WEBVTT - Ep. 204: It Should Be Difficult to Get Lost Forever 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is Me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.319 bug bitten in my case underwear listening Hunt podcast. You 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.600 can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.160 the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.440 Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:35.199 where you stand with on X. All right, we have 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.879 a special guest today, Roman dial Um, who has a 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.240 new book out with a gigantic I have the the 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.879 what do you call these advanced readers copies? They call 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:50.400 them arcs in the business um giant quote from John Krakauer. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.360 A brave and marvelous book, a page turner that will 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.160 rip your heart out. The books called The Adventurer's Son 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.280 by Roll and dial and it tells the story. You 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:05.479 just give me the one sentence. It tells a story 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.520 about looking for my son who went missing in Costa Rica. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.120 That's a good job. Yeah, a heartbreaking story about raising 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:18.560 an outdoor son and then losing him in the jungle 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:25.000 and trying him. Uh. Also called you before we start recording. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.600 You mentioned Um that you're not a hunter, but your 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.800 hunt and you're not a Yeah, you're not a climber, 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.160 but you climb. No no, no, no no. So I'm 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:35.759 not a hunter, but I do hunt, and I love 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.399 to hunt, you know. And uh, but what makes you 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.480 not a hunter? I don't know if you even realize that. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.240 But we were talking about this earlier. You've hunted Moosa 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.200 my brother Danny. Yeah, you live in Alaska. I live 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.040 in Alaska. Yeah. And we got a bull and a 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.680 cow the same day. And and your brother Dan and 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:53.920 my friend Chris Flowers, who's a friend of his. Two 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.720 they cleaned the bull and I cleaned the cow, and so, um, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.760 but I I hunt for a year. I really like. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.800 I like to eat year. I try to. I didn't 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.840 hunt this year fish, I know. You know I only 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.760 dip net. Yeah. I'm not really a fisherman, um, but 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.640 I do dip net. I'm kind of like a you know, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.200 very efficient fisherman. Yeah, I sam and dip net. You know. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.360 It's I'd like to do that. Um, I don't. I 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.079 don't have the patients for hooking line. You know. It's 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.519 just I can't fly fishing. I love the idea of 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.840 fly fishing. I think it's marvelous. I think it's one 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.600 of the most beautiful activities. You know, an outdoor person 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.920 could do, but I can't do it. It's just you 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:35.799 have to stay in one place and I can't do that. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.520 What strikes she is beautiful about it, all the flailing around. No, 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:41.840 I think the idea of it, that the beauty is 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.080 that you have to be an ecologist. You have to 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.079 be like a practicing apple apply to collegist. You've got 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.080 to think about what the fish is going to eat. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:54.679 And it's actually people go down to the to the 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.560 fly shop and they feel like what should I come on? Well, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.079 that's why I'm not efficient. I like the idea of it. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:03.639 I don't want to do it. But as far as 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.399 like not being a hunter, just because I don't, uh, 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.280 you know, I don't shoot my gun very often, you know, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.959 I I probably I didn't even know what was called 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.400 processing until a few years ago. What do you think 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:22.480 it was called butchering um? And I like to clean animals. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.600 I think that's you know, like I don't really like 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.399 to kill them. I mean, I've killed a lot of moose, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.160 I've killed a lot of caribou, I've killed a bear, 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:30.680 links I killed a lot of animals, but I don't 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.880 I'm not a great shot, you know, and I don't 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:34.840 like to go shoot my gun. I gotta. I got 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:36.560 a lot of guns, but I don't really like them. 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:38.280 But I really like to clean them, you know, like 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.600 I like to. I feel like if I I feel 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.120 like I do a good job, I take them apart 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.480 real efficiently. They're super clean, and a moose is a 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:46.760 big animal to take apart. I'd love to get a buffalo. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.440 That's my kind of dream. I've I've spent enough money 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:52.960 putting in for the lottery of the buffalo in Alaska 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.440 to just go buy you know, somebody's buffalo over but 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.080 spreads it out nicely for you. Yeah, well, I feel 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:00.440 like you should. I feel it's be able to cli. 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:02.440 I mean, if I would like to think that with 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.520 with your approach, I would in my in my hope 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.960 you would be like, yeah, I'm a hunter, Well I hunt, 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.000 you know, And I I would like let me finish 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.760 off the thought about I'm a climber but I don't climb. Well, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.920 I want to get into that, so yeah, we'll leave 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.240 hunting behind and get into that. Yeah, And I think 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.120 I wanted you to talk about when you quit climbing, 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.800 when I quit climbing. Sure, Yeah, if that if that's 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.160 a good way of explaining it. Yeah, why why quit climbing? Yeah, 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.880 it's it's like a chapter in my book, right, And 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.280 you're an alpinist. An alpinist yep, I was an alpinist. Yeah. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.440 An alpinist is like a climber, you know. I think 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.200 of climbers generally, most people think of climbers are sort 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.680 of like rock climbers. There's ice climbers and rock climbers. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.039 But an alpinist to somebody who just rock climbs and 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.200 ice climbs so that they have the skills and the 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.120 technique to go to the big mountains and climb the 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.000 big mountains that have rock and ice and their remote 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.840 and they're in the wilderness and they have weather, and 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.320 it's just like it's kind of like you're living on 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.359 the mountain trying to get up it. Yeah. As a 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:02.320 not climber, I've often fantasized that, uh, if I wasn't 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:03.920 into what I was into, if I didn't hunting fish 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.840 and stuff, that I would I would want to pursue that. 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:11.080 But they get whittled away, they do. It's dangers, you 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:12.680 wind up, but you get to be forty and all 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.040 your friends are dead. Yeah, well, you know, I feel 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:16.760 lucky to have made it as far as I didn't. 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.360 I quit when I was about twenty five and had 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:20.839 a lot of friends die. I had a lot of 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.400 friends die. Yeah, I um, and they still die. I 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.040 mean like today, you know, more good climbers die than 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:29.240 bad climbers. You know, like, if you're a bad climber, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.320 you kind of realized right away that this is maybe 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.920 not for you. It's dangerous, maybe you get out of it. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.160 But if you're a good climber, you just keep climbing 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.840 harder and harder things and going to wilder and wilder 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.680 places until, you know, until you get killed. Because the 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:45.919 mountains don't care how good you are. Yeah, you know, 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:47.960 you well, you know we've established that. You know, my 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.840 brother and Hunter with him, his old roommate Jared. You 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.839 might have known. He died on K two. He wentn't 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.400 attempted K too, got knocked in the head, wought up 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.239 in a hospital in Pakistan, came home, recovered the next season, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.400 went back and died and he kind of like knew 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.599 what was gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah, Well there's two guys, 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.120 Kyle Dempster and his partner. They climbed a mountain in 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.840 Pakistan and they didn't make it to the top. They 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.800 were repelling down and like an anchor pulled or something 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.680 like that. They filled several hundred feet, broke a leg, 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.920 came back the next year and disappeared on the same mountain, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.039 both of them. Yeah, and they were like the two best. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.839 There's an award called the Pola or like you know, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:32.120 the Golden ice Axe, and this kid, Kyle Dempster, he'd 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.760 won it twice as the best climber in the world basically, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.440 and then you know, he died. So, yeah, the mountains 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.160 don't care how good you are. Is that what got 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.680 you to Alaska climbing mountains? Well? No, you know, when 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.479 I was a kid, I went to Alaska because I 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.640 had um some uncles who lived up there and they 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.800 worked in a coal mining kind of It wasn't really 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.719 a town. It was sort of like a camp in 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:54.720 the Alaska Range. Yeah, that's a crazy story in your 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:56.440 book about just getting sent up to hang out with 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.640 your uncles and they weren't that interested and really washed 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.200 and after you well, yeah, it was busy working. Yeah, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:02.720 and it was a great time. And that's how I 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.119 kind of fell in love with Alaska. I was nine, 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.960 and I had back in those days, you know, we 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.239 didn't really have There was no there were no computers obviously, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.400 and this place didn't even have like telephones or TV. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.840 And so I got a taxidermy correspondence course that you 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.240 used to be able to get this tax d correspondence 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.760 course and probably put off some beautiful work. I managed. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.440 I mounted a raven, I put some caribou antlers that 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.760 were involved together, and um, so I got the whole course. 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.600 Was you're supposed to get it over a year. I said, hey, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.840 I'm going to Alaska. Send it all to me right now. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.400 So I had the whole course and I took it 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.520 up there, and I had a bunch of glass eyes 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.400 and excelsior and wire and and that's what I kind 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.360 of did nine years old. You know it was it 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.920 was awesome. You got to go a little ferl work exactly. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.920 It ruined me for life. Yeah, you know, I could 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.120 do whatever I wanted. I had a motorcycle and uh, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.080 and my uncle had this dog. It was named Moose 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.760 and it was half wolf, and he would I would 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.120 go out all day with Moose and and then they 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.240 gave me a motorcycle, but I couldn't really, it was 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:06.920 too big for me. You know how you see kids 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.320 on bicycles that are too big and you know they 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.600 can hardly get up on him. Well with a motorcycle, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.320 and you have to jump up and kick started. You know, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:15.960 if you don't get it going, it falls down. And 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.920 you know, the lever I don't remember. I forget which 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.040 side was which, but the maybe the clutch or the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.600 break lever, one of them were was broke off. Because 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.800 I've fallen down somebody, there's no going back from that. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.720 You get that taste of freedom at nine years old 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.480 and being like, oh I'm capable of doing all these things. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.560 That's it. Yeah, And so I you know, I went 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.960 back to, uh the lower forty eight East Coast. I 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.080 was in Virginia, and as soon as I graduated from 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:44.960 high school, you know, there's only one place I wanted 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.760 to go, and it was back to Alaska. But um 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:49.880 so anyway, I've been. I've been living in Alaska for 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.160 about forty years now. I like it. You know, your brother, 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.280 do you think your brother will ever leave? He talks 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.920 about it. He says he's getting sick of wet brush. 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.280 His wife's doesn't want to leave. He kind of wants 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.160 he wants to hang out somewhere to his dry grass 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.000 instead of wet brush. So he's kind of wanting to, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.280 uh come back down here, but no, he's he's just 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:13.120 up there his gripe about it, um two grapes, wet brush, 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.360 and everything is like everything is such a production. M 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.840 Like anytime you go to hunt, it's like his boats 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.080 and journeys, and you don't just like go out messing 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.920 around for a couple of hours, Like everything is a production. 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:28.920 I don't know. I don't I don't know. I went 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:33.240 fat biking yesterday. Um, well you know I traveled yesterday. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.760 The day before yesterday, one of my former gratitudents came 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.760 by and it was like ten below twelve below where 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.199 we went biking. It was probably like fifteen or twenty below, 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:43.360 and that was like right out my door. And I 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.880 live right in town. I live in town, like in midtown. 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.800 He hunts time again local and fishes. But I think 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:50.480 it like I think hes talking about kind of the more, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.000 you know, like you don't go and have a like 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.080 your tree stand out in your backyard and you go 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.080 out there and sit for white tails every night. Well 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.200 probably not. Yeah, but I've hunted moves within view of 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:03.000 my house, like I've killed a moose and I can 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.120 see when my house is. Yeah, but you know, um, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.480 I understand what you're saying. But I never lived in 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.240 the other way, like I moved to Alaska when I 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.880 was sixteen, and so I don't really I never lived 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.320 you know, I never hunted deer. I've shot one deer. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:16.920 I don't really like dear meet that much. I probably 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.920 shouldn't say that, but you know, you know, when you're 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:21.800 talking about riding that motorcycle, it's too big for you. 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.880 My friend dear Drew, it was just telling me about 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:26.880 they had horses when they were little, and she said 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:31.160 they were so small that they would put grain down. Yeah, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.240 so the horse had leaned down and get the grain 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.559 and they jump and straddle it behind the ears and 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.520 to jerk its head up and they'd slide down into 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:42.080 position and ride off. Oh that's cool, that's really cool. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.080 Good way to mount. So get into the being an 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.720 alpinist and then kind of like when you got scared 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.000 you had your boy at that point in time, or 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.240 did you not know I wasn't too married married, yeah, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:53.719 but I was with the same woman I am now 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.320 she remember you had like kind of a like a 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.040 a sort of an epiphany. Sure, well, you know I 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.360 would climb these mountains, you know, like and I would 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.040 ski into some really distant mountains, like one time when 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:09.520 I was twenty one, the year I graduated from college. Uh, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.800 like over spring break, the sky and I Steve will 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.520 we skied sixty miles in and climb out Debra, which 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.560 is a beautiful mountain. You can see it from Fairbanks, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.000 and Fairbanks is in the middle of the state, and 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.240 it's cold and dry all winter, and you can just 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.880 see these mountains on the skyline. They're beautiful and it's cold, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.199 so they get they look real close because the cold 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.800 air magnifies the mountains. And in the winter you can't 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:31.720 do anything but look at the mountains and the sun 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.360 just kind of rolls along the top. It's freaking beautiful. 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:36.880 And Mount Debra is the prettiest one. And we skied 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.000 in sixty miles, climbed the west face, a big steep face. 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:43.960 Um you had to like scratch out a pad to 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.600 sleep on the way up, like a little ledge and 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.320 climbed it and came down and Um, and then we 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.120 were gonna go climb Mount Hey is the highest in 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.079 the range. But we chickened out repelling over this pass 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:57.880 and skied out. We ran out of food. I had 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.040 to break into some guys cash his food, his cash. 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.600 You like a little cabin on stilts next to his cabin, 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.480 looking for food, and I found dry dog food. Ate 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.760 the dry dog food, you know, because I was so hungry. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.400 Um skied out and I was like, I'm not gonna 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.320 climb anymore. This is ridiculous, you know, And I it 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.760 was miserable, you know, hungry, You know, like where you 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.520 hungry where you eat half rations for a couple of days, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.439 and then you go to like quarter rations and then 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.439 you're eight rations, and then you eat your last apricots, 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.360 splitting it with your partner, and then you look where 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.160 you dropped some gorp in the snow three weeks ago, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.319 and you're pawing through the snow looking for the gorp, 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.719 and instead of sitting on your pack and eating a 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.520 chocolate bar, you sit on your pack and then you 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.840 fall asleep because you don't have anything else to do, 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.600 and you're hungry, and I thought, you know, this climate 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.400 is nuts and I want to quit. But I it 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.000 was like being an alcoholic. I think, you know, like 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.679 an alcoholic says, I'm not drinking anymore, but the next 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.920 weekend they drink anyway, and uh, and I would go 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.880 back and climb some more. And I've really I've been 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:57.880 with this girl. You know. I met her when she 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.360 was eighteen. I was nineteen, and I, you know, I 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.640 wanted to get married and have a family. But it 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.400 wasn't until this one particular climb where I realized, you 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.679 know what climbing was just kind of more or less 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.880 about luck. You know, it wasn't really about how good 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.160 you were. And and I tell the story, and that's 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.360 that's an interesting perspective, just the luck factor. I had 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.400 a couple of things I noted in the book. One 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.360 that just like how tense things get with climbing partners, 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:28.480 where you mentioned um getting into getting into a fist fight. Yeah, 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:34.439 well yeah, you know he um picking up and continuing right. Well, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.439 we didn't. We didn't really we we didn't get in 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.679 a We we had verbal fights, you know, on climbs, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:42.800 but we never had a fist fight on the climb. 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.600 We had the fist fight you know back in town. Yeah, 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:47.680 I never had a fist fight it, I mean, that 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.280 would be a bummer. Maybe it was the girlfriend, you know, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:58.760 he said, the one of the guys in his climbing circle. 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:00.439 He's like, yeah, you know, we could tell he was 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.200 never going to be very good because he always had 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.640 a girlfriend. Yeah, that's for sure. You know I didn't. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.760 I didn't really, you know, but this this this particular 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.480 climb when a cornice broke and uh and Chuck Comstock, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.439 the guy that I had gotten into a fight within town, 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.200 and he had just untied from the rope like we were. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.520 We'd climbed this really, you know, steep face took several 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.280 days to get up camped on top. It was in 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.120 marches like thirty below. And then we were feeling so 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.600 full of ourselves we decided to go down this ridge 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.760 that I don't even climbed once. And the people who 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:34.080 went up it didn't want to go back down, and 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:35.680 we were like, oh, we can go down it. So 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.040 we went down and had all these cornices, you know, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.400 going both ways, and explain explained people are what a 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.840 cornice is, because this is really there's another thing I 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.560 wanted to ask you about when you're in your climbing 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.000 discussion was what I had no idea that this happens. 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.080 What you do in one of those breaks a cornice 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.120 when it breaks, well, you know, well how you and 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.040 your partner working tandem to not die. But first, some 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.680 people water cornice. Cornice, Well, you know, if if you 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.600 don't live in a snow area, a cornice kind of 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.880 looks like a frozen wave of snow, but instead of 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.320 like the ocean and and wind pushing the ocean into 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.840 a wave, the wind pushes the snow over the crest 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.200 of a mountain ridgeline, and then it builds like a 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.480 frozen wave up on top, and and the wind keeps 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.360 piling up more and more snow until um, you know, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.000 it's kind of flat on top, and you are walking 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.560 on this ridge. You might not really know where you're overhanging, 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.560 you know, the top of this cornice. And then um, 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.240 in certain places in the world, and in the Alaska 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:42.040 Range in particular, you'll get um moist air blowing from 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.640 the ocean side and it condenses on the mountain like 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.960 the ice that used to build up in people's refrigerators. 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:50.720 If you have an old freezer, for example, with a 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.600 bad gasket and got a bunch of meat in there. 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:54.280 You know, if you've got a bad gasket, you get 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.800 that rhiny ice around the edge, and that rhyme ice 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.200 can build into this huge bulge, like a overhanging bulge, 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:02.960 you know, like it can be you know, twenty or 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.840 thirty ft of overhang, this big rime bulge. And then 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.680 on top of that, the wind is usually blows from 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.360 the ocean side and it will blow snow that makes 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.240 this frozen wave on the other side. So you kind 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.680 of have a sort of like a double cornice where 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.640 you got an overhanging wave on one side and then 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:19.800 this big bulging rhyme on the other. So it's kind 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:24.520 of an unstable feature. And you know, in rock climbing 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.880 they have cams and petons and stuff you can stick 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.000 in a crack, and in ice climbing they got screws 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.400 you can screw into the waterfall. But on this ridge climbing, 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.240 you know, you can't really protect it. So the only 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.000 thing you can do is if the thing breaks, you 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.240 gotta go off the other side. So the rope kind 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.880 of goes over both sides of the mountain. Jump off 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:45.920 the side. Yeah, you gotta jump and then the rope 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.760 cuts into the cornice. Yeah it stops. Yeah, it would 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.240 be hard, yeah, exactly. And it's uh, it's kind of 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.160 a mythical thing, like nobody ever thinks you're ever gonna 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.440 have to do it, and very few people have actually 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.000 done it as far as I know, and so on 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.400 this particular. But like when it does happen, like what 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.280 a leap of faith? Man, Yeah, what a leap of faith. 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:05.760 And then you kind of have to hope you're going 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:07.960 off the right side, you know. But this it was 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.840 pretty obvious. He had broken the cornice side, the soft 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.680 you know, windside, and I went off on the rhemy side, 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.480 and uh, and then you know, fell a long ways. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.040 I thought I was going to die or at least 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.680 get broken, and um, because I tumbled because it's like 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.679 a big cart wheel, because he went straight down when 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:25.920 he broke the cornice. He could he falls straight down 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.360 and he's out ahead of me, and I jumped off 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.679 and then I had to pendel him down, you know, 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.120 over a bunch of space. And if you hadn't done that, 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.760 we probably both would have gone off the same side 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.480 and tumbled down and got broken up. Yeah it would, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.440 he just would have yanked me off. So but yeah, 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.280 it did. And I was like, yeah, this is it. Um, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.760 you know, we skied out, and you know, I actually 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:52.960 right after that, I thought, you know, I might come 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.800 back and climb that mountain. But I skied back to 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.320 town and uh and went and I was telling the 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.280 stories about this climb, and I was like, you know, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.280 this is nuts. I think I'm just gonna get married. 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.520 So I got married like just like that was March 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.680 and I was married in June and then and then 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.920 so that was like the end of my climbing. And um, 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.359 not a big wedding, right if I remember right, you know, 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.359 I don't know. They were twenty or thirty people. Was 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.840 in a big field, you know, outside of Fairbanks. It 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.560 wasn't huge, no, not at all. And my my parents 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.159 were there. Her her parents didn't come, you know, because 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.879 they didn't think of a wedding should be outside. They 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.000 should thought it should be in a church, you know, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.879 but so decided not to come. With all that'll fix you. Yeah, 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.600 but she you know, Peggy's the youngest of ten kids 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.359 and and uh and her parents, you know, maybe they 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.800 didn't have a lot left for her by the end. Yeah, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.440 I don't know. They were tapped out. I think so. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:56.240 So when you quit like kind of like that biggest 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.199 form of adventure, but when you had your kid, you 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:04.400 really focused heavily on I would say that an extreme version, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.359 a pretty extreme version of of a association with nature 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.000 an adventure. Sure. I mean I I did, guy did 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.240 crazy stuff. Well, I mean I still like being outside. 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.960 I mean you can't. If you live in Alaska you 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.080 don't like being outside, You're not really gonna like live 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:22.439 in there much because that's that's what Alaska has a 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.800 lot of. And um. And I had found that I 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.719 liked going to the mountains, Like I didn't like just 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:32.760 climbing the mountains, but I like like skiing into the 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.800 mountains or um. On another trip, we we climbed the 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.280 mountain and then we rafted out and um. And one 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.560 time I had gone into the mountains with this guy, 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.640 Karl Tobin and another guy and we didn't get up 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.119 the peak. We got avalanched off and I was aunty 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:50.880 because I wanted to do something. I said, Hey, let's 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.399 just ski out to the highway. It was like fifty 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.040 five miles and I'm like, no, we don't want to ski, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:55.960 We're gonna stay here. So I skied out by myself, 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.800 and the year before i'd skied out from a different 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.359 mountain in a parallel out, and I thought, wow, I 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.359 wonder which way is faster. You know, this was like 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:09.560 nineteen eighty um three, so it was a long time ago, 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.080 and I thought, wow, I know how to find out. 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.680 It's like fifty sixty miles. We should have a ski 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.240 race and see what is the fastest way. In fact, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.240 let's just have a wilderness ski race across the Alaska 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.120 Range from highway to highway, like a hundred fifty miles. 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.200 And you know, there hadn't been any I mean, they're 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.679 they're ultra running wasn't a thing yet, especially and no 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.359 ultra skiing. And so that I was like twenty twenty 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:38.120 years old maybe, and uh I met a guy at 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.400 a like on campus at the university, and he had 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:43.240 a fire and he had an idea for like a 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.120 foot race across the Kenai Pencil and the Kenai pensils 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.280 like that when you look at a map of Alaska 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.080 and you know anchorages right down there in the southern 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.159 part and the Kenai pencils that little kind of like 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.480 that moose bell that hangs down from Alaska and uh. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:57.440 And he was going to have a race from Hope 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.240 to Homer across the Keenai pencil and he called it 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.199 a foot race. And the rules were really simple. Everything 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.800 you needed you had to carry with you and you 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.080 including all your food, and you couldn't use any roads, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:08.960 and you couldn't use any pack animals, and you couldn't 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.600 use any motorized vehicles, and you couldn't get any help 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.760 from anybody along the way. And he envisioned a swimming 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.840 the rivers. And I saw this idea. I was like, wow, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.400 that's the same idea that I have. But you know, um, 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:21.560 I want to do a ski race you guys? Well kid, 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.520 because he was in his thirties, Well kid, and he 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:25.880 was a mountain guide. Well kid, why did you come 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.679 down and do do my race and then we'll do yours. 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.480 So I went down there, and um, and there was 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:34.520 an old man there and he says, hey, kid, where's 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.000 your tent? I said, I didn't bring a tent. I'm 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.359 not taking a tent. I'm going light. And he says, well, 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:39.920 where are you gonna sleep? Tonight, and I said, I'm 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:41.840 just gonna sleep out here in my baby sacs. Well, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:43.879 come on into my tents. So I slept in his 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:45.800 tent and I looked at him. He was like my 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.159 age now, actually is younger than I am now. And 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.040 I thought, this guy is not going to finish this. 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.119 He shouldn't even be here, you know. And then I 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.000 saw some other guy and he looked kind of clumsy. Well, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.280 the clumsy guy caught up with me the first day 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.920 after I had gone like forty miles all the only 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:01.960 trail we all did. We hiked the trail, the whole 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.240 forty miles trail. The first day's like a hundred fifty 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.200 mile race. You had to carry all your food and 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.720 everything with you. And I was I had skis with 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:10.320 me because I was going to ski across the harding 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:11.800 ice field, because I didn't want to have to swim 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:13.480 all these rivers, because that's how we're going to cross 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:15.280 the river. You're gonna go up higher and ski where 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:17.760 it's frozen. Yeah, And but because I didn't want to 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.399 swim river, Swimming glacial rivers seems stupid to me. And 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.080 so um, we got to the first glacial river and 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.280 usually you wait for the you know, the morning, because 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:28.280 the sun melts the snow on the glacial rivers and 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.080 then in the morning the waters down, and it seemed 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:33.040 like a smarter time to swim it. And we're waiting. Yeah, yeah, 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.320 it's been cold on it. So we're waiting around and 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.639 everybody catches us, Me and this guy man's or we're 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:39.520 out in the front. And then that old man, I'm 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.560 like what he caught up to us and he pulls 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.959 out of his pack like these Viking horn hat, you know, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:47.960 like some soft goofy hat, and he puts it on. 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.080 He goes, you know, what are you guys doing here? 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.720 You young guys should have been to uh halfway to 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.120 Homer by now. And we're like, yeah, well we got 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.240 stuck by the river. He goes, yeah, you young guys. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:01.680 You don't know. Then and eat too much and then 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:04.200 and then he reaches into his pack and he pulls 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.040 out this little inflatable raft kind of like the pack 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.520 raft you used when you went, you know, on your 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.600 buffalo hunt in Alaska, but this was like a kmart 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:14.280 vinyl raft and he pulls it. I says, you guys 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:17.000 can't swim these glacial rivers. You know, they're too swift 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:20.640 and cold and dangerous. He says, uh, you know, old 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:23.000 age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.080 And he blew up his raft. Yeah exactly, and he 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.040 paddled across and he almost won the race and without 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.480 running a step. You know. But anyway, when I saw 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.560 that pack raft um, I thought, yeah, that's why, that's 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:36.960 what I want one of those. And and just crossing 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.480 like a hundred fifty miles of Alaskan wilderness. It took 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.000 me a week, you know, which is like nowadays we do. 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:43.720 Not me, I'm kind of too old for that, but 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:46.680 you know that nowadays people do like a hundred fifty 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.080 miles across Alaskan wilderness in like three days or less. 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:52.679 And but to have that kind of freedom, to be 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:56.119 able to go through trackless wilderness like with rivers and 0:23:56.200 --> 0:24:00.159 glaciers and bogs and dealing with bears and boulders some 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.879 bad brush, it was an incredible sense of freedom. I 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:04.959 don't understand how when you guys are doing these races. 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:08.159 I understand Danny is the first one to talk about this, 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:10.440 but you guys use the mountain bikes, but there's no 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.199 but totally off trail. You're riding on gravel bars. I 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:18.240 have done, asker or what No, Yeah, sometimes I have done. 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:20.640 I did one of those races with a mountain bike, 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:23.040 um with my son, because I didn't want him to 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:24.520 hurt his feet, because when you want when you go 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:26.520 fifty miles in a day, it hurts your feet, you know. 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:29.200 And uh, I didn't really want him. He was sixteen. 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:30.679 He wanted to do one of these races, and I said, well, 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:34.080 let's just use our mountain bikes and uh. And so 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:35.879 when you take a mountain bike, you know, you have 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:37.959 to go to the right place. Like I wouldn't do 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.080 it on the Keyni because it's too brushy. But the 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:42.240 Talquita Mountains are real nice and there's a bunch of 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:46.320 a TV trails for like fifty miles. So we rode 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:48.600 and then the a TV trails ended, and then what 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:50.439 you do is you kind of push your bike up 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:54.080 a hill and then you coast down the tundra. So 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:56.760 it's you can you know, you can really milk the tune. 0:24:56.800 --> 0:24:59.320 You don't just ride the steepest way down. You kind 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:02.280 of go at a real gentle angle to milk it, 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:05.120 you know. And so you can hike up the trail, 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:07.359 hike up the hill pushing your bike like you know, 0:25:07.400 --> 0:25:09.280 a mile an hour, which is the usual hike and speed. 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:10.800 But then when you go down you're going like three 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:13.679 or four miles an hour, which is much faster. And 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:16.360 then there's game trails. If you get good at following 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:18.720 game trails, you know, Moose trails aren't so good, but 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:21.520 Cariboo trails are good. Bear trails are pretty good. As 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:23.239 Danny was telling me too, is you said a lot 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.560 of times you're not down in the valley floor, you're 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.040 not down in the rocks. He talked about like trying 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.520 to like going going on sign going up the sides 0:25:32.520 --> 0:25:34.359 a little bit looking for good trails. Oh yeah, like 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:36.679 that's I love following trails, and I you know, I 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:39.439 got into the mountain bike and thing like I we 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:41.080 I got into the mountain bike and think for about 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.320 ten years because the hiking was kind of easy. Anybody 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:45.359 can hike anywhere just you can hike in a straight 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:47.840 line if you wanted to, but with a bike you can't. 0:25:47.880 --> 0:25:50.480 You get punished if you go in a bad place. 0:25:50.640 --> 0:25:52.480 You know, you're just pushing your bike or carrying it. 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:55.960 And you're thinking why did I bring it? And so 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:58.000 so you're always looking for good You have to be 0:25:58.359 --> 0:26:00.560 like you have to know how to read the landscape 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:03.800 and how to find good traveling conditions and find gravel bars, 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:06.920 like I used to say, gravel bars, game trails, and glaciers. 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:08.760 Those were the best writing. And if you go late 0:26:08.760 --> 0:26:10.960 in the season, the glaciers, especially nowadays, all the snow 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:12.879 is kind of melted off and you can right on 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:15.920 the bare ice. So yeah, I went from Canada to 0:26:16.000 --> 0:26:20.520 Lake Clark with a mountain bike in nineteen It was 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:22.960 eight hundred miles or so. And there were these three 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:24.800 hikers and they started ahead of us, and it was 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:26.480 sort of like a race to see who would be 0:26:26.520 --> 0:26:29.600 the first people to traverse the Alaska Range, which goes 0:26:29.680 --> 0:26:31.679 kind of from Canada over to Lake Clark, which is 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:35.439 to the west of Anchorage. And they left, you know, 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:38.280 six weeks ahead of us, and they started a hundred 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:40.159 miles shorter route than we did. We started right at 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:42.840 the Canadian border and they started over by Toke and 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:46.159 uh they were when we left the Canadian border on 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:50.439 the fourth of July. They were in Mountain Dnally National 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:52.280 Park at condition to having a party for the fourth 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:54.679 of July, and we caught him. We caught him at 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.440 Rainy Pass. Uh, not really passed near Rainy Pass where 0:26:58.440 --> 0:27:00.399 the you know the I didarad goes over the Alaska 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:03.760 Range called Roan Roadhouse. Actually we didn't catch them there. 0:27:03.760 --> 0:27:05.440 They left us a note because we had a food 0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:08.600 cash there and uh. And there were three of us 0:27:08.600 --> 0:27:10.560 on our mountain bikes and a really good mountain bike 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:12.600 riding right after that. Because they're all these buffalo trails. 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:15.280 There's another buffalo herd on the cuscal Quim on the 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.160 South Fork or the customer Quim and the hertman and buffalo. 0:27:18.359 --> 0:27:21.440 They don't like brush, they don't like logs, and so 0:27:21.640 --> 0:27:23.600 whenever there was a log they would walk around the 0:27:23.640 --> 0:27:26.320 logs or there were all these buffed out single tracks 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:28.560 that we were riding, you know, in the wilderness. It 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:32.280 was like spectacular. And then we we had pack raphs, 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:34.680 so whenever we were going down river, if the river 0:27:34.760 --> 0:27:36.879 got big enough, we would just put our pack rafts 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:39.400 on our put our mountain bikes on our pack rafts 0:27:39.400 --> 0:27:43.080 and then float down. And we caught these hikers and 0:27:43.119 --> 0:27:45.639 then we traveled with them and we were all going 0:27:45.680 --> 0:27:48.760 to finish together, but we had a bike problem with 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:50.720 a break or something, and they hiked off into the 0:27:50.760 --> 0:27:52.919 fog and then we never saw him again, and we 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:55.360 ended up getting to the end faster than they did. 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:58.520 So anyway, that was you know, I was into mountain 0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:00.600 bikes for a while, but using them as sort of 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:04.159 a wilderness travel tool because walking is kind of it's not, 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:07.280 it's just it's easy. I like walking, and I do that. 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:08.639 I'm an old man now, so I do a lot 0:28:08.680 --> 0:28:10.919 more walking. I don't do those bike trips anymore. But 0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:18.840 they were really sad. Almost sixty. Yeah, i'll be sixty 0:28:18.920 --> 0:28:23.800 this year. Yeah, I'm feeling it. Really. You look fine? Yeah, 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:28.720 he's all great. Yeah, well I can't walk fifty miles 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:32.520 in a day anymore. No one can. Nobody should let 0:28:32.520 --> 0:28:36.320 me put it there like people don't huh. Yeah they're 0:28:36.359 --> 0:28:39.720 the smart. But yeah, you only compare yourself to yourself, right, Yeah, 0:28:40.040 --> 0:28:42.240 if your measure was just the average person, it would 0:28:42.240 --> 0:28:45.800 be pretty dizzy. How old are you? Uh huh? Well 0:28:45.920 --> 0:28:48.360 do you need to use reading glasses yet? Uh huh? 0:28:48.480 --> 0:28:50.280 Do you forget like where your keys are and stuff 0:28:50.320 --> 0:28:56.760 like that? Well, that's coming me and Anthony, here were 0:28:56.760 --> 0:28:59.640 out ice fishing yarday, and we were trying to we're 0:28:59.640 --> 0:29:02.040 trying a little we're trying to put some like seven 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:07.880 X tip it um through, you know, the size eight. Dude, 0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:10.000 we're cursing up storm ACX. Neither of us had our 0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:13.200 See Steve, you have your old man glasses. I forgot 0:29:13.240 --> 0:29:15.200 mine too. Oh yeah, like holding it up to the 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:18.200 light and messing with it and yeah, look I have 0:29:18.280 --> 0:29:20.400 to carry him around like all that same time. But 0:29:20.440 --> 0:29:24.680 you know what, I like those clicker little dealies. But um, 0:29:24.800 --> 0:29:26.160 when you got a hat on, they start to be 0:29:26.200 --> 0:29:29.760 painting the gas, yeah, or a hood. Yeah, lots of 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:32.320 things good for sitting around. That's about all I do 0:29:32.440 --> 0:29:36.400 right now, but a lot of sitting. Yeah it's winter time, 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:38.840 and yeah I'm a professor, so I don't have a 0:29:39.280 --> 0:29:41.880 I gotta teach my classes and write my papers and 0:29:41.920 --> 0:29:44.440 stuff like that. But summertimes coming and I'll get out again, 0:29:44.880 --> 0:29:47.880 like I'm really. The brook Strange is my sort of 0:29:47.920 --> 0:29:50.160 favorite mountain range right now. I love the Brooks Range. 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:52.000 Have you been to the Bookstrange the many times? Lets 0:29:52.000 --> 0:29:53.520 just say many times? But yeah, what do you have 0:29:53.560 --> 0:29:55.520 you hunted up there? Then? What do you like sheep 0:29:55.600 --> 0:29:59.720 or caribou caribou? Huh? Where'd you go? Handful of places 0:29:59.800 --> 0:30:04.280 so out. I spent some time with some anthropologists um 0:30:04.360 --> 0:30:07.760 up in the npr A. Yeah, like the Utcock area. 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:13.719 I would talk ut yeah, and then hunted over um 0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:16.880 hunted caribou a little bit south of there. Oh yeah, 0:30:16.880 --> 0:30:19.720 that was in your book those archaeologists, right, yeah, and 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:23.280 then um south of hunt a handful. Hunted a handful 0:30:23.320 --> 0:30:27.400 of those rivers that are on the north slope, on 0:30:27.480 --> 0:30:31.120 the north slope east of the pipeline, like the Hula 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:34.000 Hula or the ja Go or the Chillic or the Canning, 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:36.880 none of those, but the stuff that flows into the 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:41.080 sag Sag okay, Yeah, yeah, I've hunted ca yep, the 0:30:41.120 --> 0:30:44.200 Sagram talk yeah, like you. It's a pretty the Attican Gorge. 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:46.520 It's a nice way to get my son. And I 0:30:46.560 --> 0:30:49.719 did a caribou packgraph cariboo hunt. We paddled through that 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:52.600 Attic and gorge and then hunted cariboo along the sag 0:30:52.680 --> 0:30:54.760 And because you can get five miles from the road 0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:58.520 really easy that way. Uh. Talk about your son a 0:30:58.560 --> 0:31:01.680 little bit, having him and kind of what you you know, 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:04.000 you know, tell everybody about sort of like the philosophy 0:31:04.040 --> 0:31:06.680 had exactly you did stuff, I say, nearly you did 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:09.280 stuff with your boy that that would strike a lot 0:31:09.320 --> 0:31:14.160 of people's maybe even irresponsible. Probably. Yeah. Well, you know, um, 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:16.440 my dad didn't do as much with me as I 0:31:16.440 --> 0:31:19.360 wish that he had done. You know, my parents divorced 0:31:19.360 --> 0:31:22.200 when I was pretty young, and and my dad hadn't 0:31:22.600 --> 0:31:25.160 his his parents had divorced, and so he didn't really 0:31:25.160 --> 0:31:27.560 know how to be a dad. And maybe I didn't either, 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:29.840 you know, But I did know that I wanted to 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:32.560 have a better relationship with my son, you know, and 0:31:32.600 --> 0:31:35.360 I wanted to do stuff with him, like from the beginning, 0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:37.920 you know, and I wanted him to enjoy what we 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:42.400 were doing, and so and so, you know, from a 0:31:42.480 --> 0:31:45.719 young age, like I would take him out, you know, 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:48.400 on nature walks, or we'd go to the ocean. He 0:31:48.480 --> 0:31:51.280 liked to tide pool like everybody does, you know, especially 0:31:51.560 --> 0:31:53.680 when I was in grad school and the coast of California. 0:31:53.720 --> 0:31:55.760 There's all kinds of cool things and it's just a 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.360 fascinating place. And then when I worked on my pH d, 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:01.920 I did this canopy project in Puerto Rico in the 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:06.320 Caribbean and h his his name he back then was Cody, 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:09.560 you know, his name was Cody Roman dial and Um. 0:32:09.600 --> 0:32:12.800 And he and I went to scope out where I 0:32:12.800 --> 0:32:16.440 would stay before my daughter and wife came out to 0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:18.560 Puerto Rico to join up with us. So, you know, 0:32:18.600 --> 0:32:21.040 we wandered around the rain force. He was three years old, 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:23.320 you know, and it was fun. He liked it, you know. 0:32:23.480 --> 0:32:25.440 And I tried to be real. I want, I didn't 0:32:25.440 --> 0:32:27.200 want to like freak him out. I didn't want to 0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:29.720 like make him carry a pack or be uncomfortable, because 0:32:29.720 --> 0:32:31.600 I wanted him to want to go out, you know 0:32:31.600 --> 0:32:33.720 what I mean. I wanted him to be a partner. 0:32:33.760 --> 0:32:35.920 I wanted. I mean I wanted. I wanted him to 0:32:35.920 --> 0:32:38.320 be a partner. Now. I wanted him to be like 0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:41.080 at the point where he would carry my stuff instead 0:32:41.080 --> 0:32:42.800 of me carrying his stuff, you know what I mean. 0:32:43.280 --> 0:32:46.320 And I think it's a pretty long game. I was 0:32:46.360 --> 0:32:48.880 playing a long game. Yeah, I mean, I think I 0:32:48.920 --> 0:32:52.960 know you your father probably took you out right, and 0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:55.960 I I love going out with my son, and I 0:32:56.120 --> 0:32:57.960 tried I didn't want to spoil it, you know what 0:32:58.040 --> 0:32:59.760 I mean. I want, I was playing the long game. 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:02.719 I ever wanted to spoil it. And when he was six, 0:33:03.120 --> 0:33:05.840 you know, I wanted to take him on a wilderness 0:33:05.880 --> 0:33:09.120 trip in Alaska and um because we just moved back 0:33:09.160 --> 0:33:11.040 up there. I got a job as a professor up there, 0:33:11.040 --> 0:33:13.480 and and I wanted to go a place where there 0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:15.640 it was sort of safe, like no big glacial rivers, 0:33:15.680 --> 0:33:17.120 you know. I didn't want to have to take a 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.440 pack raft and deal with carrying that kind of stuff. 0:33:20.440 --> 0:33:22.960 And I didn't want it there'd be any grizzly bears, 0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:26.560 you know. And so I found this island and the 0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:29.160 allusions called Umnak, and it had a geyser base, and 0:33:29.200 --> 0:33:30.640 I thought he might want to see these is it 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:32.640 like a little miniature yellow Stone. I thought that'd be 0:33:32.680 --> 0:33:35.400 a cool place to go. So I, I don't know, 0:33:35.520 --> 0:33:37.520 somehow I wrangled a way to get out to this 0:33:37.840 --> 0:33:40.760 the third Alusian island, like Unimac is the first one, 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:43.160 and then Unalaska where Dutch harbors, and then there's Umnak. 0:33:43.600 --> 0:33:46.160 And Umnak had like the secret military base in World 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:48.320 War two on one end, and it has a an 0:33:48.360 --> 0:33:51.000 old alley village on the other end and the reindeer 0:33:51.120 --> 0:33:54.239 wild cattle yep, it has reindeer and wild cattle and 0:33:54.320 --> 0:33:58.160 it's you know, there's no reindeer. Yeah, they introduced him there, 0:33:58.160 --> 0:34:00.760 and they're kind of weird colors. Stuff. That's become like 0:34:00.800 --> 0:34:03.720 a popular thing as far as it strikes me to 0:34:03.720 --> 0:34:05.280 me when people from the Lower forty eight want to 0:34:05.320 --> 0:34:07.840 go up and hunt cariboo in Alaska but they wind 0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:12.320 up hunting like introduced reindeer on one of the Aleutian islands. Well, um, people, 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:14.120 but it's like it was like you could go hunt 0:34:14.160 --> 0:34:17.560 cariboo where cariboo live. Yeah, well, you know, I've never 0:34:17.560 --> 0:34:20.800 shot a reindeer. Um. I think a lot of those 0:34:20.880 --> 0:34:23.200 Western Arctic cariboo though, like the ones up around the 0:34:23.320 --> 0:34:25.040 uticac in An n p r A, I think a 0:34:25.040 --> 0:34:27.520 lot of those have reindeer blood in them. Yeah. I 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:31.040 mean like geneticist like people like tax on Um has 0:34:31.120 --> 0:34:34.200 just regarded all of one one species. Yeah, but I 0:34:34.239 --> 0:34:36.920 mean yeah, but they're they're a different animals and they 0:34:36.920 --> 0:34:39.399 look different and act different everything. So anyway, I took 0:34:39.400 --> 0:34:41.480 my son out there, and he was six, and we 0:34:41.520 --> 0:34:44.760 walked across this island like sixty miles, and I carried 0:34:44.800 --> 0:34:47.239 everything and sometimes I carried him and and it was 0:34:47.320 --> 0:34:49.200 like a life changing thing for both of us and 0:34:49.200 --> 0:34:52.319 I the six years old and sixty miles. How many 0:34:52.400 --> 0:34:55.800 days like a week? I think it was like seven 0:34:55.840 --> 0:34:57.960 days and then we got stuck out there for another week. 0:34:58.160 --> 0:35:00.719 But when we landed at this you know, one side 0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:03.040 at this secret military base wasn't secret but from World 0:35:03.040 --> 0:35:04.879 War two is secret. And there was a family living 0:35:04.880 --> 0:35:07.320 there who were trying to make money off the cattle 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:10.040 that were kind of feral on the island, and um, 0:35:10.120 --> 0:35:12.600 you know, I'll never forget. The father was like, well, 0:35:12.600 --> 0:35:14.480 what's your name? I said, Oh, I'm Roman dial and 0:35:14.480 --> 0:35:16.560 he goes, he bends over, he goes, well, what's your name, 0:35:16.600 --> 0:35:20.200 little fella, And my son goes, I'm Roman two. And 0:35:20.280 --> 0:35:23.399 he'd never said, you know, his name was Roman. And 0:35:23.440 --> 0:35:26.400 I was like blown away. I mean like, I don't know, 0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:28.440 it's kind of maybe embarrassing, but I think, you know, 0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:31.799 as a his father's you kind of do want your 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:34.400 son to, you know, do the stuff you want to 0:35:34.400 --> 0:35:37.440 do is to have him call himself because that was 0:35:37.480 --> 0:35:40.240 his middle name, and ever after that he was Roman. 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:42.520 It was like a little validation of dad. It kind 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:44.440 of is, yeah, you know, do you have kids, No, 0:35:45.280 --> 0:35:52.560 you should. Steve's wife would agree. Yes, it is not 0:35:52.760 --> 0:35:54.440 for due to lack of trying on my wife's part, 0:35:54.480 --> 0:35:59.719 not that she's trying to have kids. Was like Steve 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:03.879 clar I got a whole pile of them. Man, yeah, 0:36:04.480 --> 0:36:07.919 well good three young kids. Oh really? Yeah? I love 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:11.040 I love being a dad. It was awesome. And I 0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:13.560 have to two young kids too, And that's why I think, 0:36:14.040 --> 0:36:16.000 you know, we could all relate to what you're saying. 0:36:16.120 --> 0:36:17.640 You know, you want them to have a good time, 0:36:17.680 --> 0:36:19.520 you want them to do. What's the things you do. 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:22.040 One of the things that I found really interesting about 0:36:22.040 --> 0:36:24.960 your book is how you incorporated your kids into your 0:36:24.960 --> 0:36:26.880 work a little bit. You talked about that being in 0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:30.719 the canopy, right, so you're you're scientists, you're doing research, 0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:33.640 and kids love to do that. So as they grew older, 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:36.640 they're helping you with that. And I found that really interesting. 0:36:36.680 --> 0:36:39.120 And do you think that helped foster their love of 0:36:39.239 --> 0:36:41.440 the outdoors and nature? Well, I hope so. But you know, 0:36:41.480 --> 0:36:44.960 they they know my my daughter, um, I pushed her 0:36:44.960 --> 0:36:47.600 too hard because if you have like two kids and 0:36:47.600 --> 0:36:49.600 they're say, like, my kids are two years or three 0:36:49.680 --> 0:36:52.200 years apart, and you're kind of this is your first 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:54.520 you know, we don't get a lot of chances with kids, 0:36:54.520 --> 0:36:57.200 you know what I mean. And so when you got 0:36:57.239 --> 0:36:58.680 like a four year old and you want to take 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:00.839 them on a hike, you know, you're like, oh, I'm 0:37:00.840 --> 0:37:02.680 going to four year old pace, but the two year 0:37:02.680 --> 0:37:05.560 old who's there is just like struggling to keep up. 0:37:06.320 --> 0:37:08.160 And then they end up hating that. Like you have 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:10.759 that issue with my kids, same thing. I've seen it 0:37:10.800 --> 0:37:13.360 like in multiple like they grow up and then the 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:16.360 older ones like this outdoor stud and then the younger 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:19.080 ones like you know, stay at home or right four 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:22.200 wheel ers something like that, and and I've watched it 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:24.560 now and that's that's the answer I've come up with. 0:37:24.600 --> 0:37:28.000 It's like my hypothesis is that we tend we think 0:37:28.040 --> 0:37:30.359 we're being real easy on our kids, and we're being 0:37:30.400 --> 0:37:32.480 easy on the older one, but then the younger one 0:37:32.600 --> 0:37:35.520 is like, uh, you know, I don't know, but you're 0:37:35.560 --> 0:37:37.839 the youngest of your three brothers, of you three, right, 0:37:38.440 --> 0:37:41.600 and you turned out okay, I guess yeah, but raising 0:37:41.640 --> 0:37:43.800 them it's hard. I have to we have spread that 0:37:43.880 --> 0:37:47.680 significant ability, you know, when I think in a decade 0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:49.640 it probably won't be but right now, I mean it's 0:37:49.640 --> 0:37:51.719 a huge difference between a nine year old and a 0:37:51.719 --> 0:37:53.640 four year old. Oh yeah, you can't. It's hard to 0:37:53.640 --> 0:37:55.279 take them both on the same trip, I know, And 0:37:55.360 --> 0:37:57.480 that causes attention. That caused a lot of tension to 0:37:57.480 --> 0:38:00.799 my wife because she's like, why is I'm like, she 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:04.719 goes like the older one, but when he was four, 0:38:04.760 --> 0:38:06.359 he would go do that like because it was only 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:09.279 one and keeping one kid drying warm is different than 0:38:09.360 --> 0:38:13.120 keeping three kids drying warm. So it's like, I don't know, 0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:16.399 I mean, I don't know what to do. Yeah, I don't. 0:38:16.480 --> 0:38:19.840 I don't know, Like I need to hire someone to 0:38:19.960 --> 0:38:22.239 come along, because it's hard to keep three people warm 0:38:22.280 --> 0:38:26.000 and dry. So the ones, the one at nine when 0:38:26.000 --> 0:38:28.720 he was whatever he had, he had had more experiences. 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:33.960 We're all checking muskrat traps this morning, um, and you 0:38:34.000 --> 0:38:35.959 know I grabbed him because he's like up and gets 0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:38.120 his clothes on by himself, and you know when I 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:39.600 had to like wake up and get his clothes on. 0:38:39.680 --> 0:38:42.919 So it's got lazy. I've been trying to leave home 0:38:43.040 --> 0:38:45.120 my twelve year old and take out my eight year 0:38:45.120 --> 0:38:48.000 old daughter once in a while. That goes over real 0:38:48.000 --> 0:38:52.160 well down right, and that's difficult. He gets annoyed, but 0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:54.400 I say, look, I've done plenty things just you and I. 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:56.920 You know, hann and I. You know, this is just 0:38:57.000 --> 0:38:59.480 for her, but it's I don't know what the easy answers, 0:38:59.520 --> 0:39:01.520 but I I had to do that to avoid that problem. Oh, 0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:03.400 they look gut shot when you bring that up. Well, 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:05.080 I'm glad you're doing that, because I remember when I 0:39:05.120 --> 0:39:08.239 came back from that, I'm not trip. My daughter's like, Dad, 0:39:08.280 --> 0:39:10.360 when when are you? When? When are you and me 0:39:10.440 --> 0:39:12.640 gonna do a six day trip? You know? She wanted 0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:15.000 to do one and I was like, oh, it's coming. 0:39:15.000 --> 0:39:17.400 And I never did one until she was kind of 0:39:17.400 --> 0:39:19.239 grown up, and then it was too late, you know. 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:21.560 And I look back and I think, oh, I wish 0:39:21.560 --> 0:39:24.000 I had done that, because you know, she's not really 0:39:24.040 --> 0:39:26.440 an outdoorsy person, although I asked her once. I said well, 0:39:26.520 --> 0:39:28.399 what is it mean to be outdoorsy for a girl? 0:39:28.440 --> 0:39:30.120 And she goes, oh, it means you can go to 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:34.920 the bathroom outside. Yeah, that's a measure like how comfortable 0:39:34.920 --> 0:39:38.000 you are being outside? I propose your friend of mine 0:39:38.000 --> 0:39:39.719 and Tracy the other day, said there's a good little 0:39:39.719 --> 0:39:42.399 spot to go pee, and she said, I'll just wait, 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:47.360 there you are. Yeah, I guess not outdoorsy. She's pretty 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:49.520 out of that. Yeah, but yeah, she viewed it like, 0:39:49.600 --> 0:39:53.080 you know, would rather hold it than p outside. Well, 0:39:53.280 --> 0:39:55.160 I mean, would imagine every time you had to pee, 0:39:55.160 --> 0:39:57.239 you had to pull your pants down, especially if it's 0:39:57.280 --> 0:40:02.880 like windy and snowy. And yeah, yeah, I think that's 0:40:02.920 --> 0:40:04.880 why they have skirts. They should get they should have 0:40:04.960 --> 0:40:11.200 really good outdoor skirts. So that you just guess, yeah, 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:15.319 were you were? You? I'm gathering you weren't surprised when 0:40:15.360 --> 0:40:18.839 your kids started doing Um, when your son, who will 0:40:18.880 --> 0:40:21.920 call Roman Roman? Yeah you call him Roman, of course, yeah, 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:24.160 I I he wouldn't let me call him Cody, like 0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:27.120 he wouldn't let me call him Cody. And um. Yeah, 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:32.360 So anyway, he got to late teens, early twenties, Yeah, 0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:36.839 started doing crazy as trips by himself. You know, I 0:40:36.840 --> 0:40:38.640 I don't know if he I'll tell you what happened 0:40:38.719 --> 0:40:41.920 is he Um, he went away to college, and he 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:44.600 met a girl in college, and she was from Chicago, 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:48.520 and and he brought her to Alaska and he took 0:40:48.520 --> 0:40:50.719 her out on a bunch of trips. And that's when 0:40:50.760 --> 0:40:53.360 I knew he was sort of serious about her because 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:56.720 you know, he'd grown up thinking that trips were about family, 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:02.319 you know, like other kids the school it would be like, oh, 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:03.960 come on, let's go, but he would go with them, 0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:07.279 but they didn't really know enough. You know. He's like 0:41:07.600 --> 0:41:10.520 he used to going out with like me and my friends, 0:41:10.560 --> 0:41:13.640 and and we were we'd go really light and we 0:41:14.000 --> 0:41:16.040 could get along with nothing. And then he'd go with 0:41:16.080 --> 0:41:18.440 these kids who were kind of clumsy and had too 0:41:18.480 --> 0:41:21.680 much stuff, and he, you know, he didn't really seem right. 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:25.000 He wanted to go with with me and Peggy and 0:41:25.080 --> 0:41:28.759 our family and or my friends. And so when he 0:41:28.800 --> 0:41:33.600 came to Alaska, you know, one summer with his girlfriend, 0:41:33.880 --> 0:41:37.840 and he took her like sea kayaking and backpacking and rafting. 0:41:37.840 --> 0:41:39.759 That's when I knew he was serious about her, because 0:41:39.800 --> 0:41:42.120 like he was taking her on these trips and taking 0:41:42.160 --> 0:41:45.400 care of her and and uh, and he you know, 0:41:45.719 --> 0:41:48.520 he wasn't really a risk taker, you know, like I, 0:41:49.400 --> 0:41:53.040 you know, I hadn't and I don't really have anymore. 0:41:53.040 --> 0:41:55.920 All my testosterones kind of drained away and so I 0:41:55.960 --> 0:41:58.719 don't I don't really need the adrenaline rush that I 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:05.600 used paying a really nice getting old. Yeah, well this 0:42:05.680 --> 0:42:09.200 Feller used to be a lot more sort of adrenaline 0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:12.319 um chasing, and but my son wasn't. He was kind 0:42:12.320 --> 0:42:15.400 of like my wife. He he was more risk averse, 0:42:15.600 --> 0:42:17.279 you know, my wife, it was sort of That's why 0:42:17.280 --> 0:42:19.080 I loved her, and I feel like she's a good 0:42:19.080 --> 0:42:21.960 balance for me. Is because she doesn't need to like 0:42:22.080 --> 0:42:23.920 scare her I mean, she likes to scare herself, but 0:42:23.960 --> 0:42:25.719 she doesn't have to scare herself at the level that 0:42:25.840 --> 0:42:28.080 I do. And I mean everybody likes to scare themself. 0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:30.080 That's why amusement park rides are fun, you know, as 0:42:30.120 --> 0:42:32.080 long as you're not going to get hurt. Getting scared 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:35.319 as fun and um and so, but he was more 0:42:35.320 --> 0:42:37.920 thoughtful about getting hurt. He didn't really want to get 0:42:38.040 --> 0:42:41.880 hurt and uh. And so the trips that he would do, 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:44.600 we're not quite as crazy as the trips that I 0:42:44.640 --> 0:42:47.719 had done, you know. And uh. But he would go 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:50.040 out and he was exploring things. And by the time 0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:51.880 he was in his late teens in his twenties, he 0:42:52.040 --> 0:42:54.600 was doing things on his own and really enjoying it. 0:42:55.120 --> 0:42:58.360 And uh. And when he headed to Central America, you know, 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:01.279 that was a really big varience in the sense that 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:04.400 you know, he was traveling through foreign countries on his 0:43:04.480 --> 0:43:06.879 own for like six months. I'd never done anything like that, 0:43:07.000 --> 0:43:11.600 you know, and especially not in my twenties, um and 0:43:12.000 --> 0:43:17.120 speaking Spanish and doing some pretty I think, you know, 0:43:17.160 --> 0:43:19.480 amazing wilderness trips in Central America. Yeah, but that was 0:43:19.520 --> 0:43:21.480 like a different kind of the difference with the approach 0:43:21.520 --> 0:43:25.680 he was taken on this trip which we're talking about 0:43:25.680 --> 0:43:27.799 the like this is the trip that ended up being 0:43:27.880 --> 0:43:30.960 his last trip. Well, no, like before like because he 0:43:31.000 --> 0:43:33.400 went he went to Mexico. I went down there and 0:43:33.440 --> 0:43:36.160 sawm and who went back rafting, and then this is 0:43:36.200 --> 0:43:39.880 all one continuous, one continuous thing he was on from 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:42.440 country to country, country to country. Within that like a 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:44.080 lot of people do that. I mean a lot of 0:43:44.120 --> 0:43:46.960 people will go and do you know we used to 0:43:46.960 --> 0:43:48.959 do a little bit of that stuff, like go down 0:43:49.000 --> 0:43:52.759 and kind of do like the tracking around, riding buses. Sure, 0:43:53.000 --> 0:43:55.120 Disney villagis. But what he The weird part about it 0:43:55.120 --> 0:43:57.640 that I thought it was just unusual is he was 0:43:57.680 --> 0:44:04.000 putting in jungle tracks sometimes like kind of off trail 0:44:04.160 --> 0:44:07.960 and like little trans sax and like doing like jungle trips, 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:12.160 heading off by himself into kind of like the same 0:44:12.160 --> 0:44:13.480 way if you were up in Alaska you want to 0:44:13.520 --> 0:44:15.400 go do a trip. It has never occurred to me 0:44:15.440 --> 0:44:20.000 that you'd go and do a trip to the jungle, right, 0:44:20.239 --> 0:44:23.120 go to a foreign country, find a remote area, and 0:44:23.160 --> 0:44:25.640 then just go wander around and there. Right. Yeah. No, 0:44:25.760 --> 0:44:28.839 I I was actually, you know, as a father, I 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:31.200 was really torn, you know, like I was proud of 0:44:31.280 --> 0:44:33.600 him for doing that, you know what I mean, like 0:44:34.080 --> 0:44:37.759 I kind of raised him with that, not with that. 0:44:37.880 --> 0:44:39.840 I wanted him to do that kind of thing. But 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:41.600 then when he was doing it, I was like, oh 0:44:41.640 --> 0:44:45.400 my god, you know what I mean, Like I don't know. 0:44:45.520 --> 0:44:49.240 I guess if you were in the military and uh, 0:44:49.440 --> 0:44:51.600 and then your son joined the military, you'd be both 0:44:51.600 --> 0:44:55.399 proud and terrified at the same time. And so I 0:44:55.440 --> 0:44:58.239 was like I was really proud of what he was doing, 0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:00.439 but I was terrified, you know, like I was, Oh 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:02.160 my god, I can't believe he's doing that. I you know, 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:04.160 I wouldn't. I've never done anything like that, and I 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:07.719 couldn't do anything like that, and he's doing it, and uh, 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:09.480 you know, at one point he said he was going 0:45:09.520 --> 0:45:11.560 to go to this ruin, you know, in this deep 0:45:11.560 --> 0:45:14.400 wilderness in Guatemala, and he told me how he was 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:16.279 going to go in the back way and it was 0:45:16.520 --> 0:45:18.680 going to be like, you know, this long wilderness walk 0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:21.359 and and I wrote him an email because he kept 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:23.120 in touch with me, he said, here's what I'm gonna 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:25.520 do and uh. And then usually he go do it 0:45:25.520 --> 0:45:27.560 and he'd say, hey, i'm back. I'll tell you about it, 0:45:27.800 --> 0:45:29.200 you know, a couple of days, and he'd write a big, 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:31.400 long story about it. And so he wrote me and 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:33.160 said here's what I'm gonna do, Dad, And I wrote 0:45:33.239 --> 0:45:36.560 him back. I said, no, don't do that. You know, 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:38.759 that's don't do it. That's too dangerous. I don't want 0:45:38.800 --> 0:45:40.680 you to do that. You know, there's I've made all, 0:45:40.960 --> 0:45:42.600 you know, I went through all the reasons not to. 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:44.239 But I didn't send that email. I wrote it, but 0:45:44.239 --> 0:45:46.279 I didn't send it to him. And then I wrote 0:45:46.280 --> 0:45:48.480 another one. I tried to like tone it down, and 0:45:48.520 --> 0:45:51.040 I wrote another one and I couldn't send him there 0:45:51.040 --> 0:45:54.319 all like don't do it. And I was telling him, 0:45:54.680 --> 0:45:56.759 like all the things people had said to me over 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:59.440 the years, like taking a mountain bike across the Alaska Range, 0:45:59.440 --> 0:46:01.399 what kind of id it? Or you you know, Oh 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:05.360 you're gonna walk across the wrangel Saint Elias in October. No, 0:46:05.520 --> 0:46:07.719 you're not. You know what I mean. I kind of 0:46:08.040 --> 0:46:10.360 have spent forty years listening to people say that. But 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:13.759 a difference, not to discredit the feats you did, but 0:46:13.800 --> 0:46:16.440 the difference there is you could rattle off because of 0:46:16.440 --> 0:46:19.160 your familiarity with the state, you could rattle off the 0:46:19.160 --> 0:46:22.200 reasons why not. And when you get into being like 0:46:22.239 --> 0:46:25.279 someone who's from the north and they go down and 0:46:25.320 --> 0:46:29.160 there in this area, um, you wouldn't be able to 0:46:29.200 --> 0:46:31.560 make a you wouldn't really have what it takes to 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:35.000 make a comprehensive list of the potential problems. Well, he 0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:37.160 he kind of he'd been to the tropics a lot, 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:39.440 you know, like when he was three years old, he 0:46:39.560 --> 0:46:42.840 spent you know, almost you know, seven months in Puerto 0:46:42.920 --> 0:46:45.680 Rico and then then we traveled the world, and he'd 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.160 been to Costa Rica twice, you know when he was 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:51.560 taking you know, he went down there on a tropical 0:46:51.560 --> 0:46:53.680 ecology class. I taught there, and he went down there 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:55.640 with me when I did a research project. There's spent 0:46:55.680 --> 0:46:57.359 a lot of time in Borneo. I spent a lot 0:46:57.400 --> 0:46:59.520 of time He and I spent two months like in 0:46:59.560 --> 0:47:03.160 a junk in Borneo at a research station, and he'd 0:47:03.200 --> 0:47:06.160 already been there like three times, so he knew the rainforest, 0:47:06.280 --> 0:47:10.759 you know. He like I remember, like he studied ants, 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:13.480 like he knew which ants were dangerous and which ones weren't. 0:47:13.520 --> 0:47:16.120 So when one time he went to Australia, he goes, Dad, 0:47:16.320 --> 0:47:17.960 look at this ant. It jumps and he had it 0:47:17.960 --> 0:47:19.440 on a stick, you know, and he was showing it 0:47:19.480 --> 0:47:21.359 to me, and I was like, oh, here, so let 0:47:21.360 --> 0:47:23.000 me see that aunt. You know, like you can put 0:47:23.040 --> 0:47:24.600 an ant on your finger, and I put it on 0:47:24.640 --> 0:47:27.280 my fingers. As soon as I put on my finger, poom, 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:29.920 it stung me like a hammer had hit me, you know. 0:47:30.000 --> 0:47:32.520 And I was like ah and he was like, yeah, Dad, 0:47:32.520 --> 0:47:34.239 I knew that was like a bad aunt, you know. 0:47:35.000 --> 0:47:37.799 And uh So he was really well aware of what 0:47:37.840 --> 0:47:40.160 was dangerous and what was not because he'd been he'd 0:47:40.160 --> 0:47:42.320 grown up in the tropics, and he that's part of 0:47:42.320 --> 0:47:43.920 the reason he was risk averse, because a lot of 0:47:43.960 --> 0:47:45.719 the things that are really cool in the tropics, like 0:47:45.719 --> 0:47:49.520 colorful things especially, can be nasty. So based off of that, 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:54.640 did you whittle your email down eventually to like, just 0:47:54.719 --> 0:47:57.719 don't do it because I don't like it in your head. 0:47:57.520 --> 0:48:00.439 I didn't. I whittled the email down to, hey, watch 0:48:00.440 --> 0:48:04.040 out for ferti lances and bushmasters and you know, be careful. 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:07.040 And I sent I sent it away, and I didn't 0:48:07.040 --> 0:48:08.799 tell him not to do it. I couldn't, you know, 0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:10.840 how could I? You know, it was his trip and 0:48:10.880 --> 0:48:13.080 he came back and it was like, you know, an 0:48:13.120 --> 0:48:15.600 amazing experience from he wrote me like the six thousand 0:48:16.360 --> 0:48:20.359 word you know, story about it and m and I 0:48:20.400 --> 0:48:21.960 was super proud of him. I sent it to all 0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:23.919 my friends, you know, like wow, look what he did. 0:48:24.000 --> 0:48:26.839 And um. And then he did some even more like 0:48:26.920 --> 0:48:30.760 amazing trips you know that were amazing in different ways. 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:33.399 Like he he went down this river in Honduras through 0:48:33.440 --> 0:48:37.000 what he called like the cocaine hub of Central America, 0:48:37.040 --> 0:48:40.759 because like what happened is, you know, the Americans disrupted 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:45.440 the typical cocaine trafficking route from Colombia. So the Colombians 0:48:46.000 --> 0:48:48.600 changed it up and they sent it across sort of 0:48:48.640 --> 0:48:51.480 the southern Caribbean to this part of Honduras, like the 0:48:51.600 --> 0:48:54.600 Mosquito coast, and then they ran it across Honduras up 0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:57.160 these rivers and then into guatemal and then it went 0:48:57.200 --> 0:49:01.280 overland into Mexico. And so the river is where it all. 0:49:01.480 --> 0:49:05.040 All the cocaine trade goes through, so um or transport, 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:07.840 and he went down that river with this Canadian and 0:49:07.840 --> 0:49:09.839 I had no idea that that stuff was going on. 0:49:10.000 --> 0:49:12.239 You know, he didn't tell me about that. He just said, Oh, 0:49:12.280 --> 0:49:15.319 I'm going through this biosphere reserve and it's a big 0:49:15.320 --> 0:49:18.160 wilderness area. But because it's a wilderness area, it's also 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:22.240 a good place for you know outlaws too. So anyway, 0:49:22.280 --> 0:49:25.120 he had like all these really you know, wild and 0:49:25.160 --> 0:49:29.480 crazy experiences that he told me about afterwards. Usually you know, 0:49:29.520 --> 0:49:31.200 he'd said, I'm gonna go do this, Like he said, Hey, 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:33.919 I'm gonna go down the Patuca River through the Mosquetilla 0:49:34.080 --> 0:49:36.279 and and then he sent this email about what it 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:38.839 was like when he came back. So when he went 0:49:38.920 --> 0:49:43.839 missing in Costa Rica, I went down there up. Hold 0:49:43.880 --> 0:49:46.239 that thought from me because the trip that he went 0:49:46.320 --> 0:49:49.879 missing on, Um were there red flags in your mind 0:49:49.880 --> 0:49:52.360 about that trip? Well, I didn't really know he was 0:49:52.400 --> 0:49:57.040 heading on that. Like what happened there is um it 0:49:57.080 --> 0:49:58.640 was in the summer, and in the summer you know, 0:49:58.680 --> 0:50:01.400 I'm I'm kind of busy doing stuff, and he was 0:50:01.480 --> 0:50:04.640 communicating with us and and he and I he'd asked 0:50:04.640 --> 0:50:06.799 me about like maps, Hey, Dad, do you have any 0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:10.200 secret sources for good topo maps? Because I think he 0:50:10.360 --> 0:50:12.560 you know, I kind of knew maybe he'd mentioned it 0:50:12.680 --> 0:50:14.319 or we talked about but I I sort of thought 0:50:14.320 --> 0:50:16.719 he wanted it to cross the Darian Gap, you know, 0:50:16.800 --> 0:50:19.040 in the highway, which is sort of you know, like 0:50:19.719 --> 0:50:21.319 I think we all want to do it, but none 0:50:21.360 --> 0:50:23.839 of us really should do it. And um, and I had, 0:50:24.200 --> 0:50:25.719 you know, I think I would have told him, don't 0:50:25.719 --> 0:50:28.759 do it. But I was sort of I don't want 0:50:28.800 --> 0:50:30.840 to say I was pleased that he was thinking about it, 0:50:30.880 --> 0:50:33.239 but I don't know, you know, like you kind of 0:50:33.280 --> 0:50:35.319 rooting him on in a way. I guess I kind 0:50:35.320 --> 0:50:37.879 of was. And I, you know, I I sent him 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:40.920 some map ideas, you know, even though it wasn't specifically 0:50:40.920 --> 0:50:44.200 about the Darian and uh. And so anyway, we we 0:50:44.200 --> 0:50:47.239 were talking back and forth about maps, and I came 0:50:47.280 --> 0:50:49.680 back from a pack rafting trip in the Tachita Mountains, 0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:52.440 and you know, there was an email there it was like, 0:50:52.680 --> 0:50:54.239 you know, the best map yet. So I just thought 0:50:54.280 --> 0:50:57.880 it was about maps, and I took off because Peggy, 0:50:58.040 --> 0:50:59.799 my wife, was like, hey, you've been gone. You know. 0:50:59.840 --> 0:51:01.600 We had to go dipping out some salmon. This is 0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:04.120 the time when all the salminar and let's go. So 0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:07.080 we went down to the Kenye and UM had some 0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:09.640 house projects. When I got back and we hadn't heard 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:11.399 We didn't hear from him, you know, and I kept 0:51:11.400 --> 0:51:13.799 expecting to hear from him, but I hadn't really read 0:51:13.840 --> 0:51:16.239 the email, you know, like I really I still feel 0:51:16.239 --> 0:51:19.160 guilty about that, and I didn't really read it through 0:51:19.480 --> 0:51:22.960 when I should have. And when we got back, and 0:51:23.080 --> 0:51:26.520 you know, we were in Lows shopping for something to 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:29.200 work on the house, and Peggy got nauseated. We were 0:51:29.200 --> 0:51:30.799 talking like, hey, haven't why I haven't heard from Rom 0:51:30.840 --> 0:51:32.080 and she got nause and we went home and I 0:51:32.120 --> 0:51:34.200 read this email and it was like, you know, holy 0:51:34.880 --> 0:51:39.680 can I say on him? Holy ship? I read the 0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:41.920 email and he you know, he was supposed to have 0:51:41.960 --> 0:51:44.680 been back like ten days before, you know, and I 0:51:45.040 --> 0:51:47.880 just felt awful that I hadn't looked and I felt 0:51:47.960 --> 0:51:50.719 even worse, like he's he's missing. I haven't heard from 0:51:50.760 --> 0:51:52.040 We should have heard from me he was only going 0:51:52.080 --> 0:51:56.560 to be in there for like five days. A five 0:51:56.680 --> 0:52:00.360 day trip would was definitely abnormal for sure. Yeah, I 0:52:00.400 --> 0:52:03.120 mean he he would that would never. It would be 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:05.520 way out of the ordinary. You know. He usually like 0:52:05.560 --> 0:52:08.640 when he came back from that crossing in Guatemala, you know, 0:52:08.680 --> 0:52:10.239 he says, hey, I just got out. I'll tell you 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:12.439 more later, just to let us know, because you guys 0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:14.520 had a little bit of a protocol just from your 0:52:14.680 --> 0:52:20.760 experiences too, about sort of the importance of your outdate. Yeah, 0:52:20.800 --> 0:52:22.880 he grew up with that. You know, he grew up 0:52:22.920 --> 0:52:25.920 with like being we would always responsible. You know, I 0:52:25.960 --> 0:52:27.719 didn't want to freak my wife. I had a wife 0:52:27.719 --> 0:52:29.560 and kid at home. I had to make sure that 0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:31.839 I came back when I said I was gonna come back, 0:52:31.960 --> 0:52:33.759 or if I didn't, they knew I would be back, 0:52:33.760 --> 0:52:35.560 and then we would. You know. He grew up with that, 0:52:35.640 --> 0:52:37.719 and he was a responsible kid about that. So he 0:52:37.760 --> 0:52:40.319 always let us know. So when you know he had 0:52:40.360 --> 0:52:42.719 I didn't hear, I rushed down, you know, like I 0:52:42.800 --> 0:52:45.799 left the next day and uh. And so that's kind 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:47.640 of like the third part of that book is about 0:52:47.680 --> 0:52:50.240 looking for him down there, and and it was frustrating 0:52:50.280 --> 0:52:52.120 to get down there and have all these people. He 0:52:52.160 --> 0:52:55.200 brought a friend down. Yeah, well I needed somebody, you know, 0:52:55.280 --> 0:52:58.240 and so I brought um tiber Zone down who speaks 0:52:58.239 --> 0:53:01.000 fluent Spanish and I you know, he's the kind of 0:53:01.040 --> 0:53:04.960 guy that you know, one time I I was going 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:06.760 to the him Alaya to look for these ice worms 0:53:06.760 --> 0:53:10.120 in the him Alaya and that my collaborator, another scientists 0:53:10.160 --> 0:53:14.200 couldn't go. And so my my collaborators, it was Thursday 0:53:14.200 --> 0:53:16.000 and we're supposed to leave on Sunday. And he's like, hey, 0:53:16.040 --> 0:53:18.160 I can't go. And I'm like, hey, Ty, can you 0:53:18.200 --> 0:53:21.000 go to China next week? And He's like sure when 0:53:21.239 --> 0:53:23.960 you know and uh. And so Ty was the kind 0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:26.120 of guy he could drop everything. Like at one point, 0:53:26.239 --> 0:53:32.920 Ty went to every continent every year, you know, and 0:53:32.920 --> 0:53:35.400 and every continent. He went to every continent he was 0:53:35.600 --> 0:53:37.720 paid to go, you know, like he was a guide, 0:53:38.280 --> 0:53:41.759 or he was um doing logistics in that Arctica, or 0:53:41.880 --> 0:53:44.120 he was doing medicine in Africa. You know, he was 0:53:44.160 --> 0:53:46.560 that kind of guy. And he he his his mom 0:53:46.719 --> 0:53:50.120 is is Vietnamese and his dad is Italian, and so 0:53:50.200 --> 0:53:52.520 he looks like he's from anywhere, you know, and he's 0:53:52.520 --> 0:53:56.040 got a big smile. He's real gregarious, and you know, 0:53:56.080 --> 0:53:59.239 he's super strong, but he's kind of you know, I 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:01.719 don't know. He just looked like you would like him. 0:54:01.920 --> 0:54:03.200 You know, if he was here, we would all like 0:54:03.280 --> 0:54:06.640 him immediately. So I needed him with me because I'm 0:54:06.719 --> 0:54:08.800 not the kind of guy people usually like right away 0:54:08.880 --> 0:54:10.960 wherever for that matter, I don't know, but he is, 0:54:11.160 --> 0:54:13.640 and so I needed him to come. And he we 0:54:13.719 --> 0:54:16.160 went down there, and he has jungle experience, and we've 0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:18.560 done a lot of stuff together. And your initial impulse 0:54:19.160 --> 0:54:23.960 was to go where you now understood that he went. Yeah, 0:54:24.040 --> 0:54:27.319 and just like like physically look for him, like look 0:54:27.400 --> 0:54:32.239 around to find him a long route. Well, yeah, well 0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:34.360 he told me where he was going. He sent a map, 0:54:34.600 --> 0:54:36.399 you know. He said, I'm gonna go up this river 0:54:36.480 --> 0:54:38.120 and I'm gonna go out this river. It's gonna take 0:54:38.160 --> 0:54:41.200 five days. He was very specific, and and I took 0:54:41.239 --> 0:54:44.640 that as I mean, I would send somebody that, and 0:54:44.719 --> 0:54:47.640 I have, you know, for forty years, I've sent people 0:54:47.880 --> 0:54:49.640 that kind of thing, because hey, look, if I don't 0:54:49.640 --> 0:54:52.399 show up, come get me. If I'm not here by 0:54:52.400 --> 0:54:55.239 this day, come get me. You know, you know, officials 0:54:55.280 --> 0:54:58.560 down there though, we're no. They just thought he was 0:54:58.680 --> 0:55:01.400 some kid who was you know, ran off. Yeah, like 0:55:01.440 --> 0:55:04.399 the backpackers we were talking about earlier, who traveled through 0:55:04.400 --> 0:55:07.480 Central America and you know, hang out at the hostel 0:55:07.600 --> 0:55:10.319 and smoked cigarettes and talk about how they'd like to 0:55:10.320 --> 0:55:12.200 do stuff, but they don't do anything, you know, And 0:55:12.280 --> 0:55:16.440 so they just thought he was you know, hanging out 0:55:16.480 --> 0:55:19.760 with a drug dealer and uh or his just ignoring 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:21.680 his parents. You know, none of that added up. So 0:55:21.719 --> 0:55:25.160 it was very frustrating to me, who had had spent 0:55:25.200 --> 0:55:26.920 this life. So I wrote this because you're just another 0:55:27.080 --> 0:55:31.320 You're just another parent who thinks their kids an angel, exactly, 0:55:31.600 --> 0:55:34.560 and you just clearly can't see that he whatever, ran 0:55:34.640 --> 0:55:37.200 off of the girl. That's it. It's exactly. Yeah. And 0:55:37.239 --> 0:55:40.600 I it was really painful, I mean to like sort 0:55:40.600 --> 0:55:42.960 of first of all, to have my son missing, you know, 0:55:43.120 --> 0:55:46.239 and it's like I've spent you know, more than half 0:55:46.320 --> 0:55:48.799 my life and his whole life doing stuff with him, 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:51.400 you know what I mean. And I like just playing cards, 0:55:51.560 --> 0:55:54.480 you know, or chess or watching TV, you know what 0:55:54.520 --> 0:55:57.400 I mean, but kind of the stuff that really bonds us. 0:55:57.440 --> 0:55:59.960 I mean, I think that's part of what like hunt, 0:56:00.000 --> 0:56:03.240 seeing or being outdoors really bonds us in a really 0:56:03.360 --> 0:56:06.759 very deeply human way, and especially with your kids, you know, 0:56:06.880 --> 0:56:09.799 or your wife and your friends and so um. It 0:56:09.920 --> 0:56:12.080 was just like it was a real insult to this 0:56:12.200 --> 0:56:14.200 injury of loss to lose my son and then have 0:56:14.239 --> 0:56:17.080 people tell me like I didn't know him or this 0:56:17.120 --> 0:56:19.040 is what he was doing, and and so the book 0:56:19.080 --> 0:56:20.839 is a lot about that, you know what I mean 0:56:21.520 --> 0:56:23.799 for sure, it's it's like that's like one of the 0:56:23.840 --> 0:56:26.120 aching parts about it. You know, you spent a lot 0:56:26.160 --> 0:56:28.600 of time on this. I don't want I don't we 0:56:28.600 --> 0:56:29.880 don't need to spend a ton of time on it 0:56:29.960 --> 0:56:33.799 right now, but like I want to get to how 0:56:33.840 --> 0:56:36.719 you actually searched, but try to explain to people like 0:56:36.760 --> 0:56:43.680 the false lead that emerges, you mean, the potala, which 0:56:43.760 --> 0:56:47.920 which takes months, like for months, it tooks year, it 0:56:47.920 --> 0:56:50.080 took years. Take at that point where people are like, 0:56:50.440 --> 0:56:53.759 this is what happened, and and you're like that that's 0:56:53.800 --> 0:56:55.719 not what happened. But it was like, why can't this 0:56:55.760 --> 0:56:59.640 guy see that this is what happened, But explain this guy, well, 0:57:00.360 --> 0:57:02.279 he's sort of he was like the pariah of the 0:57:02.320 --> 0:57:05.960 Ossa Peninsula. So the Osa Peninsula is like this elbow 0:57:06.000 --> 0:57:08.840 that sticks out in southern Coasta Rica on the Pacific 0:57:08.880 --> 0:57:12.040 side near the border with Panama. And it's a pretty 0:57:12.120 --> 0:57:14.680 it's you know, it's a pretty rural and area. Very 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:16.840 wild too. There's the biggest national park. I think it's 0:57:16.840 --> 0:57:19.520 the biggest national park in Coasta Rica. Corcovado National Park 0:57:19.600 --> 0:57:22.760 is there. Like it's wild enough where there's like like 0:57:22.800 --> 0:57:26.440 illegal gold miners. Yeah, it's totally wild setting up camps 0:57:26.440 --> 0:57:27.920 that no one knows about. Yeah. Well, you know, it's 0:57:27.920 --> 0:57:31.480 wild enough to have jaguars and bush masters and herpie eagles, 0:57:31.520 --> 0:57:34.040 you know, and all the monkeys that people like living 0:57:34.040 --> 0:57:36.120 out there that no one knows about. Right and then 0:57:36.200 --> 0:57:38.040 and then it's so big and and it used it's 0:57:38.040 --> 0:57:40.680 got gold miners who like hang out in the park 0:57:40.800 --> 0:57:44.160 and they hide out and the rangers go in and 0:57:44.160 --> 0:57:46.680 and and then the west coast of the park. Um, 0:57:46.720 --> 0:57:48.200 you know, used to be able to hike around there, 0:57:48.200 --> 0:57:49.800 and the west coast was a great place to hike. 0:57:49.840 --> 0:57:52.000 But I think there's a lot of cocaine boats that 0:57:52.080 --> 0:57:54.840 come up and bring drugs from Panama now and they've 0:57:54.880 --> 0:57:57.040 they've shut all the hiking down on the west coast 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:00.560 along the beach basically north of sir Aino, which is 0:58:00.560 --> 0:58:03.920 the most touristic part. And it's it's really a remote 0:58:03.960 --> 0:58:05.720 You can't drive into the park. You have to hike 0:58:05.760 --> 0:58:07.960 into it. And now they don't let you hike there 0:58:08.000 --> 0:58:09.920 without having a guide, and they only let you hike 0:58:09.960 --> 0:58:12.920 on certain trails. And the rangers go in there and 0:58:12.920 --> 0:58:15.200 they chase the miners out, and they change chase the 0:58:15.240 --> 0:58:18.440 poachers out and um. And then there's this out just 0:58:18.520 --> 0:58:22.560 outside the park. There's a big mining community. But it's 0:58:22.560 --> 0:58:24.960 all it's all like hike in mine, like I don't know, 0:58:25.240 --> 0:58:28.960 backcountry mining, Like it's hand back Yeah, I got all. 0:58:29.080 --> 0:58:31.040 They hike in and their sluice boxes they are like 0:58:31.080 --> 0:58:34.200 three ft long, and there their shovels or metal shovels, 0:58:34.200 --> 0:58:37.919 but they've whittled some piece of hardwood down to stick 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:40.320 into the shovel. When it handles break, they just make 0:58:40.360 --> 0:58:44.760 a new one. And they live in these plastic you know, tarps, 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:48.960 and they're they're running water is through plastic pipes that 0:58:49.040 --> 0:58:52.760 they use to kind of drain areas to mind for 0:58:53.040 --> 0:58:57.640 it's all by hand, you know. And uh so anyway, Um, 0:58:57.680 --> 0:59:00.760 there's this one mining trail that goes from one mining 0:59:00.800 --> 0:59:04.800 community all the way to the coast, and everybody thought 0:59:05.120 --> 0:59:09.000 that they'd seen my son with this guy pot Laura 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:12.720 and his name Potalora's. It was like his nickname for 0:59:12.880 --> 0:59:15.080 parrot foot, because he had like a deformity of his foot, 0:59:15.120 --> 0:59:19.240 and nobody liked him, and he nobody liked him, and 0:59:19.400 --> 0:59:22.400 he was the pariah of those you know, and anything 0:59:22.440 --> 0:59:25.000 that bad that happened, they blamed it on him. Even 0:59:25.080 --> 0:59:28.400 his own family didn't like him. And so he was 0:59:28.440 --> 0:59:32.360 with this gringo who apparently looked like my son, and 0:59:32.400 --> 0:59:34.960 everybody was sure that my son had been with him. 0:59:35.680 --> 0:59:38.640 And uh, and he didn't do a whole hell of 0:59:38.640 --> 0:59:40.480 a lot to dispel the notion that he had been 0:59:40.520 --> 0:59:43.160 with your son. Oh no, he encouraged it. Yeah, he 0:59:43.240 --> 0:59:45.640 fed it. He came up, he spun all these stories. 0:59:45.680 --> 0:59:48.040 I don't want to tell too much because my publisher 0:59:48.040 --> 0:59:50.080 will want somebody to buy the book. And if I 0:59:50.080 --> 0:59:51.800 tell you the whole story, nobody will want to read it. 0:59:52.280 --> 0:59:56.479 But um, but is not true. If I tell the story, 0:59:56.480 --> 0:59:58.680 nobody will want to read it. I don't think that 0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:06.880 that's true. Maybe the page one yeah, well, the Podalora story, 1:00:06.920 --> 1:00:09.040 it just it never went away, you know, like right 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:12.880 up to the end, it never went away. And uh 1:00:12.920 --> 1:00:15.680 and I just I just couldn't see Roman like walking 1:00:15.760 --> 1:00:18.280 with this guy, you know, like it would be I 1:00:18.280 --> 1:00:20.280 think I used the phrase in the book, it would 1:00:20.320 --> 1:00:23.160 be like this guy because I talked, I interview people, 1:00:23.240 --> 1:00:26.280 you know, I followed the Potalora troil, you know, I 1:00:26.280 --> 1:00:28.240 I talked to the people. I mean, I hiked into 1:00:28.240 --> 1:00:31.200 the jungle. I spent like weeks in the jungle, you 1:00:31.200 --> 1:00:33.120 know what I mean. I hiked all around like I 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:39.320 you know, illegally eventually legally. Yeah, that's everything I wanted 1:00:39.320 --> 1:00:43.040 to bring up that you wanted to go in. And Okay, 1:00:43.040 --> 1:00:46.600 so the book gets into spends a lot of time 1:00:46.880 --> 1:00:49.919 on all the what everyone else is telling you must 1:00:49.920 --> 1:00:55.520 have happened. Yeah, and you needing to be the like 1:00:55.760 --> 1:01:01.000 naive rube who insists that you're right while everyone else 1:01:01.080 --> 1:01:03.600 is behind your back, probably saying like this guy has 1:01:03.640 --> 1:01:05.760 no idea. Probably, yeah for sure. But I mean, like 1:01:05.800 --> 1:01:08.000 I knew my son, you know, and I can't get 1:01:08.000 --> 1:01:10.040 his bank records. I couldn't get it took us two 1:01:10.120 --> 1:01:12.440 years to get his bank records. But I you know, 1:01:12.480 --> 1:01:14.440 I knew my son, and I've been in the jungle 1:01:14.600 --> 1:01:17.080 enough to know that I could look, and I wanted 1:01:17.080 --> 1:01:19.040 people to help me, and so the only people I 1:01:19.040 --> 1:01:21.120 could really get to help me because the officials did 1:01:21.160 --> 1:01:23.240 everything they could to keep me out. Yeah that's what 1:01:23.360 --> 1:01:26.440 That's what I was gonna ask you about his. They 1:01:26.800 --> 1:01:31.560 literally forbid you, threatened me, threatened to arrest me to 1:01:31.720 --> 1:01:36.560 go forbid you, Um, you cannot go look for your son. Yeah, 1:01:36.600 --> 1:01:38.840 that's pretty much what they said. Yeah, you know, And 1:01:38.880 --> 1:01:41.520 I went down there to look for his months long, Yeah, 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:43.800 for yeah, months, And I went down there specifically to 1:01:43.840 --> 1:01:45.880 look for him, Like I have to go out on 1:01:45.960 --> 1:01:49.280 illegal minor trails sometimes with illegal miners to try to 1:01:49.280 --> 1:01:51.200 find your way in there to look around. Right, Why, 1:01:51.200 --> 1:01:53.000 I they knew it much better than I did, So 1:01:53.080 --> 1:01:56.600 I I got miners and poachers to help me out, 1:01:56.800 --> 1:01:59.760 you know, because nobody else that the officials wouldn't and 1:02:00.440 --> 1:02:02.960 under Yeah you're under threat of arrest. Yeah, I mean 1:02:02.960 --> 1:02:04.640 that one. I remember one time I had like this 1:02:04.720 --> 1:02:06.520 kind of bushy beard and I shaved it off because 1:02:06.520 --> 1:02:08.160 I knew they were looking for me, and I hid 1:02:08.200 --> 1:02:10.640 in the car, you know, I mean, um, because I 1:02:10.640 --> 1:02:12.800 I needed to find him, you know, and I was 1:02:12.840 --> 1:02:17.640 gonna do whatever it took. So I must be so frustrating. 1:02:17.760 --> 1:02:21.400 It's so many levels to be kept out from that. Yeah, 1:02:21.480 --> 1:02:23.680 I was like trying to I felt like it was 1:02:23.720 --> 1:02:26.040 like some kind of football game where they're trying to 1:02:26.080 --> 1:02:27.960 tackle me, but I'm trying to get to the end 1:02:28.040 --> 1:02:30.720 zone there, you know, and I the officials were trying 1:02:30.760 --> 1:02:34.000 to keep me from going that direction. Um, but the 1:02:34.200 --> 1:02:36.520 locals were really helpful, you know, like the people who 1:02:36.560 --> 1:02:40.120 lived there, and they're very family oriented and they understood, 1:02:40.200 --> 1:02:43.200 you know, what I was trying to do. And uh, 1:02:43.400 --> 1:02:45.760 and my friends you know, came down and helped me. 1:02:45.800 --> 1:02:49.080 But then they'd come down and I realized how dangerous, 1:02:49.160 --> 1:02:51.680 dangerous it was to have people who didn't have any 1:02:51.720 --> 1:02:54.240 experience in the jungle and have them with me, you know, 1:02:54.240 --> 1:02:58.360 because there's snakes. And I mean it sounds cliche to say, oh, 1:02:58.360 --> 1:03:01.959 there's snakes, but there really are snakes, you know, like yeah, 1:03:01.960 --> 1:03:03.880 there it's full on, you know, like you should you 1:03:03.880 --> 1:03:05.480 get hit and you're gonna like you got an hour, 1:03:05.520 --> 1:03:08.320 you're gonna be dead basically. Yeah, And you know you're 1:03:08.360 --> 1:03:10.080 a couple of hours in and you're they're not gonna 1:03:10.080 --> 1:03:12.440 get a helicopter in there. And there's like three snakes 1:03:12.440 --> 1:03:14.160 you kind of have to really watch out for. There's 1:03:14.800 --> 1:03:16.880 you know, the palm vipers that hang kind of like 1:03:17.000 --> 1:03:19.200 right at eye level and you don't see them, you know. 1:03:19.280 --> 1:03:22.440 And this kid came down. I really like this kid, Todd. 1:03:22.480 --> 1:03:25.200 He came down to help, and he almost walked into one. 1:03:25.240 --> 1:03:27.640 He did, he walked literally and he almost got hit. 1:03:28.280 --> 1:03:31.560 Um tivers oone. He stepped over a log and there 1:03:31.640 --> 1:03:33.840 was a palm viper coiled up on the log. He 1:03:33.840 --> 1:03:35.600 didn't see it. I saw it when I walked up 1:03:35.640 --> 1:03:38.240 to the log, and I was like, holy cow, I 1:03:38.280 --> 1:03:40.720 can't bring my friends down here. This is too dangerous. 1:03:40.760 --> 1:03:42.520 You know. Then there's fairtal answers. Those are the ones 1:03:42.520 --> 1:03:45.400 that are definitely poisonous. And I never saw a bush master, 1:03:45.480 --> 1:03:48.360 but they're the really bad ones. And you know, it's 1:03:48.360 --> 1:03:52.040 just it was dangerous, you know. And I I could 1:03:52.080 --> 1:03:55.320 see why they didn't want me in there, but um, 1:03:55.360 --> 1:03:57.400 and they didn't know me, you know, like I had 1:03:57.440 --> 1:04:01.880 to get you know, the Lieutenant governor of Alaska tore like, 1:04:01.960 --> 1:04:03.600 who does know me? To write a letter and say no, 1:04:03.760 --> 1:04:05.959 you Roman, Diald knows what he's doing. You know, he's 1:04:06.040 --> 1:04:11.880 been around, you know, you can you can trust his judgment. Um. 1:04:11.960 --> 1:04:14.160 But you know, they wanted to protect me. They didn't 1:04:14.160 --> 1:04:15.880 want me to get into trouble. And I could see 1:04:15.920 --> 1:04:18.360 their side, but but the other side of me, there 1:04:18.480 --> 1:04:20.240 there's no stopping me. You know, I was going to 1:04:20.360 --> 1:04:22.680 do whatever it took, and I you know, I had 1:04:22.680 --> 1:04:26.360 to sell my soldier reality TV eventually, you know, I 1:04:26.360 --> 1:04:28.800 didn't know it was reality TV, but it turned into 1:04:28.840 --> 1:04:32.520 reality TV. Yeah. I'll ask about that in a second. 1:04:32.560 --> 1:04:36.880 But another thing I wanted to touch on is you, Um, 1:04:36.960 --> 1:04:39.400 initially you felt like there was like a race against 1:04:39.440 --> 1:04:46.440 the clocks. Yeah. No, I pictured him. He was like 1:04:46.520 --> 1:04:48.000 I could see him in the tent and it was 1:04:48.040 --> 1:04:50.080 all soggy and wet and cold because the rainforest is 1:04:50.080 --> 1:04:52.880 actually cold, especially here you're in the mountains, and when 1:04:52.880 --> 1:04:55.160 it rains, you know, the rains coming from thirty thousand 1:04:55.200 --> 1:04:57.880 feet up, so it's cold, comes down and chills you. 1:04:58.000 --> 1:05:00.120 And I could see him like in this tent. He 1:05:00.240 --> 1:05:03.000 was broken and hey dad, where are you? I'm out 1:05:03.000 --> 1:05:05.480 of food. That's what went through my head. And so 1:05:05.600 --> 1:05:07.439 I was trying to find him, and people were trying 1:05:07.480 --> 1:05:10.240 to keep me out. You know it was it was terrible. Yeah, 1:05:10.240 --> 1:05:12.920 it was terrible. Do you I don't think forgiving if 1:05:12.920 --> 1:05:15.400 you bring this up in your book, but some of 1:05:15.400 --> 1:05:17.960 the local response to you, did you ever get a 1:05:17.960 --> 1:05:21.440 sense that it was just like another view of American exceptionalism, 1:05:21.440 --> 1:05:24.640 where you have this place where, no doubt many many 1:05:24.680 --> 1:05:29.960 people go missing because of drug trafficking, because of you know, 1:05:31.600 --> 1:05:35.840 human migration, because of whatever reason. But then everyone needs 1:05:35.880 --> 1:05:39.360 to drop everything and get everyone on board because an 1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:41.480 American is missing. No. I never felt that, and I 1:05:41.560 --> 1:05:43.120 never asked for that, you know what I mean. Like 1:05:43.160 --> 1:05:45.920 I didn't ask for the helicopter. I didn't ask for 1:05:45.960 --> 1:05:48.000 the whole army of Red Cross people. I would have 1:05:48.080 --> 1:05:50.800 done it myself. I would have preferred if they would 1:05:50.880 --> 1:05:52.840 just like, let me do this. Like here's the way 1:05:52.880 --> 1:05:55.720 I sort of feel is um and this is maybe 1:05:55.720 --> 1:05:58.840 a little too libertarian for most people. But to be 1:05:59.000 --> 1:06:02.320 part of society, we've had to give up everything. Okay, 1:06:02.360 --> 1:06:04.800 Like society is great, but we don't get to take 1:06:04.800 --> 1:06:07.040 care of ourselves. You get a doctor to take care 1:06:07.080 --> 1:06:09.320 of you, there's no justice. We don't take care of 1:06:09.320 --> 1:06:11.920 our own justice. We have a justice system that takes 1:06:11.920 --> 1:06:14.240 care of that. We don't get rid of. If if 1:06:14.280 --> 1:06:16.360 somebody is breaking into your house, you can't do anything 1:06:16.360 --> 1:06:18.520 about that. You've got to call the police. You don't 1:06:18.560 --> 1:06:21.000 do anything for ourselves. It's all we get to do 1:06:21.040 --> 1:06:23.160 is put food in our mouths. Now maybe you know, 1:06:23.200 --> 1:06:26.800 and maybe we can reproduce the letter whom I defend myself. Yeah, 1:06:26.840 --> 1:06:29.480 and so the authorities. That's it, That's what it comes 1:06:29.480 --> 1:06:32.360 down to. So to be part of society, we've given 1:06:32.440 --> 1:06:36.160 up all these things that when we were like primitive humans, 1:06:36.200 --> 1:06:38.320 we did ourselves. You know, like we don't even like 1:06:38.600 --> 1:06:41.240 build your house anymore. You have somebody else build your house. 1:06:41.280 --> 1:06:43.760 You know. We don't really get to do much. And 1:06:43.840 --> 1:06:47.240 so this seems really important to me, is to take 1:06:47.280 --> 1:06:49.520 care of my family member, you know, But we don't 1:06:49.520 --> 1:06:52.800 get to do that. No, we have specialized teams who 1:06:52.880 --> 1:06:54.600 are going to do that, but they're never going to 1:06:54.720 --> 1:06:57.480 be as invested in it as as as we are. 1:06:58.600 --> 1:07:04.200 Uh follow a rail right, a wounded animal trail. I 1:07:04.200 --> 1:07:07.960 don't want anybody else out there messing with the evidence, 1:07:08.520 --> 1:07:10.880 and I want to be the one collecting it and 1:07:10.960 --> 1:07:15.439 processing it. And again nobody's more invested in the person 1:07:15.560 --> 1:07:17.800 that sent the bullet or the arrow. Right, were you 1:07:17.840 --> 1:07:20.440 feeling any of that? Like, if I involve a lot 1:07:20.440 --> 1:07:24.520 of people, then I'm gonna miss critical information and I 1:07:24.600 --> 1:07:28.360 may be the best person to decipher that. Absolutely, that's 1:07:28.400 --> 1:07:30.280 that's I think that's a really good analogy. That's kind 1:07:30.280 --> 1:07:33.320 of how I felt. But I know, I maybe I 1:07:33.360 --> 1:07:35.200 was just too emotional about it, you know what I mean, 1:07:35.360 --> 1:07:36.840 And I should have just got out of the way, 1:07:36.840 --> 1:07:39.040 but there was no way I was going to. Yeah, 1:07:39.040 --> 1:07:41.680 and it was a there's an enormous amount of variables 1:07:41.800 --> 1:07:47.360 where um, you can't you're not able to rule out 1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:51.600 foul play. So you're trying to get into the jungle. Look, 1:07:51.640 --> 1:07:54.800 but you're also looking at everyone you walk by, and 1:07:54.880 --> 1:07:59.720 everyone's backpack. You're curious about what are their shoes, and 1:07:59.800 --> 1:08:03.120 you know what gear your son had, and you're trying 1:08:03.120 --> 1:08:04.800 to see, like, am I going to see someone come 1:08:04.880 --> 1:08:07.400 by with a pair of Solomon shoes on? Oh? And 1:08:07.400 --> 1:08:09.280 then the long guy was on the oath of the 1:08:09.360 --> 1:08:12.520 more you heard about these stories, you know, like the 1:08:12.600 --> 1:08:16.200 Austrians who lived in this little town and sold gold, 1:08:16.280 --> 1:08:20.280 and how they had been killed. They disappeared, but there 1:08:20.360 --> 1:08:23.320 was blood on their walls and and somebody was driving 1:08:23.360 --> 1:08:25.840 their car around and using their A t M card 1:08:25.920 --> 1:08:28.800 and but they never found a body until years later 1:08:28.840 --> 1:08:31.800 when bones washed out. And then there was the Canadian 1:08:31.840 --> 1:08:34.160 woman who was shot in the head and they didn't 1:08:34.200 --> 1:08:36.040 have any idea who did that. And then there was 1:08:36.080 --> 1:08:39.000 another woman, an American who was smothered in her bed, 1:08:39.439 --> 1:08:43.000 you know, in an iPod or iPad were stolen, and 1:08:43.040 --> 1:08:45.559 so you heard about these things along you were there, 1:08:45.600 --> 1:08:47.800 and then you'd hear about this guy Patalora who some 1:08:47.840 --> 1:08:50.439 people would say, oh, yeah, he's a murderer, he's killed people, 1:08:50.800 --> 1:08:54.240 he killed your son and blah blah blah, and and 1:08:54.280 --> 1:08:56.400 there I mean it is, it's kind of a lawless place. 1:08:56.520 --> 1:09:00.760 And uh and if there's nobody and there's nobody, and yeah, 1:09:00.960 --> 1:09:03.920 they don't they don't they like you could, no matter 1:09:03.960 --> 1:09:06.639 what happens, exists with out of body, there's no murder. Yeah, 1:09:06.680 --> 1:09:09.200 like those Austrians. They everybody knew who did it because 1:09:09.200 --> 1:09:11.479 he was driving their car around and spending their A 1:09:11.520 --> 1:09:13.760 t M money and they knew that he had done it. 1:09:13.800 --> 1:09:16.160 But until they found this body two years later, the 1:09:16.200 --> 1:09:19.839 bones that had washed out of this river bank. Um, 1:09:20.360 --> 1:09:23.040 then they realized, okay, yep, you're the one. There's a body. Yeah, 1:09:23.240 --> 1:09:26.439 so you even go arrange and meet with the guy 1:09:26.560 --> 1:09:30.080 who's claiming to have been one of the last people 1:09:30.120 --> 1:09:33.479 to see your son alive. Right. Well, I was eager 1:09:33.520 --> 1:09:36.439 to meet the guy who his name was Jenkins. And 1:09:36.439 --> 1:09:38.479 I was eager to meet him because when early on 1:09:38.520 --> 1:09:40.920 in the search, um, when they'd kicked me out of 1:09:40.960 --> 1:09:46.080 the search because I was emotionally unstable as what they said, Um, 1:09:47.080 --> 1:09:49.800 were you looking back now? No, I was, and I 1:09:49.840 --> 1:09:52.240 was very calm, you know. It was the guy who 1:09:52.280 --> 1:09:54.720 was in charge of the search was emotionally unstable from 1:09:54.720 --> 1:09:59.400 my perspective, and he just didn't He just didn't, you know, Um, 1:09:59.640 --> 1:10:04.360 maybe like you know, I this friend, this mutual friend 1:10:04.360 --> 1:10:07.040 I have with your brother named Chris. You know. He 1:10:07.040 --> 1:10:09.920 he'll complain that I have a Type A personality whatever 1:10:09.960 --> 1:10:12.080 that is exactly. But I said that you do, yeah, 1:10:12.120 --> 1:10:14.600 and I guess I guess what that means. Maybe he 1:10:14.640 --> 1:10:16.280 doesn't know I have a Type A is what he says. 1:10:16.320 --> 1:10:19.840 So when we get together with another pilot, he is 1:10:19.840 --> 1:10:22.240 a pilot. So when Type A is get together, there's 1:10:22.280 --> 1:10:25.200 not enough oxygen in the room to breathe, you know. 1:10:25.360 --> 1:10:27.600 And so a lot of these guys who are in 1:10:27.680 --> 1:10:31.400 charge of things are type A, like a pilot, and 1:10:31.479 --> 1:10:33.719 so the guy in charge of the search was type 1:10:33.800 --> 1:10:35.599 and there I was, you know, like, no, we've got 1:10:35.600 --> 1:10:37.519 to do what my son said. And he's like, hey, 1:10:37.600 --> 1:10:40.479 you know, I'm in charge here, and he pushed me out, 1:10:40.720 --> 1:10:42.960 and I was very calm because I've been in some 1:10:43.160 --> 1:10:46.280 sketchy situations, you know, I've been in I don't know, 1:10:46.320 --> 1:10:48.360 I'm not trying to brag here or anything. I'm just 1:10:48.400 --> 1:10:51.880 trying to say that I know that when things are bad, 1:10:51.960 --> 1:10:53.519 you've got to be calm, you know what I mean. 1:10:53.680 --> 1:10:56.120 And you've been on searches. I've been on searches, yea. 1:10:56.200 --> 1:10:58.320 I found people. That's why I thought I could find 1:10:58.400 --> 1:11:02.000 my son, because I've I found people before, like in storms. 1:11:02.000 --> 1:11:05.000 And so I was there and this guy kicked me out, 1:11:05.200 --> 1:11:08.240 and then um ty was I was able to I 1:11:08.320 --> 1:11:10.000 was able to talk his way and they walked down 1:11:10.000 --> 1:11:12.400 this trail and they got to this village and this 1:11:12.400 --> 1:11:14.760 guy said, oh, hey, I met I met somebody in 1:11:14.800 --> 1:11:16.840 the jungle and he said his name was Roman. And 1:11:16.880 --> 1:11:18.960 that's when I knew that they really this guy had 1:11:19.000 --> 1:11:22.480 really seen him, because everybody else called my son Cody 1:11:22.560 --> 1:11:24.479 because that's the name that was on the flyers. So 1:11:24.520 --> 1:11:27.719 the name on the on the flyers was Cody Roman 1:11:27.760 --> 1:11:32.840 Dial and in Costa Rica, um his middle name, you know, 1:11:32.880 --> 1:11:35.879 it would be like a second last name, So everybody 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:38.240 had like down there in Costa Rica, the first name 1:11:38.320 --> 1:11:40.080 is your given name, and then the last name is 1:11:40.120 --> 1:11:43.720 your father's family name, and your second your middle name 1:11:43.760 --> 1:11:47.559 is your mother's middle name. And so everybody called my 1:11:47.600 --> 1:11:51.040 son Cody. Nobody called him Roman unless you've met him. 1:11:51.520 --> 1:11:54.240 He would say, yeah, I'm Roman. And he also kept 1:11:54.280 --> 1:11:57.240 secret certain pieces of gear that you knew he had, 1:11:57.280 --> 1:11:59.240 and other stuff like that. Oh yeah, I mean little 1:11:59.240 --> 1:12:01.080 things that you knew no one else news and you 1:12:01.080 --> 1:12:03.360 can try to sort out the bs from the reality 1:12:03.479 --> 1:12:06.479 exactly exactly. So when I met this guy Jenkins, who 1:12:06.479 --> 1:12:07.920 said he'd met Rome, and I, you know, like I 1:12:08.000 --> 1:12:11.120 quizzed him, and this guy's a minor, he's an illegal miner. Yeah, 1:12:11.200 --> 1:12:13.439 and he had great risk to himself, you know, and 1:12:13.520 --> 1:12:16.360 I kind of figured, yeah, if he's risking his himself 1:12:16.439 --> 1:12:19.080 to ton of tell this, then I know he's he's 1:12:19.120 --> 1:12:22.240 telling the truth. I mean, that's how we like, if 1:12:22.280 --> 1:12:26.160 you expose yourself or put yourself at risk, you know, 1:12:26.360 --> 1:12:28.679 like if you handicap yourself, that's a way of sending 1:12:28.680 --> 1:12:32.200 an honest message. Like there's this idea about animals with 1:12:32.240 --> 1:12:34.160 big horns, like like I don't know if you've ever 1:12:34.200 --> 1:12:36.280 seen a moose, like a big moose go through thick 1:12:36.320 --> 1:12:38.320 alders and they get hung up. It's a lot of work, 1:12:38.360 --> 1:12:40.240 you know. There's horns way a lot, and they're like 1:12:41.240 --> 1:12:43.720 and and there's this idea that a moose or any 1:12:43.760 --> 1:12:46.320 other big animal that's got big horns. It's a message 1:12:46.320 --> 1:12:48.519 that they send out like I'm such a badass that 1:12:48.600 --> 1:12:51.200 I can walk around with this huge handicap, you know 1:12:51.240 --> 1:12:54.720 what I mean. It's like an honest message, like I 1:12:54.760 --> 1:12:56.400 am a badass, and here's how I'm going to show you. 1:12:56.439 --> 1:13:00.320 I'm just gonna handicap myself. So for this minor come 1:13:00.400 --> 1:13:02.960 forward at great risk to himself, you know, it was 1:13:03.320 --> 1:13:06.280 he was sending an honest message because he was handicapping himself. 1:13:06.280 --> 1:13:08.640 He could he could be arrested for being where he was, 1:13:09.040 --> 1:13:11.120 and yet he came forward to say, yeah, I met 1:13:11.120 --> 1:13:13.520 this guy named Roman who said he was a biologist 1:13:13.560 --> 1:13:17.680 from Alaska, and I was like, where was that? And uh, 1:13:17.720 --> 1:13:21.200 I didn't ask the authorities. Hey, let's go up there tomorrow. 1:13:21.680 --> 1:13:24.200 I was like, you know, I went up there with 1:13:24.479 --> 1:13:26.600 the illegal minor and we snuck up there and I 1:13:26.640 --> 1:13:29.640 went up there. I got another poacher to go up 1:13:29.680 --> 1:13:31.599 there too, and we went up there and he showed 1:13:31.680 --> 1:13:34.280 us the spot. And I kept going back to that 1:13:34.400 --> 1:13:38.000 area and um, and then eventually even to the point 1:13:38.000 --> 1:13:42.960 where you guys are repelling into areas, well, yeah, I did. 1:13:43.000 --> 1:13:46.919 I we did a traverse across this big high plateau 1:13:47.080 --> 1:13:49.920 and um, and we left the plateau. We left the 1:13:49.920 --> 1:13:52.640 little trails like there's these trails are They're about like 1:13:52.720 --> 1:13:55.360 game trails. They really are there, game trails that people 1:13:55.439 --> 1:13:58.320 also will kind of maintain a nick with their machete 1:13:58.400 --> 1:14:01.880 and stuff. And and we left those little trails and 1:14:01.880 --> 1:14:04.320 we dropped off the plateau and it was really slippery, 1:14:04.360 --> 1:14:07.360 and I could see it was steep and slippery, and 1:14:07.400 --> 1:14:10.320 I could see, you know in Hollywood movies where like 1:14:10.360 --> 1:14:14.000 when somebody falls down and they slide for like five 1:14:14.040 --> 1:14:15.519 minutes and they end up in a creek, and that 1:14:15.560 --> 1:14:18.599 always seems so corny and stupid like that would never happen. 1:14:18.640 --> 1:14:20.920 Then I realized, oh, this is where that could happen, 1:14:20.960 --> 1:14:29.479 the sea, And so I was thinking that could have 1:14:29.520 --> 1:14:33.360 happened to him, and he could have slid into like 1:14:33.640 --> 1:14:36.679 where he had been seen he just climbed up out 1:14:36.720 --> 1:14:40.880 of this canyon and and people thought he had climbing gear, 1:14:41.400 --> 1:14:43.679 you know, to have made it out of there. Um, 1:14:43.680 --> 1:14:46.840 but he didn't. And that little canyon, I imagine maybe 1:14:46.880 --> 1:14:49.080 he could have slipped trying to get back in it somehow. 1:14:49.120 --> 1:14:51.519 And so the only way in was to repel down 1:14:51.640 --> 1:14:54.360 waterfalls to get into it. And I thought maybe he'd 1:14:54.360 --> 1:14:56.320 slipped in there. So we went down and did some 1:14:56.400 --> 1:14:59.360 canyonarian there was. He wasn't there, obviously, but I went 1:14:59.360 --> 1:15:02.160 in there looking and uh, because I thought, you know, 1:15:02.280 --> 1:15:04.080 he had been in this area. He I thought he 1:15:04.120 --> 1:15:07.080 had to be close by, So I just kept looking. 1:15:07.240 --> 1:15:11.880 It seems like a perfect crew to kind of know 1:15:12.120 --> 1:15:15.440 where where the arm is in that terrain, like poachers 1:15:15.479 --> 1:15:21.080 and illegal miners, as far as like everybody knows an 1:15:21.120 --> 1:15:23.519 area and where like, oh yeah, that would be a 1:15:23.560 --> 1:15:26.240 good spot for something bad to happen. This would be 1:15:26.280 --> 1:15:28.880 a good spot to stay out of that stuff, you know, right, 1:15:28.880 --> 1:15:31.920 And to be with those guys, I'd much rather be 1:15:32.040 --> 1:15:35.760 with them than with these you know, Red Cross volunteers 1:15:35.760 --> 1:15:37.360 who were all coming from the big city and they 1:15:37.360 --> 1:15:40.559 were you know, kind of like fleshy and pale, and 1:15:40.760 --> 1:15:43.400 you know, I had too much gear and had never 1:15:43.439 --> 1:15:45.840 been in country like that. Whereas the miners and the 1:15:46.080 --> 1:15:48.479 and the poachers, you know, they've got to be super 1:15:48.520 --> 1:15:50.680 careful because it's like they're not gonna be able to 1:15:50.680 --> 1:15:53.519 get a rescue from the Park Service as something happens 1:15:53.560 --> 1:15:55.560 to them. So the whole point with them is to 1:15:55.600 --> 1:15:57.240 be where no one knows where you are. Yeah, and 1:15:57.280 --> 1:15:59.680 they are skinny and tough, and you know, they're out 1:15:59.680 --> 1:16:01.600 in the on all the time. They know what to 1:16:01.680 --> 1:16:03.920 avoid and what you can use. And yeah, I mean 1:16:03.920 --> 1:16:06.080 they were like the perfect guys to be you know. 1:16:06.120 --> 1:16:08.240 But I it didn't matter to me who I was with. 1:16:08.320 --> 1:16:10.519 I just needed to get in there, and whoever was 1:16:10.560 --> 1:16:11.880 going to go with me, that's who I was going 1:16:11.960 --> 1:16:16.240 to take. Explain you met You made a remark about 1:16:17.200 --> 1:16:22.599 sold yourself to reality TV. Yeah, well, you know, um, 1:16:23.479 --> 1:16:25.840 give it whatever version of that you're comfortable with. What 1:16:26.040 --> 1:16:30.800 did it? Well, you know, um, what I I when 1:16:30.840 --> 1:16:33.880 I I mentioned those that race where Dick Griffith pulled 1:16:33.880 --> 1:16:35.960 a pack raft out and told me that old age 1:16:36.000 --> 1:16:38.240 and treachery beats youth and skill every time. And that 1:16:38.320 --> 1:16:40.320 was when I was twenty one, and then by the 1:16:40.320 --> 1:16:44.040 time I was in my thirties, those um that Eco 1:16:44.160 --> 1:16:47.160 Challenge race, which was a big television race that Mark Burnett, 1:16:47.200 --> 1:16:50.320 you know, who kind of put reality TV on the map. 1:16:50.360 --> 1:16:52.280 So he started the Eco Challenge and I did a 1:16:52.280 --> 1:16:55.760 bunch of those races, and I could see like every 1:16:55.800 --> 1:16:58.720 time I did one of those races, um, not every time, 1:16:58.720 --> 1:17:01.320 but most of the time, I was on a team 1:17:01.360 --> 1:17:04.000 that they watched, you know what I mean, Like they 1:17:04.040 --> 1:17:06.720 followed with the camera and so then i'd see the 1:17:06.760 --> 1:17:09.479 television show. I'm like, I wasn't there. That's not the 1:17:09.560 --> 1:17:11.519 race I was in, right, you know what I was like? 1:17:11.560 --> 1:17:15.280 This is so I was real a little really apprehensive 1:17:15.280 --> 1:17:18.320 about television. I've done from the science side. I've done 1:17:18.360 --> 1:17:22.160 some sort of documentaries you know, about tree climbing and stuff, 1:17:22.160 --> 1:17:24.639 and and I didn't really like TV, you know, because 1:17:24.720 --> 1:17:27.439 it never seemed to be Now, I'm sure your TV 1:17:27.520 --> 1:17:30.200 show is not like this, but I never saw like 1:17:30.280 --> 1:17:32.479 what I did on that show. You know, it just 1:17:32.640 --> 1:17:35.080 they rearranged things and they cut it up and it 1:17:35.120 --> 1:17:37.439 looks like reality, but it's really not. I I much 1:17:37.520 --> 1:17:41.439 prefer writing or radio. I don't know why. So I 1:17:41.479 --> 1:17:45.439 was apprehensive. I didn't want to deal with TVM. But 1:17:45.520 --> 1:17:49.920 somebody got through to Peggy and and uh and what 1:17:49.960 --> 1:17:54.720 they said is, hey, you know, I I lost my 1:17:54.800 --> 1:17:57.520 father and I think it was Honduras or El Salvador, 1:17:57.560 --> 1:18:00.880 and he was killed, he was murdered, and I spent 1:18:00.960 --> 1:18:03.920 ten years trying to bring his murderer to justice. And 1:18:03.960 --> 1:18:05.920 I wasn't able to do it till I brought a 1:18:06.000 --> 1:18:09.439 camera down there, and the local people just opened right 1:18:09.520 --> 1:18:11.360 up to me. Once I had a camera. They thought 1:18:11.479 --> 1:18:14.880 everything they said was being sent by satellite and being transmitted. 1:18:14.920 --> 1:18:17.599 It was like a truth serum. This is the way 1:18:17.640 --> 1:18:21.080 to find your son. So these are producers reaching out. 1:18:21.160 --> 1:18:25.160 They look for stories like this, yep, and that they 1:18:25.160 --> 1:18:27.080 think are going to make dramatic TV. And they find 1:18:27.080 --> 1:18:29.200 people and reach out and do that right. And I mean, 1:18:29.200 --> 1:18:32.000 I had lots of you know, producers, but this one 1:18:32.160 --> 1:18:35.120 was different. And they got to Peggy. I don't want 1:18:35.120 --> 1:18:37.760 to say they got to her but they convinced her, 1:18:37.760 --> 1:18:39.160 and I was like, yeah, that sounds good. And then 1:18:39.160 --> 1:18:41.360 they offered up this like it sounded really good to me. 1:18:41.880 --> 1:18:45.400 They said, um, hey, here's what we'll do. We'll get 1:18:45.400 --> 1:18:48.240 a cayraminal investigator, which I had no experience doing that. 1:18:48.320 --> 1:18:50.200 And then by that point, you know, this is like 1:18:50.280 --> 1:18:55.120 a year later, the foul play seemed just as likely 1:18:55.160 --> 1:18:58.200 as anything else. But I also wanted to keep looking 1:18:58.200 --> 1:19:00.559 in the jungle. And they got this p J. You know, 1:19:00.600 --> 1:19:02.719 a pair of jumper, one of those Air Force guys 1:19:02.760 --> 1:19:05.599 that know they can do everything. You know, they're scrawny 1:19:05.600 --> 1:19:09.480 little guys. They can jump out of airplanes and swim 1:19:09.520 --> 1:19:11.880 and you know, they swim underwater if they pass out. 1:19:11.880 --> 1:19:13.320 That's how you know you can be a PJ too. 1:19:13.320 --> 1:19:17.160 You swim underwater to you pass. Professional rescuer, they're professional rescue. Yeah. 1:19:17.160 --> 1:19:19.080 They can shoot guns, they can save lives, they can 1:19:19.120 --> 1:19:20.559 do it all. And I have a bunch of friends. 1:19:20.560 --> 1:19:22.680 They did the Wilderness Classic race and they would win, 1:19:22.800 --> 1:19:26.160 and super cool guys. And I met this guy Ken. 1:19:26.720 --> 1:19:28.639 He'd done a race I put on, an Armed Forces 1:19:28.680 --> 1:19:30.640 Eco Challenge race that I put on, and he had 1:19:30.680 --> 1:19:32.439 been on the winning team like two years in a row, 1:19:32.920 --> 1:19:36.800 and so um, I was like, wow, yeah, he'd be great. 1:19:36.880 --> 1:19:38.559 He and I can go in the jungle and look 1:19:39.120 --> 1:19:42.120 and this you know, retired d E a agent. He 1:19:42.160 --> 1:19:45.400 can do the criminal investigations. He'd spent twenty five years 1:19:45.400 --> 1:19:47.599 in Latin America. You know. He was like ten feet 1:19:47.640 --> 1:19:49.800 tall and bald, with like you know, an a R 1:19:49.880 --> 1:19:52.320 fifteen tattoo down his arm or something like that. I 1:19:52.360 --> 1:19:57.200 don't really remember, but its people open right up. That's yeah, 1:19:57.320 --> 1:20:01.040 you know, and it seemed like the team, you know, 1:20:01.320 --> 1:20:03.920 and uh, and I had done enough with television to 1:20:04.000 --> 1:20:07.800 know that they were really for Nagio. Well you know, 1:20:07.840 --> 1:20:10.280 they were an independent producer and they were trying different 1:20:10.840 --> 1:20:14.880 show different channels, and they ended up selling the show 1:20:15.320 --> 1:20:19.120 or you know, getting financing from Natural. They sold the proposal, 1:20:19.479 --> 1:20:21.320 and they had a couple of different I don't watch TV, 1:20:21.400 --> 1:20:22.880 so I don't really know all of them. But it's 1:20:22.920 --> 1:20:26.080 hilarious that that, you know, like the reputation that National 1:20:26.120 --> 1:20:28.479 Geographic has was sort of like the truth, you know, 1:20:28.600 --> 1:20:32.720 and like the but then the TV is they don't 1:20:32.720 --> 1:20:35.559 know Richard Murdoch is the one who owns it now, 1:20:35.640 --> 1:20:37.880 you know, it's like it's not national. It's not the 1:20:37.960 --> 1:20:41.080 national geographic that Rupert, thank you. It's not the nation 1:20:41.120 --> 1:20:43.800 geographic that your parents grew up with, you know what 1:20:43.840 --> 1:20:45.960 I mean. It's not that they would be happy with 1:20:46.000 --> 1:20:49.000 you if they knew you hunted either. Probably not those guys. 1:20:49.040 --> 1:20:51.880 Those guys are horrible. Well I so, I I you know, 1:20:51.960 --> 1:20:56.120 I was I. I asked these guys on the telephone, 1:20:56.200 --> 1:20:59.640 you know, like, Hey, is this reality TV? Or is 1:20:59.640 --> 1:21:01.639 this the doct coumentary? And and and by the way, 1:21:01.680 --> 1:21:04.880 you know, what's what's the death difference between to you guys, 1:21:04.920 --> 1:21:07.640 you know, not to these producers. I asked, what's the 1:21:07.640 --> 1:21:11.200 difference to you guys between reality TV and a documentary? 1:21:11.200 --> 1:21:13.960 And there's just long pause on this conference call, and 1:21:14.000 --> 1:21:16.000 then I, you know, looking back, I'm kind of like, oh, 1:21:16.080 --> 1:21:19.439 they this was reality all along, you know, And they said, oh, well, 1:21:19.479 --> 1:21:24.599 reality TV is is when it's really overproduced. And um so, anyway, 1:21:24.680 --> 1:21:26.800 that became like my code word. Whenever I thought they 1:21:26.800 --> 1:21:30.880 were doing something to kind of manipulate me or Peggy 1:21:31.040 --> 1:21:34.000 for their show, I'd say, hey, this feels a little overproduced, 1:21:34.040 --> 1:21:36.000 and I would put a stop to it if I could. 1:21:36.240 --> 1:21:38.800 But we went down there, and I thought that the 1:21:38.800 --> 1:21:41.000 television would be able to get permits to get into 1:21:41.000 --> 1:21:43.320 the park because I had been my big bugaboo, my 1:21:43.320 --> 1:21:45.920 big stumbling block was trying to was to get permits 1:21:45.920 --> 1:21:47.400 where I could go into the park to look around. 1:21:47.400 --> 1:21:50.120 I mean I ultimately did even in the first six 1:21:50.200 --> 1:21:51.960 weeks while I was down there. I was able to 1:21:52.000 --> 1:21:55.599 do it thanks to you know, me Treadwell and these 1:21:55.600 --> 1:22:01.080 other guys who new people in Costa Rica and and um. 1:22:01.439 --> 1:22:03.680 But my experience with television shows is they were really 1:22:03.720 --> 1:22:05.960 good at getting permits. They had whole divisions who would 1:22:06.000 --> 1:22:09.160 get permits in parks and things. So I thought, oh, 1:22:09.200 --> 1:22:13.080 this sounds great. We'll have you know, the x d 1:22:13.200 --> 1:22:17.720 E A guy do criminal investigation on the outside, and 1:22:17.760 --> 1:22:19.519 me and Ken will go on the inside and I 1:22:19.520 --> 1:22:22.400 can pick up where I left off, keep searching legally 1:22:22.479 --> 1:22:24.799 and everywhere I want. But it turned out they couldn't 1:22:24.840 --> 1:22:29.120 get permits to go in. So everything became about, you know, 1:22:29.880 --> 1:22:32.800 the criminal investigation, and the only thing the criminal investigation 1:22:32.800 --> 1:22:35.960 could come up with was this Potdalora story. And Potdalora 1:22:36.840 --> 1:22:40.040 spun it even crazier, you know, and you know, with 1:22:40.960 --> 1:22:45.519 more murderers and like cutting up my son and feeding 1:22:45.560 --> 1:22:49.679 him to the sharks and stuff like he's schizophrenic. He 1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:52.160 he was, Yeah, so anyway, it's just you know, and 1:22:52.200 --> 1:22:54.519 they bought that hook line and saying oh yeah, I 1:22:54.520 --> 1:22:58.160 mean the TV people they made little re enactments. Oh 1:22:58.200 --> 1:23:00.479 it was horrible. And then this guy Carson, who was 1:23:00.600 --> 1:23:03.920 this x d E A guy he was mad at 1:23:03.920 --> 1:23:08.160 me and offended that I didn't embrace his ideas. I'm like, 1:23:09.000 --> 1:23:11.400 you know, I remember when I first met him, and 1:23:11.439 --> 1:23:14.439 they fired up the cameras and you know, Carson's like, 1:23:14.479 --> 1:23:16.519 tell me everything you can't You didn't say I can't 1:23:16.640 --> 1:23:20.200 tell me everything you know about your son. I'm like, wow, 1:23:20.280 --> 1:23:22.240 you know, how can I tell you everything I know 1:23:22.280 --> 1:23:25.519 about my son? Like in five minutes on the television camera. 1:23:26.040 --> 1:23:29.040 And so I just told him the same story I've 1:23:29.080 --> 1:23:31.639 been telling for a year, you know, like I knew 1:23:31.680 --> 1:23:34.720 my son. I raised him in the wilderness. He uh 1:23:35.080 --> 1:23:38.080 had been on a six month trip through south through 1:23:38.080 --> 1:23:41.360 Central America. He'd done some really radical, crazy things already. 1:23:41.439 --> 1:23:44.960 He has a lot of experience and uh, and I 1:23:45.120 --> 1:23:46.800 laid it all out and then it was like he 1:23:46.800 --> 1:23:49.519 didn't even hear me, you know, and then anything I 1:23:49.600 --> 1:23:51.800 ever told him. He just dismissed it, and it is 1:23:51.880 --> 1:23:55.320 everything was about his hypothesis, you know. And I'm a scientist, 1:23:55.360 --> 1:23:58.200 and it's just it's hard for me to throw away 1:23:58.320 --> 1:24:01.240 data or to discount things, you know, like I don't. 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:03.479 I'm not allowed to do that. I can't. It doesn't 1:24:03.560 --> 1:24:06.160 work for me to like throw away data to make 1:24:06.240 --> 1:24:08.280 something fit what I want to believe. And that's all 1:24:08.280 --> 1:24:11.760 this guy did, and just story. Everything had to fit 1:24:11.840 --> 1:24:14.080 the story. Oh it was painful. And then he was 1:24:14.120 --> 1:24:17.280 like offended that I wasn't like thankful to him for this. 1:24:17.800 --> 1:24:23.120 You know, it wasn't like watching reenactment of your son 1:24:23.240 --> 1:24:27.320 being dismembered by a machete. Well, I don't know. You can. 1:24:27.439 --> 1:24:29.200 You could probably tell it to me just as well 1:24:29.240 --> 1:24:31.400 as I could say, and it's it's not exactly something 1:24:31.479 --> 1:24:33.160 you want to see, you know. And I just but 1:24:33.200 --> 1:24:35.639 you were told to avoid it. Yeah, he said, don't 1:24:35.680 --> 1:24:37.960 watch it, you know. I mean, but I was in 1:24:37.960 --> 1:24:41.160 a hotel and it was advertised, you know, like what 1:24:41.479 --> 1:24:47.960 was the show called Missing Dial M Missing Dial? Yeah, 1:24:48.360 --> 1:24:50.880 I don't know that, you know what. Yeah, I'm glad 1:24:50.880 --> 1:24:53.200 you just said that, because that's a stupid question when 1:24:53.240 --> 1:24:55.400 I asked you what it was like, Yeah, I mean 1:24:55.439 --> 1:24:59.760 anybody should be like yeah, I just it's just it was, Ah, 1:25:00.080 --> 1:25:03.960 I don't know so anyway, Um, you know, maybe I 1:25:04.040 --> 1:25:06.679 was too hard on the TV, Like my agent seems 1:25:06.720 --> 1:25:08.719 to think I was too hard on the television people 1:25:08.800 --> 1:25:11.200 and in the book, yeah, in the book, and other 1:25:11.280 --> 1:25:13.479 people think I wasn't hard enough. I tried to be 1:25:13.520 --> 1:25:15.559 honest about how I felt. All I did was tell 1:25:15.680 --> 1:25:18.920 all I do in the book how I felt. You know. 1:25:19.000 --> 1:25:21.320 I used to be friends with the writer Chris off It, 1:25:22.160 --> 1:25:24.559 and uh, he wrote a book that was very critical 1:25:24.600 --> 1:25:30.280 of his family, and someone pointed out to him, uh, 1:25:30.560 --> 1:25:32.599 you know how he didn't really do a good job 1:25:32.640 --> 1:25:34.800 telling their side of the story. And he said, we'll 1:25:34.840 --> 1:25:38.400 have them write their own fucking book. Well, they made it, 1:25:39.080 --> 1:25:40.840 That's what I'm saying. They already made their own show. 1:25:40.880 --> 1:25:43.200 They made their own show. He had like, this is 1:25:43.240 --> 1:25:47.080 your turn. Now that's how I feel exactly. That's like 1:25:47.080 --> 1:25:49.960 like they got plenty of you know, people like I 1:25:50.000 --> 1:25:51.720 shouldn't give them an audience. I mean, they got all 1:25:51.720 --> 1:25:54.240 the audience they want. And I was grateful for the help, 1:25:54.240 --> 1:25:55.960 and I was grateful for what they did, and I 1:25:55.960 --> 1:25:58.080 mean they convinced me, and I was ready to believe 1:25:58.160 --> 1:25:59.519 him because I could. I gave up, you know. And 1:25:59.560 --> 1:26:02.800 plus you don't hire a consultant to argue with him, right, 1:26:03.120 --> 1:26:06.599 So I don't know. It was kind of a wild ride, 1:26:06.640 --> 1:26:09.000 you know. Like I I read it because I knew 1:26:09.040 --> 1:26:10.719 I was coming here, so I had to read it again, 1:26:11.200 --> 1:26:13.280 you know. Um, I mean I've read it a lot 1:26:13.320 --> 1:26:15.160 of times. I can I can read it pretty quick, 1:26:15.520 --> 1:26:18.920 and and when I read it sometimes I can't believe 1:26:18.920 --> 1:26:20.640 all that stuff happened, you know what I mean. It's 1:26:20.640 --> 1:26:22.559 sort of like it was a really unexpected turn. I 1:26:22.600 --> 1:26:28.920 was not anticipating. You know. I'm respecting your Um, I'm 1:26:28.960 --> 1:26:34.120 respecting your desire to not just divulge everything because I 1:26:34.160 --> 1:26:37.639 get it, you know, Um, I think people will buy 1:26:37.640 --> 1:26:39.599 your boat. I want people to buy your boat. But 1:26:39.720 --> 1:26:41.600 I'm trying to do this in a in a in 1:26:41.600 --> 1:26:51.800 a way that doesn't have any spoilers. Um. How when 1:26:51.800 --> 1:26:54.080 I read it, I I to be honest with you. 1:26:54.240 --> 1:26:59.880 In the end, I didn't. I don't feel that you're naive. 1:27:00.040 --> 1:27:03.800 You've being naive, But in the end, I wasn't. I'm 1:27:03.840 --> 1:27:11.960 not entirely convinced about the certain I'm not entirely convinced 1:27:12.880 --> 1:27:16.680 what happened to him. Yeah, well I know how convinced 1:27:16.680 --> 1:27:20.160 are you? So you know, it kind of kind of 1:27:20.240 --> 1:27:23.920 goes different ways, you know, Like I'm I don't think 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:27.559 i'd ever you know, that's a really good question. I'm 1:27:27.680 --> 1:27:34.559 I I'm sure sure that he died either from a 1:27:34.600 --> 1:27:37.320 snake bite or a fallen tree, you know, because there 1:27:37.439 --> 1:27:41.280 wasn't any evidence that he was you know, like no, 1:27:41.479 --> 1:27:45.320 nothing was stolen, nothing, there's no you know, he wasn't. 1:27:46.080 --> 1:27:48.160 There's no marks on the bones, you know what I mean. 1:27:48.680 --> 1:27:50.840 And it was just I've seen his bones. I saw 1:27:50.880 --> 1:27:55.120 his bones, So I just I can't see him being murdered, 1:27:55.240 --> 1:27:58.320 you know, like it didn't there there's a chance, you know, 1:27:58.479 --> 1:28:00.640 like aliens could have abducted him, killed him. I mean 1:28:00.680 --> 1:28:04.200 there's that chance, but I'm really the odds of that 1:28:04.240 --> 1:28:07.599 are so so super small, like having been there and 1:28:07.840 --> 1:28:10.880 where it happened, and who would who would have done it? 1:28:10.880 --> 1:28:15.760 I just I can't, like, um, you know, I've been 1:28:15.800 --> 1:28:18.920 around law enforcement enough now, like you know, and it 1:28:19.040 --> 1:28:21.360 sort of sounds cliche, but what would be the motive? 1:28:21.640 --> 1:28:25.439 You know, And it's just that nobody would have any 1:28:25.479 --> 1:28:29.320 motive for doing it. Um, you know, the miners wouldn't 1:28:29.360 --> 1:28:34.400 have any motive for doing it. So I'm pretty you know, like, yeah, 1:28:34.439 --> 1:28:36.960 at least that he died a natural death, you know, 1:28:37.240 --> 1:28:40.080 and that would be natural death. I know that he 1:28:40.160 --> 1:28:44.280 was killed by a tree or a snake bite occupation. 1:28:45.120 --> 1:28:48.479 I don't know. Well, I guess you're not a man. 1:28:48.560 --> 1:28:51.840 Not a man, right, Yeah, that's all I am with. Yeah, 1:28:52.080 --> 1:28:54.880 I think it's maybe it's maybe it's natural to die 1:28:54.920 --> 1:28:57.800 from somebody else, but I would kind of That's kind 1:28:57.800 --> 1:29:00.639 of the dividing line for me. Is an actual death 1:29:00.760 --> 1:29:05.080 is where you die by like accident or nature, you 1:29:05.120 --> 1:29:07.000 know what I mean? Like, I guess accidents kind of 1:29:07.000 --> 1:29:09.760 fall into nature like an act of God. You know, 1:29:09.960 --> 1:29:12.840 an earthquake or even a car wreck could be considered 1:29:13.160 --> 1:29:15.840 unless somebody's drunk and they hit you and then somebody 1:29:15.920 --> 1:29:20.000 killed you. But if you know, if somebody's looking in 1:29:20.040 --> 1:29:22.560 their glove box and you t bone them and I 1:29:22.600 --> 1:29:29.640 don't know, um so um. Outside of the conclusion in 1:29:29.680 --> 1:29:36.760 the book, you just spam how how long trying to 1:29:36.800 --> 1:29:40.800 find find an answer? It was like two years, you mean, 1:29:41.800 --> 1:29:45.080 and then that's all you thought about for two years. Well, 1:29:45.120 --> 1:29:48.400 you know, I did, I did do some other stuff, 1:29:48.560 --> 1:29:50.880 you know, but yeah, it was always on my mind. Yeah, 1:29:50.880 --> 1:29:53.479 I mean it was very It was definitely a relief 1:29:54.000 --> 1:29:56.920 to to kind of get I mean, I'd still be looking, 1:29:57.120 --> 1:29:58.680 you know what I mean, like I don't know when 1:29:58.680 --> 1:30:01.000 I would have stopped, to know when I would have stopped. 1:30:01.240 --> 1:30:04.360 Did you have some loss in in your relief though? Also, 1:30:04.560 --> 1:30:07.320 or you're like, oh, what what the hell do I 1:30:07.320 --> 1:30:14.200 do with my life now? M hm? Well, I definitely 1:30:14.200 --> 1:30:17.639 had a loss. Um, you know, I do I feel 1:30:18.080 --> 1:30:20.800 you know, it sounds not a corny but I do 1:30:20.880 --> 1:30:23.920 I feel broken, you know. Um, I put a lot. 1:30:23.960 --> 1:30:25.360 I mean, it was my son, you know. I mean 1:30:25.400 --> 1:30:27.519 if any of you guys lost your kids, you probably 1:30:27.520 --> 1:30:30.120 feel similarly, you know. I mean it's especially if you 1:30:31.400 --> 1:30:33.880 love your son and put stuff and or your daughter, 1:30:34.000 --> 1:30:37.720 you know, or your wife. But I'm really fortunate, you know. 1:30:37.720 --> 1:30:41.040 I have my wife and my daughter and my friends, 1:30:41.080 --> 1:30:43.680 and you know, I've got work and and it was 1:30:43.720 --> 1:30:45.240 worth it to write the book. I didn't write the 1:30:45.280 --> 1:30:47.559 book to make any money. I didn't write the book. 1:30:48.120 --> 1:30:49.840 I didn't write the book for money, you know. I 1:30:49.880 --> 1:30:51.880 wrote the book because I needed to tell the story. 1:30:51.920 --> 1:30:53.400 I wrote the book for me, and I wrote the 1:30:53.439 --> 1:30:56.040 book for my my family and my friends, so they 1:30:56.080 --> 1:30:59.280 knew what happened, you know. And I wondered about that 1:30:59.320 --> 1:31:01.519 because I used to field that anytime someone wrote a 1:31:01.520 --> 1:31:06.360 book about something damaging, that them having written a book 1:31:06.400 --> 1:31:09.080 about it was evidence that they were no longer damaged, 1:31:09.120 --> 1:31:12.439 because it's hard to write books. Huh. Well, you know 1:31:12.439 --> 1:31:14.400 what I mean. It's like you have to step outside 1:31:14.400 --> 1:31:15.600 of it and look at it. And so I was 1:31:15.640 --> 1:31:19.000 curious before meeting you. I was curious if you were 1:31:19.200 --> 1:31:23.200 um like, to what degree you were a mess, to 1:31:23.280 --> 1:31:26.360 what degree you were damaged by it or came out different, 1:31:27.040 --> 1:31:29.479 and how you came into it, you mean, ended writing 1:31:29.479 --> 1:31:32.200 the book. Yeah, my dad lost you know, beforefore I 1:31:32.240 --> 1:31:34.080 was born. My father lost his son, right, and you 1:31:34.080 --> 1:31:36.840 would you could hang out with him. I imagine there's 1:31:36.880 --> 1:31:38.479 people that knew him for ten years and didn't know 1:31:38.520 --> 1:31:41.880 that that happened. Uh huh. Well, I got stuck, right 1:31:42.000 --> 1:31:44.679 because I ran down there to look from my son. 1:31:44.880 --> 1:31:47.840 I wrote an email. I called people in CoA streak. 1:31:47.880 --> 1:31:51.120 I said, my son's missing, my son's missing. I gotta 1:31:51.160 --> 1:31:53.120 find him you gotta find him, Help me find him, 1:31:53.160 --> 1:31:55.120 you know. And I ran down there and I looked, 1:31:56.120 --> 1:31:57.760 and then people are like, hey, you know, I had 1:31:57.800 --> 1:31:59.800 to tell the story over and over and over, you know, 1:32:00.520 --> 1:32:04.439 and and then it just through a natural progression. It was, 1:32:05.120 --> 1:32:07.200 you know, I'm still looking for him, and I he's 1:32:07.240 --> 1:32:09.679 probably dead, but and people wanted to hear the story. 1:32:09.680 --> 1:32:11.599 And then there was the TV show, so I got 1:32:11.720 --> 1:32:14.839 used to telling the story, you know, like from the beginning. 1:32:14.920 --> 1:32:18.719 It's just it's like, you know, something like a stink 1:32:18.760 --> 1:32:20.639 in a room. You know, in your house, you've got 1:32:20.640 --> 1:32:22.760 a stink, you don't notice it anymore because you've lived 1:32:22.760 --> 1:32:25.479 with it, you know, Or a pain that you have 1:32:25.560 --> 1:32:27.559 to live with you don't hardly notice it. Or a sound, 1:32:27.600 --> 1:32:29.360 you know what I mean. So having to tell the 1:32:29.400 --> 1:32:32.240 story was a natural thing. And when I was down there, 1:32:33.560 --> 1:32:35.719 you know, like I'm an older guy, so my memories 1:32:35.800 --> 1:32:38.000 kind of shaky, so I had to write everything down. 1:32:38.000 --> 1:32:40.639 And I ran down there with the notebook that had, 1:32:40.720 --> 1:32:44.559 you know, like the sketches for the remodel I was 1:32:44.600 --> 1:32:47.559 doing in my house and the shopping list to go 1:32:48.200 --> 1:32:50.280 dip netting. And then I ran down there with that 1:32:50.400 --> 1:32:53.360 notebook and then it was phone numbers the people to 1:32:53.439 --> 1:32:56.479 talk to and notes of what people said, and and 1:32:56.479 --> 1:32:58.920 then that notebook was filled up. And then it was 1:32:59.280 --> 1:33:02.160 stories and I was recording what people you know, that 1:33:02.280 --> 1:33:05.320 what they described, I was transcribing as they told me stories. 1:33:05.360 --> 1:33:07.519 And and then that was sort of I had to 1:33:08.600 --> 1:33:11.960 process what I was thinking, like what happened? Who? Who? How? 1:33:12.200 --> 1:33:14.000 What could have happened? And how did I feel? And 1:33:14.160 --> 1:33:18.360 and then it just you know, turned into three or 1:33:18.400 --> 1:33:21.640 four journals and I was like, wow, this is this 1:33:21.720 --> 1:33:24.200 is kind of a book. People would I want to 1:33:24.640 --> 1:33:26.960 straighten this out so people really know what happened here, 1:33:27.080 --> 1:33:29.400 especially after the TV show, You know, did you make 1:33:29.400 --> 1:33:35.559 any effort um two or was there any effort needed 1:33:35.600 --> 1:33:41.040 to make you know, some of these officials that weren't 1:33:41.040 --> 1:33:44.800 issuing permits or folks trying to really tell you like 1:33:44.960 --> 1:33:47.720 you don't know what you're doing that they knew the 1:33:47.800 --> 1:33:52.200 conclusion once. Once you found it, you would be like, hey, 1:33:52.520 --> 1:33:56.240 not every white dude missing a kid is crazy. Here's 1:33:56.240 --> 1:33:58.920 a good example. Like I was saying, well, like I 1:33:59.000 --> 1:34:01.759 was saying, well, here is he Well, here's what happened 1:34:01.840 --> 1:34:05.719 is um you know, it became big news because everybody 1:34:05.720 --> 1:34:07.920 had already heard about it, and in Costa Rico, when 1:34:07.960 --> 1:34:11.040 they found the body, you know, it was still news. 1:34:11.720 --> 1:34:16.519 So it was kind of clear to everybody what had 1:34:16.600 --> 1:34:19.800 actually happened, in the sense that it didn't really match 1:34:19.920 --> 1:34:22.280 up with with the TV show. People were freaked out 1:34:22.280 --> 1:34:24.800 by the TV show, at least in that area, you know, 1:34:24.840 --> 1:34:27.160 because of the way they portrayed the people who lived. Yeah, 1:34:27.280 --> 1:34:30.920 there's like a handful of murderers walking around him among 1:34:31.040 --> 1:34:34.280 you right, Yeah, with machetes, people up feed them to 1:34:34.360 --> 1:34:37.000 sharks and they're just like hanging out now in town exactly. 1:34:37.120 --> 1:34:39.080 And they were freaked out. And I feel like that's 1:34:39.120 --> 1:34:43.759 part of the reason that, you know, my son's remains 1:34:43.760 --> 1:34:46.200 were found, is because this village was freaked out and 1:34:46.200 --> 1:34:48.720 they sent you know this, really this is really a 1:34:48.800 --> 1:34:51.720 miner in there to really look and I because and 1:34:51.800 --> 1:34:55.639 he did, he found him. So um So anyway, I'm 1:34:55.680 --> 1:34:58.160 kind of like I feel, I don't know, I don't 1:34:58.840 --> 1:35:02.519 you know, I didn't write the book to tell like, oh, 1:35:02.560 --> 1:35:04.200 I told you so you know what I mean. I 1:35:04.240 --> 1:35:06.800 didn't do it for that. I just I don't know. 1:35:06.840 --> 1:35:10.360 I I there's a lot of I mean, I wept 1:35:10.400 --> 1:35:12.080 a lot as I wrote that book. You know, there's 1:35:12.080 --> 1:35:13.920 a lot of harden there. I could never write another 1:35:13.960 --> 1:35:16.360 book like that, you know. I mean, I mean, I 1:35:16.360 --> 1:35:18.400 don't think. I hope I never have to write a 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:20.519 book like I would never do that, I can. I 1:35:20.560 --> 1:35:22.840 think I can only write one book like that, you know. 1:35:23.040 --> 1:35:26.240 And and what what is the books out now? No, 1:35:26.360 --> 1:35:30.680 it'll be out in February, like, um, February is the 1:35:30.720 --> 1:35:34.120 release date. So in the in the process of writing 1:35:34.160 --> 1:35:36.240 the book, you I mean, you obviously were very close 1:35:36.280 --> 1:35:37.680 with your son. I knew a lot about him. But 1:35:37.720 --> 1:35:40.519 did you learn you did some research, you found out 1:35:40.560 --> 1:35:43.439 some things people he meant, did you learn more about 1:35:43.520 --> 1:35:46.000 him or things you didn't know? Oh? For sure? Yeah, 1:35:46.040 --> 1:35:48.200 I mean because you got into his emails. Well I 1:35:48.240 --> 1:35:51.160 got into his emails. Yeah, And I mean his friends 1:35:51.160 --> 1:35:53.320 gave me some of the stuff like from his you know, 1:35:53.360 --> 1:35:56.479 high school days and things like that and college days. 1:35:56.479 --> 1:35:58.559 And I did I learned a lot more about him, 1:35:58.560 --> 1:36:00.360 you know, things maybe that as a parent you really 1:36:00.400 --> 1:36:03.520 don't want to know. Um, but you kind of suspect 1:36:04.160 --> 1:36:07.200 and uh. And he's a normal kid, you know, and 1:36:07.400 --> 1:36:12.080 uh and I think too um to like take his 1:36:12.200 --> 1:36:15.400 emails and turn them into that second section. So there's 1:36:15.439 --> 1:36:18.080 three parts to the book. There's sort of raising him, 1:36:18.080 --> 1:36:19.960 and then there's his trip, and then there's looking for 1:36:20.040 --> 1:36:25.360 him and on his trip through Mexico and Central America. Um, 1:36:25.400 --> 1:36:27.720 you know, to really pick apart his emails and then 1:36:27.800 --> 1:36:30.400 rewrite them, you know what I mean? That was. I 1:36:30.479 --> 1:36:35.680 was like, wow, you know, and I kind of, um, 1:36:35.720 --> 1:36:37.880 you know, i'd read them before as emails, but I 1:36:37.880 --> 1:36:41.120 didn't really. I don't know when when something when you 1:36:41.160 --> 1:36:44.240 take something and it goes through your eyes and into 1:36:44.280 --> 1:36:47.040 your head and comes out your fingers, you process it 1:36:47.080 --> 1:36:49.920 a lot more thoroughly. And I wish I'd had a 1:36:50.000 --> 1:36:59.080 chance to tell him, you know. Yeah, I I just 1:36:59.120 --> 1:37:03.519 realized we're saying the book a lot. The name of 1:37:03.560 --> 1:37:12.280 the book, The Adventurer's Son by Roman dial Um available. Well, 1:37:12.640 --> 1:37:14.040 I don't know when we're gonna release this, but we'll 1:37:14.080 --> 1:37:20.840 make it. Go get the book and uh yeah, thank you, 1:37:20.880 --> 1:37:22.920 thank you, I think they will, and thank you for 1:37:22.960 --> 1:37:26.200 writing it. I mean, you know, you hear the there's 1:37:26.360 --> 1:37:29.519 we just even laugh about it where you guys hear 1:37:29.600 --> 1:37:32.560 books described as like brave. I said, know, what the 1:37:32.600 --> 1:37:36.559 hell does that mean? But um, it's a brave book, 1:37:36.600 --> 1:37:44.120 and that aks like retelling of things that are extraordinarily painful. Ah, 1:37:44.280 --> 1:37:48.439 And to to to go in and excruciating detail and 1:37:48.640 --> 1:37:52.200 to get to a part of a book where someone's 1:37:52.200 --> 1:37:53.960 calling up a trail and you see that they have 1:37:54.040 --> 1:38:00.160 a plastic sack with your boy's bones. Um, it's the 1:38:00.200 --> 1:38:04.719 heart wrenching The Adventures Son by Roman Dial and uh, Roman, 1:38:04.720 --> 1:38:06.960 thank you very much for coming on the show. Thanks 1:38:07.000 --> 1:38:09.800 for having me. It's a pleasure to meet you. Appreciate it.