Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's s
Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen our episode on caving.
Speaker 1: We had already done an episode on bio speleology, which
Speaker 1: is about animals that live in caves. We kind of
Speaker 1: touch on that too, But this is all of the
Speaker 1: ins and outs. If you'll excuse the unintentional pun about caving,
Speaker 1: um and you are going to love it. It's just
Speaker 1: a great, thorough classic example of stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: So check it out. Starting now, Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: an m C of sorts, not the cool kind, the
Speaker 1: boring kind with me as always as MC Charles W
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. He's the same kind of m C that
Speaker 1: I am. Sum no, no, not even we're not even
Speaker 1: suck mcs were two square for that even it's so sad.
Speaker 1: Maybe sucker mcs, but certainly not with an Ayah, I'm
Speaker 1: a sucker, right, MC, yeah, too square to be a sucker.
Speaker 1: That is a T shirt. Well I'll bet it is
Speaker 1: now number two the square shape, uh number two the
Speaker 1: letter b or two squared two with two to the
Speaker 1: second power to square to be a sucker. Yeah, that's it. Yep,
Speaker 1: you've pretty we've reached the point where you say stuff
Speaker 1: and people make t shirts of it. One of these though,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit it rich and we can quit this
Speaker 1: whole podcast in game, retire on our never fortune, never
Speaker 1: will be rich old man podcasting still if only uh, hey, Chuck, Hey,
Speaker 1: are you doing well? Yeah? You know, I think, um,
Speaker 1: I remember that you actually have done this before, what
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about. I have, um and uh,
Speaker 1: you had a good time, didn't too. Yeah. I'll be
Speaker 1: offering my personal insights along the way. But I was
Speaker 1: hoping so that's what I was getting at. Um. Hey,
Speaker 1: so I this article in Slate. It's called America's Ancient
Speaker 1: Cave Art. And back in the late seventies, there were
Speaker 1: a couple of friends who worked for the U. S.
Speaker 1: Forestry Service and I think Tennessee, and um, they were
Speaker 1: running around, um the forest and they found a cave
Speaker 1: and they started to explore it and they went into
Speaker 1: it and they noticed like there were all these weird
Speaker 1: like scratches on the wall. And when they looked a
Speaker 1: little closer, like, wait, that's not a scratch, that's a
Speaker 1: snake with horns, and that's a bird that like is
Speaker 1: tearing the head off of something else. And one of
Speaker 1: them luckily realized that these are all images associated with
Speaker 1: what's called the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or more coolly named
Speaker 1: the Southern Death Cult, which sprung up around the southeastern
Speaker 1: United States inexplicably about years ago. There's like this, um
Speaker 1: what what the author of the article called a religious
Speaker 1: outbreak that they have no idea where it came from.
Speaker 1: But um, the weird thing about this is that they
Speaker 1: these these drawings were completely preserved, like you could still
Speaker 1: smear the charcoal. Um they and even though they were
Speaker 1: anywhere from five and then they found some others that
Speaker 1: are up to like six thousand years old, and they're
Speaker 1: all in this enormous elaborate cave system in the southeastern
Speaker 1: United States, specifically the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. UM. But
Speaker 1: what's most remarkable, aside from their preservation, is that some
Speaker 1: of these are like a mile into the cave. So
Speaker 1: some of the Mississippian people were running around walking a
Speaker 1: mile into a cave to like leave this art and
Speaker 1: it was perfectly preserved, even though almost every other trace
Speaker 1: of this religious outbreak, the Southern Death Cult is just gone.
Speaker 1: And that cool. That's awesome. So I bring that up
Speaker 1: because that is one of the big reasons that people
Speaker 1: go caving, which ultimately is entering a cave. Once you
Speaker 1: walk into a cave, you're caving, right, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Uh one, Southern Death Cult the original name of the
Speaker 1: cult the band, Yes, it was, and they changed it
Speaker 1: so much better. Well, I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 1: coolest names that anyone's ever come up with, and it's
Speaker 1: an archaeological term. Yeah, so it's got just you know,
Speaker 1: academic meaning as well. All right, Well, aside from the
Speaker 1: poor name change, I like the band. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: good band. I used to you don't like him anymore? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just that sort of represented like high
Speaker 1: school to me in early college. They still hold up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like I don't like it. I got you know,
Speaker 1: Billy Duffy plays a main guitar. Al right, so spelunking.
Speaker 1: Should we go ahead and get this out of the way.
Speaker 1: That's that's another word for caving, But um been't they're
Speaker 1: an atari game names blanker. I think so, But cavers
Speaker 1: don't really use that term a lot. They use it derogatorially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that is the case. I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: because I went caving, like you said, go ahead and
Speaker 1: set that up for the rest of the show. With
Speaker 1: my former neighbor Um, who was a fan of the show.
Speaker 1: Former neighbor, did you guys have a spat? We don't
Speaker 1: talk anymore. I refused to acknowledge his president. No, he moved, Um.
Speaker 1: But the other way that happened, yeah, yeah, he Um.
Speaker 1: He lived across the street and Um left a letter
Speaker 1: in my mailbox one day and was like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: I heard you mentioned it might have been after the
Speaker 1: biospi speleology, which we'll touch on it again. Said I'm
Speaker 1: a experienced caver. Me and my buddy would love to
Speaker 1: take you and you guys too, you and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were invited. Originally it was all four of us,
Speaker 1: and it ended up being just me. Right the day came,
Speaker 1: I was like, let's see crawl around in the cold
Speaker 1: in a cave, get wet and muddy. I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: home boy. After I did it, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad Emily and you, Me and Josh didn't come.
Speaker 1: Just you guys wouldn't like that. Yeah, there's a good
Speaker 1: picture of you on Facebook where you're covered in mud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll post more pictures when this comes out, but um yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll touch on it as we go. But the first
Speaker 1: thing I want to point out is that a cave
Speaker 1: can be a thing that you picture when you picture
Speaker 1: a cave, which is like you're walking along and there's
Speaker 1: a big, huge entrance that you're looking at and you
Speaker 1: walk in, or in this case, it can be a
Speaker 1: little hole in the ground, which is when I walked by,
Speaker 1: I was like, that, that's where we're going, and he
Speaker 1: was like yeah. I was like, really, it's like a
Speaker 1: two foot little hole in the ground. Yeah, it looked like, um,
Speaker 1: maybe a place where foxes live. Yeah, and he's like,
Speaker 1: now that's how you get in there. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's how you get in their pal
Speaker 1: But it ended up being, aside from the most physically
Speaker 1: challenging thing I've ever done, one of the coolest things
Speaker 1: I've done. It was very difficult, but you, I mean,
Speaker 1: you nail it on the head. A cave is basically
Speaker 1: any opening from the surface below ground, Yeah, into the earth,
Speaker 1: right and um. For the most part, when we think
Speaker 1: of a cave, it's part of something called the Karst landscape,
Speaker 1: which is characterized by like sink holes, underground aquifers, um,
Speaker 1: subterranean drainage, caves, a cave system. That's part. That's it's
Speaker 1: technically called a Krst escape. Yeah. And well once you
Speaker 1: read that, you kind of take it for granted, but
Speaker 1: if you never really thought about it. I hadn't never
Speaker 1: thought about it. I was like, well, why are these
Speaker 1: caves even here? You know, someone didn't come in here
Speaker 1: and carve these out. No, but some natural processes too,
Speaker 1: That's right. There's actually um four main ways that caves
Speaker 1: are created, right, Yeah. Most caves um are limestone caves.
Speaker 1: And you get those when rainwater uh seeps down through
Speaker 1: the soil, picks up some c O two along the
Speaker 1: way and that forms carbonic acid, which is kind of
Speaker 1: weak it is, but if you if you have carbon
Speaker 1: carbonic acid present in the same area for eons, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going to eventually eat away at even stone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like limestone, and that's basically what happens. It either collects
Speaker 1: there for a long time or is UM rushed in
Speaker 1: there by rain and uh, corrosion, Yeah, is what happens.
Speaker 1: It's erosion through abrasion. Through abrasion just basically rainwater running
Speaker 1: over something long enough, it's gonna erode it. And that
Speaker 1: it's how you get a cave one way. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the that's the main way. I think. UM, you've got
Speaker 1: extreme of files, which is kind of cool. We're still
Speaker 1: we're starting to realize, you know, I think we talked
Speaker 1: about them in the are we all Marson's episode? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have an article on extreme of files that I
Speaker 1: have earmarked for us. That's pretty good. Um. They are
Speaker 1: basically bacteria that live and thrive in um toxic environments,
Speaker 1: like places where nothing else lives. High sulfuric content, are
Speaker 1: really high temperatures, are really really low temperatures. Just yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the only things that live there. UM, and they
Speaker 1: are starting to realize that they have a pretty big
Speaker 1: impact on cave formation. For example, there's some that UM
Speaker 1: like to eat oil underground. I never knew this, And
Speaker 1: they eat and eat, and then they shoot ducks of
Speaker 1: sulfi gas, right, and the sulfi gas goes up and
Speaker 1: up and up as gases wants to do and uh,
Speaker 1: it travels through um the through groundwater picks up oxygen
Speaker 1: and becomes sulfuric acid, and that really starts to eat
Speaker 1: away at caves. Yeah. That's probably more so, I think
Speaker 1: than chronic. Yeah, which is you probably want to look
Speaker 1: out for the sulfuric acid lake in a cave system
Speaker 1: if you're ever caving, I would say so. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's number two. Um, see sea caves. You'll see a
Speaker 1: lot um. If you ever do sea kayaking and stuff
Speaker 1: around the island, you might venture into a sea cave.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Um. They are basically just water pounding
Speaker 1: away at the seaside cliffs to the point where they
Speaker 1: form caves. Pretty easy. Yeah. Did you ever see The
Speaker 1: Orphanage the Gearmo del Toro movie. No, dude, you've not
Speaker 1: seen that. I almost watched it last week. That is
Speaker 1: one of the best ghost movies ever made. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was by myself and I wanted to watch something scary
Speaker 1: because it was how and I searched around on the
Speaker 1: internets for like, what's a really good scary movie, not
Speaker 1: some crappy scary movie, and that was on the list,
Speaker 1: and I ended up searching and researching for so long,
Speaker 1: and I didn't watch anything. I went to sleep. You
Speaker 1: should have asked me or go on to the social
Speaker 1: media's Like once, I was like a Christmas scary movies
Speaker 1: and got in a conversation with Joe Randazzo and like
Speaker 1: a couple of other people and ended up with this
Speaker 1: list of like great horror movies and all of them
Speaker 1: panned out awesomely. The Devil Have you seen that? Dude?
Speaker 1: That was another one recommended. But dude, it is it's
Speaker 1: just like the Spanish Civil War era orphan No, no no, no,
Speaker 1: that's um what is that one called? I know, the
Speaker 1: one you're talking about, Devil's Backbone? Yes, I saw that one.
Speaker 1: That's okay. Compared to the orphanage, it might as well
Speaker 1: have been like Peewee's Playhouse. Hey, I like Peewee. No,
Speaker 1: I mean as far as light Fair goes. Ah. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it's just so much better. I'm watching it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: watch Us to the Devil too. It's pretty good, all right.
Speaker 1: I think you like that a lot. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I like good scary. I don't like all that crappy
Speaker 1: saw like stuff. You like shocking torture porn crap. I
Speaker 1: liked the first couple sauce alright, So that's the third
Speaker 1: wave that caves are well, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: The fourth um is lava tubes. You know, when lava
Speaker 1: comes up through a volcano and it shoots up, if
Speaker 1: the conditions are right, the outer part will cool more
Speaker 1: quickly than the creamy, gooey middle. Uh. And when that
Speaker 1: happens that our shell will come together and form this
Speaker 1: coherent crust, and the stuff in the middle might fall
Speaker 1: back down. Right, you get yourself a tube. You have
Speaker 1: a tube of lava. Now if at the top of
Speaker 1: this that that top caves inner crumbles, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you have an entrance, and the lava tube is now
Speaker 1: a cave, because again, cave is any entry from the
Speaker 1: above ground to hell. I imagine the lava tube caves
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting to explore. But I'm a limestone guy. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't spend much time in Hawaii. If
Speaker 1: you did, I'll it you'd be a lot with tube
Speaker 1: guy too. Yeah, you're probably right, all right. So once
Speaker 1: you're in the cave, you're gonna notice a couple of
Speaker 1: things straight away. Um, stillactites and stillag mites, okay, which
Speaker 1: is which man, I feel like we have a golden
Speaker 1: opportunity to explain this to thousands and thousands and hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people. It's very easy. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of little ways you can remember. Maybe millions of people
Speaker 1: still lack tights and that is where the C are
Speaker 1: the ones that hang down. And you can remember that
Speaker 1: by maybe hold on tight, stillack tight. They gotta hold
Speaker 1: on tight, yeah, because it's not still lag tight and
Speaker 1: still lag tight or stillag might and stillagmite. It's stillack
Speaker 1: tight with a C and then still lag mighte with
Speaker 1: a G and and M. So that helps too because
Speaker 1: you have C for ceiling or G for ground. Great
Speaker 1: there you just didn't or T for top. If that
Speaker 1: helps you, we give you three ways to remember this.
Speaker 1: I don't think that we're I don't. I think I
Speaker 1: messed it up. This is so simple for a second
Speaker 1: and then I I'm sorry everyone. So stalactites hang down.
Speaker 1: Stalagmites come up from the bottom. Uh. They are speliotherms,
Speaker 1: which is a K formation. And this happens when um
Speaker 1: carbonic acid eats away the limestone. It starts dripping the
Speaker 1: calcite mineral from rainwater. Yeah, it's just kind of trickling
Speaker 1: in and just centuries. Yeah. And as it is, it's
Speaker 1: depositing that calcite, right, yeah. So it drips down from
Speaker 1: the top, so it forms and then it will you know,
Speaker 1: not drip up, but collect and form up from the bottom.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll meet and form a column, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: But these things grow at a rate of a quarter
Speaker 1: inch to an inch per century. Wow, So you can't
Speaker 1: sit around and watch a stalactite form. That's basically the rule.
Speaker 1: So the rainwater comes down and drips down, and whatever
Speaker 1: deposits are at the top going down is a stalac tight,
Speaker 1: that's right. And it drifts down onto the ground and
Speaker 1: builds a formation that grows up towards the top. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a stalag might and that's why you usually find
Speaker 1: them together. And the last scene is actually the Greek
Speaker 1: derivative and means to drip. Really, So there you have it.
Speaker 1: And uh, they did mention I look these up because
Speaker 1: I've never seen them other uh speliotherms like fried eggs
Speaker 1: and bacon. Did you look these up? It's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: It looks like a fried egg. It's the formation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like a you know, it's it's large and
Speaker 1: round and has a center that's very round as well.
Speaker 1: And then the bacon stuff, it looks like bacon strips.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, these little strip like formations that
Speaker 1: have different colored patterns that look like, you know, the
Speaker 1: fatty part of the bacon and the meaty part, and
Speaker 1: it looks like fried eggs and bacon. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I saw the Friday egg one before. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: probably have. When I saw it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what that is, Oh, Frida eggs and bacon. I
Speaker 1: had to see it because the the the name wasn't
Speaker 1: descriptive enough. Yeah, and that's just this just proves that
Speaker 1: speleologists are fun loving people, right m hm. So while
Speaker 1: you're in the cave, you're probably going to run into
Speaker 1: certain kinds of animals, and as speleologists love to do,
Speaker 1: they've classified these things in the categories, right. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: talked about these in Biospeleology Creepy cave dwelling things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard that UM episode, go check it out.
Speaker 1: It's all about caves and the stuff living in caves.
Speaker 1: It's really cool. UM. But the truck lizines, those are
Speaker 1: temporary visitors like a bear maybe hibernating and a cave.
Speaker 1: It's they live most of their life outside of the
Speaker 1: cave and coming for shelter food or like that. Then
Speaker 1: there's a trougle of files that means they love the
Speaker 1: trog they do. They spend most of their life there,
Speaker 1: but they will come out some for food. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they spend most of their lives in the cave right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Salamander's crickets uh daddy along legs and other spiders love them.
Speaker 1: And then there's the trougle of bites. Yeah, those are
Speaker 1: ones who live their entire lives within the dark zone
Speaker 1: of the cave and usually they don't have eyes, and
Speaker 1: apparently without exception, they're all blind, like the Prometheus salamander. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that thing, the Ozark blind salamander. The tooth
Speaker 1: Cave spider, which isn't as creepy looking as it sounds.
Speaker 1: I expected to see, like, you know, some something out
Speaker 1: of a like B movie, but it was just a
Speaker 1: little skinny spider. But if you name something the tooth
Speaker 1: Cave spider, you'd expect some like really scary looking thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: or something with glasses in huge buck teeth. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: same with the tooth cave beetle. And then and they're
Speaker 1: also blind fish and shrimp and all manner of little white,
Speaker 1: creepy creatures. They lack pigment because they don't need it,
Speaker 1: like screw pigment. What do we need that for? Um?
Speaker 1: And then I this kind of stuck out to me,
Speaker 1: the idea that it's always the average annual temperature of
Speaker 1: the surface above a cave within the cave. So if
Speaker 1: it's the average temperature over the course of an entire
Speaker 1: year in the spot above a cave is sixty degrees,
Speaker 1: it's always sixty five degrees in the cave. Not true.
Speaker 1: Oh that's not true. No, So this this the the
Speaker 1: temperature is in a cave are very very stable. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, depending on how how deep it is.
Speaker 1: Closer you get to the center of the earth, the
Speaker 1: warmer it gets. So that has an effect. And just
Speaker 1: like above ground with the sun warming, UM, the surface
Speaker 1: differently causes weather, different amounts of heat in inside a cave,
Speaker 1: cause what we wouldn't recognize is weather but actual weather itself.
Speaker 1: So is this wrong? Yes, the way it stated, it's
Speaker 1: always the average annual temperature. Yeah, but generally it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's usually very stable and it's very close to that.
Speaker 1: But we're finding now that there is actual weather that
Speaker 1: happens in a cave, just like there we found out
Speaker 1: there's seasons on the bottom of the sea floor like that.
Speaker 1: It seems like the same thing to us, but there's
Speaker 1: actually like seasons and changes that we don't We didn't
Speaker 1: recognize because you don't think of it that way. Uh, caves,
Speaker 1: um sometimes can be dry and dusty. I guess it
Speaker 1: all depends on where you are in the country. Um,
Speaker 1: the one I went to, and like many caves are
Speaker 1: wet and muddy, and I was not expecting that. I
Speaker 1: was not expecting a lot of what I encountered. Actually, really,
Speaker 1: you weren't. Were you prepared for a wet money? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they told me what to wear and we'll
Speaker 1: get into all that stuff. But um, I just I
Speaker 1: don't know. I thought it was gonna be walking into
Speaker 1: a thing and then walking around, sort of like the
Speaker 1: kid caves that you can take the whole family too.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, it wasn't like that at all. It
Speaker 1: was being dropped into a muddy, wet, cold hell yeah,
Speaker 1: And you looked like it too, man afterwards, like you
Speaker 1: were really glad to be top side again. It was
Speaker 1: weird coming out, I'll say that. So why did you go?
Speaker 1: Why would anybody go? What's the allure of caving? Uh?
Speaker 1: The unknown? In the thrill of discovery? Yes, well it's
Speaker 1: true though, that's what the article says. But I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be glib. It is very cool and way
Speaker 1: different down there, Like you get a sense that it is.
Speaker 1: It is not the same top side as it is
Speaker 1: in the bowels of the earth. Very different place and
Speaker 1: very cool to experience. Yeah, firsthand. And as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good opportunity for cave archaeology because
Speaker 1: the climate and temperature in a cave is so stable.
Speaker 1: Things are things left in caves are really really well preserved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know they're the caves were a good place
Speaker 1: for ancient rituals and things. And um, they mentioned that
Speaker 1: the cave art in France. Yeah, let's have you seen
Speaker 1: this stuff? Holy cal It's like it looks like artwork
Speaker 1: painted on canvas, some of it does. It's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, just scratchy cave drawings. Like this stuff is
Speaker 1: really beautiful and uh, they found this um in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty they discovered this in France from the Paleolithic era,
Speaker 1: seventeen and twenty years old and over two thousand figures drawn.
Speaker 1: And it's like, from what I understand, like the granddaddy
Speaker 1: of all cave drawing scores was here in France. Here
Speaker 1: in France, there in France. Well there's also another one
Speaker 1: called Chauves Cave in France and that's what um Waren
Speaker 1: or Herzog's Cave of Forgotten dreams is that you didn't,
Speaker 1: I'll watch anything that he's in the or narrates at nting.
Speaker 1: He's a bad guy and is it the new Bond? Now?
Speaker 1: Is that right? Now? He's a bad guy in some
Speaker 1: movie coming up? And I was like, oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: no one sounds more diabolical than fronts All. Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, no, that's that's a good one too.
Speaker 1: And I think they shot it in three D as well.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be like really good. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: check that one out. It's it's very interesting because they
Speaker 1: figure out that, Um, they're like, why why would these
Speaker 1: idiots draw bison with eight legs? Was there an eight
Speaker 1: legged bison? Back then, and then somebody figured out that
Speaker 1: if you look at it by by torchlight, not electric
Speaker 1: torch but real fire torches, it move. It moves. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that is so cool. Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I highly recommend you guys go and google
Speaker 1: image these um l A S C A U X
Speaker 1: France and it's all over the place. And what was
Speaker 1: the other one chauves h u v e T. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very cool stuff. And cek have Forgotten Dreams if you're
Speaker 1: into that. I mean, it's a lot of cattle drawings, granted,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, it's better than you would think.
Speaker 1: You're right considering they're doing this on a cave twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. Exactly right. Uh. There's also bio speleology, which
Speaker 1: we talked about at length and we don't need to
Speaker 1: really get into here again. Go listen to the biospeleology episode.
Speaker 1: But that's another reason people go through caves. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: I think like the first sentence was the right one.
Speaker 1: It's like the thrill of discovery and unknown. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: so few people doing any actual caving and enough caves
Speaker 1: out there that like you've got a pretty good shot
Speaker 1: of finding something that no one else has seen for
Speaker 1: ten thousand years or maybe ever. Yeah, you know that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Uh. And cavers to um, part of being
Speaker 1: a a caver or a speleologist is being into conservation
Speaker 1: and preservation. And that's one thing I learned from my
Speaker 1: buddy Eric and his friend there. They were like casual
Speaker 1: speed lunkers that were in there, clearly didn't know what
Speaker 1: they were doing, weren't dressed for it, didn't have the
Speaker 1: proper equipment. And of course these eyes are just like
Speaker 1: these are the people that get us in trouble or
Speaker 1: that get in trouble that we need to come help
Speaker 1: get out of trouble. Uh. But I think serious cavers
Speaker 1: are uniformly way into the preserving the cave. Like they
Speaker 1: don't just go and cave and like, yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 1: Like they're all into the meetings and the preservation. A
Speaker 1: lot of them do the volunteer for search and rescue
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Like they really get into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a casual affair, no, And I that that
Speaker 1: that idea actually extends to um urban spelunking or urban exploration. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, where you um you enter something like a
Speaker 1: sewer system or an abandoned building or something like that.
Speaker 1: But you're one of the big rules is like you
Speaker 1: can't break an enter. You can enter somebody else has
Speaker 1: already like cut a hole in the chain link fence.
Speaker 1: You can go through that hole. You can't cut that
Speaker 1: hole yourself, and you don't take anything. You you preserve
Speaker 1: the places exactly the way it was. And we actually
Speaker 1: have I think, what's a new article on the site
Speaker 1: that's awesome ten top ten cities for urban Exploration. It's
Speaker 1: like got all these attractions of like where to go
Speaker 1: in this city and like to explore. It's very cool. Well,
Speaker 1: Francis the catacombs, I know, we're really popular. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and I did a little bit of that in Florida
Speaker 1: in um Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Oh, the Fort Pickens Catacombs. Well,
Speaker 1: the Fort Pickens battery. It was like you know Civil
Speaker 1: War battery. Yeah, yeah, and um, I think it's all
Speaker 1: blocked off now, but at the time, like the metal
Speaker 1: bars were bent enough where you could get through, and
Speaker 1: me and my brother and my brother in law like
Speaker 1: mad torches and like went all through the stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff written on the walls like from the Civil War
Speaker 1: and then stuff written on the walls clearly more modern,
Speaker 1: uh in nature, right, but just graffiti and stuff and
Speaker 1: beer cans. But it was just neat walking around. That's cool. Um,
Speaker 1: what else, Chuck? How do you get started? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: guess if this podcast tickles your fancy, then you may
Speaker 1: want to know how to get into this. Yeah. A
Speaker 1: lot of people might be into the very easy, guided,
Speaker 1: you walk in and you walk around type of experience. Right,
Speaker 1: take the kids. There's nothing wrong with it. You can
Speaker 1: still learn a lot, you know. It's not a cop
Speaker 1: out like Carl's bad caverns and like the real touristy ones.
Speaker 1: They're great. Yeah. Have you ever been there? I haven't
Speaker 1: been there. I've been to Ruby Falls, you mean, and
Speaker 1: I went Ruby Falls is nice? It was, yeah, and
Speaker 1: there was plenty of people running around. Was very well
Speaker 1: lit yeah, um safe yeah. And then but it was
Speaker 1: so awesome getting to the falls. Yeah yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like it was great. It was total. I think part
Speaker 1: of the reason I appreciated it so much because I
Speaker 1: took it for what it was. It was like this,
Speaker 1: this is tourism, you know. Yeah, but it's also very cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you're walking underneath a fault line in the earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of you can sell t shirts afterwards,
Speaker 1: but it's still very cool to be in there. Um,
Speaker 1: So you can do that. You can go to these
Speaker 1: like really big touristy ones and still get a nice experience,
Speaker 1: or you can get a guided tour for you know
Speaker 1: a little more um intense experience. Have you been in
Speaker 1: Carl's Bag caberin Yeah, okay, Yeah, it's nice, it's lovely.
Speaker 1: It's like red carpet everywhere. Yes, couches everything. Um. But
Speaker 1: they do mention in this article that kids are great
Speaker 1: to take into caves. They love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Obviously you want to keep an eye on them because
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to get lost in there. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: at these at these big major attractions, they they take
Speaker 1: care of you, you know, right, They're not gonna let
Speaker 1: your kid go off and live with the salamanders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've got a guide for the guided tour, but
Speaker 1: even the self guided tours are it's usually like paved
Speaker 1: or clearly marked trail, like you're you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble getting lost if you get off of
Speaker 1: this trail, um or if you stay on the trail,
Speaker 1: I should say. Yeah, I went to a concert in
Speaker 1: a cave one time. Yeah, and Tennessee. They man, what's
Speaker 1: the name of It's something caverns and I can't remember now,
Speaker 1: but it was The Silver Juice played their last show
Speaker 1: ever in this cave and they have regular shows. They're
Speaker 1: like usually it's like bluegrass and stuff, but it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Like you you know, you park in this big field
Speaker 1: and then it's one of these where you walk into
Speaker 1: a huge opening and there's big paths, but you know,
Speaker 1: you walk like probably half a mile down in there,
Speaker 1: and then it opens up to this huge open room
Speaker 1: and there's a stage and there's lights and everything. That's cool,
Speaker 1: really cool experience. I wonder what the green rooms like there.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's probably brown. Right, just sit on
Speaker 1: that rock. I won't bring you some shrimp. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was really very cool show. Though I might post pictures
Speaker 1: of that too. Well, it's gonna be a picture of bananda. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there's cave diving. Yes, probably the most dangerous thing
Speaker 1: my person can do. Yeah, we can't overstate that enough.
Speaker 1: Like even these caver dudes that I was with that
Speaker 1: are hardcore, they were like those people are crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if you're a hardcore scuba diver, even a wreck diver,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're a cave diver. Cave diver is
Speaker 1: its own thing. Yeah, and like it's it's very easy
Speaker 1: to die. In two thou twelve. Seven people already died
Speaker 1: in a cave diving in two thousand twelve. Now, wow,
Speaker 1: three of them in three different days, three consecutive days
Speaker 1: in Florida, in three different incidents. Yeah, in March. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's scary. And asked Eric. I was like, well, why
Speaker 1: you know, what's the big deal, And he was like, dude,
Speaker 1: you're just you've got to be crazy to do it.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you are underground, underwater, and it's very
Speaker 1: easy to get lost and turned around, and you've only
Speaker 1: got so much air. They say that to never like
Speaker 1: to try and exit with half a tank of air
Speaker 1: still or whatever. It was not air, what is it?
Speaker 1: It's compressed compressed, there's like an air mix, but it's
Speaker 1: generally air. Yeah, but they're like, you don't want to
Speaker 1: go below half a tank ever, that's just scary. And um.
Speaker 1: He took me after we went caving, he took me
Speaker 1: to the entry point for the cave diving nearby, and
Speaker 1: it's this little probably you know, ten ft by ten
Speaker 1: foot whole, you know, a little pool, but it's like
Speaker 1: infinitely deep and it's like wow. So you can jump
Speaker 1: in and just sort of waddle around, or there's below
Speaker 1: that there's the tube where you enter, and it just
Speaker 1: seemed like the scariest thing ever, right with a tank
Speaker 1: of air on your back that could be punctured by anything,
Speaker 1: because it's not like there's not stalactites hanging down. Utterly
Speaker 1: frightening to me. Um that said, if you're in a
Speaker 1: cave diving, you go through the certification and you like
Speaker 1: are into that kind of thing. There's some awesome cave
Speaker 1: diving like senote Is any sinote Um. And there's a
Speaker 1: place in that I missed when we were talking about
Speaker 1: the Abandoned Minds podcast. There's a place called Bond Terror Mine, Missouri,
Speaker 1: and it's an old lead mine that was in production
Speaker 1: for like a hundred years and then they closed it
Speaker 1: down in nineteen sixty and they didn't remove anything. There's
Speaker 1: like magazines, all this stuff still sitting around, and they
Speaker 1: flooded it with like a billion gallons of crystal clear
Speaker 1: water really and you can go scuba dive, you can
Speaker 1: cave dive this abandoned mine now and see there's like
Speaker 1: an old movie theater down there. There's mind cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah, but it's like the
Speaker 1: visibility is just limitless. I wonder if that's slightly safer.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty heavily guided as well as tours go.
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna start somewhere, that would probably be
Speaker 1: a good place. Okay, Yeah, I saw a couple of
Speaker 1: dudes come out of the hole. Um, and all the
Speaker 1: cavers know each other, it seems like because they knew
Speaker 1: these guys and they were like, oh yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: You know, these guys are real nice, and then they
Speaker 1: turned around they're like they're nuts. These guys are crazy. Um. Oh,
Speaker 1: so all the cavers know each other because they're all
Speaker 1: members of grottos, right. Yeah. It definitely seems like a
Speaker 1: close knit community, like they're all on each other that
Speaker 1: have each other's contact info because you know, when someone
Speaker 1: gets lost, they send out you know, like who can
Speaker 1: come and help? Basically, who's free tomorrow to come and
Speaker 1: find these idiots tomorrow they're in trouble. If it's tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But well, a grotto is a caving club, right, and
Speaker 1: there are any legitimate caving club is sanctioned by the
Speaker 1: National Speleological Society, and there's about two d caving clubs
Speaker 1: or grottos in the US. Nice m hm. So if
Speaker 1: if you're a member of a grotto, if you're a caver,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you're gonna need.
Speaker 1: You're already into this, You're like, come on, let's go.
Speaker 1: What are we gonna do? What? What do I need
Speaker 1: to take with me? Well, you want to take three
Speaker 1: forms of light um, and plenty of backup batteries and
Speaker 1: take closed sticks, take the head lamps, take lighters, even
Speaker 1: though those will get wet. Um. You know, you can
Speaker 1: bag him in the dry bag, but take as many
Speaker 1: forms of light as you feel comfortable with. That's not
Speaker 1: less than three, and not only I took like four
Speaker 1: or five flights. That's smart. Yeah, I just and I
Speaker 1: knew I was going to be fine, but I was
Speaker 1: just like, you know what, I'm going into the depths
Speaker 1: of the earth. I want to have lots of light
Speaker 1: at my disposal, right, And you want to also have
Speaker 1: lots of batteries and extra bulbs for those lights, just
Speaker 1: because the light, your light is the number one most
Speaker 1: important thing when you're caving. That's the number one most
Speaker 1: important piece of equipment. Yeah, and my buddy Eric had
Speaker 1: a carbide lamp, which, um, you know, back in the
Speaker 1: day with like even car headlights and lights on the
Speaker 1: fronts of houses. Um, it wasn't always a gas lamp.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was carbide and old school cavers used these things.
Speaker 1: And it's basically a chemical reaction. Um. It burns a
Speaker 1: seedylene gas and it's created from a reaction of calcium
Speaker 1: carbide with water. So he had this, uh, this pod
Speaker 1: that he carried on his belt that had carbide pellets
Speaker 1: in it and it would drip water down and create
Speaker 1: the gas and it fed it up through a tube
Speaker 1: connected to the you know, the the gas lamp that
Speaker 1: he's wearing on his head. And it was really cool.
Speaker 1: The other guy didn't have one, but Eric was used it,
Speaker 1: and um, the light that it gives is just really
Speaker 1: very illuminating. It's not like a you know how incandescent
Speaker 1: light is just so specific, even if it's like a
Speaker 1: broad range, it's not like having a flame. So this
Speaker 1: thing really warm, like warms up the cave and it
Speaker 1: does actually warm it, um slightly, but just generally with
Speaker 1: light warmth. It's just like the cave was illuminated, not
Speaker 1: like a flashlight shining on something very cool and um,
Speaker 1: very durable. Like if you take care of these things,
Speaker 1: they're a little finicky, but if you take care of him,
Speaker 1: you can have them like your whole life. Sounds kind
Speaker 1: of new fangled. Uh no, it's very old school, well
Speaker 1: old fangled. Yeah, it's old angled. And you just look cool.
Speaker 1: Eric looked like a cool guy with his tube running
Speaker 1: out of his head and flicking the little lighter switch.
Speaker 1: And do you look cooler than I did with my yeah,
Speaker 1: my glow stick. Um, so you need light, you need light,
Speaker 1: You need a helmet, and you want your helmet to
Speaker 1: be certified by the Union International Day Associations. Del peace me. Yes,
Speaker 1: Jerry just laughed at you want a helmet, you want
Speaker 1: like and this is if you if you want to
Speaker 1: do it right like and safely. We we saw morons
Speaker 1: and tank tops and shorts walking around and crawling around
Speaker 1: and you know these guys are just rolling their eyes,
Speaker 1: are like those are the people that get hurt and
Speaker 1: get lost. Um, we had kneepads and elbow pads, helmets. Um.
Speaker 1: As far as safety gear, that was pretty much it,
Speaker 1: and that they had like rope and stuff just in case. Um,
Speaker 1: and you want to dress appropriately avoid cotton, Well, if
Speaker 1: you are wearing cotton, you want to wear under layers
Speaker 1: of synthetics. Yes, snags less easily, they dry more quickly. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would imagine you just want to avoid cotton altogether
Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah. I were one of those like, uh,
Speaker 1: synthetic wicking shirts, you know, the workout shirts. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but you do you want to dress in layers because
Speaker 1: it's cold in there. Yeah, but you know you you
Speaker 1: may raise your heart right here there and you may
Speaker 1: get a little warm. That definitely makes my heart right. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get wet most likely. Um. You can be
Speaker 1: in a dry, dusty cave, but chances are you going
Speaker 1: to get wet. Uh. There were times where we were
Speaker 1: up to our chest in a crevice about two ft wide,
Speaker 1: up to our chest and water and it's intimidating. It's
Speaker 1: like I am far away from anybody, and like what
Speaker 1: if this water rises? I mean it didn't, but you
Speaker 1: know what if it started raining. These things can happen
Speaker 1: pretty fast down there, and uh so. I mean we
Speaker 1: were literally soaked through the bone. It's like getting a
Speaker 1: swimming pool and then you get out and you're covered
Speaker 1: mud and you're supposed to climb things. That's like climbing
Speaker 1: a creased wall of stone. I'm like, am I supposed
Speaker 1: to really do this? And they were like pushing me
Speaker 1: by by butt. It was sort of embarrassing, like pulling me.
Speaker 1: It felt like a stuck pig at times. The only
Speaker 1: thing that made it better was the warm glow of
Speaker 1: the carbine lamp. And then they had the pancakes, you
Speaker 1: know where it's like, you know, as I'm surprised my
Speaker 1: body fit in this thing and you had to go
Speaker 1: like thirty ft across this pancake. What is it? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a it's where there's a top rock and a
Speaker 1: bottom rock. So basically you just there's like a foot
Speaker 1: of space to crawl through and you can't even crawl.
Speaker 1: You're like inching, you know, using your shoulder blades. I
Speaker 1: would have lost my You would not have liked this pancake.
Speaker 1: And that's when I remember thinking, boy, Josh would not
Speaker 1: have liked this part. Know it was uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 1: And I don't even have issues with like, you know,
Speaker 1: closed in spaces, but you feel like, what if the
Speaker 1: earth shifted it in this thing just smash me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you're at that and ship like that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know it could. I'm down there, I'm freaking out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you made it though, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: spoil it. You survived. Uh, what else? You need? Food
Speaker 1: and water? You want enough to last your whole trip,
Speaker 1: and then some just in case, you know, like you
Speaker 1: want gloves, you want a first aid kit. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: here's my favorite part. So we were talking about how
Speaker 1: um like you do you just preserve the environment exactly
Speaker 1: as it was found. This also means that you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to poop there. You can poop there, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna poop into like a plastic container that you can
Speaker 1: carry out with you because you take your urine and
Speaker 1: your feces out of the cave with you. So you
Speaker 1: want a plastic bottle to p in two and a
Speaker 1: like a good crushed proof container to poop into. I
Speaker 1: did not poop. I wouldn't have pooped. I'd just be like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not pooping today. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was only down there a few hours. So if
Speaker 1: you if if you can't hold your poop a few hours,
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't be caving that day. Man, just put
Speaker 1: it off, you know. Imagine getting sick down there, Oh
Speaker 1: like vomity, No, I'm not sure what you mean the
Speaker 1: other kind? Oh like poopy sick? Yeah, yeah, that would
Speaker 1: be awful. Um. If you have a cave map, which
Speaker 1: you should have, UM, bring a few copies, put them
Speaker 1: in zip blocks, hand them out to your friends that
Speaker 1: you're with, make sure everyone knows what's going on. And
Speaker 1: you also want to probably leave one at home with
Speaker 1: an X marks the spot of your route and um, well,
Speaker 1: at least it's a cave safety, doesn't it. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of precautions you should be taking before you
Speaker 1: set out. Yeah, I know what you're doing. Do not
Speaker 1: take it lightly. It's not like a hike, um that
Speaker 1: you can go on, so it's it's definitely different. You
Speaker 1: should go with someone knows what they're doing. Um. At
Speaker 1: the very least, Uh, a couple of people would be
Speaker 1: even better. They say not to go in really large
Speaker 1: groups because you don't want it like you could leave
Speaker 1: someone behind easier, Like four to six people is a
Speaker 1: good number, and you want to put the slowest person
Speaker 1: at the front of the group. That would have been me.
Speaker 1: So everybody's kind of pushing them from behind sometimes literally. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because you know that person
Speaker 1: doesn't get left behind. That makes the whole groups together.
Speaker 1: And if you're into um, passive aggressive peer pressure, that's great.
Speaker 1: That's a great situation for everybody. Yeah, you know, no,
Speaker 1: you're fine, That's what they kept saying to I know
Speaker 1: you're doing great, buddy, And I was like, no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm that guy. Um. You also, never ever
Speaker 1: want to go caving alone. I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: better sentence that's ever been spoken by anybody. Never go
Speaker 1: caving alone. That's a good idea. Um. If you do
Speaker 1: get lost, they say to stay put and that it's
Speaker 1: better to stay put instead of moving around because at
Speaker 1: least you're where you last were. You are where you
Speaker 1: last were, well, you're where you said you were going
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, at least roughly. If your light goes
Speaker 1: out in your alone, starts screaming at the top of
Speaker 1: your lungs until someone comes and gets you that's probably
Speaker 1: not a bad idea, but they say not to freak out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would definitely try and make a little noise,
Speaker 1: although you also don't want to attract the descent hail billies.
Speaker 1: Yeah whatever those were, they were they were mountain folk.
Speaker 1: You know what? That was a lot like a Lovecraft
Speaker 1: um story. I wasn't I can't remember the name of it,
Speaker 1: but it's, uh, there's a whole thing that tooks place
Speaker 1: in the Allegheny's maybe at Airondacks when somewhere up there, um,
Speaker 1: whereas this family that was like kind of mountain folk
Speaker 1: came to inbreed and eventually moved underground. It's one of
Speaker 1: his best ones. Man, he was. We should do a
Speaker 1: guest on him. Okay, what a twisted mind. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we did the necronomic I remember, Yeah, but let's just
Speaker 1: do one in his life what made him tick? Let's
Speaker 1: do it. Um. Well, we're at it real quick, dude.
Speaker 1: I found a real legitimate physics paper or written by
Speaker 1: a legitimate physicist that explains how certain events in uh
Speaker 1: Lovecrafts the Call of Cthulhu can be explained away by
Speaker 1: quantum physics. Really. Yeah, it's specifically a gravitational lensing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to explain what cthulhu is or know, like, what happened
Speaker 1: to this guy who went mad and described this crazy
Speaker 1: place that he went and stumbled upon in the South
Speaker 1: Pacific um and then came back and wrote about it.
Speaker 1: They were like, well, actually, wait a minute, what he's
Speaker 1: talking about is a quantum bubble. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: That's like it's it gets like he works out math
Speaker 1: and formulas for explaining all this and that's but the
Speaker 1: rest of it is really interesting. Wow. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it's called, but probably look up the physics
Speaker 1: of the called Cathulia and I'm sure it'll bring it up.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. That's awesome. So what are some
Speaker 1: of the big problems you're gonna run into, chuck, aside
Speaker 1: from getting lost or running out of light. Hypothermia, right,
Speaker 1: always a concern when you're cold and wet. Um, like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, flooding of passages, which I was worried
Speaker 1: about the whole time. Um, slipping, falling. I was slipping
Speaker 1: all over the place. It's going to happen in these
Speaker 1: muddy caves, and you know, you just I just sort
Speaker 1: of slid and try not to pick my face up
Speaker 1: off the rock, but I definitely got bumps and bruises
Speaker 1: and I was really sore the next day. It was
Speaker 1: like mountain climbing, except under ground in the mountain was
Speaker 1: slick and muddy. That's basically kind of what it felt
Speaker 1: like rock climbing. It was not what I thought it
Speaker 1: was gonna be. Once again, I can't stress that enough.
Speaker 1: It's not a stroll a my bologna sandwich by and Am. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was pretty bad, um, but super fun. And like
Speaker 1: I said, when you come out, man, that's so weird.
Speaker 1: Once you've been underground for that long, when you come
Speaker 1: out into the real world, everything is just like hypercolorful
Speaker 1: and bright and just weird, and it's like, man, there's
Speaker 1: a whole different world down there that most people don't
Speaker 1: know about. Nice, highly encourage it. Just be careful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good advice. Is there anything else
Speaker 1: in here? Um? Always make sure that several people above
Speaker 1: ground know where you went, know where you're going, no
Speaker 1: when you expect to be back. Um. And if somebody
Speaker 1: does get hurt, never leave that person alone. A couple
Speaker 1: of people have to stay with them. A couple of
Speaker 1: people have to go top side. The people who go
Speaker 1: top side need to leave some of their supplies and
Speaker 1: lightening stuff and water back with the people who are
Speaker 1: hanging out with the injured person. They need to know
Speaker 1: exactly where the injured person is so they can tell
Speaker 1: other people who can come get them out. Um. And uh.
Speaker 1: They also need to remember to take the car keys
Speaker 1: with them. Really kind of important. You don't want to
Speaker 1: get all the way out there and be like, can
Speaker 1: you imagine left the keys in there? Yeah, that would suck. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then like you said, if you ever get lost,
Speaker 1: you don't want to panic. You want to stay put.
Speaker 1: You want to uh rely on your plan, your backup plan,
Speaker 1: which was letting a bunch of people know that you
Speaker 1: were supposed to have been home two hours ago and
Speaker 1: you weren't. That's right. And there are thousands of caves
Speaker 1: in the US, um many of which are very explorable.
Speaker 1: Just do your research beforehand, go with someone that knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing. There are more extreme caves around the
Speaker 1: world that are very cool to look at. Ones that
Speaker 1: you actually can skydive into, or not scott dive, but
Speaker 1: base jump into. Boy that I can't imagine Skott having
Speaker 1: into one. I think I've seen, Um, I've seen video
Speaker 1: of people base jumping into this Satano de LESCo and
Speaker 1: yeah it was I think Planet Earth the Discovery Show
Speaker 1: had that. Okay, yeah that's where I saw it. It
Speaker 1: was it's way cool. And then like you talked about
Speaker 1: the note tast those are very cool too. UM, just
Speaker 1: be careful. Have we said that enough? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can, because, like I said, once
Speaker 1: you get there, you realize they're just a bunch of
Speaker 1: dummies no matter what that are ill prepared locals that
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, I've been down here before. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about caving, you can type
Speaker 1: in spelunking in the search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com sp E l U n K, I n
Speaker 1: G and we'll bring up this article. UM and uh,
Speaker 1: I said spilanking, which means, of course it's time for
Speaker 1: a listener. Now, I'm gonna call this Pakistani pizza. We
Speaker 1: did a pizza podcast and we got lots and lots
Speaker 1: and lots of feedback on that. I knew that was
Speaker 1: going to be one of those very ubiquitous food that
Speaker 1: people love to talk about. UM. And this is from
Speaker 1: UM and I'm probably gonna put your name, sorry, buddy.
Speaker 1: Uh Nabi ha c ed okay, and he said that
Speaker 1: he listened to the Pizza Cast and thought he would
Speaker 1: drop some four one one on pizza in Pakistan. He's
Speaker 1: originally from Orlando, but it currently lives in Karachi for university.
Speaker 1: And he said here, when you order a pizza, you
Speaker 1: don't really order toppings, but you order a specific flavor.
Speaker 1: Um although if you're at a pizza place you can
Speaker 1: order specific toppings and build your on pizza. His Pizza
Speaker 1: Hut calls it, though they are a little less cooperative
Speaker 1: when you order for delivery, apparently in Pakistan, so he said,
Speaker 1: your pizza will most likely have some form of chicken
Speaker 1: on it, and then of course there's no ham because
Speaker 1: it's a Muslim country. Pizza Hut alone serves chicken Tica,
Speaker 1: Chicken Cary, chicken Fajita Bhari, chicken f caan Tica, and
Speaker 1: the spicier fajita Sicilian Asabella as vell, as well as
Speaker 1: the veggie shwarma pepperoni and a couple of other different
Speaker 1: beat Flavorsizza in Pakistan here's the kicker for me, guys.
Speaker 1: Not only do they offer their usual stuff crust with
Speaker 1: the rope of cheese. They also serve beefy Uh seek
Speaker 1: kebab stuff crust. Yes, wow, Papa Johns, wait, I want
Speaker 1: to just make sure you understands what you just said.
Speaker 1: He said that they offer a a pizza with a
Speaker 1: crust stuffed with kebab with beef kebab. That sounds delightful,
Speaker 1: it does, um. Papa John's uh offers some more traditional
Speaker 1: American pizza menu with their various pseudo Italian names including Chicken, Florentine,
Speaker 1: Um Dominoes. Flavors in Pakistan are a little more mainstream American,
Speaker 1: while they do serve chicken Tika as well as something
Speaker 1: called Golden Feast or something to that effect, which as
Speaker 1: far as I know involves corn, pineapple, and probably chicken.
Speaker 1: Along with the corporate giants, there are plenty of local
Speaker 1: chains oddly generic sounding names, including Pizza Place, Pizza Point, Pizza,
Speaker 1: California Pizza, and the list goes on and on. Just pizza.
Speaker 1: It's it's a type of Unfortunately, my university and dorm
Speaker 1: are located on the outskirts of town, not in the
Speaker 1: ideal neighborhoods at these places usually don't deliver, but I
Speaker 1: suppose that's fine. I don't order pizza very much here
Speaker 1: as Pakistani pizza is kind of small and a bit
Speaker 1: too cakey and very super ready, but it fills you up, um,
Speaker 1: and you never leave hungry. I just had a fairly
Speaker 1: tasty contraption from pizza point around five hours ago for dinner.
Speaker 1: I can still feel it in my throat less and
Speaker 1: learn did not go to bed in the morning, sleep
Speaker 1: until the evening. Can order excess food anyways. Love the show, uh,
Speaker 1: and lots of love that is uh, Nabia, see it.
Speaker 1: That's a lot, and that's why. Yeah, that's that's why. Eat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see it you just said, but maybe just said it's eat,
Speaker 1: but it's a eat. We'll find out to be all right. Yep,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for writing you. Good luck with your study,
Speaker 1: um and the pizza. Yeah. If you're in a foreign
Speaker 1: land and you're listening to us and you have some
Speaker 1: four one one uh, as Nabiha pointed out, Nabiha, right, good. Uh.
Speaker 1: We want to hear from it you. Uh, we want
Speaker 1: to hear about it from you. You can tweet to
Speaker 1: us at s y s K podcast. You can join
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