I'm just it wasn't 45. It was only ten. It was sealed away. I was like we went about halfway there and we took off our clothes and hopped into the cold the little stream. The bat that was at the end. No, not till the very end. Did we get into? There's another stream? But Midway in, there was a little pool that we stopped to rest and eat lunch at. And we finished at the end of the, well, there wasn't water up there because it was a, it was a prize, really, I think you're making that up.

25:56 So thank you both will shit. But is the thing is I found that. If you sound convincing you have a deep voice everybody. Please sit, right? Yeah. Yeah, no, but I don't remember that. I remember eating a sandwich on the side or that guy can't remember what they sat member people to go off their shoes because there's a little, there's a, there was a a spring. It was running and I do remember that spring. They're actually fed the one further down the water was so blue. Yeah, it was super blue, super clean and super cold. And but it really wasn't that cold. It's just that it was pretty cool. When it's 100 degree temperature out. You jump in water that's 80. You're like wow it's freezing.

26:40 You know when in fact it's not it's also going to mean. Sean went to Alberta. Oh my God. That water was free. It was glacier water. Hmm. And like just we were early hour to go swimming when we get there. No I'm not you're not you're not doing that. You're not doing that because it's like 40 degrees. You did that, it's got 10 seconds. What was that? Aw, the Loch Ness monster was did you go in the water actually? Move all the way? No, hell no, I took off my shoe and put it on my foot in there and because I wanted to say all I went swimming with the Loch Ness but it really didn't. I just went down there and Busca took a picture of me you know with my foot in the water and seeing he's swimming.

27:23 This is same thing with Lake Yellowstone. We went there and that was just like that was so cold. The yeah, let's go swimming. It's like 18. 90 degrees outside and now you're not gonna swim in there. It's crazy. Well it's absurd. Well, we've covered a little bit of traveling, just a visitor on more to very little bit. So what I, what I would suggest is we wind this up, okay, we talk about what do we, what do we hit a little bit about China? We hit we just touched a little bit on hiking and what the feeling is that when you get to the end, the bus tour from hell when we talk about, we didn't talk about the bus to work. How we haven't, there's a whole so many stories that we haven't talked.

28:05 What I want to do is we should probably do this in like three stages or I like that idea. So at this point, ladies and gentlemen, what we're going to do is we're going to call this travel part 1. Yeah. Sounds good. And we can throw in what we talked. And then next time we'll talk about travel part to travel part 3 and we and I guess we could just do as many different ones as you want to do. Yeah. Until he is. Well, I've never you wake up. I want to do is going to be the number of episodes that it takes. I think this is a big Thing. Because been a huge part of your life and my life. Yeah. And so, at this point, I just want to say thank you for listening and we'll look forward to having you, listen to our next travels. And and look at the Instagram, a record of my father podcast and find us on a record of my father, father, podcast.com party on