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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen our episode from two thousand nineteen, where we cover an old House Stuff Works article Chuck had written years before, back when he was the Adventure section writer. It's a fun and interesting look at both how to stay alive in the desert, as well as an in depth look at some silly sentences that Chuck wrote. I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the three of us together, and you've got stuff you should know just in case you ever get lost in a desert. Is what we're going to give as our gift to you. Tradition. You know what's funny, As I was reading a podcast newsletter today, like an industry newsletter, and I'm gonna buzz marketing now, all right? Uh? And I mean there's only one. Now, there's probably more than one. There's several, are there? I think? So all right? I should get on the at least two. Two can be several, right, isn't that the Biblical unit several is two. I thought the Biblical unit was a cubit, right, I'm glad we can laugh in this one. Um And it said there was an article specifically about podcaster burnout, and they interviewed someone that was like, you know, she started podcasting in two thousand seventeen and blah blah blah and experienced burnout. And I gotta laughed. I was like, I mean, I get it, like people burn out in different ways, and they may have a it's tougher workload than nuts. But I just sort of snickered that after eleven or click going on eleven years, very soon do you have this April eleven years? Like we we have moments of not burnout, like we get a little warm, kind of like this again, but that quickly passes very quickly. You know. I'm never like, uh, I've never burned out. I would say that where I don't want to do this or anything. No, I know, I would say there's probably been like literally five times. I'm sorry to use the word literally, but I literally mean literally in this sense. Yes, because you've built a statue of paper machee after each time represent each burnout, right, right, And they're they're on my desk, so you can count them. There's five. But it comes in like just digging into a topic at a time when there's like a bunch of other stuff going on or whatever. It's just been a really long stretch where maybe we're recording more than usual, and then when we get in here to record, it's gone agreed. That's when it doesn't happen. I don't think I've ever been and let me knock on wood, I don't think I've ever been in a recording session with you and been like not wanted to do it, my friend, And weirdly, I'm more burnout with movie crush at times, like it sounds, trust me, I'm seriously complaining. But ask Emily how many times I've been like, I gotta watch this movie tonight notes on because it takes long, and like I have to pause to take the notes because I don't want to miss anything. So it takes like three and a half hours to watch a movie and take notes. And that's how I guess you're you're fundamentally not able to enjoy the movie. It's not like enjoying a movie right, You're quite analyzing DNTs. It a little bit, and it's at night. Kind I guess, yeah, you're right, kind of, but and it's at night, so it's like I'm technically not at work, and sometimes it's just like I don't want to watch whatever. Yeah, don't point Break. Who's who's his point Break? Jordan Morris of Bubble and Jordan Jesse go, Okay, yeah, point Break is a good one. No, no, no, it was. It was really kind of fun watching that. Actually, I don't know why I pulled that one up, okay, because it was the most recent one I watched. But to take notes on Point Break, it can be a little tedious, right bra. There's that one great part where they do the midnight surf and Kiano has just learned, you know, and you just hear this because it's obviously a d R like recorded afterwards, and you just hear him yell m E and surfing. Man. It's just such a great line. Does he say F or the F word? Well, he says the F word. That would have been better if you have said maybe on T N T. That's how it says, oh boy, oh there's one. Oh have you seen that's sorry? I know we haven't even started yet. Out of the way. Have you seen that video of Keanu on the New York I believe subway giving a seat up to a lady who's standing. No, but he is a legendary good guy, yes, who's been through some horrible stuff. Yeah. Um, and I just want to be his friend, Keanu Reeves. If you're listening, friends, okay, well he's your friend first, because you asked, well, we could share him, Okay, all right, I get him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's fine, so we can learn together. Yeah, okay, all right, that's fair. You can have him. We'll alternate weekends, okay, because you know Canada on the weekends, that's that's a party. He think he's a good guy on Monday through Thursday. To see how many seats he gives up on a Saturday. Alright, wait, hold on, one more thing. Can you imagine Keanu Reason listening to this conversation at first, kind of chuckling himself, and it's getting like weirder and weird rights finally, president stop and maybe it never listens again. We just blew our chance. Chuck alright, one more thing, and then I swear I'm done. I meant to tell you that I did some l A sessions recently for movie Crush and UH the Great Show High Maintenance on HBO. It's one of my all time favorites. The dude on there, Ben Sinclair as the guy, the WE delivery guy, UH is just like. One of the main reasons I went there in person was just so I can meet him. I meet him and the first thing he said was is, hey, man, I used to listen to you and Josh when I UH was a shusher at this lesbian poetry bar. And I was like what I was like, first of all, it's a suure. He's like, it's a poetry bar, you know. I said, there and shush people, and He's like, but I ustill listen to you you. Guys always wonder what you look like. Did Josh quit smoking? And I was like, why don't you people ever reach out right, like do you know what that would admit to me? Which he was just a suture at the time maybe, but now he's made it. Yeah. So anyway, I told him that you quit smoking, You're doing great. I don't think he's listening for a bit, but do you think he's listening now? I don't know if he got back on the train or not. But if he did, do you think he's friends with Ken Rees? Maybe? But Ben Claire gives up his seat for no person got that's his And if you if you say, like maybe you should stand up, he goes. Now he would give up his seat. Okay, anyway, let's talk about desert survival. Imagine Chuck, Ben Sinclair is making his way through the desert in his car, priest will say, and he runs out of not just gas but electricity as well, which he might he has a big RV. Actually that's worked into the show. Okay, he's in his RV, so he just straight up runs out of gas, which probably happens a couple of times a day in a big old r V. I would imagine. Okay, Um, Ben's in trouble because Ben was not expecting to have this extended stop and unexpected stop in the desert, so he did not bring a few things. Okay, if Ben were paying a little less attention to whether people were talking you need to be shushed or not, and more attention to his desert survival, what would he have packed in that RV? Chuck, Well, Ben Sinclair would have had probably a pound of weed, Okay, so he's got a good start there because he could burn that for a signal fire or for comfort and warmth. Um. Well, I mean I wrote this dumb article. This is a great article. Did you notice my stupid thing I did with the music titles? Sure, the Oasis thing and all of them are song titles. All the sidebars are song titles. And that was back when I was like, oh man, I am the most clever person alive. So I got the wonder Wall one um, rescue me. Okay, I gotta excuse me, but I was thinking more of the TV show than the song. There's also, so everybody, if you go onto how Stuff Works dot com right now and look up how Desert Survival Works. Each page, almost every page has a a a sidebar, and the title of the sidebars are song titles. Rescue me? After all, you're my wonder wall. What's what could it be? It's a mirage? What could it be? It's a mirrage? What is that? I'm telling y'all, it's sabotage. Okay, that's a good one. And then finally a little shout out to uh Annie food, glorious food. Okay, So that was that was what used to make me happy at work. Yeah, I remember those days. Yeah you too. When you do like a clever photo caption and that would be that would get you through the week. We would stand up and like share it over the cubicle. Halloo caption. Yeah, this is gonna blow everybody's mind. All right, So you're in the desert, you want to have uh, well, let's just let's just talk about this stuff. Okay, Yeah? What what should be in your kid? Water? A mirror? That's a big one. Way to start a fire. Yeah, that's a big one too. Basically, just a lighter, food, water. If you're gonna cross the desert, have a lighter, which seems counterintuitive because it's hot in the desert, but no, trust us. Well you'll see you want a lighter on you a mirror which you'll see too. Yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll see what's supposed to be in the pack and in the r V, and then we'll go back and we'll Okay, I'm suddenly burned out. Should we take a break? Yeah, all right, let's take a break and let's start the podcast in earnest. All right, everybody, welcome to stuff. You should know. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry over there, and we're talking desert survival. So let's get to it. And so this is all due to the fact that we just recorded a very tough episode, so we're clearly just goofing off now. Um, so we're talking about deserts, and we did a desert episode and a desertification episode two and I think one on the dust Bowl. But something that all deserts have in common is not sand, is not even heat. It's a lack of water. Yes, technically Antarctica is the largest desert on the world, in the world, Um, and there's lots of water, but it's all locked up as ice. There's no available water in exactly the same way as there's basically no available water in Death Valley in California. Um, deserts have. The next thing that they have most frequently in common is again not sand, but exposed bedrock. All of those cool for nations or whatever, that's actually the bottom of the earth you're seeing exposed. All the soil has been dried out for so long because down basically it's been pants. Um. We've got some good pants stories by the way, coming soon. Yeah. Um. The soil is so dry that it can't be held in place. The wind is blown it away, and so what you're seeing is the exposed bedrock sand only makes up something like of the world's deserts. Yeah, I mean you got pebbles, desert soil. Sometimes that bed rock you're talking about. We're gonna talk about o acs. So I think Antarctic is Survivor or Antarctic Survival or even Arctic Survival deserves its own episode short day. So we're just gonna be talking about hot deserts and all of that sand and exposed bedrock and pebbles bakes in the sun and shoots that heat back out and it's just super hot. Okay. Yeah, So her is the biggest obviously the biggest, biggest problem. If you get trapped in the desert on foot or in a car, uh, and you think about, like, never go desert hiking. I don't need to worry about this. But have you ever been like, oh, I'm gonna take the long route through from Texas to California because it's more scenic, uh, And then your car breaks down and you're in big trouble if you don't know what you're doing. Um, that happened to a woman. I can't find her name right now, but she is a She was a grandmother. I believe she's seventy two, who was driving in her Prius and it ran out of gas and electricity on the way. I believe to Phoenix and um, she had an unexpected trip with her dog for nine days in the desert and survived. Yeah. Did she eat her dog? No? Okay, luckily she did not have to eat her dog. Did she survive on the saliva of her dog? Yeah? They well, they spit one another's mouth, so it was kind of but they did that an it was a wash. So dehydration is obviously the kind of um physical symptom you might experience if you run out of water, uh, decreased frequency of urine. Of course, if your urine is very smelly or very deep yellow, your mouth is going to be dry, your you know, as things increase dehydration wise, you're gonna get sunken eyes. Your heartbeat is gonna increase. And if you get to the stage where you literally have no urine, or if you're vomiting and have diarrhea, then you're pretty bad shape. Yeah, so vomiting and diarrhea is like that last thing you want to do while you're dehydrated, because all it is is just getting rid of any remaining hydration you have. It's not good. That's that's a bad reaction to dehydration. Um. And we'll talk about heat casualty coming up. But um kind of psyched about that bit. Oh yeah. But when we talk about water and rationing water, there's an old saying ration sweat not water, meaning, um, don't like drink all your water once, but rash and your sweat. Like they say not to you know, if you are lost like this, like don't go hiking to find civilization during the peak of day. You want to ration how much output, how much you're sweating. Um, but you you do have to take in that water. Yeah, so when you're in the desert, you you recommend, or to say, the experts recommend, because it's obviously a very well researched article, um that that somebody drink a gallon of water a day. Well, I mean that's what they say. If you've got like a you know, unlimited amounts of water a gallon a day, you need a rashtion it somewhat if you have very limited water obviously, But what you don't want to do, which happens a lot of times, is to be found dead with water in your canteen. Yeah, which is God, it's haunting sure. And um and like you said, I mean you want to you want to rashtion your sweat, not your water, but you do kind of want to rash in your water, like you know, I don't want to be a little water piggy right out of the gate. But you also you recommend um via the experts that you that you don't just wait until you're thirsty, because you'll only get about two thirds of the amount of water you actually need just by going by thirst. You want to actually stop and like drink more water than you think you need. Yeah. And if you're hiking around again, we we talked about morning and evenings or the best time to go look for help. Um, if you see a trail, go down that trail because you have a better chance of finding someone there. Um. Follow the birds. Birds generally and animals go towards water. Yeah. Apparently if they're circling in the morning or the evening, they're probably circling around water. Try and get some groundwater going. But very wisely, you point out through the experts that if there's like a little, you know, small mountain in between you and those birds, in a longer way around the mountain that's flat, take the longer way that's flat, because even though you might cut off a couple of hours between you and the birds, you're gonna really exert yourself going up that mountain, whereas instead you want to you want to take the longer but slower, less exerting path to get to that water where the birds are circling. For sure, if you're with someone, um, don't talk. I mean, you know, you can talk some, but don't just chat about your day. Try to conserve your words. Try and breathe through your nose. What do you think about grace jump. If you happen to see any wet sand or standing water anywhere, then you're in luck because you can dig down in there and you will probably find more water under you know, this groundwater underneath it, which is that's a benaan. If you find like a groundwater in the desert, you're probably gonna be okay. Yeah, If you don't find any water and you run out of water, you're probably not going to be Okay. No, you also want to fire, which you said isn't very intuitive. But uh, if you've ever spending time in the desert, the temperature swings are huge. You can get cold in the desert at night, and then fire allows you to purify water. There's that whole safety feeling. It keeps mountain lions away, right, Sure. I would guess just about any critters don't go near fire because they associated with wildfires in the desert. Brush fires, rescue signal you can, you can do that, I'll trick. I think we even did a show on smoke signals early on. No, I don't think so. No, No, And I wanted to I keep forgetting to write. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it was like an early, early early to go listen to it, Yeah, because I wanted to do that. It's probably not very good. Um, but your whole point of all this is to find people and to get rescued. Yeah. You make a great point about that. Yeah, Like, like the point of being lost in the desert is to make yourself visible. Yeah. The point of not being lost rather or being lost in finding rescue the key to being found, how about that? Right? So, if you are in a car. If your car is not working anymore, it's out of gas or whatever, flat tire, um, blow it up. Basically, stick a hanky in the gas tank and just blow it up. So you want to stick the hanky in the gas tank. You want to fashion a bow and arrow, light the arrow, stand back and shoot the cars gas tank. That's what you want to know. You want to open your hood, entiere rag to it, or a bandanna around your antenna or something, anything like a typical sign of distress. Um, if anything to make it like something's up here. Sure. Yeah, like even if the hood is fine, like you raise a hood as an indicator. Yeah, like if there's no engine trouble, right, you can still raise the hood. It's all right. Nobody's gonna like arrest you when they rescue you. Uh, if you can spell out UM S O S or something like that with help clothing or help on the ground, for if a helicopter or plane is nearby. Yeah, it's that. That woman in Arizona was rescued by writing help. I think that's actually how they found her. She wrote help in sticks. Oh really yep, nice her dog told her to do that. Stuff works. Uh, if you are in your car. You've got a leg up because you have your rear view mirror or your side view mirror that just just go ahead and break that thing off and use it. Yeah. I think we said in the first few minutes that we're trying to forget about now that you want to have a mirror in your survival pack no matter where wherever you're going hiking. Yeah, but a lot of people don't have survival packs in their car, like most people, I think. I mean, I don't know, I think about it. I've got like jumper cables and some rain cks. Does that you know after that last stupid Atlanta ice storm a few years ago that stranded people snow apocalypse? Yeah, I um, I think I had something in my car after that, but I have a different car now. It wasn't my but it was like some water and a blanket and some granola bars. I need to like stock up minded Emily's car with that stuff. Yeah, for sure, you never know. I think they just remember when we had some tornadoes in Atlanta a few years ago. You me and I were like, we really need like a crank radio and like all this stuff. We started together, and You're like, I wonder what's on TV before you're not you're watching the Japanese game shows. He'd forgotten, like eight hours go by. But a signal mirror is important, you know, you just uh flash that thing. It says here too. I was about to make fun of it, but I realized I wrote it. But practice on a nearby rock. I thought that was a good advice. I mean, you don't want your first attempt at signaling somebody with the mirror to be while you're trying to signal somebody in a passing aircraft. Probably so. And I mean like, if there's no cloud cover, you can get somebody at like thirty thousand feet if you do it right. So heck, yeah, practice on a rock. What else you're gonna do while you're sitting around in the shade. Nothing? Yeah, there might be a Delta pilot up there that's like, oh God, what is that? That's so annoying. You should have a whistle in your survival kit so you can blow it if you see someone from far away. And um, they recommend that if you honk your horn for help, to be like hunk, hunk honk, and then wait and honk honk honk, because if you just lay on it like you're if you're in traffic, someone might hear that and just think this car has this horn stuck. Yeah, there'll be like that's so annoying. I'm gonna continue on past this weird um path and death valley that no one should be down. So let's say horn is Let's say you are in your car, your car is is jacked up um, and you're like, all right, I've exhausted my resources. Here, screw this, i gotta go take a hike. Leave a note on your car and say like, hey, I'm broken down and I've gone northwest on at two a pm on Tuesday. Also, I'm Chuck Bryant, who hopefully you're looking for you found him. Check out my podcast Stuff you Should Know and a movie crush. Yeah, never miss an advertising opportunity. But if you do, stay with your car, Yeah, like, just don't sit around in your car, like sit in the shade. They even say to sit on a blanket. Yeah. The reason being is because there can be something like a thirty degree height temperature difference between the ground and the air above the ground. That's that's how barren and hot the ground gets, and it's It's not like the air above the ground is cool. It's still hot because the ground is heating it. But the ground itself is taking in all of that unbroken, unfiltered sunlight directly into it, holding as much as it can, and then shooting it back out is basically infrared heat um back into space through you. And if your butt is touching the ground through conduction, it's going to transfer directly to you, or is through the air, be going through convection from the air to your butt, which is not nearly as efficient as conduction. So don't sit directly on the ground. Even sitting on a rock is better than sitting on the ground. But ideally you want to find the shade that your car is producing, sure whether it's the hood that's up or or just the car itself or whatever, and sit in that shade as best you can. Get your feet off the ground, like you said, I think too, Yeah, and take off your shoes and socks, especially if you're hiking around um during your breaks. Uh. They also say to not to take off your clothes. Your instinct might be to take your clothes off, but um, those clothes you want them soaking up sweat because that'll cool you down. Um. And also you know you don't want to be you don't want to take your shirt off and also have like a third degree sunburn after day one either. I thought about that too. It's like that's I mean that that clothes that situation worse. Right, it's doing something to protect you from the UV, you know, I think it teases The average T shirt has like a SPF of four or something like that. That's better than nothing, better than nothing. Um. Also, chuck, if you are right, and I guess if like you're actually using this information we're giving you right now. First of all, good luck, we're pulling for you. Secondly, um, if you are going to take off your shoes, don't do it in the sun because just that exposure of your bare feet to the sunlight for that short of a time can make your feet swell and you might not be able to get your shoes back on, which if you do end up having to hoof it out of there, you want your shoes, You want your feet all swoll up. No, so take take your shoes off and let your dogs air out in the shade. Only make a little hat if you don't have one. Out of whatever you've got something in your car or something whatever. Like if you have a piece of cardboard, put it on your head. This is the greatest sentence. No, I love it? Are you really you didn't like this this article? Huh? I don't know. It's just sort of a reminder of darker days at this job. So may I read this? Sure, if you don't have a hat to wear, fashion a head covering with what you have on hand. You may look silly wearing a cardboard hat, but your goal is to vive, not win a beauty contest. And Lord, drink a liter of water per hour to stay properly. Know we cut out that part earlier because it didn't sound right. I mean, maybe that's if you have all the water in the world, but that just sounds like that's a lot of water. How you burn through your water? Uh? If your car is stuck and this actually happened to me once. I got a car stuck in the desert one time in the middle of the night with my friend when yeah, I got it out without deflating my tires. But they say if you're stuck in the sand, to deflate your tires just a little bit. Um. Don't like start goosing it because you're gonna dig yourself in more. Just apply like steady accelerator pressure and turn your wheels kind of back and forth a little bit, let a little bit of air and you might be able to get out of there. Yeah. Again, don't let a lot of air out because if you do get out, you still need to drive back home, and you don't want to do that on overly deflated tires. No, okay, Um, so if you're going to should we should we take a break? Now you think? Why not? Okay, We're gonna take a break everybody. There's there's a lot more to come. You're not toast yet because we have more stuff to tell you how to survive in the desert right after this. I really do love that sentence. That was a great sentence. There's one more in here. I can't wait to call out. So I'm sure I know what it is. Uh, should we talk about oaces? Sure? I mean it depends on where you are. But you know, the an oasis is just when wind has blown away enough sand that you get down to that groundwater. It's all in oasis is yeah, you know, like an aquifer. Yeah, imagine if there's nothing above the aquifer. Now you've got a lake boom. That's an oasis. Yeah, but they can they can be big enough and exposed enough that you can have this like lush oasis in the middle of the desert. There's really no better word for it. Yeah. And then you know, um, if you're in the Sahara Desert, like the communities form around these oases. There's one very large one called the Cargo Oasis that is a hundred miles long and depending on where you are, twelve to fifty miles wide. There's plenty big to hold small towns. Plenty big. It is, it is. I'm just laughing at this article. I can't believe I wrote this thing. I I really I value this laticle. This It was great, well written, well researched. This is when I was assigned, you know, your survival guy, and I wrote a lot of these. You know, we've covered a few of him on the show, but still plenty left. I thought these days were over. Uh. If you are hiking, the first thing they say is to walk slowly. You may your instinct maybe to get out of there fast and find help fast. Very good advice, but that's no good no, not only do you want to remind yourself to slow down, because that's what it takes. You're not gonna just walk slowly automatically. You're gonna be freaked out. So you have to stay calm and say I've got to walk slow and just take breaks every about ten minutes out of every hour, I think. Um, but if you're with a group you want to walk, Um, you want to set your pace by the slowest and least fit person in the group. Just everybody walk that slow. That person will help pace everybody else. Um, and it will keep that person from just dying trying to keep up, like literally dying trying to keep up. I mean everyone else has to be like cheez, Big Larry in the back is really holding us back. But Big Larry is probably walking at the right speed, right, which is slow. Yeah, at least for you, he's walking slow enough for you to slow you down. That's right. That's not a T shirt, but it's still true. Should we get to your favorite part of this, which is heat casualty. Yes, I know you've got some science on this, right, yes. Well, the three major categories are heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and then heat stroke in that order. Yeah, and heat cramps, or you know, you can get those on a hot afternoon if you're out playing frisbee, you can. And all of it comes down to it's just basically an escalating um imbalance between water and heat salt loss. So so like the electrical conduction in your muscles and all that from your heart to your legs is out of whack because you have lost a lot of water and you still have a higher salt concentration, or else you've lost a lot of salt and there's still enough water that you're you're just not your muscles aren't aren't working quite right, so they can cramp. Right if that happens, you say, drink like a power raid. If you got it, what are you sitting there holding onto it for in the first place. For if you're lost in the desert with a power aid, I mean fire it down. It's like I don't like blue purple. That's true. Um, So that's step one. If you have a power eid. If not, if you have some water, drink the water. The cramps are gonna go away. You can overcome um heat cramps pretty easily, it sounds like, But you want to stop rest, getting some shade stop moving, and a ten to the heat cramps for sure. Yeah, that may lead to heat exhaustion if you don't have water and this, like you said, it's just an escalation of that imbalance. Um, you may be irritable or feel weak or have a headache, or if you're vomiting and have nausea or clammy skin, then that's like heat exhaustion is seriously setting in. It is UM. And so again, like salt and electrolytes are really important to the electrical conduction in your body, and your body moves through electrical conduction. It's a big, big components. So if that's off, your body's off. But then if you're really in trouble, you're you enter into heat stroke. And this is the point where your body's system at getting rid of heat has been overwhelmed by the heat it's taking on and you're in big trouble. When that happens, basically, on a cellular level, your body is failing systemically because proteins aren't folding correctly in Proteins do just about everything there is to do in a cell. They're starting to clump up and get weird, and then cells are suddenly dying um. One of your body's main tricks at getting rid of heat is through convection, sending your hot blood to the surface of your skin, which is why if you go into a sauna, your your skin gets flushed. But also if you'll notice your heart is pumping, is beating really hard, even though you're just sitting there, you're in the heat. And the reason why it's your heart is working overtime shooting blood out to your skin to get rid of heat so that your body can cool down. It's using your blood is a heat transfer mechanism, amazing, and your heart actually speeds up. You're actually pumping out up to eight leads a minute of blood, more than your heart usually pumps out when you're starting to enter heat strokes. So it's a big deal. Yeah, I would imagine that would put you in danger of cardiac arrest. Yes, I think that's one of the results of that whole thing of severe heat stroke, so bad headaches, very dizzy, nausea, vomiting, your muscles might be spasm ing. That heart rate like you were talking about, is way high, and you may be full on hallucinating at this point, or you may fall unconscious like heat stroke is no joke. Um, so you gotta find shade fast, which is I mean, that's the biggest part of our biggest challenge in desert survival is finding shade. You know, there's just nowhere, but the big rock can be your shade exactly, like whatever, it doesn't matter, just fine shade because the difference between shade and sunlight in the desert is substantial. Yeah, and they like if you have any water, like, now is the time. This is when you're found dead with your canteen full of half full of water because you're like, no, like, I still I'm a day away from finding help. Right, you have no idea how far you're Yeah, like, this is go time to save your life. But also, if you have any cool compresses, put them in your armpits, put them in your groin. Yeah, um, do whatever you can do cool cool yourself down. If you have any cool compresses left over from the party around the campfire the night before apparently, yeah, you're like, if I can only cool down, Oh wait a minute, I have a frozen compress I can put in my crutch. Um. They are all kinds of animals in the desert that can be dangerous. Um. Whether it's spiders, um tran Chillas are scary looking, but they're probably not gonna kill you. Yeah, they don't really care about you. They don't want to bite you and knew what they do bite you. It's like a stupid tranchila. Yeah, I mean, none of these things wanna find you like you will find these brown reclue is in black widows, under rocks or under brush or something like that. So don't go reaching in there. Don't go reaching in some hole like Timothy Dalton and Flash Gordon. You know what hole did he reach into? You saw Flash Gordon? Right? No, the old one. No, you should probably enjoy that. I didn't realize that was Timothy Dalton in there. I thought it was a blonde guy. Well, he played Flash Gordon, but Timothy Dalton played the bad guy, one of the bad guys. But there was a challenge where they had to stick their hand in this big hole and there was a stinging creature inside this blob. It sounds like that Joe Rogan show. What was they called, You mean the Joe Rogan podcast. No, No, it's the Fear Factor. Remember Fear Factor. I used to like that show. That was a good show. I could never have done that show though, because of the stuff you eat. Yeah, there was some gross stuff. That's where I just I was like, I can do all that stuff, but I can't eat that. I can't eat gross things. You could have done everything else though, well, I mean to a certain degree, but yeah, there's no way I could eat eat those nasty things. Yeah, you'd probably have an easier time with that than me. Um. I don't know, man, I think that would be pretty disgusting. On top of that though, like doing things like sticking my hand in something, or having like a box full of like spiders put over my head or scorpions or whatever, I could do that I would not. I mean, like for what to be on TV? Well, exactly, all right, beat on TV? Is it so great everybody? No, it's not. It's cracked up to be certainly not where the box of scorpions on your head? Speaking of scorpions, there are thirty different types, more than thirty different types of scorpions and just Arizona, so uh, and they're all over the place, you know, They're in Georgia and in the mountains in the woods of Georgia have very few of them are poisonous. Nah, not very many at all. I think a couple of them can actually kill a person with their venom um by stinging you with that tail. They'll still hurt you though, Just don't go near the scorpions. Yeah, I mean you can get sick from any of these. Is like, a black widow is probably not gonna kill you either. No, but if you're already like in danger of something like he stroke exactly, a black widow bite is not going to help, and it's going to be exacerbated tremendously. No. But if you do get stung or bitten by something like that, and if you don't have that cool compress and your crutch, use that cool compress around the biters sting. Ye, don't elevate it. Yeah, that's a big one. Sure. You also want to put it kind of a loose turning kid around it. You want to be able to fit one finger in the turnikud so tight ish, I guess there's a way to put it. Yeah, and again get in the shade, wash it off with some soap and water if you have it, and then just dump that water all over the ground. This is used up. Uh, And then we have snakes rattle snakes and coral snakes are going to be your biggest danger. And remember coral snakes are red, yellow and black. And there's a very helpful saying, red touches yellow and harm a fellow, red touches black. Make it a snack. No red touches black. It's okay for Jack. And this raises my second favorite sentence. Oh no, just remember you're Jack in this scenario. It's okay for Jack now. And then finally, I think we sound drunk. We're not. Um. There are lizards, um, specifically the do you say HeLa monster or Gila monster? I think it's Heila. I think it's a British sayguila and the wrong right they say aluminum. Um. So the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard um the beat. It is only in Mexico and Guatemala, but you can find those gilas in the in the US of A. Those are big, daddy though. Yeah, they get up to like two feet I think. And this is actually my favorite sentence. So I'm talking here about the Mexican beaded white to yellow spots and stripes on their raised scales. It's about a foot long. I described the Geela monster, and they say, however, if you see a two foot long lizard coming in your direction, maybe you should just walk the other way. Sound advice. I thought you were joking when you picked this article. No, I think it's a good article. I don't understand why you're being so hard on yourself. All right, this last part is legitimately interesting. I think the fact of the podcast is contained in here, like the uncontented go ahead, No, no, it's your fact, it's not my fact. All right. Two big other dangers to other big dangers or sandstorms and flash floods. Sandstorms can be very fast or they can last for a long time. They can last weeks in the Middle East. But if you're driving, you don't want to drive through a stands to pull over and like put on your hazards, roll up your windows. Yeah, why did you say turn off your headlights? Do you remember that? I get why you put on your hazards, But why turn off your headlights? Is it because you don't want to wear your battery out? Maybe? I think so, Okay, yeah, that would be my guess, because I didn't know if maybe that created an electrical conductivity or something, and lead to lightning maybe, And if you're hiking around and there's a sandstorm, then try and tie something or pull your shirt up over your face. But on those sunnies, um, they say, if you have spare water, wet the cloth before you put it over your face, and then I'm granting you the fact of the pith. Let's talk about flash flooding. Flash floods because the desert does not absorb water very easily. Um, because it's basically bedrock, and water doesn't go into bedrock easy. Um. Like, if it rains, it rains hard, and it rains fast, and a substantial amount comes down and it collects very quickly because it has nowhere to go and can create what are known as flash floods. Because of this, more people drown in the desert than die of thirst. That's what they say. That is an amazing fact. That's one of the most amazing facts I've ever heard in my life. It really is. Um. And then what was the James Franco movie The True Story where he was, yeah, like there was a flash flight in that right, I don't remember, I think so. I feel like he was it rained and he was like, oh thank god, it's raining and then the water just started rising really fast around because he was in a gully. But if you like, don't camp out overnight in a dry creek bed, because it is no joke. It can it can happen really fast. And I was driving through New Mexico once on my big out west trip post college, and my friend and I drove through the most lacious storm I've ever seen in my life. Um, and we literally saw water running flowing uphill and I was like, am I seeing things? And he's like, no, dude, He's like, that is definitely uphill. Water was flowing up hill some how. Yeah, I guess it was just so much of it. But we drove through it until we saw um in front of us, uh, telephone polls like down in the on the highway, like all in front of us were like, I think we should probably pull over at this point, right, And we waited out, but they're usually pretty quick. It's not like it does this for like days like it does in Atlanta. It was like like thirty minutes of rain, right, But but it can be inches and inches of water and again, like six inches can pick up a car and carry it away. It can certainly pick you up off of your feet. And there's plenty of stories about people being drowned in canyons and Petra Jordan's the very famous archaeological site. People like every ten twelve years, like a couple of dozen people will suddenly drown in a flash flood because they were totally unprepared and in the wrong place when it just the sky just opened up on them. So it definitely does happen, for sure. Yeah, the good The plus thing about the desert with understorm says, uh, you see it coming from a long way away, like it's they happened fast, but it's just so wide open out there. Like we remember driving for like an hour and a half towards this storm. I was like, man, that looks pretty bad up there. And the closer we got and then it was just like, you know, hell had been unleashed on us. So what do you do? Did you like drive to higher ground or now we we just kind of just pulled off to the side of the road and waited like half an hour and then it lightened up. But it was crazy. Yeah, it was pretty scary. I mean not being in a car, but just seeing how like the debt it went from sand to feeling like we were in a river in like twenty minutes. That's crazy. Glad you made it, Chuck, you survived to write this article, which was a good article. UM. If you want to see this article yourself in person, go to house stuff works dot com and type in Desert Survival by one Chuck Bryant and you will agree with me. It's a good article. And since I said that it's time for listener mail, hey, guys, listen to Central Park episode and really enjoyed it. The content was spot on as always, But Josh made a comment about the podcast being too conversational. I think this is a really appropriate listener mail. What funny is that? Um? I think the conversational aspect is one of the most special things about it. Guys. The banter between you two makes me pause for thought and oftentimes laugh. As an educational podcast, I think having dialogue and debate about these subjects is important in my own household. Stuff you should know is very important part of our lives. UM. I introduced it to my boyfriend almost three years ago and it has taken a special place in our relationship. For two years we were long distance, myself in Canada and him in Sweden. Wow. Uh, And we would download episodes when traveling. It always gives us something to talk about and keep the conversation going. Makes this laugh together, and we even sing the jingles. Uh. My favorite is the opera version, much to his dismay. Uh, my favorite episode is the Golden Age of Gray rob Grave Robbing, which makes me laugh so much that I had to put it on that. I still like to put it on when I'm having a bad day. That was great. I loved hearing that was the live one right from London. That's right. I once joked that I would sell my dog, my first dog, for a ticket to one of your live shows. You don't have to do that. You can exchange money instead, That's right. Or Stacy, if we're coming to a town near you, give us an email. Yeah, I'll put you on the old list. Just threatened to sell your dog and we'll get you in for free. Guys, thanks so much for giving us a jumping off point for more conversation and debate. Please give a shout out to my boyfriend Jeff Um. Sorry Jeff that I got on listener mail before you. Yeah take that, Jeff. Yeah, that is Stacy Coombs The only way that that could get any more appropriate is if this episode comes out and Jeff is lost in the debtsert. I hope that didn't happen. I hope so too, But I mean that that would really round out this episode, don't you think. Yeah, but Jeff, if you're out there to look for an RV, Ben Sinclair might be inside, I'll probably give you some weet uh thank you, Jeff and Stacy and Stacy's unnamed dog who's not for sale. If you want to get in touch with this, you can go to our website stuff you Should Know dot com and check out all of our social links there, and you can also send us an email to stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,