WEBVTT - Selects: The First Road Trip 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.200 Hey guys, it's me Josh, and for this week's select, 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.360 I've chosen our episode on the very First road Trip 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:11.240 across America from back in twenty twenty three. The episode 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:13.640 was from twenty twenty three. The first road Trip took 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.120 place way before that, and it's one of those wonderful 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.680 stories where nothing goes horribly wrong, the people don't turn 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.919 out to be horrible people. It's just a great story 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.759 about a couple of guys and a dog taking a 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.639 road trip across America at a time when it was 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.920 highly unlikely that they were gonna make it all the way. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:40.720 I'm glad to present you with this one. Enjoy. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:48.840 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.040 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.240 Chuck in. It's just the two of us, but we're 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:59.120 gonna make it just fine. We're gonna make it if 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.400 you try. As a like to say, sometimes when it's 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.319 just the two of us and this stuff, you. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:08.720 Should I'm excited about this episode because this is a really, 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:15.319 really great story that doesn't have like I kept waiting 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.280 for something either bad to happen or someone to be 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.560 exposed as awful and it's just a really fun, feel 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:23.120 good story. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.240 I would go so far as to call it a 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:25.880 hum dinger. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:27.400 It's a hum dinger. 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.040 And we got to give a huge credit to Ed 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.560 who helped us with this, and also because he helped Ed, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.520 who helped us ken Burns. Ken Burns has a great 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.760 documentary about this topic, which is the first cross country 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:48.520 automobile road trip. It's called Horatios Drive. It's wonderful story 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.640 and you can find it on PBS. Hopefully if you're 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.880 a streamer, you pay for and subscribe to the PBS 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.120 app because it's a very worthwhile and great channel to 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:02.760 subscribe to. Narrated by the great Keith David, one of 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:04.400 the great great voices. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.600 Just amazing and such a great actor too, great everything 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.760 from They Live to Men at Work to There's Something 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.480 about Mary. Yeah, he was in Platoon too. He's like 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:15.880 just such a great actor. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:16.720 Love that guy. 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:22.360 And because our protagonist in this story, who will introduce 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.800 you to in a second, is such an affable, seemingly 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.760 really good guy, they got none other than Tom Hanks 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.600 to recreate his voice for his diary letters and stuff 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:32.919 like that. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.720 We should also give a hat tip to Dayton Duncan, 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.359 who's interviewed extensively in that documentary because he wrote a 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.560 book on the drive. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.799 I would argue the book, yeah, and. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:51.120 Let's call it that the book on Horatio Nelson Jackson, Right. 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:53.880 Yeah, that's his name, great name. 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.440 So we're going to talk a lot more about him later, 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.639 but we really kind of want to like lay the groundwork, 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.400 bring the con text, as flavor flav would put it, 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.880 and just kind of give you an idea of what 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.800 the times were like when Horatio Nelson Jackson decided to 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.639 become the first person to travel cross country in a car. 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.959 Right, So nineteen oh three, nine to one one was 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.440 a joke. I like that one. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.519 That's okay, all right, just a medium okay on that one. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.800 I'll take it. Nineteen oh three is when this happened. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.920 But to put this in context, like you said, the 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:37.160 first trans continental railroad was built and completed or not 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.440 built but completed in eighteen sixty nine, and it was 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.440 eighteen seventy six when you got your first cross country 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:50.800 train trip that happened. So this was what like twenty 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:55.000 five is years roughly after that, and people were still 0:03:55.080 --> 0:04:00.400 kind of only traveling by train because cars were pretty knew, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.800 and they were only for richies because I believe in 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.440 the documentary they said, like the cheapest car you could 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.440 get would cost more than the average American made in 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.080 a year. So in the early nineteen hundreds, it was 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.240 rich people who wanted to buy a super expensive, unique 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.039 toy that and will hammer this home a lot, but 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:23.280 they didn't even know was. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.160 Gonna end up being a real thing. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.839 Yeah, it could have turned out like the segue totally right. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.840 I mean this is kind of a kin to somebody 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:37.640 taking a treck across America on a segue back in 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:39.119 like nineteen ninety five. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.680 Yeah, they did not know car Like a lot of 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.880 people thought, these cars will never amount to anything. You're silly, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.320 It'll always be trains and horses. 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.359 Right, So to kind of get across why people thought 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:54.679 it was just going to be nothing but trains and horses, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.760 Like that's how the American infrastructure was built. Like, if 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.320 you went any any kind of lengthy distance, you took 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.840 a train. If you were moving around locally, you took 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.000 a horse, maybe a horse and a buggy or a 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.760 horse and carriage or something like that kind of drive. 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.400 I'm sure if you wanted to be super wild west 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.559 about it. But there were At the time, say around 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.159 nineteen hundred, the United States had two point three million 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:25.799 miles of roads, pretty impressive. One hundred and fifty miles 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.440 were paved, and all of those were within big cities. Right, 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:35.440 So the vast, vast, vast majority of roads in the 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:41.240 United States were rough, rutted, dusty, or muddy or somehow 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.520 both at the same time, roads that you would not 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.440 want to walk over really, let alone ride a car over. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:50.320 Yeah, they were in bad shape. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.120 Generally, about fourteen million horses in the United States to 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.200 about eight thousand cars. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.000 And like you said, people traveled low. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.800 I think the average was, like people generally didn't go 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.760 more than twelve miles from their house. And that even 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.640 feels like the high end. I don't think that's an average. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.640 I think people probably didn't go within a few miles 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:13.159 of their house. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.159 Yeah, I mean today, unless I'm traveling. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.680 Right at the time, there were and you still take 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.120 trains for long distance travel sometimes I try to. At 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.040 the time, also, like you, you didn't really steer away 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.120 from home because it took you so long to go 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.760 anywhere on horse, right, I think at the time it 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.839 was still a two day journey basically from New York 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.800 to Philadelphia by horse. So this is like a this 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.200 is a this is a big deal for somebody to 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.360 be like, no, I'm going to try this. The other 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.920 thing was the roads themselves weren't mapped. Yeah, I mean 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.200 east of the Mississippi. There were maps and guide books 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.280 that you could get pretty good directions from. 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:55.920 Right, and it's it's funny. 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.960 In the documentary they kind of show what that part 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.360 directions were like, and one of those like turn right 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.839 at the old Stone horse Trough. Yeah, like those were 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.920 the kind of directions and because that's what a local 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.120 would tell you to do, so somebody had the bright 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.760 idea to print those and put them down in a 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.240 book form and transmit that information that way. And it's 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.640 still held up because there were no road names, there 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.760 were no route numbers, there was nothing like that, because 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.280 there was no reason for anything like that to exist. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.760 Yeah, And funny enough, that's how I prefer directions now 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:36.160 because I'm very directionally challenged and famously so. And I 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.960 also never know the names of roads, so I always 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.600 ask people like, tell me, you know, go to that 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:44.480 diner that you know and take a left and then 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.280 go to that car wash and veer right. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:48.880 Then. That's how I prefer to get directions. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.600 I I tend to zone out when people give me 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.200 directions me too, that I've asked for, and you can 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:58.920 just kind of see it on their faces. They can 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.720 tell I'm going to get lost because it's just not sinking. 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.560 In well, all the fun of that it's gone now 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.280 because you just punch it into your app or whatever. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.320 But totally, I'm basically talking about pre GPS stuff. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.280 I remember, I remember, remember that. I am also smart 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:15.280 enough to really appreciate ways though too. 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.560 You know, do you remember the fun of a road 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:23.560 trip of opening that Rand McNally atlas and saying like, 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.360 I think we can go this way to get to 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.560 this town, or it looks like this other road we 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.720 can go around. That was like and I'm not like, oh, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.600 things were so much better when it was harder, but 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.440 it was a really had a fun, sort of magical 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.240 adventuresome quality to it. 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.560 I think, Yeah, I spent five weeks in a van 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.120 driving around the Western United States doing that same thing. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.720 It was very cool and like the amount of freedom 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.440 is really hard to get across of like, yeah, not 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.000 having anywhere you had to be at any particular time 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.040 and saying like, oh, that that landmark sounds pretty cool. 0:08:58.120 --> 0:08:59.920 I'm going to go see that. It's pretty neat. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.760 You know what words you don't hear anymore is let's 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.520 go here instead. It's true, everything seems so locked down, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.720 you know, it's like, I don't know, people don't say, 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.480 oh no, let's just let's decide to go to this 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:14.839 town instead of this town. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.199 I feel like we've entered the disgruntled aged old men 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.679 or stuff, because it seems like we do this almost 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:24.559 every episode. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.560 Dude, Yeah, maybe we're gonna have to pay. 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.320 More attention to that, or else we're gonna lose all 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.760 the youngsters and just attract all the old stirs and 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:31.320 who cares. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:33.880 Well, Hey, youngster, I encourage you to set out on 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.240 a road trip with a map and and enjoy it. 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.840 Okay, wait to save it. I don't think I saved anything. 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.200 So I think we've. 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.200 Gotten across that it would be really hard to drive 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.760 a car, right, Yeah, across the United States at the time. 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:50.080 Yeah, hard to drive a car. 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.640 But because cars were becoming a little more popular, they 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.480 were trying to get a more positive publicity going for 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:00.480 their cars and their companies, and so they said, hey, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.079 what a great way to do this then, like kind 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.240 of sponsor a cross country car truck trip that'll get 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.400 a lot of press. And so they tried this with 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.400 John and Louise Davis from the how do you pronounce that? 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:19.040 Cardia? It sounds like something you contract that you'd be 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:20.280 really unhappy. 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:21.600 About, Okay, thedia. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:23.719 I couldn't quite tell, but yeah, it does sound like 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.040 a disease of some sort. 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:26.839 Do you r yea? 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.960 Yeah, the Derea car company gave them a national or 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:32.400 I'm sorry, they weren't a car company. 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.000 That was the car. The company was the National Motor 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:36.000 Carriage Company. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.040 Yeah, known today as the NMCC. 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.280 Really, I'm just kidding that. I thought you were going 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:43.640 to say as Portia. 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.040 No, I would like to think that, but no, I 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:46.640 don't think so. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.559 No, I don't think so either. So they sponsored this couple. 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.520 This was an eighteen ninety nine. It did not work out. 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.960 They very famously got beaten to They started from New 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.679 York and they got beaten to Syracuse by a one 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.719 armed bicyclist who gave them a ten day head start. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.320 So press it went opposite of how they wanted to. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:09.000 That was sort of they lost track or lost interest 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.080 very early on in this sort of doomed thing. And 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.360 I don't think they even know if they succeeded in 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.640 getting the San Francisco. Well, I think they know they didn't, 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.560 but they basically didn't really cover the story after that. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.080 No, they drop off the map after about Chicago. 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:34.520 They dropped off the GPS apporry. 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.240 So no, it's just could it just took me a 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.240 second to for it to sink in. 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:36.679 I thought that was pretty good. I'm trying to get 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:37.840 our younger listeners back. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.959 So well, we should make a TikTok of all this then, okay, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:42.840 know what people do? 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:49.080 Sure for now US government? So it was wonderful, Yeah, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:50.200 thank you. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.839 So it was established though, even though the Davises didn't 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.000 make it that like, this is actually a really good 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.040 way to to to promote a car brand is to 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.720 be the first to make it across the country. Then 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.240 everyone will know that's a good car, because it's just 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.439 so ridiculous to even think a car could do that. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:09.840 So a couple of years after the Davises, I guess 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.520 nineteen oh one, a car maker named Alexander Winton who 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:20.400 had a Winton car company, handmade cars, beautiful cars. He 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.800 tried it himself, I believe, with this publicist. Very smartly. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.199 He and his publicist hit the road. The acid hit 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.960 them around Barstow. I think, well, that showed up and 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.760 they ended up getting trapped in a dune in Nevada. 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.160 Yeah, but you bring up a thing that might be overlooked. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.840 Is they very smartly started from west to east because 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.920 as we mentioned, the west was untamed land and bad, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:50.960 bad bad roads if there weren't he at all. So 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.840 getting that hard part over first when the car was 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.120 brand spanking new was really really smart. But what they 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:01.120 didn't count on was an and we'll see what Jackson 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.439 learned was driving through the desert in an old car 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.040 like that is not good. Sand is not good for 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.360 getting stuck, or it's great for getting stuck, it's not 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:13.840 good for making good time. Sand is not good for 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.280 getting in carburetors and in oil and gas. And you know, 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.480 these engines weren't these big closed systems like they are today. 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:22.600 So sand no good. 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.400 But Winton got this press right like he It helped, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.560 I think, still publicize his car company regardless, and again 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.680 the fact that no one had done this, but people 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.120 were starting to try it. It kept being a thing. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.840 It was going to be a thing until somebody did it. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.600 And so a couple of years after Wynton tried, a 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.480 guy named Horatio Nelson Jackson, who's the star of our story, 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.840 was hanging out at the University Club of San Francisco, 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.720 and apparently a couple of fellow club members were saying 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.719 that cars were basically useless and that they would never 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.680 really go anywhere, and there's no reason for anybody to 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.800 have Jackson, by this time had really developed a real 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.440 love of cars, had started collecting them even and I 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.320 guess to defend cars honor, he slapped down a fifty 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.400 dollars wager that he could make it across the United 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.680 States from San Francisco to New York in less than 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.440 ninety days. Ninety days or less, I'm sorry. 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.040 And that was. 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.160 About fifteen hundred dollars that he threw down on the 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.800 table right then, and the people took it. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:28.360 They accepted as wager. 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.000 And four days later he set out for New York 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:33.040 from San Francisco. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.160 It is madness to think about that he did this 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:39.440 with that little planning. 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:41.920 He didn't have a car to do it. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:43.520 I mean he had cars, but not one to go 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:48.040 across country at the time. Just quickly about Jackson. He 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.760 was a doctor who got tuberculosis and quit his practice 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:55.640 kind of at the same time that he married a 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.120 very wealthy woman named Bertha Richardson Wells, very wealthy New 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:01.800 England family from Vermont. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.360 She her family made their money in Celery compounds. 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.960 I know, it was like a tonic yeah, basically, so 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.520 he as ed put did rich guy things, capital R, 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:17.440 capital G. And his wife was super supportive, like everyone 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.560 was on board. She was like, that's awesome. I'll take 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:22.880 a train to Burlington. I'll meet you over there. Honey, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.440 you have my blessing. And it seems like they had 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.880 a really like judging from the letters that of course 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.480 it was voiced by Tom Hanks too, so you're endeared immediately. 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.400 But judging from the letters, it seems like they were 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:39.640 just a great couple, a very loving family. He called 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.040 her Swipes, and no one knows why that nickname was there, 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.400 but he you know, he signed it as Nelson and 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.520 you're yours forever Nelson and my dearest Swipes, and it 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.480 was really really sort of a beautiful story of this couple, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.920 and he knew he had to get a guy to 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.400 go with him, and so he picked a great traveling partner. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.880 He was a small engine mechanic and a factory named 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.600 Sewell Crocker, who was about ten years younger. 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.640 He's twenty two years old. I think we was. Horatio 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:10.240 was like two. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.120 Okay, So this guy could fix cars, he knew cars, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.840 and apparently like they really liked each other and were 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:19.680 which was a big deal. You know, you've been on 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.840 road trips and regular cars. Yeah, and that's a key factor. 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.200 But especially back then with all the troubles they were 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:26.720 going to have, he had to have someone that you 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:27.560 could get along with. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:29.920 That's a big one for sure. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.040 So he asked Crocker, hey man, what car should we 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.560 get for this? And Crocker said, well, you have basically 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.400 limitless funds, get the best by yourself, a nineteen oh 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.360 three Winton touring car. And Ed points something out that 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.560 I think is very astute. The reason why, probably Sewell 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.840 Crocker said get a Winton was because Winton had already 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.840 shown that they were making really good cars enough so 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.600 that they were willing to try to make it across 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.640 country in one of them. So that's exactly what Jackson 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.840 did did. He's the kind of guy you call him 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:03.840 by his first name because it's got a great first name, 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.840 and he's Tom Hanks, like appable. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:06.080 Right. 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:11.240 Yeah, So so Horatio bought himself a Winton touring car 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.119 nineteen oh three. Apparently he paid essentially one hundred thousand 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:15.840 dollars for. 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:17.240 It, and it was used. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.040 Yeah, it was used, but it was the only one available. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.920 So he just paid whatever the person wanted for it. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.240 And so I think in nineteen oh three dollars he 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.560 paid three thousand dollars. But he named it the Vermont 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.480 because that's where he and his wife Bertha lived. But 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.720 a little bit about this car there was it was 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.640 an It was open in every sense of the word. 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:45.720 It was like if you took a tub and put 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.240 wheels on it and then had a steering wheel sticking 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:49.640 out of it. 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:50.800 That was the car. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.320 There was no windshield, there was no roof, there was 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:57.199 no back windshield, there were no doors, there was no nothing. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:02.680 It was like a giant riding lawnmower with like wagon wheels. 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.840 Well it's funny that you bring up riding lawnmowers, Chuck, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:10.800 because the two cylinder chain drive engine had twenty horse power, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.000 and my friend a John Deere X three hundred series 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.719 riding mower has twenty two horse power. 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.080 That's funny, that's really funny. This thing topped out at 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:22.960 thirty miles per hour. I don't think that John Deere 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.400 does that, but that's probably just because it's cutting grass 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:26.040 at the same time. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:31.600 But imagine imagine traveling the country on riding lawnmower. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.119 Basically that's about what they were doing. 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.480 But yes, you're right, thirty miles an hour is substantially more. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.880 That's what it could do. Max. Yeah, no way did 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:43.440 they average thirty miles. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.920 An hour, not even close. It was someone it was 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.960 red a really good looking car. You'll only see black 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.119 and whites. But someone on Reddit, that's the picture I 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.600 sent you did a very fun colorized picture of Horatio 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.720 and Crocker and a a third party to be named 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.760 later and colorized it and it just it looks awesome. 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:07.840 And this car is so cool looking. 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:09.960 Yeah, I don't mean to detract from it. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:11.400 It was a cool looking car. 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:16.280 As far as comfort goes, it was not at all comfortable. No, 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:18.840 I say, we take a break and then set out 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:20.080 on the road trip with these guys. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:20:00.800 Huh oh, let's do it. 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:46.800 All right. 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.640 So, as we will see, there were other car manufacturers 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.040 planning to do the same thing at the time, and 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.360 a couple of them ended up. You know, it ended 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.720 up sort of being a race against like a corporation 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.640 versus human even though he was driving. You know, it's 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:06.800 not like a car he built himself. It was a Winton, 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.480 but he was doing it himself with this other guy. 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.320 He wasn't for fun, he wasn't sponsored. It was about 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.520 the spirit of adventure. All these as we'll see, all 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.960 these other companies sent like supplies ahead and the like. 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.480 They had teams of mechanics. He didn't have anything to prove. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:28.240 He put this together in four days, including buying the car, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.399 And that's just I really want to get across. The 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:36.560 spirit of this whole thing was just this optimist who 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:38.240 was like, let me see if I can do this 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:38.920 crazy thing. 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:40.000 Yeah. 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:45.119 So two months after Horatio and Sewell set out on 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.480 their trip, Packard sent a team out and like you said, 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.600 they were very well outfitted. They had a mechanic on board. 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:56.200 There was gasoline for them at every stop. Because gasoline 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.560 was there were no gas stations, and definitely there were 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.960 no gas stations out west. You would go to the 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.320 general store and be like, I'd like a can of 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.120 your most dangerous volatile liquid, please, and they would hand 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.280 you some gasoline in a can and you buy a 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.639 few of them to drive around with. It was incredibly dangerous, 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.720 but that's how you didn't run out of gas. Packard 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.679 had the advantage of like every town or every x 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.040 number of miles, there was gasoline waiting for them. So 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.640 they essentially had gas stations that were reserved exclusively for them. 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.040 Horatio and Sewell did not have anything remotely like that, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.800 and so they got into all sorts of fun little adventures, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.840 like the time that Sewel Crocker had to bike dozens 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.120 of miles on a borrowed bicycle to go to and 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.720 fro to fill up their gas can and bring it 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:45.560 back and then fill it up again and then bring 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.320 it back. And that might have been there right exactly, 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.040 And it's fun now in retrospect us talking about it 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.520 here in twenty twenty three in the studio. I'm sure 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.880 it was not a great day for Sewel Crocker. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.000 No, I don't think they were drawing straws, though, you 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.880 know what I mean. The rich thirty one year old 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.879 that had TV is definitely saying, all right, hit the 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:06.520 road on the bike. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.639 Yeah, my friend, were equals in almost every way, but 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.080 hit the trail on the bike, right, all right. 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.880 So Packard did so two months later, like you said, 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.719 and Oldsmobile did the same thing a month after that, 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.840 I believe, much the same operation, you know, fully sponsored 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:27.400 and like rigged up and everything. So they tore out 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.399 the back seat on this Winton. I don't think we 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.280 mentioned this thing could go two hundred and fifty miles 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:38.199 with their tank of fuel, which was way more than 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.879 I thought. Yeah, for sure, I was super impressed. So 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:43.840 they ripped out the back seat, which doesn't look like 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.560 it was much of one anyway, and packed you know, 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:52.280 a cooking kit, tons of rope. Something that would probably 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.879 be the most valuable thing in the whole car was 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:57.119 a pulley system, a block and tackle. 0:22:57.359 --> 0:22:58.159 Yeah, for sure. 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.719 They had a codec camera, They had sleeping bags, they 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:03.520 had a shovel and axe. They had a bunch of 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.240 guns and ammunition because they might be hunting for food 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:09.640 out in the middle of nowhere or just maybe want 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.560 to murder someone, yeah, or just. 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:16.240 Like shooting out of an untopped car is probably pretty 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:17.560 fun when no one's around. 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:18.160 That is fun. 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.840 So yeah, the problem is is like they weren't experts 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.240 at tying down their gear, and they would get to 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.359 like a stop probably basically every day and find that 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:31.360 something they needed had dropped. 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.320 Off and bounced out at some point. 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.280 Like back on their trail, and that they had gone 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.680 too far to go back to try to find it. 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.600 It's really they lost like cooking utensils. Horatio lost multiple 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:47.000 pairs of his eyeglasses. It's just crazy to me that 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.119 they weren't like put a tarp on it and wrap 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:51.280 the tarp up and then put rope on the tarp. 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:52.600 You know who knows. 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:55.919 But they did lose a lot of stuff, and luckily, 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:57.840 like you said, they didn't lose that block and tackle. 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:02.600 It would really come into play multiple times. But they 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.880 made a really good decision early on number one. They 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:11.119 followed I can't remember it for some mister won Alexander 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:14.960 Winton's example and started out west. So what they would 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:17.359 be doing is getting the hardest part of the trip 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:21.160 out of the way first. While the car had very 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:22.840 few miles on it, right. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.800 Yeah, which was a nice little copy. 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.760 But then they made a really really great decision, and 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:32.800 I think the decision that frankly made them a success 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:35.880 in the end. Did I just spoil it? I guess 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:37.600 we talked about what a great story was. It wouldn't 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:39.160 be great if they conked out in Michigan. 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:39.800 True. 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:44.879 True, But they decided to go at hundreds of miles 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:48.600 to their trip by not just taking a right and 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:52.560 going across the country, but going north up through Oregon 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:57.000 to avoid that Nevada desert, and that, my friend, even 0:24:57.040 --> 0:24:59.879 though there was some treacherous mountains that they had to 0:24:59.880 --> 0:25:03.800 go through, avoiding that desert I think is what ultimately 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:04.919 made them successful. 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:08.800 Yeah, I mean, hundreds of miles added to the trip, 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:13.240 But it was incredibly smart because again Winton had bottomed 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:16.120 out in that sand. That sand wasn't going anywhere at 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:18.399 the very least. There were wagon trails and stuff up 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:22.320 in Oregon, and they were able to kind of make 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:25.480 their way along these the railroad tracks that were there. 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:28.800 So there were railroad right of ways, which is the 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:32.560 land cleared on either side of a railroad track, and 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:34.560 they would drive on those or if they had to 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:38.280 drive on the railway themselves, and they would they would 0:25:38.400 --> 0:25:41.880 ride on railroad bridges in a car that could go 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:46.159 thirty miles per hour max. Yeah, and hoped God that 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:48.399 there wasn't a train that was going to come. And 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:50.400 I was like, man, I'm so glad I watched stand 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:51.480 By Me a couple of days ago. 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:53.800 Chris about to bring that up. You watched it. 0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:56.280 It's such a great part of that movie. And I 0:25:56.320 --> 0:26:00.560 was telling you, like, that was a masterpiece. Is Rob 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:03.520 b Reiner's masterpiece, And he's made some pretty great movies, 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:07.280 but it is exponentially better than I even remembered as 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:07.960 a kid. 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:10.080 I'll throw a spinal tap in there. But I know, 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:11.679 have you still not seen that? 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:12.880 That's what I'm saying. No, it's great. 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:15.320 That's a great movie. I think when Harry met Sally's 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:17.680 a great movie. Like there's tons of great movies Rob 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:20.399 Briiner's made, but I think stand By Me might be 0:26:20.600 --> 0:26:21.000 the best. 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:22.200 Yeah, it's a great movie. 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:25.119 I love that scene when they put their hands on 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:27.760 the rail, Yeah, and it just gets real quiet and 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:30.640 they're listening. They're like, do you feel any vibration at all? 0:26:30.800 --> 0:26:32.440 And that's probably what these guys were doing. 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:35.359 I'm sure, but they were doing it bumping along in 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:38.920 their open car. Yeah, also shout out. I don't know 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:40.960 Phil Wheaton still listens to us. I know he used to, 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:43.920 but man, all of those kids. 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:45.520 Did a great, great job. 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:49.480 But he really did a magnificent job acting in that movie. 0:26:49.560 --> 0:26:51.920 So way to go Wheaton, totally listening. 0:26:52.080 --> 0:26:52.960 Great movie. I love it. 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:55.600 I'm gonna watch it too now. Talking about it in Vegas, 0:26:55.640 --> 0:26:57.200 it made me nostalgic for it for sure. 0:26:57.560 --> 0:26:58.040 All right. 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:02.560 All right, so we are at leave time, which was 0:27:02.600 --> 0:27:04.040 May twenty third, nineteen oh three. 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:05.600 It was a Saturday. 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:10.399 Apparently it was a hot spring in California, and it 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:14.440 rained that afternoon and they took off from San Francisco 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:16.960 and very quickly blew a tire out. 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:19.320 It was like Romeo Michelle. 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:24.360 Yeah, totally. And the chronicle in San Francisco wasn't even 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:28.080 covering it. Basically, the San Francisco Examiner had a very 0:27:28.080 --> 0:27:31.040 short little piece about it, about a horseless carriage going 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:34.080 from sea to sea. But it would build, as you 0:27:34.119 --> 0:27:37.560 will see, with the press as things went along. But 0:27:37.600 --> 0:27:40.520 it wasn't well covered at first, and the tire thing, 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:43.719 it was an issue I mean the car tires at 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:47.040 the time would routinely blow out. They had a hard 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:50.720 time on the trip finding new tubes. They would stock 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:53.240 up on used tubes whenever they went to a town 0:27:53.680 --> 0:27:55.679 it seemed like that had any kind of tubes, they 0:27:55.680 --> 0:27:59.359 would just buy them, right and Yeah, and it was 0:27:59.840 --> 0:28:02.479 a tires were an issue that woud seemed like one 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:03.280 of the main issues. 0:28:03.680 --> 0:28:04.520 Yeah, for sure. 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:07.840 Yeah, because I mean you can imagine there's not people 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:10.800 selling car tires because there were so few cars, and 0:28:10.840 --> 0:28:13.960 out west they kept encountering people who had never seen 0:28:14.160 --> 0:28:14.600 a car. 0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:15.320 Yeah. 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:19.120 I saw mention of that Packard team that was riding. 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:22.200 I think Tom Fetch was the Packard guy who was 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:26.280 driving the car, and they pulled into one town that 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:29.240 where a murder had just been committed and so few 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:31.720 people had seen a car in that town that everybody 0:28:31.880 --> 0:28:34.760 left the fresh murder scene, including the sheriff, to come 0:28:34.800 --> 0:28:36.800 look at the car that had just rolled into town. 0:28:37.119 --> 0:28:39.240 Like that was like what it was like out west 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:41.040 at the time. So of course you weren't gonna find 0:28:41.040 --> 0:28:43.840 car tires easily. You had to improvise any way you could. 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:46.400 Sure, and a murdered body out there back then was 0:28:46.640 --> 0:28:49.280 a dime, a dozen, dime a dozen. Ye's not going anywhere, 0:28:49.920 --> 0:28:51.520 that's right, it's gonna check out that new car. 0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:53.760 Yeah, it's not going anywhere. 0:28:54.240 --> 0:28:59.600 So they're going east. They're going through some treacherous terrain, 0:28:59.840 --> 0:29:03.720 go to the Cascade Mountains. It's fun in the documentary 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:07.000 to hear the diary or letters home to his wife 0:29:07.560 --> 0:29:09.959 where he was talking about, you know, the roads that 0:29:10.040 --> 0:29:13.400 are basically big enough for one car because I can't 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:16.480 remember exactly I said it, but like because nature has 0:29:16.520 --> 0:29:19.680 made it that way, basically like it's a cliff side 0:29:19.720 --> 0:29:22.680 on the side of a mountain. So luckily, you know, 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:25.240 they're having to share the road with stage coaches and 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:27.920 horses and stuff like that, not really any other cars probably, 0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:31.160 but they would it was what you would think. They 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:35.760 were constantly getting stuck, constantly blowing tires. They I think 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:39.400 the record was eighteen times in a day they had 0:29:39.400 --> 0:29:41.800 to use that block and tackle to pull themselves out 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:44.440 of a ditch or a river or a mud hole. 0:29:44.880 --> 0:29:47.560 That must have been the suckiest day ever. Yeah, and 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:49.520 then the maps were an issue too, right. 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:52.600 Yeah, they would have to rely on locals for directions. 0:29:53.000 --> 0:29:54.760 Some when they could find locals a lot of times 0:29:54.760 --> 0:29:58.480 they just had to guess I saw again the Packard team. 0:29:58.560 --> 0:30:00.320 Sorry to keep bringing them up. I know or not 0:30:00.400 --> 0:30:03.080 what the story's about, but they learned to avoid the 0:30:03.200 --> 0:30:05.800 nicest roads because out west that usually meant that it 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:10.880 just dead ended in some rich person's house, and when 0:30:10.920 --> 0:30:15.320 you could find locals, they would sometimes just literally misguide you. 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:17.840 There was one that Horatio and Sewell ran across a 0:30:17.880 --> 0:30:20.400 woman on horseback who told them to get to the 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:22.360 next time they should go down this road, and it 0:30:22.440 --> 0:30:24.360 dead ended in her family's farm. 0:30:24.480 --> 0:30:25.360 It was her driveway. 0:30:25.440 --> 0:30:29.280 Basically, they came back the way they went and ran 0:30:29.320 --> 0:30:31.080 across her again. They're like, why did you do that? 0:30:31.120 --> 0:30:34.080 And she's like, oh, my dad and mom and husband 0:30:34.120 --> 0:30:35.840 would have wanted to see a car. They've never seen 0:30:35.880 --> 0:30:39.120 a car before, so she purposefully sent them the wrong 0:30:39.160 --> 0:30:41.600 way down a dead end, miles down a dead end 0:30:41.680 --> 0:30:44.640 apparently too. And I did not hear that they had 0:30:44.640 --> 0:30:47.280 gotten angry with her or cross even. I think they 0:30:47.360 --> 0:30:49.920 probably just said like, good day to you, madam and 0:30:50.000 --> 0:30:50.400 kept on. 0:30:50.720 --> 0:30:52.840 They should have said, you don't know this yet, but 0:30:52.920 --> 0:30:55.560 one day giving directions will be very important, and this 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:56.520 will not be cool. 0:30:57.040 --> 0:31:00.680 This is not going to reflect good on your family. Manson, 0:31:04.800 --> 0:31:05.160 you like. 0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:09.400 That, Tina. I just loved Tina. It was so not 0:31:09.440 --> 0:31:12.320 a name back then, Tina Manson, I love it. 0:31:12.440 --> 0:31:13.040 Great choice. 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:16.440 The breaks were kind of what you would imagine. They 0:31:16.440 --> 0:31:19.720 weren't great, So it was quite thrilling when they would 0:31:19.720 --> 0:31:22.280 get on these downhill runs and there wasn't a lot 0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:25.760 you could do about it. The clutch went out a lot. 0:31:25.920 --> 0:31:28.680 I mean, you know, we talked about our various van 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:30.800 journeys out west. We were in a Volkswagen Van for 0:31:30.920 --> 0:31:35.560 mine and the mountains killed it. Like we had to 0:31:35.560 --> 0:31:40.000 to get a rental jeep Cherokee in Nevada for the 0:31:40.000 --> 0:31:42.520 whole second half of the trip because going through the 0:31:42.560 --> 0:31:47.280 mountains literally killed his. And it wasn't like a brand 0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:49.360 new VW van. It wasn't one of the old ones, 0:31:49.360 --> 0:31:52.160 but it was like the Vanigan. But like it drove 0:31:52.200 --> 0:31:55.000 us from Atlanta to the mountains just fine, and the 0:31:55.000 --> 0:31:58.280 mountains killed it. So imagine what the mountains did to 0:31:58.320 --> 0:32:01.800 the clutch system on this lawnmower. 0:32:01.840 --> 0:32:05.560 Basically, yeah, I have to admit, until today I did 0:32:05.600 --> 0:32:08.200 not know what a clutch did. I knew that the 0:32:08.240 --> 0:32:10.720 clutch was the thing you push into shift gears. Never 0:32:10.800 --> 0:32:14.080 understood why the reason why you push in is because 0:32:14.080 --> 0:32:17.200 you actually want to stop the clutch from working temporarily. 0:32:17.440 --> 0:32:17.720 Yeah. 0:32:17.760 --> 0:32:21.560 What the clutch does is it transmits the motor power 0:32:21.680 --> 0:32:25.320 or the motor's torque to the transmission, which in turn 0:32:25.880 --> 0:32:30.600 turns the axle to the tires the wheels. Right, that's 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:33.200 my understanding of it. And when you're pressing in the clutch, 0:32:33.400 --> 0:32:37.000 what you're really doing is keeping that transfer from taking 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:39.640 place so that you can go into another gear and 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:43.240 then you let the clutch out and that transfer begins again. So, yes, 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:48.480 the clutch is an extremely important instrument. The car does 0:32:48.480 --> 0:32:51.480 not go without it. And apparently Suel Crocker had to 0:32:51.520 --> 0:32:54.160 fix that thing almost as many times as they used 0:32:54.160 --> 0:32:56.280 the block and tackle to pull themselves out of mud. 0:32:56.560 --> 0:32:59.240 Well he was worth his weight, oh boy, yeah he was. 0:33:00.000 --> 0:33:04.120 He did have one modification they made on the way there, 0:33:04.160 --> 0:33:07.200 as they added a headlamp and a ceedlean headlamp so 0:33:07.200 --> 0:33:09.560 they could drive at night because they want to make 0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:11.440 up time, you know, because there were times when they 0:33:12.960 --> 0:33:15.440 had to go to a town and wait for I 0:33:15.480 --> 0:33:17.560 think one of them was like three or four days 0:33:18.000 --> 0:33:21.720 where they're waiting ironically for a stage coach to show 0:33:21.800 --> 0:33:24.600 up with parts that they had ordered. There were times 0:33:24.640 --> 0:33:27.520 when a stage coach or a guy on a horse 0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:29.320 would pull them out ironically. 0:33:29.360 --> 0:33:29.640 Again. 0:33:30.080 --> 0:33:33.440 Yeah, and I didn't get the impression that Horatio was 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:35.760 trying to prove that horses were obsolete. 0:33:35.920 --> 0:33:37.000 No, I don't think so at all. 0:33:37.040 --> 0:33:39.080 I think he still saw it as pretty ironic that 0:33:39.120 --> 0:33:41.680 he still relied on horses in this horseless carriage. 0:33:41.840 --> 0:33:42.040 Yeah. 0:33:42.040 --> 0:33:45.280 I don't think he threw shade even when blacksmiths would 0:33:45.560 --> 0:33:49.440 make repairs. They pointed out in the documentary that I 0:33:49.440 --> 0:33:51.280 think it was in one of his letters he said 0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:53.000 it like the irony wasn't lost on him. But I 0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:55.360 don't think he was like, you're not going to have 0:33:55.400 --> 0:33:57.120 a job in a few years, sucker. 0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:02.680 Right right, that's what segue makers said to people on foot. 0:34:03.040 --> 0:34:05.120 Didn't the adventure of this segue drive off a cliff 0:34:05.120 --> 0:34:05.720 on a segway. 0:34:06.520 --> 0:34:09.680 Oh that sounds like an urban legend, but maybe one 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:11.720 that's just crazy enough to be true. 0:34:11.960 --> 0:34:14.719 I'll have to look that up. Should we take a break, Yes, well, 0:34:15.000 --> 0:34:16.920 we'll take a break and look that up. All right, 0:34:16.960 --> 0:34:19.319 we'll be back here with the truth, right, after this. 0:34:44.160 --> 0:34:48.160 Okay, we're back and chuck it's true bbc D He 0:34:48.200 --> 0:34:48.759 really says it. 0:34:49.040 --> 0:34:49.440 Yeah. 0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:53.080 Wow, Jimmy Hezelden was sixty two when he rode off 0:34:53.120 --> 0:34:56.279 a cliff on his company's segues. 0:34:56.640 --> 0:35:00.959 They killed him obviously, Yes, in West Yorkshire. That's sad. 0:35:01.400 --> 0:35:05.320 Yeah, making it My god, that's quite a legend. 0:35:05.640 --> 0:35:06.000 It is. 0:35:06.320 --> 0:35:08.080 It's like Fabio getting hit in the face with a 0:35:08.160 --> 0:35:09.120 duck on a roller coaster. 0:35:09.800 --> 0:35:12.239 What no, you know that. 0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:18.400 No, Fabio on a roller coaster. A duck flew across 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:20.399 his path and hit him in the face. 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:23.680 And killed him. No, no, no, oh okay. 0:35:23.239 --> 0:35:25.640 But it's uh, it's one of these pictures on the 0:35:25.680 --> 0:35:28.200 Internet where you're like, oh, that's got to be fake, 0:35:28.920 --> 0:35:32.960 and it's and it really happened, poor Fabio. I know, 0:35:33.080 --> 0:35:35.000 I feel bad for the guy, but it was also like, 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:39.040 of all the people to get for this to happen 0:35:39.080 --> 0:35:41.120 to it was just it was pretty rich. 0:35:41.560 --> 0:35:43.879 Yeah, I can imagine, what way is he a jerk? 0:35:44.560 --> 0:35:45.360 No? No, no, is he? 0:35:45.440 --> 0:35:47.920 Okay, but he's Fabio And like you know, that kind 0:35:47.920 --> 0:35:49.200 of stuff doesn't happen to Fabio. 0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:52.560 It's not happened to me for sure, and me too, 0:35:52.800 --> 0:35:55.360 totally with you on that. Did you look up that picture? 0:35:55.600 --> 0:35:59.280 I'm watching the video right now. I can't not chuck. 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:02.520 We will have an episode someday where we just tell 0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:05.279 each other internet memes and the other one will look 0:36:05.320 --> 0:36:09.080 it up and then react on Mike, and that's how 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:09.440 we'll do it. 0:36:09.520 --> 0:36:12.560 All Ye, stuff you shouldn't couldn't care less about will 0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:13.439 be the name of that new. 0:36:13.440 --> 0:36:16.600 Stuff you really probably shouldn't bother listening to. All right, 0:36:16.680 --> 0:36:18.160 so let's pick up with the trip. 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:21.759 It sounds like we're painting an ed I'm glad he 0:36:21.800 --> 0:36:24.120 pointed this out. It sounds like we're painting a picture 0:36:24.160 --> 0:36:27.040 of an awful time. Because of all of the delays 0:36:27.080 --> 0:36:29.160 and all of the things that happened. They knew what 0:36:29.200 --> 0:36:30.640 they were in for with this. They didn't think it 0:36:30.680 --> 0:36:33.520 was going to be a pleasure cruise. It was also 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:35.960 a great fun adventure. Like these guys are having a 0:36:36.000 --> 0:36:39.080 great time. They were seeing things that few people had 0:36:39.120 --> 0:36:42.480 ever even seen in person before, even by horse at times. 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:46.319 And they had no schedule. I mean, they were trying 0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:49.120 to beat this ninety day thing. But like I get 0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:51.560 the feeling he really just wanted to finish the trip, 0:36:51.640 --> 0:36:54.480 so you know he had money. They were staying in hotels, 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:56.880 they were staying with people along the way who opened 0:36:56.880 --> 0:36:57.719 their homes to them. 0:36:58.320 --> 0:36:59.560 They were driving about two. 0:36:59.360 --> 0:37:02.839 Hours at a time time, and it seemed like they 0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:04.600 were having fun at the same time. 0:37:05.040 --> 0:37:07.520 I have that same impression too, for sure. And plus, 0:37:07.560 --> 0:37:10.319 don't forget Sewell Crocker was making some pretty good money too. 0:37:10.560 --> 0:37:12.879 Yeah, I didn't find that. What was he getting paid. 0:37:13.760 --> 0:37:14.800 I didn't see either. 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:18.000 But we can go ahead and say at the end 0:37:18.040 --> 0:37:22.160 they tallied up how much Horatio Jackson spent on the trip, 0:37:22.880 --> 0:37:24.600 and this included Crocker's pay. 0:37:25.200 --> 0:37:26.080 It was about eight. 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:28.160 Grand back in nineteen oh three, which is a two 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:30.000 hundred and sixty seven grand today. 0:37:30.880 --> 0:37:33.400 So much funny. So if you think about it. 0:37:33.440 --> 0:37:39.040 Hotels, food, supplies, gas, car parts, repairs, that still leaves 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:41.480 a pretty decent amount for Sewell Crocker, and I hope 0:37:41.480 --> 0:37:42.560 he got a big chunk of that. 0:37:43.080 --> 0:37:44.680 I hope so too, Chuck. 0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:47.960 I cannot, for the love of life find the stupid 0:37:48.040 --> 0:37:50.840 picture of Fabio getting hit in the face. I found 0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:53.920 some ABC report and it just shows him going into 0:37:54.600 --> 0:37:57.920 the roller coaster station after the ride, just faces all 0:37:57.960 --> 0:38:00.640 bloody and he looks really upset, but nothing about the 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:01.920 actual hit. 0:38:02.239 --> 0:38:06.440 You know, I wonder if what I saw was a 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:08.960 faked recreation of that, and there is only a before 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:09.719 and after. 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:14.600 That would make sense that it looked photoshopped, then I'm sorry. 0:38:14.640 --> 0:38:16.400 I just had to had to circle back. 0:38:16.239 --> 0:38:18.520 On that because my disappointment was palpable. 0:38:18.960 --> 0:38:21.719 Oh boy, So they're making their way out west or 0:38:21.760 --> 0:38:25.840 i'm sorry, back east. And it's funny they say, back east, 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:28.480 out west, up north, down south. 0:38:29.200 --> 0:38:31.760 So they're back. They're heading back east. 0:38:32.040 --> 0:38:36.320 Uh. And they come to Idaho. M When I mentioned 0:38:36.360 --> 0:38:40.680 a third party in that photograph, we were holding out 0:38:40.760 --> 0:38:43.520 for this big surprise and Caldwell, Idaho. They left without 0:38:43.600 --> 0:38:46.400 Jackson's code, turned back to go get it, and this 0:38:46.440 --> 0:38:50.400 guy said, here, I have this pit bull named Bud 0:38:51.600 --> 0:38:54.480 and he wants to go with you and be your mascot. 0:38:54.920 --> 0:38:57.279 And they said, hop a board, Bud, And all of 0:38:57.320 --> 0:39:00.239 a sudden, they have this beautiful white pit bull in 0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:01.319 between the two of them. 0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:05.080 Yeah, he's routinely described as a bulldog, but he's pretty 0:39:05.080 --> 0:39:06.040 clearly a pit bull. 0:39:05.920 --> 0:39:09.440 For he's a pity and he's beautiful, and like, if 0:39:09.440 --> 0:39:12.120 this story couldn't get any better, now you have a 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:13.319 pit bull in between you. 0:39:13.480 --> 0:39:14.600 And they made him. 0:39:14.480 --> 0:39:18.920 Doggles to protect his little eyes, and there's a wonderful 0:39:18.960 --> 0:39:20.239 photo of it in the documentary. 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.319 Yeah, so they were, you know, like you said, they 0:39:23.320 --> 0:39:25.439 were getting pressed as they went from town to town, 0:39:25.480 --> 0:39:27.279 and they were like, oh my god, a car. There's 0:39:27.320 --> 0:39:30.080 people actually trying to use it to cross the United 0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:33.759 States in that car. When Bud joined it, people just 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:38.440 went berserk over this whole thing, in part because he 0:39:38.520 --> 0:39:41.360 was wearing these goggles, but also he very quickly learned 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:43.680 how to ride in the car. He look ahead, he 0:39:43.800 --> 0:39:46.440 loved it to look for ruts or bumps or whatever, 0:39:46.520 --> 0:39:49.120 and would like brace himself like. He just took to 0:39:49.160 --> 0:39:52.839 it very easily and became like this great mascot. So 0:39:53.400 --> 0:39:56.840 everybody started to really find out about this when Bud joined. 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:59.680 And I don't get the impression that sewel or Horatio 0:39:59.719 --> 0:40:01.040 with least bit jealous. 0:40:01.360 --> 0:40:04.560 No, he paid him fifteen dollars, which is five hundred 0:40:04.600 --> 0:40:08.320 dollars today for this dog. And Crocker said, hey, adopt, 0:40:08.320 --> 0:40:11.440 don't shop And Jackson said what does that mean, right, 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:14.359 and he said, no, don't worry about it. That comes later, right. 0:40:15.560 --> 0:40:19.600 So they're getting all this press thanks to Bud. They 0:40:21.080 --> 0:40:24.000 make their way through sort of that toughest stretch of terrain, 0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:28.160 they're running out of food. They finally sort of cross 0:40:28.280 --> 0:40:32.000 out of the mountains and they're like, all right, that 0:40:32.200 --> 0:40:35.120 was sort of it, like we think this is not 0:40:35.239 --> 0:40:38.640 literally but this is sort of downhill from here. And 0:40:38.880 --> 0:40:40.919 he in his letters he was saying, I've never felt 0:40:40.960 --> 0:40:43.919 more confident now that we're gonna make it to New York. 0:40:43.960 --> 0:40:46.080 And this is when they were in like Wyoming. 0:40:47.000 --> 0:40:49.600 Yeah, and then once they got to Omaha, it really 0:40:49.640 --> 0:40:53.200 got easier. And then after Omaha Chicago, and then after Chicago, 0:40:53.480 --> 0:40:57.080 probably Cleveland or something like that, maybe an Indianapolis in between, 0:40:57.400 --> 0:41:00.560 like the city after city just started to pop up, 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:02.880 and they were getting closer and closer, and there were 0:41:03.080 --> 0:41:08.240 much better roads. The railroad rideaways were just beautiful. Sitting 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:10.960 there for the picking flat. They started to really yeah, 0:41:11.000 --> 0:41:12.879 they started to really make some pretty good time. 0:41:13.719 --> 0:41:14.440 Yeah. I think. 0:41:15.840 --> 0:41:18.319 How many miles did they top out at the day. 0:41:19.840 --> 0:41:21.920 I feel like it was like seventy something, which is 0:41:22.000 --> 0:41:22.680 not too bad. 0:41:22.960 --> 0:41:25.040 I don't remember, actually, I think in. 0:41:25.040 --> 0:41:28.560 The documentary said seventy seventy something miles in a single day, 0:41:28.600 --> 0:41:31.760 like when they were kind of cruising, which that's awesome, 0:41:31.840 --> 0:41:33.320 that's good time for that car. 0:41:33.640 --> 0:41:36.640 Yeah, that's not bad at all, especially considering it maxed 0:41:36.640 --> 0:41:39.759 out at thirty miles an hour. Yeah, so that was 0:41:39.800 --> 0:41:41.359 just like a two and a half hour day for them, 0:41:41.400 --> 0:41:45.279 I guess, Yeah, sure so, but that really does go 0:41:45.360 --> 0:41:47.960 to point out like just how slow they were going 0:41:48.080 --> 0:41:51.840 because of things like breaking down and waiting for parts 0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:56.239 and just the roads being terrible. And I mentioned Cleveland too. 0:41:56.520 --> 0:41:59.280 They actually when they showed up in Cleveland, that's where 0:41:59.400 --> 0:42:04.120 the Winting Motor Carriage Company was located. And we didn't 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:07.120 say I don't think that Wynton had by this time 0:42:07.200 --> 0:42:09.880 heard about the whole trip and that they were actually 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:11.319 making pretty good headway. 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:15.120 Right, Yeah, so he got he sort of officially offered 0:42:15.160 --> 0:42:18.640 to kind of sponsor them from that point on, and 0:42:18.960 --> 0:42:22.239 Jackson turned him down. He was like, no, I've got 0:42:22.280 --> 0:42:25.920 Packard and Oldsmobile behind me, and I don't want this 0:42:26.000 --> 0:42:29.279 to become like a corporate sponsored thing. Like we made 0:42:29.280 --> 0:42:30.719 it this far, we can make it the rest of 0:42:30.719 --> 0:42:32.719 the way. And they did go by the factory and 0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:35.120 they got some fanfare, and I think they helped him 0:42:35.160 --> 0:42:37.000 out with fixing this car up and stuff. But they 0:42:37.040 --> 0:42:41.480 got free beer koozies exactly refrigerator magnets, and they were 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:42.000 on their way. 0:42:42.280 --> 0:42:44.960 M Yeah, I'm sure they probably fixed the car up 0:42:45.000 --> 0:42:47.759 a little bit. But Wynton was talking like, we'll have 0:42:47.880 --> 0:42:50.359 gas like every hundred miles for you kind of thing. 0:42:50.800 --> 0:42:53.399 We'll send a technician to ride along with you. I'm 0:42:53.400 --> 0:42:56.520 sure the idea of adding a third stranger or a 0:42:56.560 --> 0:42:59.680 stranger to this mix by this time, which is just unthinkable. 0:42:59.719 --> 0:43:02.239 So yeah, they turned them down, but they made it 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:04.720 through Cleveland. They made it all the way to Buffalo. 0:43:04.840 --> 0:43:07.160 It wasn't until Buffalo, New York that they had their 0:43:07.480 --> 0:43:10.840 the worst wreck that they had, where all three of 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:14.960 them sewell, Horatio and Bud were ejected from the car 0:43:15.360 --> 0:43:19.160 because they hit something. Bud Horatio only mentions it as 0:43:19.200 --> 0:43:22.239 a hidden obstruction, so I'm not sure if he ever 0:43:22.320 --> 0:43:24.640 knew what it was. But none of them were injured 0:43:24.640 --> 0:43:26.600 and the car was okay, so they just kept on 0:43:26.880 --> 0:43:27.399 keeping on. 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:30.880 So take us home. When did they they pulled into Manhattan, 0:43:30.880 --> 0:43:32.360 didn't they? Finally? 0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:36.760 On July twenty sixth, at four thirty am, sixty three days, 0:43:36.800 --> 0:43:39.560 twelve hours and Thirty minutes after they set out from 0:43:39.600 --> 0:43:43.719 San Francisco, they made it to Manhattan, New York, and 0:43:44.760 --> 0:43:48.120 Horatio Nelson Jackson won his bet, which, by the way, 0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:49.319 he never collected on. 0:43:50.360 --> 0:43:53.480 Oh, I was curious about that. He didn't. Nope, what 0:43:53.600 --> 0:43:54.239 a stand up? 0:43:55.400 --> 0:43:58.399 Yeah, or he's like, I'm never going out west again. 0:43:58.440 --> 0:43:59.720 It's too long of a ride. 0:44:01.320 --> 0:44:04.000 And there to greet him where it was a throngs 0:44:04.040 --> 0:44:07.120 of press and journalists, people from the wint And car 0:44:07.120 --> 0:44:11.200 company and swipes the old girl herself right there. 0:44:11.680 --> 0:44:12.560 Yeah, that's so cool. 0:44:13.000 --> 0:44:15.120 I love that they had like a great relationship, and 0:44:15.160 --> 0:44:17.560 he had a great relationship with Sewell and everybody loved Bud. 0:44:17.560 --> 0:44:20.279 And if you're wondering what happened to Bud, Bud lived 0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:22.880 out the rest of his days on the Jackson farm 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:24.640 in Vermont. 0:44:23.840 --> 0:44:27.959 And that's not an euphemism for like, right, he really 0:44:27.960 --> 0:44:29.200 got lost and died. 0:44:29.320 --> 0:44:31.680 Right, No, he really did live out his days there. 0:44:31.920 --> 0:44:32.400 It's great. 0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:36.600 Jackson went on to live a very interesting life after this, 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:39.319 even he had a number of businesses that he ran. 0:44:40.480 --> 0:44:44.120 He joined the military in World War One in his 0:44:44.320 --> 0:44:48.320 forties and apparently became a decorated veteran. 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:51.600 Probably collected tobacco baseball cards. 0:44:51.280 --> 0:44:54.279 At the time. Probably so so Yeah. 0:44:54.280 --> 0:44:56.239 I think he ran for governor and lost governor of 0:44:56.320 --> 0:44:57.759 Vermont at one time in loss. I don't know how 0:44:57.800 --> 0:44:59.520 he lost. I don't know who in the world would 0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:02.960 vote for someone else other than this guy. Right, and 0:45:03.239 --> 0:45:08.120 donated that car the Vermont to the Smithsonian, which and 0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:11.480 those doggles. Ed has seen this in person, I don't 0:45:11.520 --> 0:45:13.960 think I have, even though I've been there, so or 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:15.719 maybe I didn't. I just didn't know the story at 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:16.120 the time. 0:45:17.520 --> 0:45:19.719 Maybe it seems like you'd be able to recall a 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:20.480 car like that. 0:45:20.960 --> 0:45:23.200 I don't know. I've been to a lot of museums, 0:45:24.880 --> 0:45:26.480 seen a lot of old cars. Right. 0:45:27.360 --> 0:45:31.000 Sadly, Suell Crocker, he died young. He contracted an illness 0:45:31.840 --> 0:45:35.560 and died in nineteen thirteen, so he was about forty, no, 0:45:35.640 --> 0:45:36.960 thirty something, early. 0:45:36.719 --> 0:45:38.080 Thirties, and he's thirty one. 0:45:38.400 --> 0:45:42.120 He had been sent to Mexico, I think, to protect 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:47.600 some land during the revolution there, and he the stress 0:45:47.600 --> 0:45:49.879 of it killed him, essentially, is how I saw it. 0:45:50.520 --> 0:45:52.520 Jesus, that's really sad. I know it is. 0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:54.640 So that's really the only big sad thing that happened 0:45:54.640 --> 0:45:57.760 aside from Bud getting ejected from the car in Buffalo, 0:45:57.880 --> 0:45:58.279 New York. 0:45:59.520 --> 0:46:01.760 A nice little cherry on top here that ed found. 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:04.839 Two was six years after this trip, a woman named 0:46:04.880 --> 0:46:09.080 Alice Ramsey and three of her friends became the first 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:12.920 woman and women to accomplish this same thing. They were 0:46:12.960 --> 0:46:16.880 sponsored by Maxwell Brisco, an automaker, and they did the 0:46:16.880 --> 0:46:21.600 trip in fifty nine days in basically the same or 0:46:21.640 --> 0:46:27.240 maybe just barely slightly better conditions than Jackson and Crocker 0:46:27.280 --> 0:46:32.239 did it in. So they pulled it off, and they 0:46:32.360 --> 0:46:34.960 kind of encountered the same issues, and they got a 0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:37.719 lot of press at the time and obviously did a 0:46:37.719 --> 0:46:40.880 lot to advance, you know, the shine a light on 0:46:41.400 --> 0:46:44.360 what women were capable of doing, which was driving a 0:46:44.400 --> 0:46:48.240 car through terrible circumstances for fifty nine days. 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:48.880 Right exactly. 0:46:49.760 --> 0:46:54.960 Also despite being described as pretty in every single article 0:46:55.000 --> 0:46:56.600 that was about them at the time. 0:46:56.840 --> 0:46:57.040 Yeah. 0:46:57.840 --> 0:47:00.680 So one other thing, and that was a kind of 0:47:00.680 --> 0:47:04.719 a note about this, is that thirty years after Horatio 0:47:04.800 --> 0:47:08.120 and Sewell and Bud made their trip, the record was 0:47:08.160 --> 0:47:12.919 set that stood for decades. Fifty four hours, so two 0:47:12.960 --> 0:47:16.719 and a half days. Guy named Irwin Cannonball Baker, we 0:47:16.800 --> 0:47:21.200 made a famous run from New York to LA and 0:47:21.680 --> 0:47:24.560 I think about forty years after that, in the early seventies, 0:47:24.560 --> 0:47:27.719 Car and Driver magazine editors said, this Cannonball Baker guy, 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:30.239 he deserves his own his own place in history. So 0:47:30.280 --> 0:47:34.360 we're going to commemorate him with a recreation of his run. 0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:36.279 We're gonna call it the Cannonball Run. 0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:38.799 That's right, And if you want to learn more about that, 0:47:39.080 --> 0:47:40.560 we was that a two parter. 0:47:40.960 --> 0:47:41.839 It was just a one arter. 0:47:42.280 --> 0:47:44.719 I think it was probably one of our fifteen minute episodes. 0:47:44.880 --> 0:47:46.000 No, that was a good one. 0:47:46.280 --> 0:47:47.719 It was a good one. I'm just saying we used 0:47:47.719 --> 0:47:51.560 to real shortback then. I can't believe I didn't talk 0:47:51.680 --> 0:47:53.960 that much back then that we could actually record an 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:55.520 episode that was fifteen minutes long. 0:47:55.800 --> 0:47:58.400 I think we probably talked for fifteen minutes about Burt Reynolds. 0:47:58.800 --> 0:48:02.919 Probably probably, but that was probably the episode two. Yeah, 0:48:02.920 --> 0:48:08.320 you're right, you got anything else? No, I don't either, 0:48:08.480 --> 0:48:10.359 which means it's time for listener male. 0:48:12.719 --> 0:48:17.279 I'm gonna call this short but sweet Amazon factoid. Hey, guys, 0:48:17.280 --> 0:48:18.840 About a quarter the way and through the episode of 0:48:18.880 --> 0:48:22.400 the moment, the episode reminded me of our trip of 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:23.400 the Amazon to. 0:48:24.800 --> 0:48:26.840 I don't know, is it Manaus or Manaus m A 0:48:26.960 --> 0:48:30.200 n a u S. I think manaos an owse. 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:34.400 And back on a Viking ocean cruise, he said, Surprisingly, 0:48:34.480 --> 0:48:36.960 ocean cruise ships can go that far about a thousand miles. 0:48:37.200 --> 0:48:39.920 Who knew on the cruise Our Amazon guide told us 0:48:39.920 --> 0:48:41.960 that what I think is the greatest bit of trivia 0:48:41.960 --> 0:48:45.640 I've ever heard. The volume of water leaving the mouth 0:48:45.800 --> 0:48:49.120 of the Amazon is equal to the volume of water 0:48:49.560 --> 0:48:54.360 going over Niagara Falls Victoria Falls. I'm going to do 0:48:54.400 --> 0:48:57.120 my best with my pronunciation on this falls in South America. 0:48:58.400 --> 0:48:59.120 Iguazu. 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:02.759 Perhaps very nice for South American listeners should write in 0:49:02.800 --> 0:49:03.360 and let us know. 0:49:03.920 --> 0:49:05.920 Right so it is the volume of water leaving the 0:49:05.920 --> 0:49:08.520 mouth of the Amazon is equal to those three giant balls. 0:49:08.719 --> 0:49:10.960 Wow times twelve. Wow. 0:49:11.120 --> 0:49:13.600 I was not expecting that extra little bit of math 0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:14.000 right there. 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:16.480 I think that's what makes it amazing. That's from Rich Pope. 0:49:16.960 --> 0:49:19.760 Thanks Rich Pope. Great name too, really gets it across. 0:49:19.920 --> 0:49:20.680 Rich Pope. 0:49:20.920 --> 0:49:23.640 Yeah, good to meet you, you know, yeah, I agreed. 0:49:24.080 --> 0:49:26.000 Well, it's good to meet you to Rich Pope. And 0:49:26.040 --> 0:49:27.799 if you want to be like Rich Pope, you can 0:49:27.840 --> 0:49:31.399 email us as well. Send it off to stuff Podcasts 0:49:31.640 --> 0:49:34.680 at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:39.120 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:49:39.239 --> 0:49:43.400 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:49:43.520 --> 0:49:45.360 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.