S&YE180 - NR the OBXT

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, this is Chip and you can find me on Instagram at NR underscore the underscore OBXT. You're listening to episode 180 of the Subie and You podcast. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Subie and You podcast.

[00:00:26] Since things are changing up a little bit here by changing the schedule, I decided to change the intro music too and mix things up a little bit. So far I have gotten good response from the schedule change.

[00:00:44] People have been understanding and supportive and I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. That really means a lot to me because I know this is kind of a big change and not,

[00:00:56] you know, sometimes not an easy change but sometimes change is good and change is necessary. So thank you all so much for your kind words and for your support. As you heard, we have Chip on the podcast today who goes by NR the OBXT

[00:01:14] and he is another guest that I have actually met in person. So that is really cool. It's always awesome whenever I'm able to have a guest on the podcast that I have actually met in person. That makes it even more exciting for me.

[00:01:32] During the episode you will hear me talk to him and try to... I tried to figure out how many people I have actually met in person that have been guests and I did a count just now. 68. So this makes my 68th guest that I've actually met in person.

[00:01:51] So, and I know that number will grow over time. So that'll be exciting. And of course this first sponsor is somebody that I have met in person and I'm someone I am very grateful for. The Subie & You podcast is brought to you by Eccentric Designs.

[00:02:08] For those of you who don't know, Eccentric Designs is a small community-driven business that offers 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.

[00:02:25] To find designs for your Subie, head on over to eccentricdesigns.com. 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 this Subie & You podcast.

[00:02:41] We have another patron question of the week and this one comes from Brant who goes by Jackie Rue on Instagram. He asks if you had to pick your ideal nature relaxation slash vacation setting,

[00:02:55] are you more of a beach, mountain slash woods, lake, stream slash waterfall, or desert kind of person? Mountains and woods 100%. If there are woods in the mountains, that's fine. But as long as there are mountains, that would be my ideal vacation.

[00:03:14] Ever since I first went out to Colorado many, many years ago, I fell in love with the mountains and mountains are my favorite thing on Earth just to look at them, to wake up in the morning, go outside and see mountains off in the distance.

[00:03:30] It's just I've always, always loved mountains ever since I first saw them. And the other night Luke and I were driving and it was, we could see some really dark clouds off in the distance that looked like a mountain range off in the distance.

[00:03:46] And it just reminded me how much I love mountains and how much I miss mountains. So there's my answer. I enjoy being by the water, but not necessarily, I don't like going to the beach. I don't like sand. I don't like the way it feels.

[00:04:02] Plus, I think I got sunburned really bad when I was like 10 or 11 years old. So I think I just, that may have traumatized me. And that might be one of the reasons why I don't like going to the beach. But I like being near the water.

[00:04:16] Like if there's a, like if there's a boardwalk or something that's at the water, along the water. I like that, but definitely prefer mountains 100%. That's kind of an easy answer for me. But thank you so much for your question, Brant.

[00:04:32] There is a question that ChewyRoo asked and his question is, if you had to pick your last meal, what would it be? This one I'm really having to think about.

[00:04:45] So I might have to wait a couple of episodes to answer it, but it, what would your last meal be? Send me a DM. Let me know. This episode is also brought to you by SubaruGear.com. If you hover over shop, you scroll down, you will find auto.

[00:05:04] And under auto, you'll find Subaru key chains, tools and auto accessories. And these are all items that help make life a little easier from versatile and handy multi-tools to keep in your glove box to cool and unique key chains. They've got you covered.

[00:05:21] Check out their selection of useful tools and accessories today. Head over to SubaruGear.com to shop auto accessories from Subaru. And be sure to use the code SUBINJU24 for 20% off your purchase of any of these items found in the auto selection or any other items on the site.

[00:05:43] If your total is over $50 after the discount, you automatically get free shipping. Thank you so much, SubaruGear.com for sponsoring the Subaru INU podcast and extending this great offer. This episode is also brought to you by Mele Design Firm, where you will find

[00:06:01] handcrafted battery boxes, as well as a great selection of batteries to put in those boxes. Not only that, but you will also find great items from other brands that we all know and love, such as Nameless Performance and Primitive Racing, just to name a couple.

[00:06:19] But go check out MeledesignFirm.com and see what they have to offer for your Subaru. Thank you so much, Mele Design Firm, for sponsoring this SUBI & YOU podcast. And now that all the business is out of the way, we will get into this episode with Chip

[00:06:35] and hear all about NR, the OBXT, and learn what NR stands for, because I was very curious and we find out. So let's get into it right now and hear what he has to say. Hello, Chip. It's nice to see you again. Nice to see you.

[00:07:06] Yeah, because usually whenever I'm doing Zoom, it's like I'm seeing the person for the first time. But yeah, what's really cool is you, I'm adding you or I can add you to another

[00:07:17] or to the list of people that I've met in person that I've had on the podcast. And I was counting up, I don't know, I have to go back through and because I wasn't like doing it completely exact, but I think you're somewhere around 65 or 66,

[00:07:34] you know, guests that I've met in person that I've also had on the podcast, which is really cool. That's pretty cool. It seems like I wouldn't think the number would be that high. Yeah. You have to travel to see people or, you know, to shows or wherever.

[00:07:50] Yeah. And I mean, there's only been a few of the episodes that I've done in person with the people, but, you know, I end up talking to people through Instagram and then being able to go out to like

[00:08:01] Subi Fest Texas and going out to Moon Rocks when I went out there for my 50th birthday, and then going out to Boxer Fest and Subaru Flat Fest, you know, just all the places that I've been

[00:08:17] able to go to. It's been cool that either before I went there, I had had the person on the podcast or having them on the podcast after I met them. So I've been thankful and grateful for all

[00:08:31] the travels that I've been able to do. Yeah. I like this ad right off the bat that I've really enjoyed the podcast. I've been listening to it from close to the beginning.

[00:08:42] I think I may have missed one or two episodes, but I'm pretty sure I've listened to most of them. And I really enjoy it. It's just nice to hear people's different people's stories about

[00:08:52] how they've come across Subaru, what it means to them, the community. You have a lot of common threads between each person you speak to and it's pretty cool. Okay. Yeah. You're welcome. I'm glad

[00:09:04] you're enjoying it. And again, I thank you for listening. It's nice to have something where people can share more of their story and talk about themselves, talk about their build and like you said, the community and what it means to them besides just reels and photos on Instagram.

[00:09:26] That's kind of where the idea came from is being able to give people a place to just share more. Yeah. So it's been a fun journey. It's great. Awesome. So before we get into really the meat

[00:09:41] of it, and I know you, I think you've answered this question before, but we have to ask, you know, the all important question is whether you prefer waffles or pancakes. Yeah. I have to admit I'm a waffles guy. The biggest reason I think is that the pancakes,

[00:09:56] when I like them, but when I eat them, sometimes they get crumbly and I put butter on mine and syrup and I try to pick them up. Maybe it's too much moisture. They tend to fall apart.

[00:10:06] Don't stay on my fork while I'm not. So that's kind of discouraging. And so I just waffles like the crispiness of it and all of our, as everyone said, the nooks and crannies

[00:10:16] that hold the syrup and whatever you put on it. So yeah, I like them both, but Marshall. Yeah. I gotcha. That makes sense. So yeah. So getting into your Outback, is this your first

[00:10:30] Subaru? It is my second Subaru. My family's fourth. I had a 2017 Outback that during COVID I was thinking about getting a camper for my wife and I to use. We had a camper years ago

[00:10:49] when the kids were smaller, but they got bigger and didn't want to camp anymore. So we sold it and just wanted to get another one, something I can tow with a car. But everything I found that

[00:11:01] was available in our price range and with the amenities my wife wanted, shower, air conditioning, bathroom, the bathroom most importantly and the shop, air conditioning, sorry, were heavier than my car could pull. So my wife's like, why don't you just get a new, a bigger Outback? Because I

[00:11:19] found the Onyx, which is a turbo, it could tow more. So I'm like, are you serious? Because yeah, you don't want to buy a truck. I'm not a truck guy. I've never wanted a truck. I've never had

[00:11:30] a need for a truck. So I started looking into it and right around the same time my second daughter was looking at replacing or selling her 2004 Subaru Legacy wagon. It's like an Outback,

[00:11:45] same build, but real low. So I just made her an offer on what the dealer was going to give me in trade-in, which is never what you want it to be. So she bought that for me. So it stayed in

[00:11:56] the family and I bought the one I have now. We had a 2012 Forester we bought for the kids to use when they were finishing high school and college. But my son was taken out to Los Angeles when he

[00:12:09] moved out there and he was towing a small U-Haul damper and the engine in Arkansas. So the garage, he took it to offer him $200 just to take it because it's obviously worth more if you have

[00:12:25] the time or locally to part it out and get stuff off it. But I'm in New York state, so, and he's not, the car's not. So he took $200, we rented a U-Haul and it got to where it had to be presently

[00:12:38] just the two, two in the family now. Okay. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. It's nice that I know I, I have so many people where it's their first Subaru and then there's people where it's like, oh, my family

[00:12:50] has had Subarus my whole life. And I'm like, well, that's really cool. Cause I was talking to my previous guest and I was like, I don't think anybody in my family that I can think of and I

[00:13:01] can remember whether it's, you know, of course my parents, grandparents, you know, cousins, aunts, uncles. Like I don't think there's a single person in my family that I can think of that had a Subaru. So I just didn't really know anything about them before I bought mine.

[00:13:16] Same thing in your family. I don't think anyone has one either. I was always a Honda guy. I think I had nine different Hondas along the line. I made it, I pretty much had it and I've always

[00:13:26] swore by them, but just decided to make a switch. And the story behind that is my daughter who had the 04 Legacy, she was going to be attending school in North Carolina, but she went down there

[00:13:40] that summer to work with a friend at a whitewater raft guide at the NOC. It's a big outdoor recreation center. But she said, I really want to get a car. Do you look around for one that's in this price

[00:13:52] range? So I spent probably two months test driving. She wanted a, like a wagon, a Ganalpack. So I test drove tons of them. And the more I researched them, the more I was interested in

[00:14:05] the reputation of the Outback and Subaru. So we bought her a, that 2004 and we drove it down to her and flew back. But then I started looking, went to a Subaru dealer, started asking questions and

[00:14:20] I'm getting that 17 Outback that I had for three or four years and eventually sold that one to her. Yeah. So getting her the, cause you said it was a Legacy wagon, right?

[00:14:32] Getting her that and, you know, with all your research and everything, were you kind of set on giving that car to her? Was it like, okay, after all this, my car next car is definitely going to

[00:14:46] be a Subaru. Yeah, for sure. I had my car before the, my first Subaru was a Honda CRV and I had a hatchback all-wheel drive. And I said, I would never go with an all-wheel drive or hatchback.

[00:15:00] I just love that combination. And with the winters we used to get up here, all-wheel drive is an elevation, you know, that ride height is important. So the Outback had that

[00:15:12] and you know, all the safety features and I got a pretty good deal out. I think my insurance actually went down when I bought the newer car because of all the safety features and I was

[00:15:20] shocked. And yeah, all these different safety features built into it. So yeah, I'm definitely hooked on Subarus now. They're my go-to car now. And it has to be the Outback. I need the room.

[00:15:32] Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So what does in your Instagram or yeah, in your Instagram account, you had, you know, it's NR the O B X T. So what does NR mean?

[00:15:43] Well, I wish it was more creative. I wish I had a better story, but we're, we were kind of Marvel geeks in our house and I was ordering the black car. I hadn't received it yet. And maybe before

[00:15:57] we received it, maybe I did get it, but trying to come up with a name. And I was thinking the black widow, like X counts kind of corny. And so knowing the name of the character in the Marvel

[00:16:09] series, we went with Natasha Romanoff and which is way too long for a handle. So I just went with NR. I had originally had NR the, I had spelled out. I remember it was longer. The last part of

[00:16:21] it where it just says OBXT. I think I spelled the whole word Outback XT. So I just shorted a little bit after about a month or two, but nothing, no great story. I wish there was something better.

[00:16:33] No, it's not. I mean, it's not bad, you know, Marvel bit of a Marvel geek. Yeah. Yeah. Movies are great. And yeah, I, I enjoy them. My son and I have watched pretty much all

[00:16:48] of them. We've watched the shows that they have on Disney plus and spinoffs. Yeah. Yeah. Loki is really, really good. We really enjoyed Loki. You know, I didn't see the latest season just, I don't know, but near the end of the first season, it got really bizarre.

[00:17:04] Just what's hard to follow, I guess. And then my brother's like, you have to watch it. Go back a few episodes, season one, catch up, watch it. And it connects. He says it connects

[00:17:13] with a lot of the, uh, with the other shows and series and whatnot. So I'll have to sit down this summer. I'll have some time. Yeah. It is really bizarre with the whole timeline and, you know,

[00:17:24] and everything, but it's, it's, it's such a good show, but yeah. With your previous Outback, did you do any modifications to it? I did not. What I did do with that one during when COVID

[00:17:40] first started, let me backtrack every two years, a bunch of my buddies, we, we fly down to Orlando for a golf trip and March 13th, 2020 was the day we were flying here down to Florida. And we're all

[00:17:53] like, should we go? Should we not? We all said, let's go. But my wife said, you're going to quarantine for two weeks when you get back. And so I did, but the whole time in the basement,

[00:18:02] watching TV is playing on my phone. I come across, I was wanting to get into camping again more. And I saw a lot of videos on YouTube of people coming up with different setups for their car,

[00:18:14] for camping, whatever it was, tent camping. And then I saw the modification or the DIY for the awning. I forget the name of the, the YouTube person who has a habit here somewhere.

[00:18:28] Anyways, I'll find it, but there's a beautiful video show exactly how to make this awning out of PVC piping and Walmart tent. I made that. And I also made a sleeping platform within the car

[00:18:42] where you've got space to store a couple of a Walmart totes or just some space underneath. Then you could still, you could fold all your seats, have them all upright and still have this

[00:18:51] in the back. Oh, nice. You can put the seats down and all connects. So I made those two things. I did a little bit of camping during COVID with those two things that I built, but no modifications

[00:19:01] on the car itself that came later. Okay. So then what made you decide to start doing the additional modifications when you got your first car? Because I went and looked at your very first post and you said that something like you were already planning to do some mods.

[00:19:20] And yeah. So where did you see, like, were you like, were you on Instagram at that time and connecting with other people and seeing what other people were doing? Was it like, or was it just like

[00:19:31] YouTube and, you know, Google searches? It was, it was a little bit, I was a little bit on Instagram. I saw a few things, but what I came across mostly just flipping through with more like, I guess

[00:19:43] you call them the tuner cards. I saw more of that stuff when I ordered my car, it hadn't come in yet. It came in and like early September, no late September, but I knew what I was getting. I saw

[00:19:54] the pictures and I started Googling and I come across somebody's beautiful car. They had the Chrome delete on there for the, cause I don't know why the 2020 Onyx edition had Chrome window edges

[00:20:07] all the way around. It was ugly. So they had the Chrome delete and I got that and they had new different tires and rims. And I really liked those simple changes made the car look so neat,

[00:20:20] so cool. So that's what kind of got me started thinking about simple mods. But once I got the car and started looking around on Instagram more for that type of car is when I started seeing

[00:20:32] all the modifications people were doing, I was just blown away. I didn't realize it was going on. Yeah. Cause you start connecting with other people and seeing, you know, just all these

[00:20:42] other accounts and what they're doing with their cars. And it's like, I didn't know you could do that because it's kind of the same thing with my cross track. Cause whenever I was doing research

[00:20:51] on my cross track before I bought mine, before I had the Instagram account, I was doing a little, I connected with a few people on Instagram, but not really that much, but I was just looking at

[00:21:02] YouTube videos of like cross tracks and, you know, I was seeing very minor modifications of like somebody that lifted it and maybe had a rooftop basket and maybe some, you know, like ditch lights or fog lights or something like that. And so it wasn't anything

[00:21:19] extreme. Yeah. And then I came across 4x4 Suby's account and his or his YouTube channel and saw all the stuff that he had on his cross track. And I was like, Whoa, that's like,

[00:21:33] that's whack. Like I didn't realize people could do that much stuff to it. And so I didn't really think that I'd be doing anything with mine. Cause I just like, I don't have the money to do all

[00:21:43] that kind of stuff. And you know, I live in Houston, so, uh, you know, like my build is kind of just where it is and where it needs to be for me. But, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's amazing what

[00:21:54] you end up finding online that people are doing to their cars. I think the first outback that I saw was a Ninja Outback. Yeah. I've always liked the looks of her car and the new one also. It just,

[00:22:10] it's just really nice. And I did try to copy that, but it's just so nice to look at car that's similar to your same color and try to like get ideas from like, what could I do?

[00:22:20] What should I do? What do I want to do? Yeah. Um, what can you afford and et cetera, but so what was the first mod that you did get for the new car outback? Believe it or not, the first mod I got were the primitive King Springs

[00:22:37] because, um, we bought that camper as mentioned and the camper weighs about 2,800 pounds unloaded. We don't put too much stuff in there, but the first time I hooked it up,

[00:22:48] the car, the rear end sag so much. So I, within the, within a week I ordered a set, I forget who I saw someone had them and I messaged them directly and asked, you know, told them what I

[00:23:01] wanted to do. And they suggested a set got them put in and, um, it only sags maybe half inch that way down there now. So it makes a big difference. And it gave the car like an inch

[00:23:12] and a quarter lift, which was nice also. So there's no lift kit, just a little bit. Okay. Yeah. I think that's probably what I would do at some point is get those, you know, the,

[00:23:23] the setup where they're all put together and you just install them and maybe like a half inch lift or something like that. Cause I, my whole thing is, I don't know that I would want to lift it so much

[00:23:34] that you're having to do. Cause I, and I would ask them too of like, you know, what can I get away with without having to do the subframe drop and all the other things that you have to do and

[00:23:44] compromising other things, unless you do all these other things along with it. So I just, I think it'd be nice just to have some stiffer suspension and maybe like a half inch lift or

[00:23:55] something, but I did notice a difference in a ride. Yeah. I know. Difference in a ride was real noticeable with the, with the stock springs, such a smooth ride. And when you put the stiffer

[00:24:06] ones in, it would, you could feel it when you hit a bump, it was just different. But within a couple of days, you didn't notice it. It's just what you drive. It's your car now. Yeah. So with all the

[00:24:16] mods that you have, like what has been your favorite mod? Favorite, I'll give you two, I'll say favorite mods, but also more practical mods. I think my favorite mod, it's something I

[00:24:28] look at every day and I'm sure you do too is, is my tires and wheels. Yeah. I just think they make the car look so I guess, badass in a sense, you know, just a little wider, thicker, taller. The

[00:24:42] rims are, I really liked the LP adventure rims, but the practicality of like I've done enough off-roading on some rough trails and skid plates have saved that car, saved me a lot of expense.

[00:24:55] Cause you can hear them every time, almost every time I trail them banging on one of them multiple times and just one. And the last, uh, the last time I trailed no two trails ago,

[00:25:05] I hit it's a spot I've been to many times in Connecticut, but I hit art really hard. Oh, that didn't sound good. And after that, it was a bit of a rattle once in a while when I accelerated

[00:25:18] and after the trip was over, I brought it to my, my guy down the road here and he lifted it up and we can see where I dented the plate. It was right underneath the exhaust. So the,

[00:25:28] when they accelerated or did something, it just rattled. It was touching just, Oh yeah. So instead of taking it down and straighten it out, which I'm probably going to do this week,

[00:25:37] just put a washer, thicker washer on the one side and it gave us some separations of his rattle. Yeah. I have two rattles that I still am not able to figure out where they are.

[00:25:48] One's a smaller rattle that happened when I went out to Bastrop and I'm pretty sure. I think it's whenever I drove through some water, something happened and it rattles now. And I have no idea where it is. Can't find it.

[00:26:00] And then I have a bigger rattle that sounds like it sounds like it's the muffler or the exhaust line or something rattling kind of big, maybe like, you know, above the, the mid skid plate, the transmission skid plate. But I don't know. I just, I haven't really

[00:26:20] been able to take the time to like pull everything off and try to figure out, you know, what might be rattling, but it's I think it, that rattle happened when I went up to Subaru flat fest

[00:26:33] and was going over the off-road course where, where they have the, they have these, these telephone poles and you drive over those. And I don't have a lift, but I think most of the other people do. So I, whenever I was going over them one time,

[00:26:52] I banged pretty hard. And I think that might be where that rattle comes from. So maybe again, kind of the same thing I have, maybe just dented it enough to touch. Who knows?

[00:27:03] Yeah. And I mean, I was just under there today changing my oil and I'm pushing on things. The, the heat shield was kind of vibrating a little bit, so that might be it, but you know, I don't know. It's just, maybe someday I'll figure it out. Maybe not.

[00:27:17] Yeah. Nothing has fallen off yet, so I think I'm okay. 105,000 miles you said now? I'm not going to win. Things are still running great. Yeah. I'm 106 now. So. Wow. Yeah. It's, I mean, you know, haven't had any issues, so that's good. That's awesome. Yeah.

[00:27:36] Yeah. So, so like, I know that like, if people want to look at all of the mods that you have too, they can go to your Instagram account and click on one of your photos and you have everything

[00:27:47] listed there. So you've got, you know, a pretty decent list of mods, but like you did mention the DIY awning earlier. How does that work? And like, what is it comprised of? I know you said

[00:27:57] PVC pipe and a Walmart tent, but beyond that, what is it and how does it work? Well, it's a four foot white PVC. That's four inches across. Sorry, not four foot, four inches across. I forget how long I cut it just enough to fit the pipes and everything.

[00:28:16] I have an end cap and a screw cap and I spray painted it all black. And there are two screws that poke through on each end. And the Walmart tarp is an eight by six. So it's six wide where

[00:28:31] it connects to the tube. So the little holes, I forget what you call them in the end of the tarp. Oh, the grommets. The grommets. They go into the two inside screws. And then the two outside screws are the

[00:28:46] holes that hold the tarp. I Velcroed the tarp to it. And I have two tent poles. All of those things fit inside the tube and I have a little plastic bag that has the washers and screws and

[00:29:00] eye bolts to help secure the end poles and the string to tie it down. It all fits right in there. Sides right in. It's kind of a pain to put up though. I'd like to get something. I did win

[00:29:14] an awning in a giveaway on Instagram quite a while ago, but it was small. It was like four foot by six foot, something like that. And it was really nice. It was fantastic to win it. I forget who

[00:29:27] did the Instagram giveaway. My apologies if he's listening. But it was 10. It didn't really go with my car. So I ended up selling it to a buddy of mine and he has it on his car now. But I like the

[00:29:39] black tube because I can put stickers. So anytime I go somewhere, travel, I have stickers on there. Yeah. I was looking at your account and you can see all the stickers on there.

[00:29:50] It looks, I mean, you know, I can, I'm picturing you having to roll that thing up and I can see where that can probably be a pain because I'm sure it takes a while and making sure you roll it up

[00:30:03] straight. Yeah. It's a bit of a pain. I would like to down the line, get something much easier to set up. Obviously it would cost more to DIY. Why it was great. It was like 60 bucks all in for all

[00:30:16] the parts and everything. Gave me something to do during COVID and it's been very handy. It works well. I used it Thursday night camping and I got a little bit of rain so I was able to stay under

[00:30:27] there. But yeah, just something. But with what I have, I don't have, I just have the OEM bars for the super. I don't have a print suit rack, which I would love to get one or a spider no drill,

[00:30:40] but I don't know how I would attach to the OEM racks. One of the store bought awnings, I guess I have to do more research. I'm sure there's a way. Yeah. So I know that with the

[00:30:53] spider no drill roof rack, he has brackets that you can attach to the rails of the roof rack. And then those brackets attached to the awning. And I'm sure that that prints who has the same

[00:31:06] kind of thing. So it's because I was actually looking at maybe getting the spider brackets, but the way that I have mine is I have mine. So I have a Ironman four by four quick release system

[00:31:20] where it has these two little like posts and then that are on the actual attached to the roof rack. And then the awning itself has these little like adapters that just slide down over

[00:31:34] the little posts. And then you can put a pin through there or a lock so that if you keep it on all the time, you can keep it secure by locking it. Yeah. And that's what I have.

[00:31:45] So yeah, I probably will get something different online. I just have to do some research into it and see how I could connect it because I do like mine, but it is hard to put up hard to

[00:31:56] sit down. Yeah. Let's say by myself. Yeah. Yeah. It's it works. And a lot of times, I'm sure when you're on and you go somewhere and do you even need to even do you even use the

[00:32:06] awning? I have it. But yeah, I get somewhere late and I'm not going to set it up at this time of night or yeah, I just don't. Yeah, I've used mine. I say use. I've used mine, I think made four times.

[00:32:21] So there was one time I set it up at the big event here in Houston at Gilman Subaru Southwest. And then and but it was just for show, really. But also, I mean, it was providing shade because

[00:32:36] I had some camp chairs under there if anybody wanted to come and chill out. And then I had it set up at Subaru flat fest and I set up my recording. I had a table under there. I set up

[00:32:48] all my podcast equipment under there. So like when I was recording with people, we were under the shade. So that was really nice. Right. And then I used it again at the big event this past year

[00:32:58] back in twenty twenty three. And then there was one time I was out by myself just locally here and I went for a run and afterwards I set it up and sat under it, you know, in the shade while I was having

[00:33:09] some I think I had made some like watermelon juice or something and had a banana and was reading a book. And so that was kind of nice. But I haven't got much use for it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like so many

[00:33:21] times I've taken it with me camping and it's never come out. Just situations, whatever they are, you know, where I'm parked like a wicked big me. I parked at a camp. I couldn't get our car near the

[00:33:34] campsite at the park. I'm like a little parking lot and then walk. So there's no sense of any after the awning because I wouldn't spend any time there. So there's every time I go somewhere,

[00:33:42] there's some reason I can't use it, but I have it if I need it when traveling. So yeah. So besides like a different roof rack and a different awning, are there any other mods that you like

[00:33:55] have on a list? Yeah, the roof rack system would be nice. I looked at I think it's front front runner maybe, but they don't make any for my car version. But there's always something you

[00:34:08] can take from vehicle to vehicle like the Prince do. And it kind of stays with the car when you trade it in or sell it. Yeah. As far as other. You know what, I like my car the way it is right now,

[00:34:22] I'm pretty happy with it. I'd like to get a few things on the inside. I need to get like a fire extinguisher just so maybe a molly rack of some sort to hook some things up. But as far as the

[00:34:33] outside, I'm pretty pretty content with what I've got right now. But I have this. No, I don't not going to call it an addiction, but I really like the LP Adventure product. So if they come up with

[00:34:46] something else and I feel like it's justified, I'll probably be there in a heartbeat. Yeah, no, it's good. It's good to find a brand that you are happy with and that you like and,

[00:34:55] you know, go back to. I do know that one of your recent mods as of about six months ago was a tire carrier from little Ruby Suby Jim. Yeah. And it's funny because whenever I got to

[00:35:12] SOA, I met you. And of course, I was there with Jeff. And I was like, you know, excited to meet you. I was excited to be at SOA and I was excited to meet Jim. And he was gone because he had gone

[00:35:26] to get a part for your tire carriers that I think something that he forgot to do or needed to adjust or something like that. We had arranged, I had the Foxwheel one line on Instagram about creating me

[00:35:41] a spare tire carrier, but I wanted to swing out a certain way and have a drop down table because I like the idea of the drop down table. So I'm camping, I can make coffee or make myself breakfast

[00:35:53] or just to have a table to put anything on. And he's like, I can do that for you. And then I asked him where he lived. He told me and he said, January 10th, I'm going to be down in New

[00:36:03] Jersey area for the Super America 48 hours, tri-state. It's like a half hour from there. So he had it finished, met me and then forget what it was, to be honest with you. But he goes,

[00:36:14] I'm going to run home and take care of it. I said, don't worry about it. I know about it. We'll fix it. Nope. I'm going to take care of it. So he went home half hour away, half an hour back. And that's

[00:36:23] when I think you got there and couldn't believe he was gone. Yeah, I know. Cause we had been messaging before I got there and I got there. I was like, Hey, where are you at? I'm here. And he's like,

[00:36:34] actually I'm gone right now. I was like, come on, man. So, but it was, it was cool to roll in there and see you. And then, and like, and just seeing like all of the Subarus out there was really cool

[00:36:46] and, uh, yeah. And meeting people for the first time and seeing SOA people again. And that was a, that was a really fun event. Was that your first time doing 48 hours of tri-state?

[00:36:56] It was my first time. Yep. I'm a bit far from there. I'd read about it for a few years. A guy I follow and I've killed a few times, a Subaru ambassador, Robert, um, as part of the organization

[00:37:10] and, um, one of the leaders for the dry, but he'd been posting about it. And, um, a couple of young men that I know received make-a-wish trips through their foundation,

[00:37:23] uh, quite a while. One was a student. One was a son of a good friend of mine. And so I, I've met a lot to go and try to help raise a little money for that. So it was my first time. I really enjoyed

[00:37:34] it. A bit of a trot, a bit of a drive for me because all in total took eight to nine hours there. And then, um, and then all the driving afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. I know it was a,

[00:37:47] it was a fun trip. I'm glad that I was able to make it out there finally and get to meet a lot of people and just experience what it is and, you know, getting to go to SOA and then going to SIA

[00:38:00] and seeing the manufacturing plant, which that was, that was really, really cool. That was such a cool experience. That was impressive. Yeah, that was really impressive. I was kind of, uh, soaking everything in all my senses, walking in there, the smells, the sites, you know,

[00:38:15] the beautiful cars being created from, from scratch and then they come off the assembly line. Beautiful. Like I want one of those or like one of those. Yeah. Yeah. It was nice seeing where

[00:38:26] they started off and then seeing, you know, a completely finished car driving off the lot. And it was just, it was more driving off the lot, but, you know, off the assembly line.

[00:38:37] And that was just, that was a lot of fun. So what was your like overall experience and takeaway from 48 hours of Tri-State? I, I commend everybody on the amount of money that's raised and the passion

[00:38:53] for the whole, uh, foundation and Make-A-Wish. The organization must be a nightmare in a sense for them to get everything organized, the trips, the timing of everything. I enjoyed it. It's just

[00:39:05] a lot, it's a lot of driving because we went from that first day in New Jersey, drove the entire day. We had a couple of stops in the middle, um, to get to Indianapolis. So that was quite the day,

[00:39:19] but it's unavoidable. How else are you going to get there with all these cars? You can't drive it. We had a couple of stops. We went to a couple of dealerships that had some

[00:39:25] beautiful older Subarus, um, I believe they had a Brat and there was another car there too. We stopped at, uh, was that on the way back? No, it was on the way to Indianapolis that night. Our

[00:39:37] group stopped. Okay. Yeah. You were in a different group. Yeah. It was a Subaru dealership. I don't have the name on top of my head, but they had a brat out front, but inside they had a, I think it

[00:39:47] was a 1970, it was a tiny car. It was a Subaru, but it was much smaller than a brat. I don't remember its name, but it was really neat to see. Yeah. Yeah. And going to Subaru of America was

[00:40:03] really cool. And just seeing the facilities there, the facilities are really, really nice. And, you know, it's, uh, the way that they have it all set up as nice and just great to meet people

[00:40:16] from there and, and yeah, just overall great experience. The, the, uh, I didn't finish out the trip. My daughter was flying in to Syracuse, New York on Sunday morning. So I broke off from

[00:40:33] everybody, uh, Friday night, I believe, and Saturday I drove to Syracuse and spent the night there and picked her up. So I didn't complete the entire trip. So we had the pizza party at that

[00:40:46] garage. Remember the name of the garage we went to? Uh, yeah. Hold on a second. Where they had the auction and everything. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. That was, that was where I recorded with you and some other people.

[00:40:58] And we had the pizza and all the drawings. It was so beautiful. Cars being worked on there too. Yeah. Let's see. It was, oh, Turn In Concepts. Yeah. Turn In Concepts. Yeah. So after, after

[00:41:17] they get together there, I just had a campsite booked not too far from there. And, um, it was cold night and then got up in the morning and drove to Syracuse, which was seven or eight hours

[00:41:27] itself. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little chilly, but yeah, I'll look at the, I'll look into 40 hours next year and see what the route is and see if at some point I want to do it again.

[00:41:39] I have the time so I can do it. Yeah. I know that they, uh, they've been to Vermont Sports Car, which I think that would be really cool to go visit that. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see

[00:41:51] what they do next year. Yeah. Uh, so I was looking at one of your recent posts too. You have the, you got, I guess it's, I don't know if you bought it or what, but it said you had the camp,

[00:42:01] camp keeper that goes like on the back. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, something I picked up on Amazon a few months ago, but it just sat in the package until I got some camp time.

[00:42:15] There's a, yeah, I think his name is Chris. His, uh, he has a YouTube channel called chasing adventures and either the couple of videos where he and his little puppy were camping and he was

[00:42:25] kind of showing the setup and how, how he uses it among other products. And I thought it was really nice. It'd be something you wouldn't use that often, but you'd have it to use it when you

[00:42:36] want to spend a few days at a spot because once you hook it up, your car's not going anywhere. It's attached to your car. Yeah. So I threw it in the park, my car in the backyard last week and

[00:42:47] I tried it out. Took me like 50 minutes to set it up, but I was reading the directions, watching videos, trying to get it going. But when I set it up, I used it just yesterday. It took me just

[00:42:59] under half an hour. And I think each time I do it, it's going to be much faster. Yeah. Um, so what does it give you? Is it just like kind of an, a tent, but it's just a tent off the hatch?

[00:43:11] Yeah. It's a part of it loops over the tailgate when it's open and you have one main set of poles in the middle of it, but it basically gives you one room and there's, when you're inside of it,

[00:43:25] one side, if you're facing, facing away from your car with the hatch open, the right side opens up into just a window and you can hook it up like a tent window. If you're facing straight

[00:43:37] out, that one has a flap that can be out and attached as an awning as two poles for that and ropes and tie it, but also has a screen door. And on the left side, there's also a flap that

[00:43:49] can come up as an awning. There's no screen there though. So you could, you could really have two awnings set up coming off of this one thing or just have it as one enclosed room.

[00:43:59] Okay. Or if you just wanted to have the, like, like last night I had it set up with the awnings up for a bit and then I decided, well, we have a lot of mosquitoes up here. I better close those

[00:44:10] up. So I just made into a bugless room and I crossed my fingers. I had no mosquitoes in there last night. We were fine. It rained a lot last night. I was able to keep the back hatch open,

[00:44:20] which was able to get more air in, which was different. Is that, so I guess when you set that up, the intent is to keep the hatch open? Yeah. Yeah. I thought about it too, because I

[00:44:33] wanted to try it. I imagine if it's open and set up, if I close the hat, say you get really cold, and I was freezing. If I just press my remote to close the hatch, I don't know what would happen

[00:44:45] to the structure. I'd have to kind of play around with that. Would it collapse? Would it just stay kind of as it is? Yeah. Oops. I didn't want to take a chance. But it was a nice night. My, my, uh, my dog, she was little,

[00:44:59] she didn't know what to do. So she told her to jump in, but she didn't. So I had to pick her up and throw her in. And then, uh, we slept pretty well last night. So, but it rained. So everything,

[00:45:08] I didn't unpack the whole car yet. The top Tuli box still has the wet keeper tent in there. So it's been raining here all day. So tomorrow I'll take it out in the morning and put it in my

[00:45:20] garage to air out a little bit. Yeah. So when I like it, it just, it's not something I'm going to use probably tons. Yeah. Yeah. So when you go camping, do you go camping by yourself or do you

[00:45:31] go with your wife with the pool behind trailer? Like how often do you go camping and how often is it like by yourself or with, with your wife? By myself, I try to go. I try to find some

[00:45:45] where to go. Hopefully once a month, it doesn't always work that way. Even if for a day or two, obviously the weather dictates it and I'm busy by schedule. But in the summertime,

[00:45:54] I try to go a lot. My wife will not car camp or tent camp. She says I'm beyond that. So it's just me or me and my dog. My dog camps well. She's a good listener.

[00:46:08] Oh, that's good. Doesn't have, doesn't never have any feedback for me. So I say, okay, I guess. But when her and I camp, we take the little camper and we go close by for three or four or five days

[00:46:20] max and just enjoy the river. Yeah. Live near the St. Lawrence river. I don't think you've ever heard of it or seen it. It's a big, big, beautiful river. It runs from the great lakes out towards

[00:46:32] the ocean. But where we're at, it's the border between New York state and Canada. Oh, right across the river. It's Canada and it's a mile wide where we're at. It's huge.

[00:46:42] Wow. It's it's kind of my happy place. So I can sit and be in it, be on it, be next to it. Is it flowing pretty, you know, is it a nice steady flow? I mean, could, if you wanted to,

[00:46:54] could you get across the river, like in a kayak or? Oh yeah. Yeah. You get, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty quick to river. It's no problem getting across, but you're crossing into international waters. So once you cross the halfway point, you're in Canadian waters,

[00:47:09] which is fine. But once you try to get on land, then you've got to deal with customs. Like you can get across, you just have to let them know. Yeah. I was going to make a joke. Like,

[00:47:21] can you just like pull up on the land and be like, Oh, Hey, there's nobody here to check my passport. Well, you probably can get away with it, but it's not something that it's worth trying. I think

[00:47:31] yeah. Especially nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of here. Get out of here. Hey, yeah. So when you, yeah. No, you go ahead. Sorry. No, I'm just saying that after COVID or during COVID,

[00:47:50] my wife and I decided we're going to camp more. And we bought that camper and we try to make point to book the campsites only 15 minutes from our house. So it's right on the river and they've

[00:48:00] got water spots. It's not expensive, like maybe 32 bucks for electric site per night, right on the water. Yeah. Really inexpensive. So we like to get some spot time and go and like we're supposed to

[00:48:11] go tomorrow, but they're looking for a lot of rain this week. So we'll see how much we're out there. If it's raining so much, you might just come back home. Yeah. Not worth it. If you can't even be

[00:48:20] outdoors really. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So when you go by yourself, are you always sleeping in the car with your setup? Yeah. When I had to sleep in a tent last year on the trip, the place I visited

[00:48:36] did not allow car camping, which I thought was kind of weird. That is weird. So yeah. And it was funny because I was a teacher last year, retired in June last year. But a student overheard

[00:48:48] me talking. Thank you. Overheard me talking with the reservation people at that campsite. And her last day of school, she brought me a present. She brought me a six man tent.

[00:48:57] Oh, as a gift. Nice. Because I heard you talking and they weren't gonna let you sleep in your car. So I heard you say you only had a small tent now. So I hear she gave me a nice six man tent,

[00:49:09] which is great. I can keep everything in the car and just hop in the car and go to where I had to go and come back and have to worry about tearing down, setting up like when you're car camping,

[00:49:18] you gotta move stuff around all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So I know that most of the time with car camping. Okay. And I know that like you said that you built a little platform and stuff. I guess

[00:49:30] that was with your car before, right? Yeah. And then now... I still have it but I don't use it. Yeah. Cause now are you sleeping on some Luno mattresses? Yep. And you're an ambassador too. So how did that come about?

[00:49:44] I did. Okay. Let's go back track. Around fall of 2021, I started seeing the mattress on Instagram or wherever I was seeing it and I was reading up on it and it looked really nice, but it's pricey.

[00:49:59] How do I want to get this? Am I going to spend the money? So our family, we're all older. We just put down a wishlist for people if they want to pick up something for you for Christmas. So I

[00:50:09] just wrote down some gift cards to Luno thinking I might get a little bit of money. So I ended up getting $150 in gift certificates total towards it. And I had a 25% off coupon from a contest

[00:50:24] they had run that I entered didn't win. It gave me 25% coupon. So combined, I didn't have to pay really that much for it. So I had that and the sleeping platform for quite a while.

[00:50:37] And actually I was listening to some podcasts where the guy was interviewing someone from Luno. Oh yeah. I think I've heard of that one. And actually I was driving to Minnesota and he was talking about the company and everything. And

[00:50:56] I just had an idea. So I messaged them and said, Hey, do you have any stores on the East Coast? And he said, they don't have any physical stores at all at that point. And so I asked if there's

[00:51:07] any representatives on the East Coast, I could see more of the products. He says, we don't. So I offered to help them out in any way I could. So after a little bit of back and forth, I became an ambassador for them. Oh, very nice.

[00:51:20] I try to attend car shows, even local car shows or drive to Wicked Big Meat so that I can show off your products and use them when I can't and talk about them. So they sent me a few items and

[00:51:34] just been working with them ever since. It's been a great company to help me out. They've helped me through some giveaways and I'm not great with the video. Some people are really good with video documentation or creating little reels and films. It's not something I've worked on. So

[00:51:51] I'm hoping I'm helping them out the best I can. I hope they're happy with it and try to post their products and show what I can. Yeah, that's good. I mean, just being at an event and

[00:52:01] having it there and being able to talk to people, you know, that's, that's good. And like, even if you can just snap a photo and post it up in your stories or something, and just, just to kind of

[00:52:10] show them like, Hey, you know, I was talking about your product or whatever. But yeah, there's, I've only, I've only used mine once because I don't ever go do any kind of camping. I keep saying

[00:52:22] that I want to, and I just don't, but you know, now it's going to get too hot to go camping. But I did use mine up at Subaru flat fest when I drove up there and it was very, I didn't sleep well

[00:52:33] that night, but that's not because of the mattress. It's just, you know, it was long drive and I don't know what was going on. It was not as cool as I thought it was going to be that night.

[00:52:43] It was a little humid, so it just like wasn't good conditions. And so I didn't sleep well that night, but I mean the mattress itself is comfortable and it worked out, works out well.

[00:52:53] And it's, I could not imagine, like, I couldn't believe like when you go to start blowing it, airing it up, it is so fast. And I was like, this is really, really cool. Cause you just hook it up,

[00:53:05] it airs up and it's like almost immediate, you know, it was like, I think less than 20 seconds and it's blown up. Yeah. It's quite fast. And I've been very happy with it. Uh, I get, you talked

[00:53:16] about not being able to sleep sometimes. I'm the same way. If I'm camping somewhere for three nights, the first night is usually the worst night. So even if I'm at a hotel, the first night

[00:53:25] is not good after that. I sleep well. Yeah. So, but it's super comfortable and my dog sleeps well on it. And I've had this one for over two years and I'm very happy with it. Yeah. That's good. So yeah.

[00:53:39] So when you like, you know, you have places around there that you go hit trails and everything and you know, who are some of the people that you go out with? Cause I've seen that like, you've been

[00:53:51] going out with some people, you've been hitting some trails, you've got some places to go, but I've also seen that some of the people that you go out with, it looks like they've

[00:53:58] guests on the podcast too. Yeah. Yeah. The first year I went to Wicked Big Meat, I met up or hooked up online with a team, Suby Snails Northeast. And it turns out somebody I know in my town,

[00:54:15] Messina, New York was part of that group and he's a super ambassador. So I messaged him and he says, yeah, I'm going to be headed down. But then his plans changed. He didn't go, but he said,

[00:54:24] they're going to stay at this hotel, look for these people. They're very nice. So let them know you're coming. So I booked a room at that hotel, went down, met everybody for the first time and

[00:54:35] saw Joe Spatio was the first guy I met. You had him on your show. Yeah. So I've been meeting with him the last, I've been there four years now. So we try to camp together and trail together.

[00:54:47] But some of the other guys, you have Joe, it's xv underscore adventurer. Joey, he's not on your show though. It was Joey underscore caratelli underscore 69. I've traveled with him a few times. He's got a beautiful Jeep. Oh, nice. Subaru Ambassador Robert, someone I've trailed

[00:55:03] with. I don't think you've had him on the show yet. You've had Matt from a Goontrek. Yeah. Goontrek. And BPM.xtrack, that's Brendan. I've had them on. So they're oftentimes at the trails

[00:55:18] I go to. So yeah. Cause you've interviewed a lot, a number of people in that, the Mountain Rune Northeast and this area, this group. Yeah. So I run into a bunch of them. How often do you get out to, you know, trails?

[00:55:33] I try to go out there about every couple of months. It's five and a half hours away. So, okay. Yeah. It's not that close. I haven't found anything really substantial as far as the

[00:55:46] trail around here until recently. I have that onX map app and something popped up about a month ago. So I went and checked it out. Nice trail, but I only saw part of it. I only had a little bit

[00:55:58] of time. There's more trails that kind of branch off, but I haven't got it. I haven't had the time yet to go to them, but how far was that drive down? Oh geez. 10 minutes away.

[00:56:09] Oh wow. 15 minutes away. Yeah. And get the car pretty dirty, but I gotta find more time to get down and see more of those little offshoots. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like it's all open road.

[00:56:22] Doesn't look like it's a protected property or anyone's property. I see signs there, but seasonal road. So it looks pretty good. Yeah. More to explore and close by. But yeah, it's amazing. Like New York state, they're different with the public land.

[00:56:39] They, I guess they're tighter on how they manage it and what they allow on it. Where I've gone to Connecticut, Mass, I think Rhode Island also some of those places, there's a lot more trails.

[00:56:52] They treat the public land a little differently and they'll let people get on it with as long as they're respectful of it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So speaking of like driving and

[00:57:03] going out, did I saw a post, did you drive all the way out to San Diego in your Outback? I did. Yeah. I finished my job, retired on June 20th last year, two days or I had a few days I

[00:57:17] could use and I took off the next morning and drove to San Diego. I was volunteering at a big men's world lacrosse championship and I gave myself five days to get there. So it was kind of

[00:57:29] like 10, 10 hours a day driving X number of miles I tried to get. So the last day I only had to drive three hours. So yeah, I didn't really get to see much on the way out there. Just what you can see

[00:57:41] out your window and a few of the camp spots. So it was that, but yeah, spent six days in San Diego at the tournament. That's where I slept on the 10th. They wouldn't allow car camping.

[00:57:53] And then when the tournament was over, I drove up to Los Angeles. My son lives there, visited him for a handful of days. And while I was there, I actually in San Diego, let me backtrack a little bit. Heather, she goes by Instagram underscore San Diego stunner

[00:58:16] underscore. She lives in San Diego and flew out to Wicked Big Meat two years ago. So met her and she drove with Joe XV underscore adventure. Yeah. We went trailing that like 30 cars that day.

[00:58:29] So I got chatting with her and some other people. I said, I'm going to be in San Diego in a few weeks. And so I messaged her and she kind of gave me a little medicine where it gave me

[00:58:38] kind of low down in the city. And that first day I was in LA, my son had to work, but she was driving up to meet with some people to go trailing at big bear,

[00:58:50] big bear lake area. Yeah. So I went up there for a while and trailed with Shiggy underscore Suvi 24 storm trooper files, um, Serbi underscore nine zero nine and ice track. I stopped track. Nice. It was about six cars had a great time. That's cool. Really nice trails,

[00:59:10] really dusty though. Come different than what we used to. Yeah. More mud and more, I mean, more mud, more trees. It was, it was really beautiful up there, but really dusty. Yeah. It's, it's really cool too. And I mean, cause like be having these cars, getting an

[00:59:27] Instagram coming, you can have a car and mod it out and everything, but unless you're, you know, on social media, you're not going to get connected with all these people. So, you know, it's, you know, social media and Instagram, Facebook and all that. It's,

[00:59:39] you know, it's one of those things where it's like, it seems like people were kind of either like, you know, it's a great tool and I use it all the time. Or I think maybe some people have

[00:59:51] been using it for a long time and they've loved it. And now they're like, I don't know that I want to be on social media as much anymore. You know? Yeah. But it has given us the ability

[01:00:01] to connect with other people all over the place. And so because of that, you were able to message Heather and then meet up with all these other people. And it's, you know, it's really cool, especially, especially within this community because you could probably go anywhere in the

[01:00:15] country and meet up with somebody and, you know, go hit some trails or at least have them show you around or even just meet up for a dinner or something, even if you're not able to go anywhere.

[01:00:25] And it's, it's really cool to be able to meet those people in person. And yeah, it was, it was really nice. They're very, very welcoming. At the end we stopped, we all had lunch, people were sharing their foods. I forget his name, but the one guy, Stormtrooper Fuzz,

[01:00:41] he has a company called the nomad2020.com, but he was giving us sweatshirts. It was like a giveaway. We're getting sweatshirts, t-shirts. He has a company where he's making hot sauce, was giving

[01:00:51] us little jars, bottles of hot sauce. And it was really nice. We just hung out for like an hour, just chilling, listening to music and chatting. And yeah, it was, it was cool. But like you said,

[01:01:02] you meet up with people no matter where you go, if you want to take the time and look for them, put the word out, Hey, I'm coming in this area. You know, maybe we can do something.

[01:01:11] Yeah. So what was your drive back? Like, did you, same number of days? Did you take a different route? How did that go? Oh yeah, I took, actually took this, I didn't take the same route. I

[01:01:24] eventually got on the same road, but I went from LA up to see, um, up to Yosemite national park. Oh, nice. Oh, it's unbelievable there, Raphael. Unbelievable. I highly recommend that park to anybody.

[01:01:40] But then I drove from there down to, I believe Zion national park for a couple of days and camped. And then I drove to Antelope Canyon in Northern Arizona. That's the one place I had to go to in

[01:01:53] my mind. I'd seen it so many times and pictures and read about it. A lot of people don't know what it is or where it is, but if you Google Antelope Canyon, you'll see it's, it's a, um,

[01:02:05] what do they call it now? What's the name for it? Where the water erodes underneath the ground. Oh yeah. Slot Canyon. It's a slot Canyon on the Navajo reservation. Oh yeah. You've seen the images, uh, background on your computer.

[01:02:20] Yeah. I saw your picture that you posted with you there. That's really cool. That was a, that kind of blew my mind. That place. Yeah. That's the place that it seems like, you know, people should really go visit when they,

[01:02:36] you know, if they can, when they can, I guess kind of, kind of like the Grand Canyon, you know, it's like, Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of these places I visited are incredible in their own way,

[01:02:46] you know, but this one, something about it, I really wanted to go to it and, uh, not to mention, I had to pay $102 to book my ticket, but I had to be there.

[01:02:58] I've said to my wife, that's the place if I had only one place to go, that was the one. Oh, nice. So from there, I drove up to, I believe, I'm not sure the order Canyonlands and Bryce National Park.

[01:03:10] I had already been to the Grand Canyon prior another trip years ago, and I'd been to Arches National Park a while back also. So I tried to hit parks that I had not been to. Yeah, of course.

[01:03:22] And, uh, and then I had a buddy, a college buddy living in Denver and I made the arrangements to meet lunch down on Sunday. I forget what day it was, but I didn't give myself enough time. I was

[01:03:34] hauling tail. Like I only got Canyonlands or Bryce National Park for like 40 minutes. Um, and saw it, took a picture. I was just, I had to get to meet him. I hadn't seen him in so many

[01:03:48] years, but, uh, I eventually got back in the main road that I took out and all total I was on the road 23 days. Wow. That is 18. Yeah. It was a long trip. 18 of the 23 days I slept on the little

[01:04:04] mattress either in the tent or in my car, but some places were just too hot. Like going through Vegas. I'm not camping when it's 109 degrees. Nope. No, no, no. Yeah. And I visited my, one of my,

[01:04:16] my oldest daughter in Kansas city for one night and then headed home. So it was a great trip. About 7,700 miles total. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot of fun. That's an epic trick. Wow. 23 days.

[01:04:31] That's pretty incredible. I wish I had given myself more time to see things on the way out because the United States has so many places to visit and see, but, uh, I kind of had to get there.

[01:04:43] Yeah. That's maybe another trip. Yeah. That's what's like, you know, there, there are so many places that I've been to that I, you know, like Colorado, Arizona, I want to go to Utah. There's

[01:04:54] places in California. I still want to see, man. I want to go back to Seattle. My son really liked Seattle. I want to go to, well, you want, he wants to go up to New York, you know, it's like

[01:05:07] all these places are just so far away and some of them, you know, like Colorado, Arizona, we could drive out there, but it'd be a long drive, but then like other places you'd have to fly. But

[01:05:18] there's just, there's so many beautiful spots that, you know, are so far away, but I know there's beautiful spots in Texas too, that are probably not too far away. I just, you know,

[01:05:28] I want to try to make some, do some little weekend trips over the summer and even beyond this summer. Yeah. It's something you have to, you have to be able to have the time and the money to

[01:05:39] do it and just have to try to save for it and do it when you can. Yeah. I've been lucky as a school teacher. I have the summers off most of the time and my kids are older. I mean, my youngest is 23.

[01:05:53] My oldest is 34. So I don't have to worry about them anymore so much. You always worry, but not as much. I have the time and my wife says, just go. You want to go somewhere? Just go.

[01:06:04] Now I know what you mean. Cause my, my daughter is 20. She's going to be 24 next month. And then my son graduated from high school. So, you know, he's going to start going to a junior college

[01:06:14] nearby. So he'll still be around, but you know, so I still have to worry about him and think about him, but it's a pursuit of music. No, he's so he's going to, he's just going to take some core

[01:06:27] class because he doesn't really know what he wants to do yet, but he wants to take some core classes and he's going to take a ceramics class cause he does really like ceramics and he is not,

[01:06:36] and he's gotten pretty good at it. So he's talked about maybe wanting to have his own studio someday. And I said, there's no reason why you can't. Yeah, absolutely. But we'll see. We'll see what happens.

[01:06:47] Yeah. Too young to make a decision at 18, what you're going to do the rest of your life, you know, get out there. Exactly. I feel for things. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't expect him to

[01:06:56] know what he wants to do. So how does it feel to hit the a hundred thousand mile club? Uh, good and bit nerve wracking at the same time. And I guess the nerve wracking part is,

[01:07:11] I guess I'm a bit old school. When I was growing up, you know, if your car got to a hundred thousand miles, you're like, yes. But then now cars are made so well that most cars are going to go well

[01:07:22] and beyond it. But I'm still my, I bought the extra warranty up to a hundred thousand. Okay. That's gone now. And I'm sure my car is going to run. It's been running fantastically on sun tire

[01:07:32] time, knock on wood, but I just, I don't want anything to happen now because it's not under warranty and I want it to last a long time. I love my car. I want to be able to drive it,

[01:07:41] drive it until it dies at a million miles, but we know what's going to happen, but so we're going to drive it. Yeah. How many miles are you at now? I mean, obviously over a hundred thousand, but where are you at? I turned a hundred thousand Memorial

[01:07:53] weekend. I've only driven about 200 miles since. Oh, okay. I don't drive as much because my, my job as a teacher, I was half hour each way and this past the, uh, from December first around there

[01:08:07] until last week I was working at our elementary school, like three miles from my house, three days a week. So I'm not putting the miles like they used to on it, but I got a couple of big

[01:08:17] trips planned. So yeah. Where are you heading? Where are you planning to go? I mean, we talked earlier about when you travel and you kind of meet up with people or you put feelers out like,

[01:08:29] Hey, I'm going to be in this area, anything going on. But I did that last October. My second daughter lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and I was planning on visiting her. And I noticed there was, I'm going to forget the name outdoor expo. I believe it's called

[01:08:45] outdoor expo. This was going on around that same area on the way down. So I tried to plan it where I could go to that show, but also go down and see her for a few days. It's on my way. Right.

[01:08:56] But then I reached out to soft road nation in Virginia. Say you guys have anything going on? I'm going to be down in an area. And sure enough, they had a trailing day and camp night camping.

[01:09:07] So I met up with Jesse shanks who goes by to conquer rule. You should see the outback. She has my goodness. Her outback is unbelievable. Anyways, I trailed with them probably eight cars

[01:09:23] and then camped. And then the next morning went to the show and went down to see my daughter. So I'm planning on trailing with Jesse and a few other people from soft road nation, Virginia.

[01:09:37] We're going to be doing the north, the NEBDR stands for Northeast, Northeast back country discovery route. That's it. So I'm meeting them July 1st. They're spending a couple of days in Watkins, New York, the 28th and 29th or 20, 20, 30, whatever. Then they're driving up to

[01:09:56] northern New Hampshire after I'm meeting them on July 1st, then we're going to hit a lot of this route that goes through New Hampshire, Vermont into the main. I believe the they're spending

[01:10:07] about two weeks total. I'm only going to probably do a week, maybe a little more. See how, see how it's going. Yeah. My, my dog, my dog has a bit of a hip issue going on. So I usually take her and

[01:10:17] if she's comfortable, we'll keep going. But if she's not, then we'll break off early. Yeah. That'll be fun. So those connections, those connections you make, right? I made that connection with the Tonka route back in last October. And so it's helping me with this trip.

[01:10:34] Yeah. Yeah. It's again, it's just great to make those connections and be able to meet up with people either for the first time or again. Yeah. And flat fest in Madison, Wisconsin is August 3rd.

[01:10:52] I'm hoping I have family in Minnesota, so I'm hoping planning on driving out to see them the end of July and then going to flat fest after flat fest driving to Kansas city to visit one daughter,

[01:11:06] my oldest, and then over to Asheville to visit my second daughter and then come home. It'll be a big loop, probably two and a half week trip, two week trip. Yeah. But those are my big plans. Nothing officially on paper, but it's all in here.

[01:11:21] Now, will that be your first time going to flat fest? It will be. Yes. Okay. It's funny because I remember when I was driving to Minnesota a couple of years back to visit my family, I remember, or I replayed it or catch up. If

[01:11:36] I remember the podcast or just replayed it, you talked with John Starcow nation, I believe it was by. Yep. I think he had to change it, but on the way back I messaged him and I said, Hey,

[01:11:45] I'm in the area. I'd love to meet up with you. And he was selling stickers for raising money for a charity, charities he works for. So I swung by and took a couple of pictures with his car,

[01:11:55] met him for just 15, 20 minutes, very gracious. Very nice of him to take the time out of his day to meet up with me. And so I'm hoping to get to the show this year.

[01:12:06] Yeah. Yeah. I know for me, it's like, I really want to go, but it's tough because I only have so much PTO and I'm already planning a trip the week of Thanksgiving with my kids. And so I'll

[01:12:22] have to look and see if I have enough PTO because like, if I go up to flat fest, I would, I want to drive and I would want to leave Wednesday and then, cause we would have to go over two days.

[01:12:35] Cause when I went up there before it took me two days to get up there, but leave Wednesday, drive, stay somewhere Wednesday night, continue on Thursday and get somewhere out in that area

[01:12:47] and just kind of go exploring on Friday, go to flat fest on Saturday. And then we would have to head back on Sunday, but I would have to take Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then the

[01:12:58] following Monday off. And so, you know, my kids are going to be off from school. My daughter's a teacher, so she'll be off. My son's not going to be in school and he's not working this summer. So

[01:13:09] for them, they don't have to take PTO and, you know, and like, it's been tough with this job because it's not as easy to take off time as it was with my last job, because we're just so busy

[01:13:20] and we have so much going on. And I feel like sometimes a day off isn't a day off because ideally I would want to take the whole week off. And then the following Monday, because I would

[01:13:34] want to make it like a family vacation for the summer, because I don't have anything planned for the summer. And it'd be nice to go up there and because John was saying, there's a lot of

[01:13:43] stuff to do up there in Madison and that area, but it's just, it's tough, you know, not having enough PTO to do that stuff. Right. Yeah. Unfortunately we've got to do what we have

[01:13:54] to do with work, right? We've got to pay the bills and you have to prioritize everything. Well, if you can make it, it'd be great, you know, but yeah, it's just family vacation.

[01:14:05] That's the thing with my wife, my wife, she doesn't have summers off with her job. So that's why she's always just like, you want to go, go have fun. I got to work or I can't take

[01:14:15] the time. I don't have the personal time yet. So I was hoping to have her fly on this trip to BFFS, Canada City, Ashford, have her fly into Canada City one way. And then her and I could

[01:14:27] drive and see my other daughter a couple of days and go home. She goes, well, I don't really have time to use. Yeah. So she goes, she goes down with last year. My young, well, I have three

[01:14:41] daughters, so the three girls would, my wife's best friend would either drive in or fly into Asheville and they rent a Airbnb or a Vrbo and have a good girls three, four day weekend. And

[01:14:52] they have a great time. So she's trying to save some of her time to do that in October again. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. You go do your thing. I'll go do my thing. We'll try to do what we can together when we can.

[01:15:08] If you could drive somebody else's Subaru for a day, whose would it be? This was a tough one to think about. Yeah. Cause there's so many awesome ones out there. Yeah. Yeah. I really, like I said before, I really like Ninja out back. Her, her cars,

[01:15:25] her cars is beautiful now. The other ones too, but the wilderness is so nice. I like that car. There's a guy in Ottawa has a Crosstrek, has a Canadian battle wagon, 2DN underscore battle

[01:15:39] wagon. I really like his car. I met up with a few times. He's out, he lives just over an hour from where I am. So they would get together on Fridays up in Ottawa, Canada. I'll drive up there once in

[01:15:50] a while and hang out with them. And it's just a gorgeous car. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And Xtrek moves. I love his too. He's always modifying his car, changing something. He does all the work himself, which I'm jealous. It's a beautiful car. Yeah.

[01:16:08] Really nice car. It does nice work. It is really nice. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say? That'd be it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good choices too. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. What would you say about your outback best matches your personality?

[01:16:21] I guess I'm always game to go anywhere in the sense that if someone says, Hey, why don't we drive to wherever to do something? I'll go, let's go. So I kind of

[01:16:35] think the car is a bit like that. Obviously the car doesn't have a choice. So I turn the key, I drive it. But whatever conditions I want to drive the car in, wherever I want to go,

[01:16:44] she's ready to go. So I guess matches the personality. I just like to get in my car and go and not willing to drive anywhere with anybody. Yeah. If you could describe your outback in one word, what would it be?

[01:16:59] This one I had to think about quite a bit. I wrote it down here. One word, I guess the word I thought would kind of matches my accomplice. Accomplice. Oh, nice. Again, if I want to take the outback and go to the hardware store and pick up stuff,

[01:17:16] heavy stuff, no problem. If I want to tow my camper, go camping with it, no problem. Park camping, trailing. It just, wherever I'm going to go, again, it's with me. Has no choice, but she's my accomplice. We're going to go out and enjoy the world a bit.

[01:17:33] You kind of give these cars a little bit of a personality too. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it becomes more than just a car. I think we all do it to a sense. If you don't name your car, whatever, it's fine.

[01:17:45] Not everyone names their car, but if your car, you need to get somewhere and it's not starting or come on, you rubbed the dashboard. Come on, you can do it. Everyone kind of talks to their

[01:17:54] car personifies it in a sense. Yeah. So we all do it to an extent. Yeah. Because yours is Natasha and... Natasha, yeah. That's a good name. Yeah. Because I was reading, I was looking through your posts and everything, and I saw you said something about Natasha has

[01:18:14] been a great car or whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when you said that what NR stands for, I'm like, oh, okay, now that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Again, the name, I've heard some great backstories on some of the other people

[01:18:29] you've had on the podcast about the names. I'm like, that's so clever. My story is kind of dull, but whatever. Yeah. I mean, so is mine because I was trying to think of a name for my car and

[01:18:42] it's the crystal white Pearl. And so I was like, oh, Pearl the Crosstrek. And then meeting and connecting with all these other people with clever names and cool backstories, I'm like, I kind of wish I would have waited a while to try to come up with something, but

[01:18:58] it's what people know us by now. And so if we were to go and change it, people would be like, no, don't change it. Yeah. And mine's kind of a mouthful too. And our underscore, it's just, yeah, well, you know, too late now. Yeah. That's who we are.

[01:19:16] Exactly. So how has owning your Subaru and being part of the community changed your life? I think for me, it's given me another avenue to get out and do different things. I've been kind of obsessed with sports my whole life. I played just about every sport

[01:19:38] growing up and that's just always what I've done. I don't have any handy skills with cars, carpentry or just always playing some sort of sport. So now I've gotten older and the legs

[01:19:50] aren't working like they used to. I've been enjoying the path I'm going on with the Subaru because I've met so many people. I'm traveling with it. I'm camping. I'm trailing. Just things I'd love to do. Like my first vehicle, my first, I guess, purchase when I was 19,

[01:20:14] I bought a brand new motorcycle, Yamaha XT600 Enduro. So I would drive that. I had that for a number of years, but I would go trailing with that all the time. So having the modified

[01:20:25] outback and able to go trailing is fantastic because you can kind of do some of the same things. Obviously not to the same extent as a motorcycle, but it's just kind of allowed me to

[01:20:36] do some of these other things because I can't play sports anymore as much as I used to. So it's been good. I like it. I think having these cars too, especially one that's built to go off

[01:20:48] road, just the ability to get off the pavement itself is just worth everything. Even if it's just a gravel road or dirt road or something, just to get off of your normal everyday path

[01:21:04] and go see something else. It's nice to be able to do that. You're getting away from the mundane and going off and sometimes you don't know where that trail is going. So you get down there and

[01:21:14] you take a little chance. You might get stuck, you might get pinned in or just leading you somewhere cool. So I guess would you always own a Subaru, you think? I believe I would now. I'm

[01:21:28] at that point now. I really like the Outback. No offense to anyone else in the car world who picks the car they want, but I'm six foot one. So camping in this car is nice. Like I said,

[01:21:40] I can use it to tow my trailer, my camper. I can put things in the back. It just got so much space and the XT, the Onyx has the turbo engine, which is nice. That's good power. I'm really impressed

[01:21:54] with that. That's been handy. Yeah. I don't know what that's like. Slow-baru over here with my cross track. My wife test drove when she was looking at getting a car, she test drove a cross

[01:22:08] track and was trying to lean her that way. But it was also a Honda HRV, which is pretty much the same engine on the cross track. But she went up going with a Honda, which I had no problem with.

[01:22:18] Like I said, I own Hondas. She's very happy with it, but she admits there's no guts to it when she's trying to sometimes climb hills. It seems like she pushed the pedal and it's not going

[01:22:30] anywhere. So yeah, it probably wouldn't the same way in the cross track too. But we all love our cars. Oh yeah. The only time that it really bugs me with the power, because like

[01:22:43] normal everyday driving, I don't really have any issues. But when I drive out to Austin, there is some, you know, Austin's not flat like Houston. And so there's spots where there's these really long stretches of highway and it's just like straight highway. And every once in a while

[01:23:00] you'll come across an intersection with a lot of traffic light. And so there are times where I'm at that light and I'm the first car near the front or something, and all the cars start going, but it's

[01:23:14] uphill and my car is just like chugging along and there's people like right behind me and I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't go any faster. This is all you're going to get out of me and out of my car.

[01:23:27] But other than that, that's really been the only... Well, and then whenever I drove it up Pikes Peak, that was... And I had four people in the car. That was a challenge because just going

[01:23:40] up elevation like that and incline, you know, I'm like in second gear at like 3,500 RPM, like, you know, a lot of the way. And then I'd be like, well, let me shift into third gear and see if...

[01:23:52] And then it's like, no, there's not enough power with third gear. So I have to shift back down to second gear. And it was just a challenge getting up there, but we made it. And then even going down,

[01:24:01] that was tough too. Did you get a sticker? This car climb Pikes Peak? I did not. Do they have those? I don't know, maybe. I see those near Whiteface Mountain and some other mountains

[01:24:15] on our way and you get stickers. I've seen those on the back of cars. Yeah, maybe I should get Jen from Eccentric Designs to just make one for me. Maybe put dot, dot, dot, barely. Yeah.

[01:24:28] Yeah. So, well, before we get into this last segment, is there anything that you would want to talk about that we didn't talk about? Like about your Subaru or about, you know, just your adventures or just everyday living with the Subaru and your journey?

[01:24:44] No, you know, I just, I guess to reiterate what others have said that the community, the Subaru community has been such a refreshing, I guess, experience. People are so friendly. If you have a question like, where did you get this? How did you do that? The person's always

[01:25:05] willing to answer. It gets back to you quick. Everyone just seems to be accepting of each other, no matter what you're driving. And I just, it's fantastic. I just, I love the community.

[01:25:15] It's just, I guess I just wanted to say that anyone I reached out to in the past, thank you for helping out or thank you for asking my questions, answering my questions. Hopefully communication still stays open and the ability to help people is always there.

[01:25:31] Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It's been a nice journey, I think, for a lot of people. And I think with some people, it surprises them, you know, cause they might be nervous and shy

[01:25:42] at first to reach out and they do. And then they're like, Oh wow, they actually answered my question. And then the more they do that, they find out that, yeah, this is a pretty awesome

[01:25:52] community of helpful people. And it's nice to have that. So here we go with the last segment, but who is Chip? I am a retired math teacher. Get my notes. I don't want to forget anything here. Retired math teacher.

[01:26:10] I'm a father of four, three girls, one boy. And I've been with my wife slash best friend for almost 40 years now. We've been married 27. So we've been together quite a bit. Yeah. So I'm all about family and I'm from a Mohawk reservation nearby. So I lived there, taught

[01:26:37] there my whole career and big tie to the community. I'm hoping to get into a program to help solidify my knowledge of the language, which is needed a lot of work and a lot of improvement on,

[01:26:49] but a lot of native languages are lost over the years. And I'm just going to try to work to gain some of that back. Nice. That's really nice. And so besides your Subaru and the community,

[01:27:04] sounds like that is too, but what are some other things that you're most passionate about? I guess for me, it's at this point in time is making sure that my kids are happy.

[01:27:19] I try to talk with them as much as I can, but I don't want to be that dad is calling all the time. I try to talk to him about once a week and just see how things are going. And

[01:27:29] just really, I'm in their corner. I'm very proud of those kids. All four of them, they've all done well and are working towards bettering themselves in the profession or personally or through education. So just really proud of them. And that's kind of what I'm all about right now,

[01:27:46] is trying to have some fun, but also be there for my family. I think which most parents are always trying to do. Right? Yeah. So, and all of all four of your kids live elsewhere, right?

[01:27:58] Yeah. Yeah. I've got places to visit now too. Yeah. So yeah, LA. Okay. No, you go ahead. No. So my oldest is in Kansas city. My second daughter is in Asheville. My son's in LA and

[01:28:10] my youngest is at home right now, but she's going to be finishing up school hopefully within a year. So she took some time off after high school and took last semester off. So she's

[01:28:20] working towards a sociology degree, I believe. And yeah. Okay. So we've always got a place to visit. Does she have plans to move somewhere else? I'm not sure. It's kind of up in the air. She,

[01:28:34] she has been dating a young man who for a couple of years now and they get along well, he just took a job in New York city, but I don't think they're at that point anywhere near that point

[01:28:43] yet of moving in together. But like she wants to finish her degree and kind of go from there. Yeah. But I see her staying closer to home. She's a bit more of a, I don't know. She likes to be

[01:28:55] home. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my daughter, she was going to school in Arkansas and then ended up moving back here

[01:29:06] cause she was able to get a teaching job, but her and her husband want to move somewhere else. And, you know, I'm totally fine with that. Cause I told her before she even graduated from high

[01:29:16] school, I'm like, Hey, whenever you get done with college, you know, if you want to go live somewhere else, then, you know, that's great because I don't want you to feel like you have to stay near home

[01:29:27] just to be near, you know, me and your mom. Yeah. You know, I want you to go live your life and go enjoy it. And you know, if you want to go live somewhere else, then go live somewhere else.

[01:29:37] I said, you know, I'll miss you. And, but, um, you know, I would rather you be out somewhere and enjoying your life and getting to do what you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's their time. Get out and

[01:29:49] do what you need to do. And we're there to support you. We've always encouraged our kids to go see the world and try to prepare them to be able to handle the world wherever they go. And to say,

[01:30:00] no, we have to stay home. That goes against everything you've ever taught them. Makes no sense. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's obviously, it's always nice to be close to family,

[01:30:10] but yeah, you know, it's also nice to go live your life and do what you want to do. Yeah. So my, my kids went to college in different parts of the country, California, Colorado. So it gave us

[01:30:23] an opportunity to go visit and see places I would never get out to these places had they not been to school there. Exactly. And same thing where they're living. So yeah, it's great for them,

[01:30:32] but also gives us a nice spot to go visit and place to stay. Yeah. So where, where did you say you were born? I'm born in, I was born in Syracuse, New York. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. It's about two and

[01:30:45] a half hours from where I'm at right now. All right. What is a favorite memory from your childhood? I was thinking about this and a couple of things came to mind. I spent a lot of time

[01:30:56] with my grandparents growing up in my, my grandfather did a multiple, multiple jobs. He only had like a third grade education, but he was an iron worker for certain parts of the year,

[01:31:08] depending on the weather. And he would come home summertime and he would catch fish. If you use these gill nets and catch fish in the local river and would sell fish in the summertime, he also

[01:31:21] made these pack baskets out of a black ash tree. They would this whole long process, but he'd have a wooden pack basket used to make those. But I just remember being six, seven years old trail,

[01:31:33] walking behind them, watching them hand things as he, you know, making a basket or a fish. So I'd go on the boat with him as they pull in the nets, him and my uncle and pull in the nets to take the

[01:31:43] fish off. Just, you know, they, they assigned me simple tasks, but you know, those are nice memories. Yeah. Yeah. One of my questions is what do you do for a living? But you answered what you used to

[01:31:56] do for a living, math teacher. But you know, and like, I guess if you were to, you know, do something now in retirement, like what would a dream job be? Like if you were just like, ah, I just want to

[01:32:09] work. I don't want to just sit around all day. Yeah. My dream job growing up was to be a catcher for the New York Yankees, but skill ability, those kinds of things always limited that. But

[01:32:20] as of right now, I guess I've always said the last five years that when I do retire, I want to try and find some parts, find work because there's no way I could just retire. And

[01:32:31] yeah, not a position to do that. You got to keep busy, but to find a job where I can still work part-time, low responsibility, you know, nothing too difficult. Still make a few extra

[01:32:45] bucks. Yeah. Keep the brain active. And I had that. I worked at elementary school really nice three, four minutes down the road. Just help kids with their math or English sat in a classroom and

[01:32:55] it happens to discipline kids. Kids are fantastic. Teachers are great. So will that be available next year? Who knows? But maybe I can find something else that kind of gives me some freedom.

[01:33:05] If I need to take a day off or I want to go to a wicked big meet or travel somewhere, I can go and not be an issue. Yeah. You know, it's part of retirement. You want to be able to have more time

[01:33:15] to do things you want to do. Yeah, exactly. That's good. So what are some other hobbies that you have besides like getting out with your Subaru and, you know, traveling? Yeah, I still like to golf.

[01:33:30] I was playing softball, but like I said, the lakes are starting to revolt. But I golfing and I like kayaking and fishing, doing both at the same time. My wife bought me a kayak that you

[01:33:44] can actually sit on and have some spots like my other kayak you had to get in. Oh, but it was really difficult to fish with because you didn't have any where to set your pole or your equipment.

[01:33:52] But this kayak has got some spots for that, which is nice. Yeah. So I try to get out. But we had a really kind of bizarre spring here. It was rainy and cold for a long time. And then

[01:34:06] last week we had the horrible heat, which it finally broke. So I'm hoping to get out, get on the water again here soon. Yeah, that's good. Nice hobby. Yeah. What's something that

[01:34:18] makes you want to get out of bed every day? I have never been the type to sleep in. The odd time I'll sleep in, I think when I was in college, I probably slept in because I was going out

[01:34:29] during the summertime a lot. But the last 20 years, if I sleep past seven o'clock, it's I'm pretty lucky. I just don't sleep in. So I, if I do sleep until nine, 30, 10 months,

[01:34:41] well, I feel like I wasted a big part of my day. I like to see what the day offers. I like to have the opportunity, especially in the summertime to go do things. Yeah. Whether I do them or not is,

[01:34:50] it doesn't matter. I mean, I'm up and awake. I get that. So I just like to be up. Yeah. What is something that could potentially make you want to stay in bed? Well, there's some mornings the bed is so comfortable. We all have that. Yeah. Nice bed,

[01:35:06] the nice comforter pillow, everything's just working just right. You don't want to get up. But sometimes I don't, but most of the time I get up anyways, because I know the dog is going to

[01:35:16] want to get up around eight o'clock. And so I have to get my coffee and I get moving before I let her out of her cage. We carry her at night. It works. She's good. She just sits there and

[01:35:27] waits for me to let her out. That's good. Yeah. So what would be your best bit of advice to give to someone about anything? All right. This is something I learned as I guess, school and as a

[01:35:41] teacher, when I was at grad school, I remember I told the story many times that like Ray Charles was on campus to do a show. Oh, nice. I probably hadn't heard a lot of Ray Charles music that I

[01:35:54] knew of, but I tried to get my two roommates to go. They didn't want to go. So I didn't go. And I regret it to this day that I didn't go because he passed away. Yeah. Not sure how much longer,

[01:36:04] but not that long after that. And as a teacher, having the summers off, trying to get ahold of my friends about golfing or do this or do that, they couldn't have kids. They had to work. So I've

[01:36:14] just gotten to the point now where I just try to tell people like, you know, if you want to do something, go do it. Don't wait for people. Yeah. You miss out on opportunities to do and see things

[01:36:25] if you're waiting for other people to match your schedule. Don't be afraid to go out and do something solo. I'd see a lot of people solo camp, and I think that's fantastic. You know,

[01:36:34] just get out and go, go see it, go do it. Yeah. Obviously if you can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's like, because they say that like, you know, there's that question of like, what are the five top regrets of people who are,

[01:36:49] you know, getting ready to pass away? And, you know, they list these things, but, you know, that's looking back on certain things where you're like, I could have done that. And I should have done that. And like, that's something that I'll always regret. And so,

[01:37:03] you know, there's, there's so many opportunities that we have that we could take and do, but like either we're afraid or we're like, well, if I go do that, then I won't have time to do this other

[01:37:15] thing. And, you know, we, we kind of give ourselves excuses to not go. And then if we don't go, then we end up regretting it. You know, there's certain things, it's like not that big a deal.

[01:37:24] Like if I miss that, no big deal. But yeah, there are certain opportunities where it's like, absolutely. I can't miss out on that. So, yeah. And like I mentioned before,

[01:37:32] I've been very fortunate. My wife just, she just says, you want to go, go. Do an example of the summer before COVID my youngest daughter and I, we flew to Europe and I spent five weeks there

[01:37:46] and she was there three weeks with me. And we saw eight or nine different countries. We had hosted exchange students over four exchange students from different countries when our kids were in high school and have a cousin in Norway also. So we had the opportunity

[01:38:01] to stay at all these places and revisit the people. And so it was, it was very nice because we had, they knew the area, obviously it's their country. They knew the language. We got to see

[01:38:13] beautiful places and then together come back for some schooling. And I spent a couple more weeks. So my wife just go off for five weeks and enjoy herself. So I've been very lucky that she's

[01:38:25] had that open mind and just to let me go. And I want to see this and she knows I want to go. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very happy with that. But yeah, thank you for all of your time and thank you for taking some time out of your

[01:38:39] Saturday to record. Thank you, Raf. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And again, like as I mentioned, Thank you. Yeah. And as I mentioned before we started or when we first started recording is,

[01:38:50] it was great to be able to meet you in person and get to hang out a little bit. And it's always, like I said, it's always fun. When we met that day, I felt bad because we both arrived at the same time and the signing process

[01:39:04] is kind of confusing. So I wanted to talk to you, but I also wanted to figure out what was going on. Oh yeah, no. Same here. Same here. But we got a chance to talk after that. And then again,

[01:39:14] at Turn In Concepts, we talked some more there. So well, thanks again. It was great talking to you and hearing your story. Thank you very much. Yeah. Nice. You're welcome. Nice seeing you. Nice talking to you again. And good luck with everything. Enjoy your summer.

[01:39:26] And thank you. You too. We'll probably chat again. Oh yeah, definitely. All right. Well, thank you. Okay. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Hey there. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Suby and You podcast.

[01:39:38] I want to say thank you to Chip for taking the time to record with me and share his Subaru journey and talk about his OBXT. Again, if you are not following him,

[01:39:50] go give him a follow. It's nr__obxt on Instagram. Thank you all so much. I appreciate your support. I appreciate you listening, sharing, and always tuning in. Again, we will see you

[01:40:08] in a couple of weeks on Monday. So this is where we start the new schedule. And again, I hope you stick around and continue to listen to the podcast. I really, really would appreciate it.

[01:40:23] Thank you all so much. Hope you have a great week. Much Suby love. Raph. The Suby and You podcast is hosted by Raphael in a Closet in Houston, produced by Raphael

[01:40:34] in a Room Next to the Closet in Houston, and edited by Raphael on a Computer in the Room Next to the Closet in Houston, with music by Luke Ruiz in Another Room in Houston. You can find the

[01:40:45] Suby and You podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many more. To support the podcast, please head over to patreon.com slash subyanupodcast. Once you join, you will have access to the Discord channel and Discord chats with other

[01:41:01] patrons. If you'd like to get in contact with the show, you can find them on Instagram at Suby and You Podcast, online at subyanupodcast.com, or by email, subyanupodcast at gmail.com. That's all for this week.