Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. You're listening to park Landia.
Speaker 1: We packed up are loft in Chicago Botton r V
Speaker 1: and now we're traveling the country full time with our dogs,
Speaker 1: been exploring America's National Park. On today's episode, we're gonna
Speaker 1: share with you about who we are and where we
Speaker 1: came from. Today we're doing a little bonus episode to
Speaker 1: tell you more about us and our background and who
Speaker 1: we are as as people recording this in our r
Speaker 1: V right now. Yes, this special episode is recorded in
Speaker 1: this very beautiful r V. Yes we have this, but
Speaker 1: we turned the little dining table into a Makeshifts studio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know what, we'll throw up a photo of
Speaker 1: that just so you can see kind of how we
Speaker 1: record on the road, because it's kind of fun to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're still getting used to it. We're gonna first start
Speaker 1: off with Matt, and where did you grow up then,
Speaker 1: so to give a little background or a lot of
Speaker 1: background condensed into a few minutes. Um, I grew up
Speaker 1: in southern New Hampshire in a town called Candya, which
Speaker 1: is a few minutes outside of Manchester, the state's biggest city.
Speaker 1: But I'm still I'm not sure if most people are
Speaker 1: aware that don't even exists. It's about an hour north
Speaker 1: of Boston, so very like a peaceful, semi rural area
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire. And I grew up with brother and sister.
Speaker 1: I was the oldest, right, I'm the oldest, and we
Speaker 1: had a lovely childhood um playing soccer in the local
Speaker 1: sports league where my brother and I were always in
Speaker 1: the same team, and we're always like the star athletes
Speaker 1: of the soccer team were always very very good. And
Speaker 1: can we just note real quick, I'm sorry I have
Speaker 1: to throw this in there, but you might be the oldest,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you treated like the youngest where like your
Speaker 1: sister and good, yeah, here's the youngest and then you
Speaker 1: do Yeah that was I'm sorry, I have to bring
Speaker 1: up embarrassing moments as well. That was the thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely happened. So I am got back out of
Speaker 1: the star, right, let's get back on track with my
Speaker 1: soccer stardom. So yeah, I remember like that was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite memories was the local soccer league. And
Speaker 1: this guy who lived on the street from us was
Speaker 1: our coach for years and we're on the team with
Speaker 1: his son and I feel like he always still preferred
Speaker 1: Brian and I had to be like the starting soccer
Speaker 1: players because we were really good. Yeah, so that was
Speaker 1: really great. And then also all of us were really
Speaker 1: into the outdoors. Nothing too hardcore intense. We wouldn't We
Speaker 1: weren't into like intense hiking or like backcountry stuff or anything.
Speaker 1: But when I say outdoors, I mean like we would
Speaker 1: explore the woods around our house because there's lots of those,
Speaker 1: and all year around, whether it was winter and we're
Speaker 1: like build forts or go sledding straight into the woods
Speaker 1: like perilously, or in the summer especially just venturing off
Speaker 1: into the hills and the woods and along the brooks.
Speaker 1: And then that was that was so wonderful. And there
Speaker 1: was like three My favorite thing there was. There was
Speaker 1: three hills in the in the woods. Um and my
Speaker 1: brother and my sister and I all kind of claimed
Speaker 1: one and named one. And Brian's quote unquote mountain was
Speaker 1: slide mountain, which kind of is a misnomer because you
Speaker 1: can't slide off. It's like a sheer rock face, so
Speaker 1: you just plummet if you go off of it. And
Speaker 1: Emily's my sister, she had this kind of like tree
Speaker 1: saturated mountain thing, and she called it Queen Mountain, which
Speaker 1: is you know, fine, and then right, yeah, okay, and
Speaker 1: then mine was on the other side of hers, and
Speaker 1: early signs of narcissism here, I called mine mountain me
Speaker 1: and that's just that's probably something to I could spend
Speaker 1: a whole episode evaluating that from my psychological perspective. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was like our domain, and we would do
Speaker 1: all sorts of games here as we became teenagers, were
Speaker 1: paintball back here with cousins and my uncle and yeah,
Speaker 1: just all kinds of adventure. And in addition to that
Speaker 1: kind of adventure where we would do lots of family
Speaker 1: vacations and trips, and a lot of that was at
Speaker 1: the time like stuff I wasn't super interested in. I
Speaker 1: was just boring Brady kid, and I'm sure like my
Speaker 1: brother and sister were the same. And especially during summer vacations,
Speaker 1: we just wanted to like hang out in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: and probably go to the mall, which is so stupid,
Speaker 1: but we would do all these adventurous travels, like one
Speaker 1: time we took a train a sleeper car from Boston
Speaker 1: to Seattle and that took a few days probably, and
Speaker 1: what an epic adventure that was, and that's something I
Speaker 1: would love to do today, but at the time I
Speaker 1: was just like whiny and like over it. And another
Speaker 1: trip which was I think very formative and had long
Speaker 1: lasting like memories even at the time that I didn't
Speaker 1: realize it was. We flew to Las Vegas and then
Speaker 1: rented a r V and drove around to like place
Speaker 1: like the Grand Canyon and Zion and I think Bryce
Speaker 1: as well, and that was not only like an amazing
Speaker 1: and fun thing to do as a family and an RV,
Speaker 1: but like I think that was the first and only
Speaker 1: time that we've visited national parks as the family. So fortuitous. Again, yeah,
Speaker 1: very fortuitous. So I basically did what we're doing now,
Speaker 1: but as a kid, and for like a week and
Speaker 1: for like a week, yeah not like where are you're in?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's crazy. It's just crazy. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a snippet of like my upbringing. And then for
Speaker 1: college I moved. That's when I moved to Chicago after
Speaker 1: horrible high school. Um just you know, high school sucks,
Speaker 1: but I wanted she get away and do my own
Speaker 1: thing and kind of start completely fresh. So I moved
Speaker 1: to Chicago to go to culinary school at Robin Morris
Speaker 1: University and had a wonderful time. That was a blast,
Speaker 1: even though I didn't I don't cook professionally now or
Speaker 1: really ever, but you learned all the techniques. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I got into food writing. I kind of stumbled into
Speaker 1: and start of writing for the college newspaper, and that
Speaker 1: was a wonderful experience and again very fortuitous, and I
Speaker 1: just discovered like, oh, I like food writing more than
Speaker 1: I like cooking. So I just applied what I learned
Speaker 1: in a different direction. And all these years later after
Speaker 1: culinary school, have basically completely forgotten every skill I've learned
Speaker 1: because I don't cook really at all anymore, so those
Speaker 1: lessons are are long gone. But I have the great memories,
Speaker 1: and it's what helped me established myself in Chicago as
Speaker 1: a writer, and then did that for years and years,
Speaker 1: and then transitioned into more travel writing and then after
Speaker 1: that into more like nature national park writing and all that,
Speaker 1: and that started this path that ultimately let us here.
Speaker 1: And I met you in Chicago obviously, yes, yeah, while
Speaker 1: I was living in Ukrainian village. Remember driving up that
Speaker 1: first date and you were in front of our loft. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had Huck and Finn your I know, so I
Speaker 1: had had them both for a few years at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you drove in from your You're living in the
Speaker 1: suburbs at the time, and you drove in, parked your
Speaker 1: car and you saw I was just like outside taking
Speaker 1: them for a little walk. So that's when I first
Speaker 1: fell in love with you. Yeah, and that's but that
Speaker 1: that lefted its hold still to this day some of
Speaker 1: our most special members because it's where we literally met. Um.
Speaker 1: It was the first property we bought together. You know,
Speaker 1: we rented it for years and then we bought it.
Speaker 1: Very meaningful and and yeah, I know it. Uh. I
Speaker 1: really missed that loft, all of it, the neighborhood, the building.
Speaker 1: It was just a really wonderful place to be and
Speaker 1: spend a few years and invest in two and then
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, home is where mad is though. So
Speaker 1: well park Landia would turned soon after this short break,
Speaker 1: and then we will talk more about my life and
Speaker 1: growing up. I am Matt and I'm Brad. This is
Speaker 1: park Landia. So now we're gonna learn more about Brad
Speaker 1: and his upbringing and where he came from. I didn't
Speaker 1: wanted to say hello, hey, Finn, Hi, yeah, come here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So I'm saying that's built in Detroit, driven
Speaker 1: in Chicago or around the US nowadays. But um, I
Speaker 1: actually have to tell you I didn't grow up in Detroit.
Speaker 1: I grew up a mile north of Detroit and East Point,
Speaker 1: which used to be named East Detroit. Um. And for years,
Speaker 1: my high school is East detrit High School, and just
Speaker 1: recently they rebranded it to East Point, which is the
Speaker 1: actual city's name, because they finally decided to catch up
Speaker 1: with the times. I remember there's times like we were
Speaker 1: at we're at games, are like, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 1: guys have weapons because you're from Detroit. You're just Detroit.
Speaker 1: I'm like, jeez, oki, But it's kind of funny. But honestly,
Speaker 1: my my childhood, we uh grew up on the on
Speaker 1: Steven's Dry I've been the smallest house on our block
Speaker 1: and I loved it. Um, there's so many great memories
Speaker 1: there that I had. And um, you know, we had
Speaker 1: a huge backyard and that's the most important piece because
Speaker 1: in this backyard my dad had built a fort a
Speaker 1: play for it, and it was it wasn't anything too crazy,
Speaker 1: but it was just like a little room, four walls
Speaker 1: and a tented roof. I was able to climb on
Speaker 1: the roof, which led me jumping off onto it, into
Speaker 1: a trampoline, into a pool, you know, all those kind
Speaker 1: of fun things. But and then at one year, I
Speaker 1: think he made an extension where he put a a
Speaker 1: tire swing in and I remember like spinning in that
Speaker 1: tire swing, but it was too close to the support
Speaker 1: beam and the actual play for it, and I smashed
Speaker 1: my head right into the side of it because I
Speaker 1: got pushed too hard in these circles because you're on
Speaker 1: a tire swing, so you have to go to the
Speaker 1: max because that's just life. But um, and it was great.
Speaker 1: You know. There's just so many childhood memories in that backyard,
Speaker 1: but one of my favorite is in the back corner
Speaker 1: there was two poles that were like splits where like
Speaker 1: kids could get in between and it would lead into
Speaker 1: our dead end street and the house right behind usum
Speaker 1: belonged to my childhood best friends Christina and Leah, and
Speaker 1: they to me, they were like the little house on
Speaker 1: the Prairie style of family, and I personally was like
Speaker 1: the bad boy. My nickname was Badly Bradley. So um.
Speaker 1: But it was a really like romantic childhood in that
Speaker 1: aspect of like adventure. And while our family didn't go
Speaker 1: on a lot of trips, I'll tell you that I
Speaker 1: explored every corner of East Point, all the houses and everything.
Speaker 1: I was in mayor's houses like with their kids, and
Speaker 1: and uh I was also in the not so best
Speaker 1: neighborhoods with other kids. And but it was one of
Speaker 1: those things that it it uh it allowed me to
Speaker 1: start understanding people. And then I remember on that dead
Speaker 1: end street there was Nancy and Santy. They had a
Speaker 1: tomato garden in their backyard and there was like all
Speaker 1: different kinds of tomatoes and they would like grow them.
Speaker 1: So it was like actually like my first like lessons
Speaker 1: in gardening, and um, we would just get those tomatoes,
Speaker 1: cut them up and then put salt over them and
Speaker 1: just see them. And that would be like the midnight
Speaker 1: they stacked versus a um, you know bag of chips
Speaker 1: or something like that. And uh yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: was times where I ran away from home and like
Speaker 1: they would know I was at their house because I
Speaker 1: would just look in their fridge and like take their food,
Speaker 1: and Nancy would call my mom be like, hey, your
Speaker 1: son's over here, some worries. I'm gonna feed them. Yeah, Man,
Speaker 1: memories your childhood sounds like t Killa mocking Bird or something.
Speaker 1: It really is, like it was a magical childhood. And
Speaker 1: then of course there's like dramatic changes. You know, when
Speaker 1: I turned thirteen. You know, I come from a split family.
Speaker 1: You know, my mom and dad got divorced. My dad left,
Speaker 1: um I did his thing, but my mom in that
Speaker 1: same year and my sister went into the army, and
Speaker 1: my mom worked her rear off two support me and
Speaker 1: to be there for me as much as she could
Speaker 1: while she was going throwing things. And we have come
Speaker 1: up on a mutual agreement that we grew up together
Speaker 1: and that was so important to me because she she's
Speaker 1: helped me build my character. And uh, we also have
Speaker 1: another joke where it's you know, she might not have
Speaker 1: been able to pay for college because I also went
Speaker 1: into the Marines, but she definitely paid for the School
Speaker 1: of hard knocks because every time I fell, she had
Speaker 1: taken me back up and you know, take care of
Speaker 1: me beautiful. Also in thirteen, you Knowle and Christina moved
Speaker 1: to Fraser, Michigan, and UM, you know, so I kind
Speaker 1: of lost my support system, but that was no one's fault.
Speaker 1: We were growing up and so, UM, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that, uh, I had to I had to
Speaker 1: grow up quick and learn how to take care of myself. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I got my first job at sixteen at
Speaker 1: a hardware store, joined the Marines at seventeen with my
Speaker 1: parent signatures on the dodge lines. I did four years
Speaker 1: in the Marines, and UH, when I got out, I
Speaker 1: really got into activism because I served during Don't Ask,
Speaker 1: Don't Tell, and I was out it, so it really
Speaker 1: wasn't something that I wanted to happened to other people.
Speaker 1: So when I moved to Illinois, before meeting matt Um,
Speaker 1: I was going through UM like counseling and also working
Speaker 1: the activism route for marriage equality in Illinois. And during
Speaker 1: that time it was a really interesting time because I
Speaker 1: would be the president of our college at Page Pride
Speaker 1: Alliance and Sociology Club, and I would work with the
Speaker 1: students that were younger than myself. I would tell them
Speaker 1: who I am, my story, and we would work to
Speaker 1: get better systems in place at the college and in
Speaker 1: the state level, and it was just a really amazing
Speaker 1: and interesting time because by the end of the marriage
Speaker 1: equality route, I mean knocking on seven thousand doors talking
Speaker 1: to representatives. We ended up winning by two votes, but
Speaker 1: I was exhausted with marriage. I'm like, I'm never getting married,
Speaker 1: ever getting married. And uh, all of a sudden, one
Speaker 1: of my friends told me to download the app Tinder,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, I don't want to. I don't
Speaker 1: want to date, don't want to do do anything. He goes,
Speaker 1: just do it, and so I said, okay. So I
Speaker 1: swiped right on this really handsome gentleman in a banana sweatshirt.
Speaker 1: I mean it has bananas everywhere. And if you go
Speaker 1: to Matts, I'm saying, you'll see that picture and while
Speaker 1: cut out of that picture and um and that's Matt
Speaker 1: Kersey dot com. Yeah. So it's actually kind of fun though,
Speaker 1: because uh so we connected and you know, the rest
Speaker 1: is uh sweet history, as they would say, um and
Speaker 1: through Matt, I actually decided to go to Robert Morris,
Speaker 1: which I was part of the Eye Center and Live
Speaker 1: Broadcasting scholarships there, and I had a really great time
Speaker 1: learning about how to be technically savvy with no equipment
Speaker 1: from recording to like broadcasting too audio and it actually
Speaker 1: kind of helped me set up for this. Now, enough
Speaker 1: about each of us, but together, we don't have a
Speaker 1: let's say, story about like engagement Like. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was cute, it was fun, but I think our real
Speaker 1: story was when we were shot thing for engagement rings.
Speaker 1: So it was late fall, probably November, and we were
Speaker 1: downtown Chicago. I don't know what we're doing. We were
Speaker 1: just going out for the night or something. And while
Speaker 1: we're downtown, at some point you're like, I think you
Speaker 1: suggested like we should look for engagement rings. So I
Speaker 1: was like sure. And then instead of going into some
Speaker 1: specific store because we had nothing in mind specifically or
Speaker 1: I didn't, um, you came up with this idea, this
Speaker 1: game or something called fate. Yeah, you came up with
Speaker 1: this idea called fate, and you suggested, like we kind
Speaker 1: of walk, just walk around downtown Chicago, and then at
Speaker 1: each crosswalk, if it was the walking symbol, you would
Speaker 1: cross it. If there was a flashing like saying like
Speaker 1: stuff or something, you turn right or whatever. And then
Speaker 1: if it's completely opps then you turn left and you'd
Speaker 1: look to see if the other Man's walking man was there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so basically, you never move backwards. You can only move
Speaker 1: forward because I'm really cheesy, So if you haven't figured
Speaker 1: that out yet, I love being cheesy, and you know
Speaker 1: it's you can never move backwards. Yeah. Anyways, so we
Speaker 1: were doing that and letting that dictate our direction, and
Speaker 1: I was getting worried because like it seems like it
Speaker 1: was taking us towards Navy Pier and I'm like no, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's crazy because we're like we were right next
Speaker 1: to Jeweler's row. I'm like, that's easy. But there's at
Speaker 1: one point where we walked around the building like two
Speaker 1: or three times, like it was like so silly. And
Speaker 1: that's when I think you were like starting to like
Speaker 1: boil over. Well I was just like, yeah, I'm getting
Speaker 1: probably called and like hungry, I'm sure, and we wind
Speaker 1: up on Michigan Avenue at Sacks fifth Avenue. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, but it happened. Was like we were I
Speaker 1: saw the walking symbol and I'm like, we need to run.
Speaker 1: So we started to run because I knew that there
Speaker 1: was and I just knew that we had to run,
Speaker 1: and so we we dashed to make sure that we
Speaker 1: made that walking man symbol. And then we get there. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we get there and then we go in and
Speaker 1: go up to the men's department start looking at the
Speaker 1: rings and they have a good selection, and then we
Speaker 1: both see this ring that has black diamonds on it,
Speaker 1: and we sell it together because we were looking by
Speaker 1: ourselves and nothing. And then we get together and we
Speaker 1: start looking in. The first ring that we see is
Speaker 1: this ring with black which is I mean, just beautiful
Speaker 1: in and of itself as a ring. But like I
Speaker 1: thought it was extra fortuitous because the first song I
Speaker 1: ever played for Brad back when we first met was
Speaker 1: this song called black Diamond by air A y e R.
Speaker 1: And it's just a beautiful, lovely, upbeat romantic song black.
Speaker 1: You know about black diamonds being like this rare gem
Speaker 1: and finding it and yes, and I usually expressed that
Speaker 1: with music. I guess let someone else be cheesy for me,
Speaker 1: but um so it was really special and exciting. I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, what are the chances that this is
Speaker 1: even here at all, this black diamond ring? And I
Speaker 1: just loved it. And it's also just like different, not
Speaker 1: your usual diamond and gorgeous, So Brad like kind of
Speaker 1: half sneak, like I tried to be sneaky. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I knew what you're doing, so I
Speaker 1: like can pretended to go continue and look around while
Speaker 1: you bought it. Sometimes I think I'm so slick. I'm
Speaker 1: not so. Yeah, So that's how that happened. And then
Speaker 1: it was probably a few weeks after that that you
Speaker 1: actually proposed with that ring. Yeah, and I had that
Speaker 1: matching ring without black diamond. Yeah, because I'm not extra
Speaker 1: I mean what I mean, I don't deny it. We
Speaker 1: are so thankful for all of you who listened to
Speaker 1: Parklandia the podcast, and we just wanted to introduce ourselves
Speaker 1: and a little bit about our lives and who we are,
Speaker 1: how we met, and you know, to give you some background.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned because we're going to have more special episodes.
Speaker 1: We're going to have more lots more fun stuff, fun
Speaker 1: fun things. We're gonna introduce more RV topics, more reviews
Speaker 1: about different products within the RV industry, and things in
Speaker 1: the future seasons and you know there's gonna be many
Speaker 1: surprises ahead. And keep on listening and enjoying this travel together. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we love any ideas and feedback you guys have.
Speaker 1: You've been sending some great ideas, so continue to do
Speaker 1: so on our Parklandia Rangers group on Facebook. We're also
Speaker 1: on Instagram at parkla India Pod and Twitter at Parkley
Speaker 1: India Pods, so we're pretty easy to find and reach,
Speaker 1: so please continue to do so. We we love it.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Parklandia Podcast, a show about
Speaker 1: national parks by I Heart Radio, created by Matt Krouac,
Speaker 1: Brad Carouac, and Christopher Hassiotas, produced and edited by Mike
Speaker 1: John's executive produced by Christopher Hasiotas. Special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Speaker 1: Crystal Waters and the rest of the Parklandia crew and
Speaker 1: Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a
Speaker 1: review on Apple podcast. It helps other people like you
Speaker 1: find our show. You can keep up with us on
Speaker 1: social media. Check out photos from our travels on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Parklandia Pod, and join in the conversation in our
Speaker 1: Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. Thank you so much for listening.