S&YE179 - Ah Trek It’s Yagi

[00:00:03] Hey everyone, this is Kathleen, also known as Yagi. You can find me on Instagram at a.trek.its.yagi or out and exploring the country. You are listening to episode 179 of the Subie and You podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Subie and You podcast.

[00:00:36] As you just heard, I have Kathleen on this episode, episode 179. Thank you so much Kathleen for taking the time to record with me and share your story. I have a little story to share right now.

[00:00:51] And because I'm having a making an announcement that I am going to be taking the podcast from every Monday to every other Monday. And it was not an easy decision because for three and a half years, I've been doing the podcast every Monday.

[00:01:08] And I know that's what everybody looks forward to, to enjoy a new episode every Monday. But it was a decision that I just, I needed to make because there are some personal and professional pursuits that I'm taking.

[00:01:23] And in order to do that, I need to free up some more time. But of course I still want to be able to do the podcast. I want to be able to do the podcast and everything else that's going on in my life, but I just

[00:01:37] need to be able to fit it all in to my schedule. And so in order to accommodate these new pursuits in my life, I needed to take the podcast back from every Monday to every other Monday.

[00:01:54] We've had a really good run though of releasing the episode every Monday for the past three and a half years. So that's a really long time. And I'm very thankful and very grateful for everybody's support, for everybody that has been around from the very beginning.

[00:02:11] And, you know, from the people that are probably just listening to this episode today for the very first time, I'm thankful for everybody's support. I'm thankful for all the people that I've been able to meet in person and connect with online.

[00:02:25] So I just, I really appreciate all of you and I hope that you will continue to listen to all of the episodes. And, you know, because with all the new guests, I still want to try to get on some

[00:02:38] previous guests to see where they've been for the past three and a half years or however long it's been since I had that person on. And so that's one of the goals too moving forward.

[00:02:50] It's just a matter of scheduling those people and see if they want to be back on. So starting next Monday, July 1st, that's when the new schedule is going to take or commence and

[00:03:02] start up. So starting from July 1st, moving forward, it'll be every other Monday, same format, just different, you know, not every Monday. So again, thank you all so much for your support. I hope you're all understanding.

[00:03:17] And again, I hope you all continue to listen to the podcast and just thank you. The Subie & You podcast is brought to you by Eccentric Designs. For those of you who don't know, Eccentric Designs is a small community driven business that offers

[00:03:33] custom fit vinyl overlays for most Subaru models. This includes various designs for the rear reflectors, taillights and side taillights. I also offer fun decal designs like the popular fender stripes and stickers. To find designs for your Subie, head on over to eccentricdesigns.com.

[00:03:49] There's always more projects in the works, so be sure to follow at eccentric.designs on Instagram. Thank you so much, Eccentric Designs, for sponsoring the Subie & You podcast. Very much appreciated and thankful for your support.

[00:04:04] I have another patron question of the week, and this one comes from Jonathan, who goes by Sage the Crosstrek. And this is a really good question. He asks, would you rather be famous or know the right people and why?

[00:04:21] I, with doing this podcast, I've created a situation where I am, I guess, kind of famous within the Subaru community. But I think that maybe with somebody being famous, you might know the right people sometimes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you do.

[00:04:42] But I think I would rather, much, much rather just know the right people than be famous. With the podcast, a lot of people have said it's a big deal and that I'm a big deal and I don't feel like a big deal at all.

[00:04:56] I mean, sometimes I don't even think the podcast is a big deal. But that's again, that's from my perspective. You know, it's not up to me to say whether it's a big deal or not.

[00:05:06] But sometimes having known the right people in the community, I've been able to do some things like people from SOA, you know, getting flown out to Boxer Fest, getting flown out to Subi Fest, California and getting set up with a podcast booth there.

[00:05:24] That was from knowing the right people, not necessarily because I was quote unquote famous. But I like for me, I don't know that I would want to really be famous. Like again, kind of going back to the podcast.

[00:05:39] What matters to me is that people really enjoy the podcast and enjoy the content. And I'm not worried about myself so much because I mean, I know I'm the one that's interviewing people and putting out the content.

[00:05:54] And, you know, the podcast wouldn't exist if it wasn't for me. But I want people to enjoy the podcast. And if enjoying me as a person comes along with it, then that's great.

[00:06:08] But yeah, I just I mean, because I have kind of experienced a little bit of fame being the podcast guy and from somebody who had like nothing really going on in his life before all of this, it's kind of weird at times.

[00:06:26] But, you know, I'm just thankful for all the connections that I've made with people out there. And I'm very thankful for all of the people that I have met in person, especially all the people that I've had as guests. That's pretty crazy that I've I counted it up.

[00:06:43] I recorded an episode on today because I'm right now, this is Saturday, June 22nd. And I recorded an episode with somebody today and I was telling that person that I and I have met this person for episode 180.

[00:06:58] I met that person in person and I think that person was like maybe 65 or 66 people that I've met in person that have been on the podcast. And that's pretty awesome. And that comes from, I think, just knowing the right people, being able to get out to

[00:07:15] events. And so for me, 100 percent, much rather just know the right people rather than be famous, because knowing being famous, it's kind of hard to, you know, hide in the crowd and just go hang out, go around and just be a normal person.

[00:07:34] So I think just knowing the right people, you can you can still be a normal person and not be inundated by people coming up to you and stuff. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's just again, it's just it feels kind of weird to me

[00:07:49] to be, you know, I guess a big deal or somewhat famous or popular in the Subaru community. But, you know, I'm still me. I haven't changed the type of person that I am because I'm a little more well-known, but thank you so much, Jonathan, for your question.

[00:08:09] I know it was a very long-winded answer, but it was a very good question. So thank you. This episode is brought to you by SubaruGear.com. If you shop SubaruGear.com and you click on you hover over shop, you can go down to

[00:08:25] performance gear and under performance gear, they have Gymkhana Subaru gear, Subaru brand motorsports gear and apparel, and then Subaru WRX and STI apparel and merchandise collection. So within those three sections underneath the performance section, you can find a lot of

[00:08:47] great items that t-shirts, hats, hoodies and just all a great selection of performance gear. And of course, that's just one small section of the overall website. So if you've not been to Subaru gear, I highly recommend going to check it out because

[00:09:06] there are a lot of really great products there. And the other thing that's great is Subaru gear is extending a 20% off discount by using the code SUBINU24 at checkout. If your total is over $50 after the discount, then you also get free shipping, which

[00:09:25] definitely helps out on the cost. So I really appreciate Subaru gear extending this offer to everybody because it's a really good deal and I'm really appreciative of it. And I know a lot of people that have purchased items or appreciate that as well.

[00:09:41] So thank you so much, Subaru gear for sponsoring the Subaru BNU podcast. Go check out Subaru gear dot com and see what they have to offer. This episode is also brought to you by Ryko wheels.

[00:09:54] If you've seen Pearl the cross track, which is my cross track, you can see that I have the black satin teetons, which every time I see them when I'm walking up to my car, they just look incredible.

[00:10:07] I know there are some other Subarus out there that have the other designs and styles that Ryko offers. But if you would like to get a set of Ryko wheels for your Subaru, go over to Ryko wheels dot com and select your Subaru and then select your wheels.

[00:10:24] Ryko is committed to providing you with the highest quality specialized wheels, but they also offer lift kits and they will allow you to travel further, experience new adventures and discover extraordinary destinations. Ryko wants to make sure that you are ready for anything wherever adventure takes you.

[00:10:44] Be sure to use the code Subaru10 at checkout to get 10 percent off a set of those wheels or a lift kit. Thank you so much, Ryko wheels for sponsoring the Subaru BNU podcast. I know this has been a long intro, so I apologize for that, especially with the

[00:11:00] announcement that I had to make about the podcast going to every other week. But we've got one more announcement and then we will get into the episode with Kathleen in here all about her Crosstrek.

[00:11:13] But this episode is also brought to you by Mele Design Firm, where they believe that making the best performance parts from the highest quality materials is the only way to operate. So go to Mele Design Firm dot com and see what they have to offer for your

[00:11:29] Subaru. On mine, I have the front strut tower brace. I have the engine bay caps. I also have the battery box and I have the pitch stop, but they have a lot more to offer. They also offer many products from a lot of different brands now.

[00:11:49] So go check out Mele Design Firm dot com and browse the website to see what they have. So thank you so much, Mele Design Firm for sponsoring the Subaru BNU podcast. And now we will get into this episode with Kathleen to hear all about her Subaru journey

[00:12:05] and her Crosstrek, which has some really nice decals on it. And she's taken it a lot of places. So here we go. Hello. Welcome to the podcast, Kathleen. Thank you. You're welcome. This is awesome. Well, I'm glad you think so.

[00:12:37] So I usually save this question for a little bit later after we start talking, but where did Yagi come from? Yagi is actually Japanese for goat. It has several meanings for me.

[00:12:53] My kids, when I was with them, when they were younger, we did a lot of hiking and I was always the mountain goat because I charged up that hill because I wanted to be the first to see that new lake or that new mountain or whatever we were doing.

[00:13:04] So I was also known as a goat for my kids.

[00:13:08] But then buying a Japanese made car and I just kind of put the two of them together, I was like, oh, I wonder if I can come up with a Japanese word for goat because for the Americans, goat means greatest of all time, which that's not what it means for me.

[00:13:23] So I was like, well, I looked it up and Yagi fit on the license plate. So that's what I went with probably, let's see, in 2016 when I bought my first Subaru. So this is your second Subaru then, right? This is my second Subaru. Okay.

[00:13:39] What was your first one? My first one was actually a 2016 Crosstrek as well. My daughter has inherited that and she's the blue bee. Her and I traveled together with the Leave em Wild team.

[00:13:51] She started that with a vlog thing and I gave her that car in November of 2020. And that's when I decided I needed a little bit of an upgrade. The sport came out more horsepower and then I found out I could lift it and all that kind of stuff.

[00:14:09] So I definitely needed an upgrade at that point. And you took the license plate with you, huh? Oh, the license, yeah, it has to stay with me. She's the blue bee. So, Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:21] So where did the desire to own a Subaru in the first place come from and why your first Crosstrek? Well, let's put it this way. We lived in Idaho at that time. We lived way in the mountains and I was using our Camry to go everywhere. Oh fun.

[00:14:44] I bet that was interesting. Yeah. Um, I'm one of those stories that you've probably found on social media. What's this Camry doing up here? Kind of thing. That would have been me. My husband, you used to go with me.

[00:14:56] He'd get out and move the rocks for me so we could get up to wherever we were going. And it finally came to a point. It was like, I did have a Jeep. I'll be honest.

[00:15:04] I had a Jeep, so I could have used that, but the Camry was better gas mileage and stuff. So it was like, well, just use that for offloading. But, um, it got to the point. It was like, well, it needs to start looking at some crossover vehicles.

[00:15:16] And my grandmother always had a Subaru. She lived in the backwoods of Maine and it always got everywhere. And my parents had been buying them and I'm like, oh, that might actually work. So we decided to invest in a Subaru, the Crosstrek.

[00:15:31] I didn't want anything bigger than that. I don't haul a whole lot of stuff. So I thought a short little car gets pretty good gas budget and I can actually go off road with it. So that's where that came from. Yeah.

[00:15:42] It's a definitely more capable than a Camry. Camry did get me in a lot of places. You'd be surprised. It sounds like it. Yeah. But if you want to go just a little bit further and do a little bit more across track, that's definitely helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:00] I'm not turning up quite so much stuff. So yeah. Did you do any mods to your first Crosstrek? Uh, no, actually we just kept that one. Um, pretty basic, uh, you know, basic change of tires, whatever. I didn't really do much to that.

[00:16:16] Um, just traveled around with it a lot. I didn't even beef up the tires on that or anything. Cause I just didn't feel it didn't feel like it was necessary at that time. I was actually getting up into the mountains of Colorado with it. Just fine.

[00:16:30] It lacked the power in some cases, just because everybody has a hard time breathing up here, including the cars. So yeah, there was a couple of times. Like, okay, everybody's got to get out of the car. I cannot get up the sill with you guys in here. Yeah.

[00:16:44] Well, so I went to Colorado. That was my very first off-road experience. And I went with my two kids and my daughter's fiance at the time. And we were traveling around and what we were going back and this guy that was with us, his car was overheating.

[00:17:05] So he left it behind and some other people were leaving. And so he rode with us. So I had five people in my cross track and there was this pretty big uphill spot.

[00:17:18] And I was just like, you know, and I hadn't had my car for too terribly long, maybe eight months or something like that. But I'd also, I live in Houston and it's flat. So there's not really any opportunities for me to try to go up anything except an

[00:17:33] overpass, but I'm looking at this, at this hill and I'm like, I hope we make it up. And my car actually made it up. I mean, and we were up in the mountains, so, you know, we were at elevation and I

[00:17:47] was surprised that it made it up with five people in the car, but it did pretty well. Pretty impressive. Yeah. And you've got, you've got a manual, right? Yes. I do. That helps. That does help. They may have quite as powerful.

[00:18:02] I found even with the little X mode in the new sport is like, really? I wish they did have the lower gearing, but yeah, maybe someday. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you, what made you decide to go? Well, you, well, let me go back.

[00:18:18] So you went with a sport whenever you decided to upgrade and you wanted something a little, with a little more power, were you looking at different colors or did that color like capture, catch, catch your eye and you're like, Oh, I want this one.

[00:18:34] I'm actually, I'm, I, I shouldn't say as a person, I don't like to stand out, but what I have, I do like to stand out like my photography, I love it when it stands

[00:18:44] out, so of course my car has got to stand out and I usually try to pick the most unusual color, whatever happens to be available at the time. And when, of course, you look at the book, the color looked a little bit

[00:18:56] different than that, but it is definitely unusual. It's not the black, gray, white. Normal colors. So I chose that one. Of course, when I got it, the first thing I looked at, I was like, Oh my God, it looks like baby poop green.

[00:19:09] Now what am I going to do with it? So that's where the decals came in and I put those on almost immediately. I already had a design in mind that I wanted to do something for the cross-trek

[00:19:22] before, so I kind of saved that idea and then ended up putting it on the new one. So that worked out pretty well. So it does make it stand out a little bit better. Yeah.

[00:19:33] And before we started recording, you said that you never would have thought to, and never would have put any stickers on any of your previous cars. So where did the idea come from of like, Hey, I'm going to put some decals on this car.

[00:19:48] And then like, did you come up with that idea on your own or did you see other cars that had decals and that kind of gave you inspiration to be like, Oh, that looks really good. Now I want to do something like that.

[00:20:01] Well, no, at the time, actually. The thought was to actually paint a design on the car because back when I had my original cars, you could just paint pinstriping and you'd paint things on there.

[00:20:14] You wouldn't put stickers on there, but finding out that, you know, with these wrap companies and everything else, what they are capable of doing, it took a few phone calls. But I finally found somebody that would accept my designs because I had made the

[00:20:28] designs at home and they were able to do it for me and then put it on for me. And I'm like, well, that'll work. Cause I said, it would last, you know, a few years. I think it's been on there, you know, what, about three years now.

[00:20:40] And they told me it would last like five to seven years. And I was like, well, that'll work for now. And then I can always paint it later or paint a design around it. So that's where those stickers came from.

[00:20:49] Then of course, all the little stickers, it just became a thing to start sticking little personality stickers everywhere. Cause I had never done that before putting stickers all over my windows and stuff. So that was a little different for me. Yeah.

[00:21:04] But it's, it's kind of like, I know I only have two of them, but I have two tattoos and people say like, once you get a tattoo, you just want to keep getting more and more.

[00:21:12] And so it kind of seems like the same with the decals, you start throwing some on there and it's like, maybe that's not enough. Maybe I can do something over here and over here, but of course it's got to be the right decals.

[00:21:24] You don't want to just slap stuff on there just to slap something on there. So where did, like, how did you come up with the original design? Like what you have on there now? I mean, where'd that come from? The Yagi goat thing. That's, that was a thing.

[00:21:38] So I needed to come up with some kind of goats and of course I'm a mountain girl originally. So I had to put mountains on one side and I'm like, well, I could just do something

[00:21:48] on the other side because people aren't going to see both sides at the same time. So then the desert goat came into play. That one was a little harder because there's truly not any desert goats.

[00:21:59] So I had to look out of this country, of course, to find designs for that. And I think it was, it's an Ibex, Ibex on the one side. So it doesn't really go in that terrain because I've got Saguaro's and stuff in

[00:22:11] there, but it works for the desert scene and people get it. They don't know what else. And then of course I put the big mountain goat on the hood. So it just, it had to be goat to go with the names for now.

[00:22:24] I mean, maybe in a couple of years I might change my mind to something else, but I stuck with the Yagi name for my pictures and everything else. So just kind of, it's kind of grown is I'm Yagi.

[00:22:35] So I've got people that call me Yagi all the time now. So yeah. Once something, you know, kind of sticks, then that's where people know you. Yeah. Yeah. I very rarely get called Kathleen anymore. So it looks really good. I mean, the designs are really nice.

[00:22:55] It flows well with the whole car. I like how you, I like how the mountains kind of start up or the mountains, the trees kind of start up on, and this is the driver's side, like the trees start up

[00:23:06] higher with the wheel well, and then they kind of come down. It's got, it's just got a nice flow to it, but I'm trying to find pictures of the other side. Yeah. Oh, there's one. Yeah.

[00:23:17] There should be, I was going to say there should be some on there. Yeah. There it is with the desert. So, okay. No, yeah. It looks really good. I like it. That was a little flatter on that side. The other side is more of a perspective.

[00:23:27] Like you're standing back up in this valley and you see the mountain goat over to the right and the trees are, you know, falling down into the valley kind of thing. That was a little easier to do. The desert one wasn't quite as easy for me, but. Yeah.

[00:23:39] Well, it looks good. I had to come up with something. It all flows well. So good job. Good job. Thank you. You're welcome. So when you, so you started, you started doing the decals and then you didn't really do anything to your first cross track.

[00:23:54] So where did you start thinking about doing mods? Like, you know, wheels and tires and lift kit and rooftop basket. Like again, was this, were these things that you kind of thought of on your own or

[00:24:08] were you starting to see other people doing things to their, you know, Subarus and got inspiration from that? Well, that's the thing in my part of the world down there in the Southern desert, nothing really seemed to be happening.

[00:24:22] So when I went in, actually I'd ordered the car with everything that I wanted on it and that you could buy through Subaru anyway at that time. And when I got it in there, like, oh, you know what?

[00:24:33] We have this special deal on these new wheels and tires and you know, they're the aggressive alternate. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then, oh, we can also put like some two inch spacers on there if you want to lift it a little.

[00:24:46] And that's all they had offered me at that time. That's all I really knew about. So I was like, definitely throw those on there. So they threw all that on there. And of course I did the spacers for, oh gosh, probably the first year and a half or

[00:24:59] so, and they did fine. But then I started adding stuff with the tent and this, the rear swing and the, all, you know, all the gear I'm carrying and everything else in the back end started getting a little saggy. Yeah.

[00:25:15] We need to beef that up a little bit because I was starting to rub on the tires cause it was getting too heavy. So I had looked at some different ones and I really liked the Ironman when I'd done the research that I'd done.

[00:25:28] Um, Ironman just really stuck out for me. So I just, we just stuck that on there. We did that ourselves in the garage. It took us about five hours. And it just saves you labor. It's saved probably about $1,200 because I was quoted 12 to $1,500 to have it put on.

[00:25:47] And I was like, are you kidding me? It's more than what the thing costs. Yeah. That's insane. And it's like, we can do the artwork ourselves and we did have to buy a couple like a lift and stuff like that just to help us with it.

[00:25:59] But, um, now it was actually pretty easy to put on and it's done great since then. We haven't had any issues with it. Yeah. I don't have any problems at all. In fact, I forget sometimes that it's on there and I slow down before I get to the

[00:26:16] bumps thing. And then I go through, I'm like, what am I doing? I can just fly through this stuff now. What am I thinking? I can fly through all this stuff now. How long have you had it on? Gosh, it's been at least a year and a half.

[00:26:29] Okay. Yeah. Good. Plenty of time to test it out. Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I've tested out a lot and it's funny cause when I take the tent and stuff like off, it actually lifts back up because I've got the spec C in the back, which is for

[00:26:44] the heavier weights and the front. And so when I take the tent off that back end actually comes up and it looks like I've got like a six inch lift on there and people will ask me that and I'm like,

[00:26:54] no, it's actually only a two inch, but it's just gotta bounce back up. Yeah. So when you started doing mods, what was the first thing that you did? Hmm. Besides that, let's space or lift. I would say probably the skid plates. If I remember right.

[00:27:12] My husband had bought me, he knew I wanted to off road and he's more of a safety type person. So he had bought me skids for my birthday. That's important. Yeah, it is. And finding out how many times I've hit it. Yeah.

[00:27:26] It's probably a good thing that he got that for me first. It's got a, it's got a few scratches on it. I've never pulled it all the way off, but it has hit a few times. Yeah.

[00:27:37] My daughter's skid plate should be delivered this Saturday and it's for her birthday, for her cross trick. And what brand did you get her? I got primitive racing. Okay. Yeah. He got me the Crawford Crawford performance. Oh, nice.

[00:27:52] And I guess they're a little bit heavier than everybody else, but they are heavy duty. I've never no dents or anything. So that's good. That's some scratches across the bottom where some of the rocks hit, but I haven't gotten any dances, never pulled off. So I'm lucky. Yeah.

[00:28:06] No, that's good. I mean, they're definitely important because it's just, you don't want your engine oil pan to get punctured and cause that's no bueno. Well, that's the thing. And then my daughter, if we go to, she usually follows me when we do our leave

[00:28:22] them wild trips and she follows me. So if she knows if I hit, she knows not to go through wherever I just went through. Oh, so she doesn't have a skid plate? No, we haven't gotten anything on that car.

[00:28:37] And it's hers has got like 170 plus thousand miles on it. So we need to do some updating on it, but we'll get there. How many miles do you have on your cross track now? I'm almost at 96,000.

[00:28:52] It's almost time to rotate the tires again, but yeah, I'm getting there. And what year is it at 20? It's a 21. 21. Okay. Yeah. I got it in November of 21. Okay. And you seem to 20, sorry. Of 20. Yeah. And you seem to go a lot of places. Yeah.

[00:29:08] I put about 25 K a year on there. Cause I'm at mine's a 21 also. I got mine in September of 2020 and I have 106,000 miles on my, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, a lot of mine is really, I mean, I, I do go up to Dallas

[00:29:29] often to go see my girlfriend. So there's, you know, maybe about 25% of my miles from that. Like I said, I drove out to Colorado. My daughter was going to school in Arkansas. So I drove out there a few times, but I've been out to San Antonio a few

[00:29:42] times, Austin and drove all the way up to Madison, Wisconsin for Subaru flatfest. But a lot of my miles are local miles. I would say probably 50% cause I just drive it a lot around here.

[00:29:56] And my son and I go drive around a lot because Houston's so big and, you know, we don't just always stay local. Sometimes we want to just like go downtown or go across town or something. So that's where local for me is anywhere out West of Mississippi.

[00:30:14] So yeah, I don't drive, I drive miles and miles and miles for everything I do. So, yeah, that's good though. It's, it's good to get out and explore and use it for what it was designed for and what you've built it for. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:30:32] So when you were getting your mods, what was, what mod were you most excited to get? Hmm. That's a good question. Cause they're all exciting. You know, they are, they are, I mean, and I still got a list, but it's like right now

[00:30:51] I'm just trying, I'm trying to be more practical, so I get things that I think I really need before I get things I don't need. Um, of course I got skid plates. I've got the Crawford dish lights. He bought, my husband buys me these things.

[00:31:04] So he, cause he thinks I need them while I'm out there. Cause I do go out shooting photography at night and things like that. So to scare the coyotes away, I have to turn the lights on. Hey, he's, he's taking care of you. He is taking it.

[00:31:17] He's always worried about my safety because he knows I do a lot of stuff by myself. Probably the lift itself. Oh, actually I really enjoy that. Yeah. The table, the table addition on my tire swing is nice.

[00:31:30] Especially when I'm camping by myself, cause I can just swing the tire out and I've got a nice little table there that really, I just, I it's big enough to put

[00:31:40] a little single pot on and cook my coffee and I can sit up my chair and I'm fine. I like that one too. Yeah. And I'm some, sure. Something like that gets used a lot. It does. Mine definitely gets used every time I'm going out.

[00:31:53] If you know, even if we're with a big group or something, people just want to throw things on the table. So I just flop it out there and they can throw whatever on the table. What would you say is your favorite mod?

[00:32:07] I'm guessing probably my lift or my lift or my table. Yeah. Sounds like it's probably pretty even between both. Yeah, they're pretty close because they both come in handy for what I like and I just, I really like them. Yeah.

[00:32:21] It's a, especially when you get good use out of it. I mean, this it's very practical. It's not like, uh, just a cosmetic kind of thing. Yeah. That's the thing is that my build is more practical. I don't have a ton of lights on there.

[00:32:35] Don't get me wrong. That looks so cool to have all that stuff on there, but I have to think more practical of what is going to come in handy for what I need for my travels and where I'm going. Yeah.

[00:32:48] Cause if you don't need it, there's no point in getting it just look, cause it can get quite expensive if you want it just to look cool. Exactly. Exactly. And I've actually entered, I entered the car into the car, my first car show at Subi Fest in California.

[00:33:03] So we'll see how that does. Yeah. Yeah. That's coming up in August. Yeah, it is. It is. I'm a, I'm a little nervous about that one too, cause I've never done any car shows.

[00:33:13] So, um, like, I guess I, I got scheduled to get there a day early so I can get it cleaned up and then I talked to them and they said they'll have a nice big space

[00:33:22] for me to set up my tent and the whole setup and see how it comes out. So that's good. Yeah. That'll be nice. That'll be fun. I've been out to Subi Fest, California once and that was pretty cool. Yeah. Is it big? Yeah, it's pretty big.

[00:33:36] It's uh, yeah. I mean, they had like the big parking lot where all the cars were out and they had like a little kind of like a little vendor area and then I think they had like

[00:33:48] the mountain route area where they had all their off-road rigs set up and then they had kind of like the Subaru village where they had all of the Subaru motorsports trailer and tents and stuff.

[00:34:01] And I actually had a podcast booth out there in the little Subaru village that year, uh, in 2022. So that was, uh, 2022. Yeah. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. No, that's cool. Yeah. They didn't have a category for, um, overlanding, so I just put other, and

[00:34:19] then I found out I was going on, cause it's probably a good thing I did because if I'd done off-roading, I saw some of the other people that were entering that I was like, Hey, I'll never get that. That's not rocket.

[00:34:30] And those guys that are out of Vegas, I'm like, Oh, their cars are so awesome. But they have time to put into them. Yeah. It'll be fun. Yeah. It'll be fun to be there and to have your car on display and be able to talk to

[00:34:43] people about it. And, uh, exactly, exactly. You can find out what other people are doing. So yeah. You can tell them I was on episode 179 of the new podcast. You could check that out too. You gotta listen guys. You gotta listen. Yeah. Always throw that out there. Yep.

[00:35:00] I said a lot of, some of my friends are on there too. So you got to do this. That's right. Spread the word. Yes, definitely. So what are some big mods that are on your list? Oh gosh, I would love to have like rock sliders and.

[00:35:17] I'm bouncing back and forth between the bumper guards or just taking the bumpers off. I haven't quite reached a stage of just cutting them, but like this last weekend I was off-roading and we'd gotten into an area where I ended up having to turn

[00:35:33] around because I knew that I was going to just take a nosedive and I was like, if I had cut the bumper, I could probably get right through there, but it's like not quite ready to do that. That's a commitment. Yeah.

[00:35:48] Well, that moment was just about made me change my mind because the road I'd come down to get to where I was at. I was like, I really all the way down. I was driving and I kept telling my husband, I was like, I really just

[00:35:58] don't want to drive back up this road. I hope we can make this through. Nope. I had to drive back up that road and I'm like, Oh, this is so tempting just to cut the bumpers. Yeah.

[00:36:09] That was one of my questions that I had is have you gotten to somewhere where you had to just turn around and it sounds like that's a yes. Yeah, I actually do that often. I do. And I do that with my hiking.

[00:36:23] I do that with my car because I'm one of these people, it's like, Oh, there's a road. We got to take it. It looks like a road. And then you find out it's an ATV trail. I was like, Oh, well, I guess we got to turn around.

[00:36:34] And when I'm hiking the same way, it's like, Oh, I need to get down to that spot. How do I get down to that spot? And I live in a lot of Canyonlands area.

[00:36:42] So I do, if you watch my GPS tracks, I do a lot of out and back out and back. I might get 11 miles in that day just trying to go two miles because I can't find a way down. And I'm not quite that determined with my car.

[00:36:56] I usually, you're pretty limited to whatever you came in on, but yeah, I do the same thing with the car. I go out and I'm like, crap. I have to turn it around and go back up the same road.

[00:37:08] And it's really bad when I get out there like 20 miles and then find out I have to drive all the way back to get where I was, but hey, it's an adventure. We, we take lots of snacks and water with us, so we're good. Yeah, that's good.

[00:37:21] So when you're like, you decide to leave home and go out for an adventure and go drive out and explore what's the furthest distance you've traveled from home to go out somewhere? In the car? Yeah.

[00:37:35] This particular car, I think the furthest I've gone is almost to the Canadian border. We went up by Bellingham. My son and I did a road trip up that way. We went over the cascade highway and he wanted to check out Bellingham.

[00:37:48] So we drove all the way up there and then we camped our way back down at Washington and Oregon coast, came back across Nevada and then circled back up to Utah. I think we did like nine days. We did that in nine days.

[00:38:03] That was a long trip, but that was probably the furthest away or the longest trip that I can think of in this particular car. Do you know how many miles that was? Oh gosh, it seemed like it was close to 4,000 by the time we got done.

[00:38:19] Yeah, that's a long, it was a long trip. I was actually so tired on the last day coming back, so I let him drive across Nevada and we take back roads everywhere. And I fell asleep. I woke up to him going 90 miles an hour. Oh my gosh.

[00:38:38] I didn't have any tent or anything on top at that point. I didn't have my RTT and I looked at him like, dude, what are you doing? He goes, well, mom, your cruise control won't hold any higher than 90 miles an hour. I'm like, oh my gosh.

[00:38:53] Well, there goes my gas mileage. Thanks. I'm not falling asleep again. Yeah, it went from like 33 down to 23 at that point. I was like, oh my gosh. So that was kind of funny. Yeah. So he doesn't drive my car anymore.

[00:39:08] He's an STI driver, so he can keep his STIs and drive fast. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's probably why he was doing 90. Yeah, I know. That's why he was. Plus he was probably in a hurry to get home because that was like our

[00:39:19] last day and he was tired, but yeah. Yeah, it was funny. I was like, oh gosh. So yeah, my car, that was not, that was not too long after I bought it that we did that trip and yeah. You ruined my gas mileage right off the bat.

[00:39:35] So yeah. What is it usually get when you're, when you've got your rooftop 10 on it? Um, actually this last trip I was getting 28 miles to the gallon. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah. The lift and the tent.

[00:39:47] I drive a lift in the thing and I've got the tire on the back and everything. And most people don't believe me, but it's like, yeah, it's, it does do that. The only time that it's really bad is if I'm fighting a major headwind

[00:39:59] or if I'm on the interstate. And like, I, I do not like traveling on the interstate at all. Um, the traffic is usually running me over or something and it's just not very pretty usually. So I find something new. Yeah.

[00:40:15] So you've been, I'm guessing to a lot of different places, but what would you say, like with all your travels was the most beautiful spot you've been to? That is a tough one because there's so many beautiful spots. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

[00:40:31] I, I don't know if I could give you one spot on that because I love the Oregon coast and I love where we live. There's so many beautiful things down there that I traveled to just to go take and photograph. Gosh. Yeah.

[00:40:50] I really honestly couldn't narrow it down to one thing. I just like so many things. Colorado's got so many beautiful spots too. Oh yeah. It's just, yeah. Almost everywhere I go. That's the reason I travel is I find beautiful things. Is there a favorite?

[00:41:06] Has there been a spot that you've been to that didn't turn out to be as nice or pleasant as you thought it would be? And you're like, well, I'm not going to come here again. Hmm. Not really.

[00:41:19] I mean, it's not some of the places that we have to travel across to get to where we're doing aren't exactly the best. Sometimes there's like places out in Nevada that we've gone and the, you know,

[00:41:33] it's, it's perspective, but a lot of times you're out there and there's a lot of nothing out there and I probably wouldn't travel some of those, some of those side roads again, Nevada does have a lot of empty space, but there is a lot

[00:41:46] of pretty stuff there too that we found if you're really looking. I, oh, you know what? I know of a place, the Elvore desert. We just came back through there on our leave and wild trip.

[00:41:59] We've camped down there in the Elvore desert next to the hot springs and it was something to see. And I'd always wanted to see it because I have friends that photographed it. And honestly, it just didn't do anything for me.

[00:42:11] I don't know if I was tired or it just didn't, it just didn't feel right. I don't know if I was tired or it just didn't do anything for me. And it's so far out there in the middle of nowhere.

[00:42:20] I don't know that it's worth driving to again. Yeah. That's a, that's a good reason to not go back out somewhere. Yeah. Like, I saw it. It wasn't that great. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I just didn't see the, the attraction, especially when you got the

[00:42:37] salt flats and stuff, right? Not too far from Salt Lake. Yeah. Before we just like, you know, or drive out there. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to go any further. I can't believe that I didn't write this question down. What is wrong with me?

[00:42:49] Do you prefer waffles or pancakes? Oh, I'm going to have to go with waffles. Come on. It holds the syrup. Yeah, yeah. You can put more syrup on there. Very true. That's true. So it makes it sweeter. Yeah. All right. All right. Okay. What was yours? Pancakes.

[00:43:14] I don't dislike waffles at all. You can do some pretty great things with waffles, but I just like pancakes a little bit better. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So when you've been to a lot of different spots, what have you learned about your CrossTrek's capabilities and limitations?

[00:43:34] Well, I know that the only thing limiting so far that I've found, of course, is the power to like in the higher mountains. I mean, it is lacking there. I do wish it had a lower gear.

[00:43:47] I understand that the wilderness, of course, is a little bit better, but I don't want to invest. I don't want to upgrade to that because I just invested all this money into this and it's basically the same car. Yeah. Just that one different feature there.

[00:44:02] That's the only thing that I've really noticed other than cutting the bumpers, not being able to get through some ditches that I'd like to go through. Yeah, I do wish it had more power in the mountains.

[00:44:13] It would be a lot nicer to have that lower gear, but it does what it needs to do. I haven't gotten stuck yet. I'm still here in Colorado for another two and a half weeks or so. So we'll see. I may get stuck in the mountains.

[00:44:29] You never know. Yeah. What about its capabilities? Like what have you learned? Has there been something that surprised you? Nothing really. I mean, it's done everything that I've expected it to do. I see something. It hasn't really surprised me as to what it can do or can't do.

[00:44:51] I guess I was raised driving four by fours in the mountains of Colorado anyway. So, I mean, it doesn't really shock me. I haven't done anything that really shocks me that it can do, I guess is what I mean.

[00:45:08] So it's done everything that I wanted it to do. Plus, it just keeps going. The X-Mode thing I'm still working with. I'm not used to the paddle shifting and the X-Mode and all these weird buttons. You know, you're used to having gear shifts.

[00:45:26] Yeah, that throws me off a little bit. But trying to figure those out and how they actually help the car is kind of interesting. Yeah, it's perfectly capable of everything that I've pushed it to do. What have you learned about yourself with all your travels?

[00:45:43] Oh, with all my travels, all my life? Gosh, I don't know. Just to be yourself, I guess. To not let people dictate what has to be done for me. You know?

[00:45:59] Because for a long time, I've been with other people that have told me that I can't do this, can't do that. You got to do this. And yeah, I guess for myself, getting out and seeing stuff and seeing other people and

[00:46:13] just life in general, it's definitely opened the world for me. There's just things to do. You got to see things. You got to be alive. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Yeah. And it's nice that you've been able to get out and explore a lot.

[00:46:30] That's really nice. I'm very lucky to have a very generous husband that lets me do this stuff. He does all the research ahead of time, tries to scare me, and then I go test it out and I come back and he's like, okay, we can go.

[00:46:46] I made it. Of course. I'm alive. I didn't get mugged. I'm good. So how often do you go by yourself? Gosh, probably at least a half a dozen times a year.

[00:47:00] I might just go out in the middle of the night to go do photography and stay the night out there, whatever. It doesn't really bother me. I actually like being away from people more, especially when I'm camping by myself.

[00:47:14] I usually seek out places that I know there aren't going to be campgrounds or people or anything. I just feel safer that way. It doesn't bother me at all. But yeah, probably at least a half a dozen times a year, if not more.

[00:47:28] Have you come across any wildlife that scared you while you were out? Oh, yeah. All the time. Oh, that scared me? Not really. I guess there was one time I was camping with my husband.

[00:47:40] We didn't have the rooftop tent at that time, but we had camped over in the Badlands of New Mexico and we'd set up the tent. We were out in the middle of nowhere. And coyotes had come up around the tent and I could hear them.

[00:47:51] My head was right at the corner there and I could hear them sniffing literally outside the tent. That kind of freaked me out. Oh, yeah. I kind of touched him. I was like, what should I do? Stay very still. Exactly.

[00:48:03] But we got up the next morning and there was tracks all around out there. So there was a bunch of them. I was like, okay. It was kind of freaky. Yeah. It's probably the closest we've ever come that we know of.

[00:48:14] We used to backpack out to the campsite. We used to backpack a lot up in the Sotus. I'm sure that we were followed by cougars and stuff, but we never actually saw anything. So it never really bothered us. That's good.

[00:48:27] So that was probably the closest I've ever came to wildlife out there. So with all of your travels with your cross-trek so far, are there any funny stories while being out on trails or exploring? Oh, gosh. Yeah.

[00:48:43] My husband and I were coming up with a list this afternoon. But I was like, okay, I need to tell the most recent one because that one was pretty... That scared me to death. It was so funny though. We were camping. We had...

[00:48:57] It was my husband and I and on my trek and then my daughter, her trek, and then another friend in his forester. And we were showing him the badlands of Utah. They'd been really windy. And we were camped out there on the second night.

[00:49:09] And we were trying to hide behind this hill, trying to keep the wind. But my trek was right on the corner. So the wind kept catching things and everything else. And I'm out there in the badlands. I actually have a lot of Navajo friends and things.

[00:49:23] And I should say, I kind of believe in the skinwalkers and the ghosts and all that stuff. So it kind of freaks me out. So we get out there and we're sleeping and the wind's blowing. And something had hit the ladder. I swear something hit the ladder.

[00:49:36] So I'm laying there and my grandson's sleeping with me in the rooftop tent. My husband's in a tent probably 100 yards away from it. He won't camp next to us when he has to sleep in the tent. So he went way down.

[00:49:48] All the rest of us are shriveled up like wagons around the fire thing. And I hear something hit the ladder and it kind of woke me up. And then I hear the zipper because it's an eye camper. It's got a zipper on the door.

[00:50:01] I hear the zipper like, zzz, zzz, zzz. And I'm panicking because I'm thinking, crap, what the heck is out there? Because we're in the middle of nowhere and I don't hear anybody talking. And I know everybody else is sleeping.

[00:50:17] And I left my, I always carry bear spray with me, but I left it down inside the car. So I didn't have it in the rooftop tent with me. And my grandson's laying there doing his little snore thing or whatever.

[00:50:28] And I'm freaking out like, oh gosh, something's trying to get in the tent. What am I going to do? How am I going to protect him? All these thoughts going through my head and I'm freaking out.

[00:50:36] And then I calmed down long enough to realize that he was wiggling just enough to pull his zipper on his sleeping bag open. Oh my gosh. So it was just going, zzz, zzz. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh, kid.

[00:50:49] I just wanted, he was asleep so I couldn't blame him for it. But oh my gosh, it scared the crap out of me. And then I just had to lay there and laugh. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so stupid. I was like, what the heck?

[00:51:01] Things like that happen though, where it's like, you think it's one thing and it's something else just very simple. And then you're like, oh my gosh. Well, out there, like I said, out there, my mindset is like, there's skinwalkers,

[00:51:15] there's ghosts, there's whatever weird things out there in the desert. And I do this all the time, even when I'm by myself. But when the zipper actually started unzipping, that's what freaked me out. It was like, no. And I didn't have my bear spray.

[00:51:31] All these thoughts are going through my mind in split seconds and I'm freaking out. And of course, I told everybody next morning what happened. And they just had to die laughing. Like, really? You're so stupid.

[00:51:43] Well, I mean, you wouldn't, especially if you're just kind of half awake or something, you know, and you hear that and you're not. Yeah, because it's like you almost start thinking about the worst things and it's like, oh, what's going to happen? What's going on?

[00:51:58] And my thoughts were, how am I going to protect my grandson? Because I don't have the bear spray up here. And I'm like, afterward, you think, well, that was stupid. How's bear spray going to protect your grandson kind of thing?

[00:52:08] If anything, it probably would have contaminated the whole tent. We would have all been messed up. You know, all the afterthoughts is what makes it so funny. But yeah, just the fact that it was his sleeping bag and just because he was just moving his feet

[00:52:22] just enough to make it unzip really slow. Oh my gosh. Oh, that is funny. Yeah, that was probably the latest funniest story, but I have probably a list a mile long. But yeah. What about something crazy that's happened?

[00:52:37] Because that sounds kind of crazy, but maybe that can fall in the same category. Crazy and funny stuff kind of coincide because my daughter and I, when we do anything together, it just, we're the crazy ones.

[00:52:48] People look at us like we're freaking nuts because we just do stupid stuff all the time. But yeah, I don't think of anything. Other than our funny stories. But yeah. Now, do you when you're traveling either with your husband and your husband and your daughter,

[00:53:06] or you and your daughter by yourself or whatever? I know you said you try to stay away from people and you don't go camping near people and stuff. But like just as you're driving through places, like I'm sure you have to stop,

[00:53:20] you know, do you end up meeting a lot of people along the way? And you know, or do you just keep to yourself? No, actually with our cars, that's kind of the fun part because we usually try to camp, you know, away from people if we can.

[00:53:34] This last trip we had to camp in campgrounds, but like our last year we did New Mexico and Arizona and we kind of stayed away from people other than when we stopped at the parks and stuff.

[00:53:43] But we'd walk in and her car's, you know, she's got some decals and stuff on it. And then of course I've got mine and we're usually parked next to each other and the bright colors, it attracts people.

[00:53:53] So we walk out and people are walking around and taking pictures and doing things. And of course we just stand there and watch for a little bit and then kind of walk towards the cars and then they're like, oh, is this your car?

[00:54:07] And then we end up in a conversation with them and it's kind of, it's really cool. And we actually find that it's mostly older people that really are attracted to the cars, which is kind of interesting. Even older than me.

[00:54:20] They're in their sixties and seventies and they're like, wow, this is like the coolest design. You know, I've been trying to get my husband to do this. And I'm like, think, you know, first you're thinking why at your age would you be thinking of this?

[00:54:30] But it's like, you know, your mind doesn't get any older. You really want to be doing this stuff. So you end up talking to a lot of people that everywhere we stop, people just want to look

[00:54:42] at the cars and then they start asking questions about, oh, what's this? And what's that? And that is fun. That part is really a lot of fun. Yeah. And I just, I don't see anybody ever being too old to do something like that. No, no.

[00:54:59] It's just, I mean, again, we were talking about this before we started recording, but it's like an expression of yourself and extension of yourself. And I think maybe, you know, I know for me, I'm not, I don't like to be out there with myself personally.

[00:55:17] You know, dress crazy or anything like that. But with my car, it's like, I want people to look at it and do some fun stuff with it and make it different. Exactly. You kind of like to hide behind it kind of thing, but you still want that expression

[00:55:32] of yourself out there. Yeah. And I would have never imagined that I would be driving a car that I did stuff with like this. Oh, really? Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Because it's like the cars that I had before were just cars.

[00:55:47] I mean, I liked them, but I didn't, you know, I had a truck that I changed out the radio on it and I put different door speakers in it and, you know, just to make it sound better.

[00:55:57] But other than that, like I didn't do anything to the exterior. And so like, this is the first car that I've ever had where I've got different wheels and tires. I've got my, you know, my roof rack on it and decals and, you know, it's like all things

[00:56:13] that I've never done with a car before. Oh yeah. I think the only thing different on mine that I've done, I mean, other than the obvious, but because I've lived, I've had Jeeps, I've had four runners.

[00:56:28] I've had, I had a Corvette, but I changed a lot of stuff on all those vehicles. So I never, I never really thought about any of the changes on this. Yeah. The only thing that was different, like I said, it was a stickers that just kind of

[00:56:42] it's like, but it just kind of comes with the territory with owning a Subaru. You have to have stickers to have more horsepower. So it's just, it doesn't seem to help the cross tracks much though.

[00:56:55] It just becomes, no, it doesn't seem to help us at all, but, but yeah, it just, it just became a thing at that point. And I'm very selective with my stickers that I put on there.

[00:57:04] I just put them in certain areas and I have friends that just slap them everywhere. So it's whatever suits you, it's fine. But I can't see looking back. It's like, I don't think I would have done that to any of my other cars. Yeah.

[00:57:18] It just wouldn't have looked right. Maybe there's just something about owning a Subaru. Maybe, I don't know. It must be because, you know, you see other cars with a bunch of stickers on it. It just doesn't really go with the car. They don't, they're not driving a Subaru.

[00:57:33] It doesn't fit right. That's right. They just bought the wrong car. They did. So I know you said you get out maybe a half a dozen times by yourself, but, and then you'd also get out with your daughter. How often do you and your daughter get out?

[00:57:50] And what is it that you call the little thing that she started? The blog? Oh, she actually started it like three years ago. It's called the Leave Them Wild. And it was for her son, my grandson to basically was emphasis.

[00:58:06] It was a blog that she started on doing things with their kids. Because a lot of people think once they have kids, they can't do anything anymore. And we hear it all the time. We're starting to see more and more people, especially as we travel, we're finding more

[00:58:21] parents and stuff going out, but she's a single parent. So she tries to do as much outside as she can with him. And he just absolutely loves the outdoors. That's all he knows. And it's unfortunate. He has to live in the city.

[00:58:33] He hates it there, but yeah, he loves to come visit. I'm Oma and then Opa. He loves to come visit Oma and Opa down in the sandbox is what he calls where we live because he can come down there and he can go outside and play.

[00:58:47] And so she started this little blog called Leave Them Wild. And then we actually started putting annual trips together where you could take time off from what she was doing for at least a week.

[00:58:57] So we could go travel around and kind of spread the news and she could do her blog thing and all that. And this year, this last year, she's been really pushing to try to make it into a travel company.

[00:59:09] And I'm trying to help her as much as I can with that. I'm not sure exactly what direction she wants to go or as far as she wants to go. So I don't want to push it. But we've got a new crew member.

[00:59:22] We've added a new guy that I met, oh gosh, about three months ago. And he fits right in perfectly with us. He's got a five-year-old daughter and he's a single parent and it just works out well.

[00:59:39] So we try to do that at least once a year where we can all get together and go on these longer trips. But he lives up in Salt Lake with her. So they're able to go out on almost every weekend and go camping. And that's what they're doing.

[00:59:51] That's nice. And that's awesome to be able to get the kids out and do that every single weekend. It's just amazing. I try to get up there as much as I can. I usually holidays and stuff. She's actually driving out here to Colorado for 4th of July.

[01:00:07] And I think he's going to come out too. We're trying to talk him into it because he doesn't have to work. And I'm going to take him up into the mountains and show him some stuff up there because he's never been up there.

[01:00:18] So it's just whenever we can get together, but at least one annual trip, long annual trips that I plan. She'll pick an area. I plan the logistics of everything. And then we just take off and go. And it's a lot of fun.

[01:00:34] Just as we can do more of it. We do as much as we can. It's great that he knows more of the outdoors than anything else. I think that's really important, especially great for kids nowadays with all the technology.

[01:00:50] He still has his little tablet that he gets hooked on when we go on our little travel trips. He likes to ride with Oma because Oma lets him use his tablet.

[01:00:58] Plus he gets to ride in the front seat because I usually have the back all full of stuff. But once we get to a certain point, of course, I have to take it away from him. And then it becomes an all outdoor thing.

[01:01:09] And then it's like trying to get him to go back inside is impossible. And they just, they dig in the dirt. They dig in the trees. They've stacked rocks up everywhere. This last trip, they were making sand angels just after we gave them a bath.

[01:01:22] It's like, okay, he gets in the car and the whole inside of my car is covered in sand. And I was like, it is what it is. You know, you just, you love it. It's just amazing. Yeah. My son, he's on his phone a lot.

[01:01:37] I mean, he's on like Instagram and TikTok scrolling and stuff, but he loves being outdoors and he would prefer to be outdoors and anything else. Yeah. So he went on a two week camping or not camping trip, but he went on a two week church camp.

[01:01:53] And what's really nice is when they're at this camp, they have to put their phones away the whole time. So he was without his. Yeah, he was without his phone for two weeks.

[01:02:04] And last year when he did this camp, it was the same camp he was going on for two weeks. He said that he liked that they weren't on their phone. So for him to say that as a teenager, that's like pretty, you know, that's pretty big, but

[01:02:17] he, you know, they, they're out in like West of, I think they're out near Austin somewhere, maybe a little bit West of Austin. And it's really nice out there. It's Hill Country, but I mean, he loves being outdoors.

[01:02:30] He loves hiking and I've, I've taken my kids to Colorado twice. So I've kind of given them the, the travel bug and we've been to Arizona as well. And I took him out to Washington last year for spring break.

[01:02:47] And we met up with people from rugged root crew and got to drive around through the mountains and stuff. That's cool. Yeah. So he, I mean, he loves being outdoors. And so I really liked that.

[01:02:58] He, even though he does like technology, he also really appreciates the outdoors and that's, you know, that's been a big deal for me. That is, that's really important. I think for anybody, I don't care what age you are, you need to, you need to reconnect with the planet.

[01:03:18] People forget that we are living on a big planet here and we need to reconnect with it once in a while. Yeah. Get away from this technology. Yeah. I just, I wish we had mountains closer because I would be in the mountains all the time,

[01:03:32] but it's just, it sucks. I mean, I've said this so many times on the podcast, but it sucks owning a Subaru and living in Houston because we just don't have anything here. You know what I mean?

[01:03:43] I have people on that are like, oh, 10 minutes and I'm in the mountains. And I'm just like, yeah, you suck. You know, even if where I live, I have mountains and the desert. So I have nice sand driving and the mountains.

[01:03:55] So the trouble is I have no other Subarus to go with because nobody's down there. Yeah. I mean, even if I had to go by myself, I mean, I would go with my son if I went somewhere

[01:04:05] now that my daughter has a cross trek, we could go, but. There you go. Yeah. But I mean, it's like, even if, you know, I've heard people say, oh, it's like an hour and a half before I get to the mountains.

[01:04:15] And I'm like, man, I would love to have mountains an hour and a half away. It's like, it's like at least so like out in West Texas, getting close to the, you know, the Western border of Texas, there is Palo Duro Canyon, which is like really, really nice.

[01:04:32] It's really pretty out there, but there's still not any mountains. I mean, I don't, I don't know, like what the nearest mountains are from us, but I mean, I know when we drove to Colorado, it was, I think it was like 15 plus hours to get out there.

[01:04:49] And I mean, I want to do that trip again though, because Colorado is just absolutely beautiful. That's probably one of my favorite states. Yeah, that's actually my home state. I'm a native here. So. Oh, nice. I was born and grew up here.

[01:05:05] So this is why my parents live here. My husband's parents live here. My brother and sister still live here. We're I've always been, I wouldn't say the black sheep, but I'm the explorer. I can't stay. Where we're in Colorado.

[01:05:21] I was born in Denver and I grew up in Buena Vista, which is up in the mountains. It's like in the center of the state. Okay. Where is that in relation to Denver? It's about a two hour drive back into the mountains, east of Denver, southeast of Denver.

[01:05:38] Okay. We used to go to Denver for Christmas shopping and stuff. It was a little bit of a drive back then. Buena Vista was a very small town. The collegiate peak range is what's right in front. So we've got several 14,000 foot plus mountains right there.

[01:05:55] That's I actually started climbing when I was 10 years old. Wow. So yeah, I was raised in the outdoors too. So, and then my kids were definitely raised in the outdoors. They grew up in the mountains of Idaho. That's nice. Yeah.

[01:06:09] My daughter, she went to, so she was, they were going to go over one summer. The church, the youth group would do like a mission trip somewhere and they've been down to Honduras and Guatemala and stuff. And so they were going to go down.

[01:06:25] I can't remember where they were supposed to go. They're supposed to go down one year and there was a lot of bad stuff going on wherever they were going to go. So they said, okay, we're going to do something else instead where we've got these ideas.

[01:06:38] But what they ended up doing was they ended up going out and hiking up Mount Uray all the way to the top and all the way back down. So they were gone for like five days.

[01:06:49] And I'm like, I was so glad that she was able to have that experience. That is really cool. That's nice. Yeah. So my kids, when they were younger, I had them hike up Pandy's Peak.

[01:07:02] I had them hike up Pandy's Peak, which is down the same range down there. Yeah. They thought they were dying on the way up, but they did fine. Yeah. It's hiking in the mountains is fun or just, I mean, just being in the mountains period is fun.

[01:07:17] I just, I miss it and I wish we had them closer and I can't wait to go back. I will at some point. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You should come out and visit where I live. We have the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

[01:07:31] We can actually see it from our front porch, but there's all kinds of overlooks down there that we go and drive out to. And you can camp out with the cross tracks and everything.

[01:07:40] And they're off-roading, you know, it can get a little rough, but I've had no problems getting out there with the track at all. That's good. And we've camped up there a few times and you just have these overlooks where there's

[01:07:50] like a 2000 foot drop straight down to the river. And you can watch the little blue rafts bobbing around down there as they go by. And it's pretty cool. Yeah, it sounds nice. There's some, there's some nice stuff there too. There's a stuff everywhere.

[01:08:04] That's why I said when you asked me for most beautiful place, I was like, I can't pick. There's so many. Yeah. Yeah. So I know you've connected with people on Instagram. I know you had mentioned somebody just recently, but who are like, and I know this, this is

[01:08:22] tough. And every time I ask this, people are like, oh, come on. But who are like three people that you've connected with that you would like to meet up with? Well, Matt at off-roading the Outback, of course, you've interviewed him.

[01:08:38] I've actually known him for a little over a year now and we connected. He just started asking me questions about the traveling and stuff. And I started talking to him a lot and he was coming out to Colorado.

[01:08:51] He wanted to know about it then back in July and all this stuff. And we, we actually talk every day. Oh, I have never met him. And he's, he's basically he's between my daughter's age and my son's age. So he's basically another son to me.

[01:09:09] So I would love to actually meet him one of these times. He was supposed to, I had a trip all planned for him in April, but he wasn't able to make it out. So I'm hoping maybe in October, he's, he's shooting for October now.

[01:09:20] He might come out for a month and I'll get to travel around with him. I've got a whole. Yeah, that would be fun. Yeah. So I'm pretty excited. He's a, he's a good guy. Yeah. It's so nice when you get to finally meet somebody in person.

[01:09:34] That's like such a good feeling. Yeah. I mean, we video chatted and everything else. Like I said, he's just like another son, you know, and it's just so funny because he's, he's just like one of my kids. He acts just like one of my kids.

[01:09:46] He talks like one of my kids. And so I was like, this is cool. I've never met him. So, but yeah, it'll be nice to actually meet him. I know I will one of these times, but I'm actually going to this trip.

[01:09:59] I'm hoping to meet Mel and she's let's see, what is she? She's the adventure brew and she lives over in Colorado Springs. I talked to her quite a bit too. And I'm hoping I'll meet her maybe in a couple of days here.

[01:10:15] We're hoping to do some camping next week together. And then Peyton at Absol Cross Trek, I guess he lives up in the Littleton area. He said he was going to be up there and I'm hoping to meet him next week sometime. He wanted to meet up for lunch.

[01:10:29] He's not sure if he can go off-roading or not. So that'll be nice to actually meet him too. I mean, my list is Absoul Trek. You've already interviewed him too. I don't think you've interviewed Mel yet.

[01:10:42] I don't know if she would want or not, but she's kind of shy, but she's a retired Air Force lady. She's really nice. Yeah, there's a lot. Of course, the list is a mile long, but those three I talked to probably the most.

[01:10:58] And actually I was just talking to Carrie from Mountain Subi. She was down here, Rango. We keep missing each other. I mean, our paths keep crossing, but I know one of these times we will actually meet. Yeah, she's super cool too.

[01:11:12] Yeah, she seems like really cool and Milton too. Both of them came through Canab last year and I wasn't able to meet him because I've actually been following Milton for quite a few years with his build and how crazy he's gotten.

[01:11:28] He's a little off the charts, but yeah, I don't think I'll ever go quite that far, but it is really cool what he does. Yeah, I mean, I still think it's so funny that he can do all of these repairs to cars

[01:11:41] on the trail, you know, like you broke a trail arm. Well, let's just pull it off and put another one on. Oh, you broke it? Yes. That's what cracks me up is some of those videos and they're out there on the trail

[01:11:52] and they just pull them out of the back of their cars. Like really? You guys just carry spare parts for everything. Yeah, because they know what they typically will break.

[01:11:59] But what's so funny to me is that he can do all that stuff now, but when he first bought his Crosstrek, he and his friend were going to change the oil and they drained the transmission fluid and double filled the oil. You go from that to this.

[01:12:16] That he would post of some of the stupid things that he was doing, and I'm like, really? And now you look at where they're at and it was like, oh my gosh, it's just crazy how far they've come. Yeah, it's so, yeah.

[01:12:27] I mean, and they have like so many people around them too that are very capable of doing, you know, mechanical stuff. So they've got a lot of people to learn from.

[01:12:38] That whole group is a really good group to hang around with if you want to be doing this stuff. Pretty hardcore, because I know Carrie, I've talked to her trying to figure out that Rebel Rally because I would love to do that.

[01:12:52] But then when I found out how much it cost, I'm like, oh yeah. I think it's like $15,000 to enter that. And I'm like, yeah, that's not happening anytime soon. Yeah, it's been tough for them too. But you need sponsors for that. Yeah. You gotta get sponsors for that.

[01:13:08] And that's just a lot of money to be raising. We've been trying to get Subaru to sponsor them because they're like the only non-corporate sponsored team out there. You've got Jeep, you've got, you know, I think Rivian was out there last year. Weren't they really?

[01:13:24] I think, I think. I'm not 100% sure. But yeah, so it's like, come on, Subaru. We still love them though. Yeah, well, of course we do. We buy their cars. Yeah. Well, I was going to say my family with my parents driving Outback, my in-laws driving Ascent.

[01:13:43] In my personal family, I've got a Crosstrek. My son's got, I think it's an old Impreza. He just traded his STI for, I think it's an Impreza GT. I can't remember. It's sitting in the backyard. It hasn't moved. And then my daughter's got the other Trek.

[01:13:57] So we've got a lot of Subarus in our family. Yeah, this is the first one in, I don't know of any of my family members on my mom's side, my dad's side, anywhere all around that's ever owned a Subaru. Oh, really? Yep. So it's all new for me.

[01:14:16] Yeah, you got a good one there. And then your daughter's got a nice one too. Yeah, she, so yeah, I mean, when she, you know, I asked you about the color whenever you're choosing the color.

[01:14:25] When she was going out there to look, well, when she was ready to buy one, she came I think she, I went and picked her up and we drove out to the dealership.

[01:14:37] She was looking at, I don't remember what exact color it was, but it was one of the gray ones. And then she was looking at one of the blue ones and I don't remember which blue color it was.

[01:14:46] But I told her before we went out there, I said, keep in mind that you might get there and see a color that you didn't expect to like in person. And so they didn't have a blue one that was available.

[01:15:01] They had a gray one, I think at another dealership. And then she saw the sunblaze pearl and she was like, what is this orange color? I really like it. I don't know why I like it. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do.

[01:15:15] And that's what she ended up with. And she absolutely loves it. And it's such a great color. Yeah, that's a good color. She picked a good one. It's going to be one of those unusual rare ones. So that's pretty cool.

[01:15:26] And it's hard to capture that color in pictures too, because it looks red in pictures, but it's not really red. It's more of an orange color. It's a very unique color and it looks really good.

[01:15:38] The couple that I've seen is kind of like, not a burnt orange, it's more like an orange brown. And it's hard to explain. But it's nice. It's a very unusual color. It's very pretty though. Yeah.

[01:15:52] So with your cross-trek, what would you say about your cross-trek best matches your personality? About my cross-trek? Well, probably the whole thing actually. I mean, it's different. It does like to stand out, but still kind of shy. Yeah. But definitely likes to explore. It definitely speaks that.

[01:16:15] It's like, it's ready to go out and explore. So that definitely is my personality. It's like, I'm always ready to go. If somebody wants to go somewhere, just call me. I will go. It's, I'm ready. Yeah. If they don't call me, then I'm out there anyway.

[01:16:28] So you'll find me somewhere out there. Yeah. Your cross-trek gets out in the wilderness and you like to go hiking. So perfect match. It gets me out there to take those unique photographs and do some hiking and everything else.

[01:16:42] If you could describe your cross-trek in one word, what would it be? Oh, that's a tough one. I know. That's why you asked the question. Be a tough one. Maybe adventurous. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. It's true. It's a good statement. Yeah.

[01:17:00] And then how has owning, I guess your cross-trek before and this one also, or just owning Subarus and being part of the community, how has that changed your life? Oh gosh. It's actually helped with, I wouldn't say making more friends, but definitely talking more to

[01:17:19] more people because I've always been really quiet and it's a whole different community. It's not really a cult, but it's interesting that not all Subaru people are this way either because I drive around Salt Lake and I'm one of these people, I wave to the Subaru people,

[01:17:36] but they just kind of look at you most of the time like what the heck? Daily drivers. Right. Why is she waving to me? But then you just run into those few, especially the ones that I talk to on Instagram and stuff. It's a nice community. Everybody's positive.

[01:17:53] Everybody's on the same wavelength and you're not really arguing about anything and they're just really positive people. And I love that more than anything because you really need something positive nowadays. Yeah.

[01:18:06] Just in life, just to get from day to day because everything is just so negative around you. That's why I love going to Instagram and I get a nice message or something or a good morning from somebody and it makes you feel good. Yeah, it does.

[01:18:23] I think a lot of Subaru owners like enthusiasts like us, I think we're all a bit quirky too. We are just a tad. That's where the craziness comes in. When you ask what's crazy, it's like, well, I own a Subaru. Yeah, exactly. That's it.

[01:18:37] That's the perfect answer for it. Yeah. Do you think you'll always own a Subaru? I don't know. I mean, I've never looked for anything else. Granted, I would if I had the money like to buy maybe a new Corvette or something to add

[01:18:52] to my garage, but I would still like to keep my Subaru. But yeah, I don't... Unless they come out with something super extreme that would do everything that the Subaru is doing right now. I can't see owning another one.

[01:19:10] I'm hoping I'll get close to 300 or 400,000 out of this one. Yeah, me too. It's doing really good. The last checkup I did, I had the CV axles changed and he looked at the engine for me and everything else. And he said, you know what?

[01:19:24] I don't know what you're doing to this thing, but it's like almost brand new. I'm like, really? Oh, that's good. I said, have you looked at my Instagram? You know what I do. You know how I drive this and where I take it. He goes, no.

[01:19:38] He goes, I don't know why, but whatever you're doing, just keep doing it. I'm like, well, I don't do anything. I was like, I change the oil and rotate the tires. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much all I've done with mine.

[01:19:48] I mean, I did change the spark plugs at 88,000 miles and had the fluids flushed and everything, but I still have the original clutch and I still have the original brakes. Nice. Yeah. And I think I still have the original brakes at 106,000 miles because it's a manual and

[01:20:08] I downshift a lot. I'm not always on the brakes. That could be, but see my daughter's got, well, she's got the bluebie and she just now changed her brakes and she's got over 170,000 on it. Wow. That's impressive. So she just did all four of them herself.

[01:20:26] So yeah, she went up and luckily this new crew member that we have for leave them wild, he was, he's got a nice driveway. Oh, that's important. But he's got a house with a driveway.

[01:20:38] So she was able to actually put it up on, on blocks and be able to change all four of them. And he helped her with that to make sure she was doing it right. So yeah. Yeah. And she's got 107, I want to say 172, 173,000 miles on it. So, wow.

[01:20:53] So yeah. I've got some hope. Yeah, you do. You definitely do. So yeah, I'm sure that's helping. Yeah. So there's another segment here where we get to know you a little bit better, but before

[01:21:07] we get into that, is there anything that you want to talk about, about like mentioned about your cross track that we didn't talk about that you think people might be interested in or anything about where you've traveled? Have you done anything to the inside of your car?

[01:21:23] Not a whole lot, really just a few little stickers here and there. I have things hanging from my, my mirror of course, which drives my husband nuts. But other than that, I just, I keep it clean and I haven't even changed the floor mats.

[01:21:39] I ordered those rotor floor mats, the OEM ones that came with it and they're still in good shape. So yeah, me too. My car's usually spotless unless I'm traveling. Of course, like this last trip, it got a lot of sand in there, but when you got a six-year-old

[01:21:53] getting in and out and you're chasing around, that's just going to happen. He's bringing fun back into the car. He definitely is. I'm still cleaning dust and stuff out of there. So yeah, I'm cleaning the mud off from, I don't know, a couple months ago when we went

[01:22:08] through that big mud hole. I'm sure you may have saw that video. Yeah. Yeah. Up in the wheel wells? Yeah. That's the worst. It's actually in the engine bay too. Oh yeah. That happens. That's why when he told me my stuff was clean, I'm like, really?

[01:22:25] It's like, did you not see all the mud that stuck? And it's Utah mud. So Utah mud is very special. It stays on everything forever unless you really scrub it. So that's in there. And then that dusty road that we took last weekend definitely filled in the dust.

[01:22:40] So that would be the extras on the inside that aren't supposed to be there. Sand and dust. But other than modifications, no. Yeah. I haven't done anything on the inside. I've thought about changing the seats out and putting the Camry seats in there.

[01:22:54] Because honestly, the Camry seats are the most comfortable seats I've ever ridden in. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I was trying to figure out how to fit those in there and not make it look stupid. But I don't think that's going to work. Yeah. What do you have in there?

[01:23:08] What are those? Yeah. They're Camry seats. They're Camry seats. Try it. Try it before you dislike it. You may like it. They honestly are the most comfortable seats. I haven't a Camry in the Toyota's before this. Yeah. Nothing compares to Camry seats. They're just so unbelievably comfortable.

[01:23:30] Did you hear that? Subaru takes some notes from Camry. I know. I wish they would. Because this actually, these seats, I already have back problems. But it does hurt my back at certain points. I'm like, OK, I start wiggling it around and I can't get comfortable.

[01:23:46] And it would be nice if they were a little bit better. But it will be fine for now. Yeah. Yeah. So here's a little segment that gets to know you a little bit better. But who is Kathleen? Who is Kathleen?

[01:24:01] Well, a 58-year-old kid who hasn't learned to grow up yet. That's OK. That just loves living. I actually had cancer about 18 years ago and survived that. And ever since then, it's like every day is very precious to me.

[01:24:20] So this is very important for me to live every day. Well, that's good that that was survived that long ago. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very hopeful that I'll never come back. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Well, you already answered the where you were born question.

[01:24:36] But what is a favorite memory from your childhood? Oh, gosh. Probably all the stuff that I did with my dad when I was here, when I used to live in Colorado. We did. Like I said, he took me outside all the time.

[01:24:50] And I think kids remember that better when you're outside and doing things. The climbing of the mountains. And he used to take me four by four on these roads that we're now doing Subarus in.

[01:24:59] Back then, you just did them in stock pickups and didn't have all the fancy gear and things. And it was pretty fun. He used to scare me to death, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah. I think that once you got past that scare factor is like,

[01:25:14] you can take a Subaru anywhere. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Probably my fondest memories is just spending the time with my dad when we did a lot of outdoor stuff, the camping, the hiking, the four by four and things like that. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. Just being outdoors.

[01:25:31] It is. It really is. It's just nice being outside. Yeah. So one of my questions is always what do you do for a living? But you said that you're fortunate that you don't have to work. So that's good. You can do all the exploring.

[01:25:46] But if you could have a dream job, like let's say you had to work or you wanted to work, do you have a job that would be a dream job? It would involve traveling. Yeah. Travel channel. Yeah. So that would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:26:02] Honestly, my dream job that I always wanted to work for National Geographic as a photographer. See, there you go. That's a perfect dream job. That was always my dream job is to work for National Geographic as one of their photographers.

[01:26:14] But yeah, I don't think that's going to ever happen. So I will settle for just doing what I'm doing. As long as you enjoy it. I do. So yeah. There you go. That's the important part. Yeah.

[01:26:26] So besides getting out and driving your Crosstrek and all the traveling, what other hobbies do you have? Photography, obviously. I'm just, I pick up hobbies and drop them all the time. I'm always doing something just to keep my mind busy. I do like mini Legos. I collect coins.

[01:26:45] I collect rocks. My dad's a geologist, a former geologist. So I'm always collecting rocks and exploring that. I do like to read a lot about other places to figure out where I want to explore next.

[01:27:02] I collect maps of places that I've been and where I want to go. I've got a million things and they change from week to week. So I'd like to keep my mind busy. Yeah. Where would you most want to go? Where do you see yourself going next?

[01:27:19] Do you have a plan of somewhere that you want to travel to that you haven't been to? Yeah, actually, I've had a bucket list all my life. Number one was always Argentina, which I just did that in April. Finally.

[01:27:34] I've been wanting to do that since I was 15 years old. I finally took a three week trip down there and the photographer liked it. Yes, it was awesome. I've never been to Patagonia before and it was just amazing. But I've actually got...

[01:27:49] Hopefully this doesn't come out before he finds out. But I've got a surprise trip for my husband planned for his birthday. His birthday is on Sunday, but the trip's going to be in September. I'm taking him up to Banff and Jasper.

[01:28:03] And we're going to drive that area for two weeks and explore that whole area. Well, this is coming out Monday, so I can cut that out. That'll be fine. He's going to find out on Sunday. Oh, OK. There you go. Yeah, Sunday's his birthday, so that'll work.

[01:28:18] That'll work. Yeah. OK, gotcha. Yeah, his birthday's Sunday, but the trip is... In fact, I might just have him listen to this and he'll find out what his surprise is. There you go. Hey, listen to this episode. You got it. You have to listen to it. I'm sorry.

[01:28:30] You're going to have to listen to the whole thing because it's near the end. Yeah, don't even tell him that there's a surprise. Just say, hey, check out my episode. You got to listen to it. I had so much fun doing it. I could do that. Yeah.

[01:28:41] But yeah, I'm going to take him up there in September, October, during fall. And we're just going to drive around. I've never been up there. I've always wanted to go.

[01:28:48] And I'm sure it's not one of those scary areas, so he doesn't have to check it out ahead of time. Well, that's good. So yeah, where's somewhere else I can... I know you wanted to travel to Argentina and you went there, but is there some place that

[01:29:02] you want to travel to with your Crosstrek to go explore? With my Crosstrek? Well, probably the East Coast. I wouldn't mind driving it out there. It's a long drive, but I wouldn't mind going out there in the fall too because I used to live out there too.

[01:29:16] I've lived in 11 different states. I've moved like 37 times. Oh, wow. So I've lived from Florida to Washington and a lot in between. But the fall out there is just amazing and I would just love to drive the trek up and

[01:29:29] down some of those roads that are over there, especially in the fall. It's so pretty. Yeah. Well, Charlie, who goes by FalconRoo1, he and his wife took a cross-country trip from Washington, I think, all the way out to Maine and back. I believe that's where they went to.

[01:29:48] Yeah. And that's actually one of the bonus episodes that I did like maybe two years ago or something. I don't remember exactly when it was. But yeah. That would be a nice trip. Yeah. They had a lot of fun. I bet. We did a similar trip.

[01:30:03] We lived in Montana at the time. We took our kids when they were younger and drove them all the way to Maine because I have relatives that live in Maine. And we went through the Americas first, or US first, and then we came back through Canada.

[01:30:19] So we kind of made a loop out of it. That was a lot of fun. That sounds fun. We didn't have a cross-trek then. We had the 4Runner, but it was still a lot of fun. Oh yeah. It's a long drive though, especially with two little kids.

[01:30:33] Now it would be all right with just one big kid. Yeah. True. True. So what is something that makes you want to get out of bed every day? Something that wants me to make it get out of bed. Oh, just knowing that I'm going to...

[01:30:46] Usually the night before I think, okay, I'm going to drive out here and do this hike or I'm going to go do that, photograph that, that kind of thing. I usually plan ahead the night before what I'm going to do.

[01:30:59] And I'm an early bird, so I get up at like 4 a.m. And sometimes I get up... If I get up a little bit earlier, I actually go out and shoot the Milky Way and things like that. Oh, nice. Yeah.

[01:31:11] So I usually got a good reason to get up every morning. Now, do you get out of the house and go do something outdoors every day? I try to. It is getting hot down where we live and it's kind of like the opposite of winter.

[01:31:27] Usually people stay in-house for the winter because it's so cold. We don't have that issue down there. It just gets so hot in the summertime. You want to stay in the house in the summer. So it does make it really hard to do that.

[01:31:37] So that's why another reason I get up at 4 a.m. So I can go out while it's still cool. Yeah. And then I'm usually done by 9 a.m. Because it's usually close to 100 degrees by then. Oh, geez. Yeah. It gets toasty down there, especially lately.

[01:31:50] It's just getting really hot. Yeah. What's something that makes you want to stay in bed? Gosh. The only thing is maybe after a couple weeks, I might be so tired from doing all this stuff

[01:32:06] I've just been doing that I might just stay in bed all day just to sleep and catch up. That's the only thing I can think of that would make me want to stay in bed because I really just don't like laying in bed. But yeah.

[01:32:18] I do get wore out after a couple weeks of doing the 4 a.m. and out running around. Oh, yeah. Like every two or three weeks, I'll just crash for a whole day. And my husband knows it's like, okay, she's done for the day.

[01:32:31] She's going to be laying on the couch all day sleeping or whatever. Hey, it's okay. Your body needs the rest. Yeah, exactly. And especially after what it's been through, all the crazy stuff it's done. Yeah. Yeah. I get wore out a little bit faster.

[01:32:48] But yeah, about every two or three weeks, I crash for a good 24 hours and then I'm ready to go again. What would be your best bit of advice to give to someone about anything? Oh, just living each day.

[01:33:04] Don't stress about what's going to happen tomorrow or, you know, do remember what happens in the past, but don't live by it. You have choices every day to do whatever you want to do. And just be smart about your choices and remember that it is your life.

[01:33:19] You need to live it. Yeah, that's really good advice. Yeah, it's important. Yeah. Get outside too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely get outside. Yeah, at least until it gets to 100 degrees. Yeah, go someplace cooler like the mountains in Colorado. Just drive in your car and stay in the AC.

[01:33:39] Well, you can do that too. At least you're outside. That well, yeah, technically you are. Yeah, I mean, driving around, you can at least drive to see some beautiful spots. You live in a hot part of the US too. Oh, yeah, I do.

[01:33:55] It's not too terribly hot yet. It hasn't, I don't think it's gotten to 100 just yet. The actual temperature that feels like it's gotten over 100, but not, I don't think we've gotten up to 100 quite yet. We've gotten up to like 98. Okay, you've got a lot of humidity. Sometimes, yeah.

[01:34:14] It sucks. That's something we don't have. Our humidity level is like 5% or 6%. I mean, it's so dry. Your skin just like shrivels up. Yeah, when we went out to Arizona, we were in Flagstaff and my son was playing outside with my friend's two sons.

[01:34:35] And I think it was like maybe 90 degrees or something. And I wasn't even in the shade so much, but I was just like, this feels amazing because it was only like 10% humidity. And I'm like, I can stand out here in like 90-something degree heat and I'm not even

[01:34:56] sweating. This is awesome. And my friend was like, oh, we're sorry that you came at the hottest part of the year. Are you kidding me? This is amazing. And he was like, no, it's horrible. And I'm like, dude, you're from Houston. You know what humidity is like.

[01:35:12] Come on. But it's a dry heat. That's what everybody says. But it's a dry heat. Yeah, I felt the dry heat when I was pumping gas in the rental car when we were flying

[01:35:24] out of Phoenix and I'm standing under the canopy out of the sun and it felt like I was in an oven because it was like 118 degrees or something. Yeah, the dry. My husband's one of these. He waits until afternoon when it's like 95 plus to go run nine miles.

[01:35:43] And I'm like, he's acclimated very well to the hot temperatures coming from Idaho where he was used to, you know, it'd be 20 degrees. He'd be out there in shorts. But now he's like fully acclimated to this hot weather and I just can't handle it. It's like 95 degrees.

[01:36:00] If it's above 80, I'm like, no, I'm dead. I can't go outside. I have to go to the mountains or something. Yeah, we've gone to San Antonio before during the summer and it has been so humid there

[01:36:16] that we're like, please, where is the nearest air conditioned spots we can get into? Because it's like, we want to go enjoy the river walk and then you don't even want to be outside. Anytime I go to San Antonio, I try to go when it's cooler.

[01:36:31] We've been during Christmas, like around Christmas time before and that's really cool because they decorate the whole river walk with Christmas lights and everything. It's really pretty. I need to go down there because I know that I've got relatives that live down off the Gulf there.

[01:36:47] I just need to make my way down there. But it's a couple day drive to get down there from where I'm at. San Antonio is nice. So it's fun. Austin's fun too. But it's they're both not flat, which is nice. Yeah, it's so flat here.

[01:37:07] We had a saying for that is like, what was it when we lived in Colorado here? It's like if Texans were meant to ski, they would have made cow shit white or something like that. It was funny.

[01:37:20] It was so funny because we had a lot of Texans that would come up here and go skiing. Basically, they were such snobs and take over the mountain. And so we always had that coming for us. It's like, yeah, it was funny.

[01:37:32] Well, thank you for taking the time to record. Well, thank you for inviting me. You're welcome. I know you were, I saw that you were tagging me in like your posts and stories for a while before we actually chatted.

[01:37:46] And then you're like, hey, I've had some people say that I should do this. What do I need to do? Yeah. A couple people were like, hey, you need to go on Tubi and I'm like, okay. It's like, I guess I'll do it. I'll work up the courage.

[01:38:00] It took me a while, but I did. Here you are. It was fun. Yeah. You're easy to talk to. So that's good. Well, good. I'm glad. But yeah, thanks again. And I hope you have a good night. And you too. I will. Yeah.

[01:38:14] And yeah, we'll get this episode out and I hope you had a good time. Oh, I did. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Talk to you later. Okay. Bye. Bye. Hello again, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Suby and you podcast.

[01:38:32] If you're not doing so go give Kathleen a follow again. Her Instagram handle is ah.trek.its.yagi. Interesting name, but a very cool name. And it was great having a conversation with her. And thank you again, Kathleen, for taking the time to record with me.

[01:38:52] I really enjoyed your conversation and I really enjoy your build. It's very unique and it definitely stands out as you said. Again, I want to say thank you everybody for your support and for tuning into the podcast.

[01:39:06] And as a reminder, starting July 1st, I will be going from every week, every Monday to every other Monday. So just be sure to keep that in mind. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[01:39:21] And I hope that you will continue to listen as there will still be more episodes, just not every Monday. I hope you all have a great week and I'm excited that we have a holiday coming up July 4th.

[01:39:33] Not that I'm really planning on doing anything, but it's just it's nice to have time off work. So I hope you all enjoy your holiday coming up soon. And we'll talk to you later and see you next Monday on July 1st for another episode. Have a great week.

[01:39:51] Much Subie love, Raph.