Beantown Podcast - Quinn's American Southwest Great American Road Trip (08292021 Beantown)

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

Quinn comes to you LIVE hot on the heels of his Great American Road Trip to detail his 1,500 / 96 hour travel. Join me for my adventures including harrowing encounters with rams, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions, as well as great times exploring Tattooine and the Hollywood Hills!

Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furnace. Welcome to my show. Quinn David Furnace presents the bean town podcast for Sunday, August 29th. We got three days left of this God awful month. It's so hot. What's going on? My name is Quinn David Furnace and this is my show The Being Town Podcast. We are one of the better podcasts on the north side of Chicago. Shout out to my friends in Pecky Stan. I am the Karachi kid. One of the best top ranked comedy podcasts and the entire nation of Packie Stan, hello, Hyde Rabad, hello, Islamabad, hello, all those other places. If we're coming in clear in the Kiber Pass, if we make it into the valley, hello to there as well. It's so hot, I was on my run yesterday morning and you know it's six o'clock in the morning,

and I think I was kind of between like Chicago and Division along the Lakefront Trail, so just north of Navy Pier before it's a North App Beach. And I literally ran past two ladies who had stopped their run and were chatting and one of the ladies just looked up to the sky and proclaimed, I hate August, it's so hot and that's a pretty good summary for my feelings as well. It was pretty gassed yesterday morning even after not having run for an entire week because I went on a little adventure.

Quinn's South American Southwest great American road trip. That would be a good Whatever that is ASG ART Asgard That's spelled out listen discretion is advised when you're listening to the bean-tongued podcast number one We'll occasionally use some language number two this podcast is objectively terrible, but I got I got some tails for you TALES tails that hopefully you all will enjoy. We're going to give you the full rundown, minute by minute, of my trip, not quite that granular because many minutes were spent on cruise control driving through the desert, listening to good Christian God-fearing radio.

But I will take you all the way through the trip. So apologies if this episode runs long. I was taking notes in my phone throughout the week of things I wanted to talk about. I will mention that going into the week, I was considering I didn't bring any recording stuff with me obviously flying spirit, hiking everywhere. I literally brought it back back. And I still had a computer in there. And other than that, I pretty much had like a couple pairs of compression shorts, which I wore for as underwear, because I was hiking the whole week, and also just like less sweaty. And I was wearing my hiking pants

on the plane. I brought one pair of shorts outside of that, and then probably two or maybe like three shirts, and some socks, and a pair of sandals. And that's all I had with me on the trip in addition to toiletries. When I got to Phoenix, I went out and bought some trail mix and a gallon of water, et cetera. They say plan for survival.

When you're out there, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, all that stuff. And so that's what I did. And I never had any issues there. But what I was gonna say, I was going into the week thinking, I thought it'd be fun to whip out my phone and do some live in the moment voice memos as I was in a couple know, a couple different spots like

the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Hollywood, so on, so forth. But honestly, I was, when I got to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and it was like 7, 15 in the morning, I was like, on a very real, straightforward level here, I am just trying to like conserve energy here. Not that I was worried about like running out of physical strength or anything like that, but I was like, I don't know if I can like sit down here after hiking six miles with six miles up hill,

still in front of me and just like talk for whatever, five, 10 minutes. I literally don't know if I want to expand that energy and I eventually decided I wasn't going to. So to counteract that or in place of that, if you will, I just took notes on my phone of things I wanted to talk about as the week progressed. And that's where, that's where we'll jump in.

So I woke up pretty early Monday morning, took the bus to the train to the airport. I got to tell you, my new location in Lincoln Park, right along diversity, it's pretty convenient to get out to the airport. I got to tell you my new location in Lincoln Park right along diversity. It's pretty convenient to get out to the airport. It takes me about an hour and five hour ten depending on if you catch the train. But because I live right across the street from the bus stop, you can time out your your first leg of your journey really easily, Which is great use hop on the 76 you take it to Logan Square You get on the blue line there and that takes you all the way so really pretty easy going out to The airport these days a lot easier than living up in Rogers Park, which I like So I get to the airport everything's all good. I almost set a new TSA record.

This, I don't keep track of individual airports. I believe my overall TSA record is somewhere in the like 24 to 27 second range, which I set in Redmond, which is a small local airport in Oregon. This one, although still very fast, in over here, I believe 36 seconds was what I did on Monday

morning. It was pretty fast. I got that TSA pre-check. Quick, quick aside, quick plug. They're not sponsors of this show, but TSA pre-check. I think it's $85 for five years. If you fly with any sort of frequency, I really believe it's just like do it. I mean, 85 is not like a tiny sum of money, but you also consider it's for five years.

And obviously I fly more than the average person, but it's just so nice. You zip right through the line, you're never waiting, rarely are you waiting. And when you go through security, you just boom, you set your backpack down, you stick it through the thing, you walk in through the metal detector, you pick up your backpack and go, there's no, oh my God, let me take my shoes off or let me move my computer to a separate bin, keep track of all that stuff,

it's just let's do it, let's go. So $85 to five years, I am like all over that. I think my TSA pre-check goes for about another 12 months or so here. So I gotta look into renewing that next summer. But yeah, I think it's great, I love it. My flight, I actually didn't make a note of this But I'm just recalling this now my flight to Phoenix was rough

I I was fortunate. I was flying spear both ways so you don't get to choose seats or anything like that I was given an aisle seat, which is great But of course it's never that easy to get down I'm way in the back of the plane like 36 C or something like that and I back to the plane like 36 C or something like that. And I realized there was someone already sitting in my seat, the middle seat was empty. The person who was sitting in my seat was a father and his presumably partner and child

were on the opposite, on the other side in the aisle seat. And so I could, I saw, I saw what was happening before even, you know, got right to my row. And I was just like, all right, I can sit in the middle. So I did. And this baby was not, not even a baby, at least a year old, a baby is at least a year old, but just three hours and 20 minutes of whining. And the weirdest thing they kept passing it back and forth across the aisle, and it was just not happy in any position. And it was big enough to wear like when the dad was holding it sitting next to me, he wasn't really paying attention to how he was holding it or he was and he just didn't care and so that baby was kicking. My right arm was bruised. My elbow area and bicep were bruised. When I got to my motel later that night I looked at it. It was just like, it was rough. I was not having a good time, they weren't having a good time. There was also a kid, maybe two rows behind me, who had to have been a little bit older,

but the whole flight intermittently every, you know, it would go for like 60 seconds and then be off for two or three minutes and go for six. Just screaming mommy at the top of his lungs just like someone was was I don't know tied is something to something else. It was really unpleasant. And so the combo of those two kids was was great and then you we had the classic thing where you get to the ground or you land and you get to your gate, the bell, dings, and just the, there are only a couple of rows behind me on this plane. But the people back there, it was a rampage going up the aisle, which I've seen once or twice on flights before. You know, you always have one or two people who are kind of trying to storm to the

front. And it's like, dude, you're back in 35. Good luck. Or 36 wherever we were. But this was like the whole group. There were seven or eight people. It was just like that when the will the beast take out Mufasa, it was pretty nuts. So I get my car, I drove a Nissan Ultima this week. It was pretty solid. I love my Nissan's. I rented with Hertz, had a pretty good experience.

It's crazy. I know there's the national, not national, the brand, but national, country-wide, car rental shortage post or throughout COVID and now kind of at this stage of the pandemic. But it's so crazy to me how enterprise and national are just so expensive and everyone else is so not expensive. Like there's just a huge disparity there. And so I'm usually an enterprise person

because that's where all my points are. But I was just like, it was like pay 140 a day with enterprise or like 30 a day with Hertz. And it's like, well, at the end of the day, you're getting the same experience. So yeah, everything with a car was great. I put 1,500 and changed miles on it. Head cruise control, no bells and whistles.

That's fine. It'll need bells and whistles as long as the AC works. And I got some cruise control, which should be ferried. And actually use a ton. Just because I was constantly moving in our traffic, always a lot of trucks where I was going. But yeah, good car. So I go to a targeting Phoenix, I stock up some trail mix, try it out. The birthday cake flavor of pop-tarts would not recommend. Just, you know, when you get a pop-tart, you want not only good icing,

but you want a solid filling. These pop-tarts, like, didn't have filling. In fact, thinking back, there might have been filling in there, but I don't particularly recall tasting any. So, I would I recommend that, but it got some classic trill mix and bought a huge gallon. When I say huge gallon,

it's the same as a regular gallon, but it's just huge of water. And went on my, oh, got like a 12 pack of the little gatorade bottles, whatever those are, they're like 12 ounces or something. I figured you're gonna want your electrolytes. And I went on my way. I drove up to Sedona first, which is about two hours north of Phoenix, pretty easy drive. It was it was pretty hot the whole time. It was hot. It's hot here. It's hot there. But I got to Sedona and I was you know, it was like four o'clock in the afternoon at this

point and I knew I was gonna wake up up super earlier the next morning but I was like I've never been a Sedona before let's just do a quick little hike so I actually drove back not too far off the main road to this trailhead and it's like Red Rocks country if you ever been to a garden of the gods in Colorado it's it's kind of got that feel, that vibe to it. And actually, you had to drive back a little bit on this dirt road, very bumpy, would not be the first time I did that on this trip, or would not be the last time, excuse me.

And it's actually kind of interesting, this trail that I hiked, there's the foot trail, it's like, you know, for people and mountain bikes, whatever. But then off to the side, it kind of follows the same path sometimes. But it was a Jeep trail as well. So people will bring their jeeps back there, and there's also like Jeep tours and Super Bumpy and Rocky, I think I would get really sick if I rode in a Jeep

trying to drive on that. But I just went for a little hike out to, how do I remember what it's called, chicken, chicken point or something like that. And you got really beautiful views of the Valley, both north and south. And I got a little lost coming back. Not as like halfway lost because I knew where I was, I knew the direction I needed to go to get to my car. And it was really easy because the sun was setting and the east kind of over the top of some rocks.

Our sun was setting in the west, yikes. Maybe I was more lost than I thought. But it was just like, I lost the trail a couple times They just ended up walking through like you know some some cacti some bramble If you will but I got I got my way back drove up to flagstaff Got some supper from a local brewery Trying to remember what it was called

I took a picture of the bottle, cause I thought it was really cool. This place is great. You can get carry out single bottles. You don't see anything like that in Chicago. We need to bring that here, cause that was awesome. I did that in another place too,

and where was I? Bakersfield, California. We'll get to there in a little bit here. But yeah, I got a flagstaff. Let me check my notes. Make sure I'm not forgetting anything here as we're progressing linearly, L-I-N-E-R-L-Y. I get to flagstaff and I had booked this motel knowing I wasn't going to be there for an extended period of time. And it was just like the most stereotypical shitty motel you can imagine. Like someone was definitely murdered in my room a couple nights before I got there. I literally walked in to the tiny office to check in. And the first guy, I was third in line, the guy who was actually at the counter for the customer who was at the counter first was barking about not

having a paper receipts as places all digital. The second lady was saying was trying to get a room without an ID because she had recently escaped prison, and then there was me who, I was a little bit less exciting of a customer. I don't know if the young Indian man who ran the joint appreciated that or was giving me a funny look after I left because I was a little bit too spotless of a record. But I got my room and yeah I literally sat down, I ate dinner, it took a shower, was pretty worried about you know being murdered by Anthony Perkins the whole time I was showering but I made it quick.

When I say I woke up early in the next morning, 250 am. There's early, which for me is usually like four o'clock in the morning to go for a run. Then there's basically I didn't sleep, which is 250 in the morning. I had some nervous energy, maybe not nervous energy, but excited energy, if you will. Woke up, got a cup of coffee at a Dutch bros and flag staff down the road. There was a young lady working there.

Couldn't have been older than 19 or 20. Presumably a Northern Arizona University College student. Got my coffee, gave for a $10 tip because I was like, hey, quality coffee experience at three o'clock in the morning. You look like a college student. Here's some pay it forward, investing in local community. Don't spend it all in one place. So, when on my way is about 90 minute drive from Flagstaff up to the Grand Canyon. I should mention the drive.

I think it's like 85 air zone, 85 A or something. The drive from Sedona to Flagstaff. You have to basically like go up the side of this canyon. It's really beautiful. If you are ever driving in that general area, don't go on the high, don't go on the interstate, take that drive, you're doing like all these crazy, it's reminiscent of driving and you know, the Appalachian Mountains or like the great smokies or something. You're just doing these crazy switchbacks going way up.

Your car's RPM is like above nine. But then eventually you get to the higher elevation, which, you know, Flagstaff is like, I don't, I don't know the official elevation of Flagstaff. I think it's somewhere in the like 7,000 range, something like that. I hit 8,000 driving from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, pretty high up there.

But yeah, it's a beautiful drive. A lot of scenic drives that I took on this trip. That was the first big one. But yeah, I get to the Grand Canyon right about 4.45 in the morning, something like that. I'd finished up my coffee and I was ready to go. So I packed my backpack, I got my trail mix, and my water, and I am all ready to go. I saw an adolescent mountain lion

in the parking lot, which was pretty cool in the headlights. Not for very long, just he skidded across the pavement and went off into the bushes, but that was pretty neat. I'm hiking down the Grand Canyon, it's dark outside because I'd love to ride at 5 o'clock on the dot, which is pretty neat. Maybe like two couples right towards the top, but I was moving and grooving. I was ready for action. My first major incident, not really an incident, but just a noteworthy happening. I'm tooling down there between the 1.5 and 3 mile rest

houses. And it's starting to get a little bit lighter. It's probably 5.35, 5.40 at this point. And all of a sudden, I look up off to my right, but still right on the trail, there's a large boulder up to my right. And when did she know it? Just sitting there watching me is a big horn sheep. And I got to tell you, I mean, I did not come prepared in terms of knowing what to do.

I mean, I've been to Alaska, I've been, well, I've been to much? I mean, I've been to Alaska, I've been, well, I've been to much everywhere, generally in the United States at this point outside of Hawaii. So I've read about like, oh, what do you do if you see a bear? What do you do if you see a mousse? Like, and I don't remember every single thing or animal and what you're supposed to do. But I have never researched or read about,

what do you do if you see a big horned sheep? And so I see it and I was thoroughly spooked and I was just like, okay, well, I'm just gonna keep going and hopefully he's chill. And so I'm tweaking a little bit, I think is what kids say. And I look over my shoulder and there he is on the trail, just sauntering behind me. He couldn't have been further than 20 or 30 feet at this point.

So, close enough to where I'm like, holy shit, like, what, if he decides he's going to take a run at me, I'm on this narrow switchback path, like, what's the strategy here? Because if this thing lowers his head, he uses the Pokemon move Skull Bash, there's the two turn move. I didn't feel like I was going to have a turn to figure out what to do. It was like a one turn Skull Bash. And so I start moving a little bit more quickly, but I'm like, are you supposed to do the like slowly back away? I had no idea.

So I was just like, what? Let me just go. And he probably followed me for 10 or 15 seconds at about the same pace, never got any closer. So he wasn't like charging or anything like that. Thank God. But yeah, eventually he must have just turned off, found some tasty,

bramble to eat or something. But yeah, I was, you know, I was completely spooked. I was not prepared for that encounter. So it took me a little while, like mentally to get over it, but yeah, I mean, that was just a lot more than I was expecting at 5.45 in the morning. So yeah, I make my way down. Going down for me is less enjoyable than, well, there are pros and cons of going down versus going up. Going down is really hard on my knees.

Going up has its obvious drawbacks, But make it down to Indian gardens, go out to Plateau Point. The whole hike there is about six and a half miles and stopped to rest at Plateau Point. Got my water, some trail mix, took some picks. Saw the Colorado River. There were some people just hanging out in the river with their tubes. And at about 8 o'clock, it was about two hours and 15 minutes going down with some rest, two and a half hours going back up. So I was, if you're doing your math

and you realize one is pretty much straight down, the first 4.5 miles and one is pretty much straight up, the last 4.5 miles and there's only a 15 minute difference or so. I was moving. I just didn't want to get caught in the sun. I didn't want to encounter two mule trains. Wasn't too bad. You know, you just step off to the side, 30 seconds later

there, passed you. But obviously you get closer and closer to the top. Tons and tons of tourists who will only go down a mile and a half or something like that. But the last leg, last mile and a half, it's already 10 o'clock in the morning. You're pretty much in the sun. It's a solid, I don't know, at that point, 90 degrees.

I think that day in Grand Canyon, it got up to like one of six or something like that was the high. And I've already been, you know, you've been going for 11 or 12 miles at that point. So you're just like, you stopped to catch your breath when you absolutely have to, but for me, it was pretty much like, there's gonna, I've got a long drive after this. There's gonna be plenty of time to catch my breath, sit in on my ass, driving to Las Vegas

after this. So, I powered through, it was a good solid hike, got a lot of water, but I really started to notice it was so dry down there and your elevation and so dusty. I wasn't like laboring for my breath, even going uphill. I mean, well, obviously at certain points I was, but it was so just felt like there was dust in my lungs. And in my nose, it was constantly running, irritated.

Eyes were really like red and watery. So that was a bummer. And it eventually led to my dual nostril bloody noses. So I finished my hike and I drive up the long drive to the Hoover Dam, which I've been to before. And I just wanted to go to see it.

I drove all the way to the top of the kind of hill to the visitor center, away from most of the people, or the gift shop, not the visitor center. You drive through huge swaths of people and then I got to the very top where this kind of a scenic look out and a lot, lot less people, a lot fewer people which I appreciate. But yeah, right when I get to the top I stop to get some souvenirs and walking back to my car, you know, it's like 105 degrees at that point and I just reach up to touch my nose and wouldn't you know it?

Bloody mustache blood starts streaming down both nostrils at the same time that's very rare it was elevation dust dryness perfect storm and So I had to sit in my car the first first one was the longest. It was the only time I had them both going at the same time, but it was mighty powerful. I had the foresight just thinking it had like this could be an issue based on my past issues with bloody nose elevation. I took a roll of toilet paper from the motel and flag staff

and thank God I did. Because otherwise, things would have gotten real bloody. So I'm really glad that I did that. That is what I was trying to say as Garage Man stopped, got the air message, the disk is too slow. Whatever that means. So I drove from Hoover Dam to Las Vegas. I was staying about two miles straight east

of the strip along Flamingo Road. And I didn't do any strip-related activities, no gambling, none of those shenanigans. I'm just not a Vegas person. That's OK. It's not for everyone. But it was a convenient rest spot for me. The rest of the trip, the last three nights I was there staying in Airbnb's like private rooms. So this was a German couple I think, sitting in their room. And I woke up

I think, stayed in their room. And I woke up pretty early the next morning to, I mean, not anywhere close to 250, it was probably like 5.30, something like that. And I decided to, oh, I should mention the other animals I saw on the Grand Canyon. I saw a lot of mule deer. I saw a little havelina running around. and I already mentioned the sheep in the mountain line So I drive out to death Valley. It's probably two hours and change

Two and a half hours something like that from Vegas So I get out to death Valley. It's about eight o'clock in the morning something like that It's pretty excited never been to death Valley before and also felt like I was getting there early enough to avoid a lot of tourists. So the first thing I do, I go up to, I think it's called Ziblisky Point, one of the original mining guys out there, I think was named Ziblisky.

And it's just me and another couple, you kind of park in a lot, and then you have to walk not far quarter mile up at hill I was already pretty tosy at this point. I was already close to a hundred on the dial But I walk past this couple there just like talking taking a selfie doing something I don't know whatever so I get up to the top of this point and So I get up to the top of this point and I'm just looking out kind of over the the old minds really beautiful scenery The Sun is kind of coming up in the east behind me and all the Sun I noticed the guys walking up the hill just the guy up towards me and it's like always just gonna ask for a picture

And he does like can you take a picture of the two of us? I was like of course and so we're walking back down the hill. There's another small lookout point where his partner is standing. And before we get there, he's like, OK, so actually, it's not a picture. It's a video because I'm proposing all of a sudden I'm sweating and not just from the heat.

This is a lot of pressure. There's this couple. they're from New York. They were driving from Death Valley up to Yosemite, Yosemite, as Trump would say that day. And I didn't show any this because I'm a cool cucumber baby. But I'm like, God, I hope I don't fuck this up. And I didn't.

I took a nice video. If I had been thinking a little bit more clearly, I don't know if it was Death Valley Brain or what, I would have whipped out my phone, taken a picture of the moment as I was taking a video, in my other hand, with this guy's phone. But I didn't do that. So if the couple's listening, I didn't advertise my show

to them, because I don't want to be one of those guys. But if they, if you come across this somehow, I don't really know how. I wasn't wearing my bean town shirt that day. I did wear my bean town podcast shirt on the Grand Canyon hike. So if we get a big influx of Arizona listeners. Hello from Chicago. So probably there that couple is probably not going to find this. TBH but congratulations to you anyway. So that was the proposal. Next thing I do, there's kind of a main drive on the eastern edge of Death Valley, just south of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. I had to take a picture of that because it's my name.

So you drive down Badwater Road and first major stop, the Devil's Golf Course. You got to take a long, maybe half mile, three tenths to five tenths mile dirt road back to get there. But you're at the floor of the valley at that point. And it's really cool. I can't really describe what it looks like. Just Google doubles golf course. You'll see it. But you listen, and there's no one else out there.

It's just you, and you all of a sudden you hear these little, these little popping noises like, p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p But it has something to do with the salt Builds up these formations and then it gets so hot that they explode these tiny little Salt things and they just keeps happening over and over again. It was really neat a very audio-centric experience And so that was cool and then I continue driving down to the main Spot that everyone wants to go to. Badwater Basin, the lowest place in North America. And I should mention Fernos Creek Visitor's Center back

in, it was like 1910 or something, the hottest recorded temperature in human history, 134 degrees, pretty impressive. The hottest I got in Death Valley granted I left before noon was I think 118 or 113, no 113 is what I saw in Death Valley. 118 was the hottest on my trip that was in Palm Springs. We'll get there in a little bit here and promise I'm moving as fast as I can, but you go to Badwater basin. It's just like a huge salt flat. You can park and then walk out into it as far as you want. I probably walked for about half a mile out and then, you know, it's not like you're walking to see something.

You're just literally walking straight into the valley on top of salt and you just walk for as long as you want to walk and then you walk back to your car. So I did that. It was really hot. I went up to something called a Long Badwater Road natural bridge canyon. And you can hike a little bit back into there. And I was doing a little bit of side exploring through a narrow spot and all of a sudden I hear a... that's a rattlesnake for those you're listening at home and I didn't see it but I decided I'm just gonna back out and hopefully the rattlesnake is in front of me and not behind me and I didn't go any further into that nook or cranny if you will. C-R-A-N-N-Y.

But the rest of Natural Bridge Canyon was really cool. I got to see some of the spots where they filmed Tatooine in Star Wars 4 and 6. If you're curious, places like Golden Canyon, which I didn't go back into, but that's where the droids are walking in episode four when the Jawahs ambushed them. And Dante's view, I didn't drive up there because it's kind of off on another road, but that's where Obi-Wan takes Luke to look over and he says, most nicely, space port, you'll never find a more wretched hive of

Villany and Scammer or whatever. So that's that point. So there's a couple other things in there that I saw that was pretty neat, but I started driving out. There's one gas station, Inferness Creek, I believe, it's the name of the town where the visitor center is kind of the main hub for the park and

Unleted gas. So this is the cheap one in furnace Creek 629 that's 629 for those you'll listening at home. I did not stop to fuel up there Because I didn't need to because I planned ahead, but kind of pricey So then I had a very long drive, a lot of ups and downs through mountains to go to Lone Pine, which is on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada. I didn't realize it until I saw the sign that said, you're now leaving Death Valley National Park.

It's huge. It's like the whole valley is a national park. I looked it up after, and I would have to double check, but I think Death Valley is the third largest national park in the United States. After there's a huge one in Alaska, which I did not go to, because it's very remote, then there's Denali, which is second in size,

I believe it's about the size of Massachusetts. And then there's Death Valley, which has to be like the size of Connecticut or something. It's just gigantic. If not larger than that, I don't know. It was huge. But I drove to Lone Pine and got some ice cream. And I realized there, originally I just wanted

to like get a view of Mount Whitney from, you know, 395, the main highway there. But then I was like, wait, the trailhead is actually here. I was under the impression because of just lack of research that the trailhead was on the Western slope in the Coa National Park, but it's actually on the Eastern slope, well, I think you can approach it from both sides, but the traditional approach is from the east.

So you can actually drive up to the trailhead. You got to wind your way way up to the mountain, super scary drive, like cliffs, all that stuff. But then eventually you get up in there, and you're in the Sequoia National Forest, and super pretty, you know, the trees are beautiful, you know, campsites, a couple of different like restaurants and bars, whatever. But yeah, it's

where people begin their ascent of Mount Whitney. Excuse me. The lower 48 states highest point. And I watched, I watched a video later that night of a guy doing like a step-by-step climb of it. It's not a technical hike. You can actually just like, I could do it. I would be scared shitless, but because it's a very spooky... If you've never seen a picture about Whitney, Google it. It is like the spookiest mountain I've ever seen. Just jagged.

Sheer rock. Like, who would want to go up there? Not me. But you can. It's just like a lot of switchbacks and Hopefully you get good weather and apparently people get struck by lightning up there all the time so sounds fun But I drove at that point it was getting later in the day. I drove from Lone Pine down 395 And eventually I took a mountain pass to get to Bakersfield where I was staying on this was Wednesday night. I had to drive

through a dust storm. I had never driven through a dust storm before, South of Lone Pine before cutting through this year in Nevada to get to the other side to Bakersfield. If you never driven through a dust storm, it was pretty dusty. And I don't really know how else to describe it. Couldn't see a ton, didn't have big visibility. I saw a tumbleweed rolling across the highway. That was pretty neat to see it in person

and not have it just be like a movie stereotype. But that was pretty cool. I should mention here, because I made a note of it here in my notes here, if you will. And I haven't checked this out for myself yet, but BibleUniversity.com. I listen if you don't know when I'm in the car, and I'm out in the south or the west,

or any sort of godfiring country, I'm out in the south or the west or any sort of God-fearing country, I will browse through the radio stations, hit that Seek button. And oftentimes, the only thing that comes through clearly is good old God-fearing Christian, white Christian radio. And you get all sorts of things. I mean, I listen to sermons, I listen more like the Christalman type music. My favorite thing is when you get the sorts of things. I mean, I listen to sermons, I listen to more of the Chris Tom and type music. My favorite thing is when you get the broadcast at a like the Moody Bible Institute, they do, there's two things I really love.

Well, and this is a quick separate side, but there was an advertisement for BibleUniversity.com. And I think I got to check that out. I'll report on that later. But two things I really like is when they do the like historical reenactment of just different significant Christian characters throughout history. And you know, you get the different voice actors playing out the parts and I don't know who wrote those screenplays, but they're pretty fun. And then I also really love, and I think I'd mention this

when we did our fall road trip last year through the Northeast, but you get these stories that are intended for children that are just like really sad or harsh. This time it was a kid who left home, he ran away from home, and he didn't want anything to do with God, and he went to China. He took a boat to China, China!

And it was just like, I think the point of this story was like, God is everywhere, and you can't escape him, so you might as well submit a whole separate podcast on the themes explored in that show, but there were some pretty racist Asian accents going on. It was quality listening as I was driving through the Sequoia National Forest. Really scenic drive from the turn off on 395 down into Baker's Field, you got to go up through the mountains, you're in Nevada, and you's Field, you got to go up through the mountains here in Nevada. As you come down, you're wind along a river that goes into Baker's Field.

I can't recall which river it was, but the drive is really scenic. Huge, big winding roads, you're going downhill, you're riding the brakes the whole way. I saw a coyote, which is pretty cool. I think it was somewhere around Lone Pine. Just hanging out in the street. Took him a really long time to move. I saw a coyote, which is pretty cool. I think it was somewhere around Lone Pine. Just hanging out in the street. Took him a really long time to move.

But that was the first and last coyote I saw on this trip. So I stayed in Baker's Field. My last whole day was Thursday. And woke up probably five, five,-30 something like that. Drought from Bakersfield down I-5 towards Los Angeles. And I got to tell you, this was like NASCAR. People were driving so fast, image Chicago looked like a parking lot.

I have never casually on a highway driven 100 before, but this was that. We were just that was what we were doing. If you were going any slower than like 90, people were going to be pissed off at you. I know because I got pissed off at people going 90. Yeah, it was just a huge, the whole highway. You're kind of coming down out into the mountains into the valley, and we were all just going 100. It was, it sounds scary, and it was a little bit, but keep in mind speed is all relative,

so it's, you know, you're like driving that fast, but you're not feeling like, oh my God, I can't do this, I'm out of control. But that was pretty neat. I've never, I I've probably gotten up to a hundred in my life before once or twice On a probably random country road, but never just like casually in the highway. So that was pretty cool So I wanted a place To hike in the Los Angeles area Nothing to butt kick in because I was still pretty sore from

13 miles in the Grand Canyon on Tuesday, but I found a cool little Cool little mountain in the Angeles National Forest just north of Pasadena And there's a really great history. I'm not gonna have the battery life or the energy to walk you through the whole thing on the show here But echo mountain if you you want to read more about my hike and sort of what I was seeing, Google the Mount Low Railway. Essentially, in the late 19th century, there is this professor, last name Low, who wanted to build this, basically imagine a chairlift, but instead of a chair, it was a trolley. That runs along the track, that looks like a railroad track, that goes from Pasadena in the valley,

like straight up this mountain practically, the grade on the tracks is like 65 degrees or something. I'm not exaggerating. And it goes up, and it's first major stop, but it goes up further and its first major stop, it goes up further than I ended up going. But it goes up to something called Echo Mountain, and there was this really cool resort up there.

They called it the White City. There was places to sleep. There was a casino, dine up there, all that stuff. This is like 1890s or something. This was super early. And eventually it burned down in a wildfire, not too long after it started operating. It wasn't in existence for very long.

And then I think most of the track got washed away in a flood. The whole thing never made it. The last full trip up there was in the 40s or 50s, I think. So this thing wasn't an existence for super long, but you can hike up there. It's about three miles one way to Echo Mountain. And that's just kind of the first main stop. You can continue up into the mountains to some other points,

but I was already pretty tired of just going three miles like straight up on switchbacks. But you get up there and you can see the ruins and remains like the foundation and stuff, high up above Los Angeles, which was pretty neat. Pretty photogenic spot. And there's an old rail car up there. They have the old wheel that they would use

to wrap the cable around it, whatever that pulled the trolley up and down the mountain. This wheel is huge as you can imagine. But that was pretty neat. If you want to read more about it, I would encourage you to google the Mount Low Railway and read through the Wikipedia article if you have 10 minutes. Hiking down I saw a tarantula, which was awesome. It was a little adolescent kind of baby one, not full size, could have been larger than four or five inches across. And he wasn't really doing anything. He was just hanging out on the trail. But if you saw it on Instagram or Facebook,

I got a picture of it, which is pretty neat. I've never seen a tarantula in the wild before, and if I've ever actually seen one before, it's probably just like at a zoo. So that was cool. After that, I spent way too long driving first, the first part of the next segment was straight forward. I wanted to see Griffith Observatory. You can drive up there, you can't park very close without paying $10.00 and I was like, not in the mood to get out and walk around.

It was hot. I just finished a six mile hike. I just wanted, really wanted to snap a picture. So you can like drive up to it. And as you're getting ready to like turn around and go back down the mountain, I got a pick, which was cool. That's what I wanted to do. The observatory itself is only open Friday through Sunday. So this was a Thursday. You can't just walk into it. Then I spent way too long, the next 90 minutes driving around the Hollywood Hills, trying to get a good pick of the Hollywood sign.

I had seen it from the car, but I just wanted to like find a spot to get out, snap a pic. If you've never driven in the Hollywood hills before, this is probably scariest driving experience I have ever had. Super winding, super narrow, you go straight up, you'll go straight down. It's where a bunch of these celebrities live. I didn't even see anyone cool, but just blind corner after blind corner, like so tight and narrow. Not fun. Kind of cool. And one of those things were on the, you know, back end, you can be like, yeah, I drove through that and that was kind of neat. But while you're in it, just gripping the steering wheel

for dear life, I mean, this is way more scary to me than like driving up Mount Whitney or driving to the Mount Whitney Trailhead, which is just like on cliffs and stuff. This was way worse. Because you never know when someone's just gonna like come barreling around the corner and not have split second reaction speeds

and you're going to get smacked, which I really don't want to deal with in a rental car in the narrow, narrow streets of the Hollywood Hills. Not fun. Worst part never actually got a good pick of the Hollywood sign. Oh well. I saw it. Not everything. Here's a lesson for you kids listening.

Not everything has to go on Instagram. I drove down out of the hills, drove down Hollywood Boulevard for about half a mile or so, just to say I did it, to see it a little bit. This was like Thursday at like one or two in the afternoon, so it wasn't a ton of action at that point, but Still kind of neat. There was nothing about it. That was like, oh my gosh. I can't wait to go back You know, it is what it is And then I you know at this point you're in Hollywood and I was ending my day at Palm Springs

But I was like I have wanted my whole life in particular in college and grad school. When we played GTA 5, I have wanted my whole life to go to San Monica Pier. And so I drove to the ocean and it was really worried about parking because the closer you get, it's just like so congested. There's people everywhere scooters galore. I was like, damn, am I gonna be able to find parking or am I just gonna feel like drive along it and like see it and then have to leave. But I found really like the cheapest hourly parking

you can find, $1 per hour, max of two hours. Perfect for a guy like me, right on the beach. So I parked there, I was out of my car for maybe 30 or 40 minutes, it was still really hot along the ocean, I walked out to the edge of the pier. If you've never been there's like an amusement park there, every kind of like restaurant, vendors, people playing music, like fishing, just a lot of people, a big swath of civilization. But I always wanted to do it.

The Ferris wheel, it's just like super scenic. Plus there's something about like taking this long trip, driving a ton through the desert, and then you like get to the ocean. Like you made it to the edge of land, even though I'm going the opposite direction. I'm really glad I did that. I was only out of the car for half an hour or so,

but I saw that. And then the rest of the day, the rest of the trip, those are kind of the big highlights. I mean, I got back in my car. Let's see, the next four things on my list, just say, Los Angeles traffic. So, separate, I made separate installments for each time I felt compelled. But I got to Palm Springs. I saw a

cool billboard on the side of the road on the side of the highway. I five as I was driving east. I think I might have said driving down or not I five I 10. I said earlier is driving down I five. That's correct. That's the north south western backbone of the US. I 10 is the southern backbone. I was driving east on 10 past Dodger Stadium out to Palm Springs. I saw a billboard advertising the exotic fantasies swinger resort in Palm Springs and I had to ask myself just how sexy is it. I actually out of pure curiosity when I got to my place in Palm Springs, which was not the Swinger's Resort. If I had known before booking, you know, things might have

been different, but alas, I wanted to research it online to be like What exactly goes on in a swingers resort? I mean, I understand the kind of core concepts, but beyond that like Well, like what kind of activities? What's the general vibe? There is one area on the general vibe. There is one area on the website like map titled the play area and it's just like outdoor. So you know how sexy is it I think is the question I need to be asking. But I stayed in Palm Springs and I woke up the next morning when I flight out of Phoenix was about 130 and it's a four-hour drive or so from Palm Springs to Phoenix. And you know me, even when I'm vacationing, I can never quite stop working. I stopped twice in the desert to go pee and each time I stopped whipped out the phone just got lucky did a software test. So while you are all

playing paddy cake with whatever the line is that Uncle Rico says I was bringing home the big bucks $20 on my way from Palm Springs to Phoenix, Aiden, Aiden to the gas bill a little bit, which is good. This gas is really expensive. So expensive in California compared to other states. Although Furnace Creek, 629 or whatever it was, nothing can top that. Got to Phoenix.

Had a lot more bloody noses this trip that I didn't talk about, but that's not too interesting. I got gas across the street from Chase Field, where the D-backs play. And that was about it. Draft the car off. It was still really hot. 118 in Palm Springs was what I saw. I had the worst case of Fundito of all time in Palm Springs.

You get down there, you're like, oh, this will be like a good place to get Mexican food, right? I think I just picked the wrong place. They, you know, when I get case of Fundito with Rachel at our place here in Chicago, they put it in a taco shell, which makes a lot of sense.

This place just put it right on the aluminum foil and then inside of a plastic container. By the time you open it up, back at the place, it's completely stuck. And you're literally just like holding the aluminum foil, taking it out of the plastic container and just like biting into it and hoping you don't get a mouthful of aluminum or tin or whatever precious metal it was. But yeah, dropped it off in Phoenix,

dropped up the car, it was a little over 1,500 miles, and I had the car for approximately 94 to 95 hours. And flew back, the flight back was much more pleasant. I was closer to the front of the plane. I had I was again given an ILC this time I actually had the ILC and easy flight. Easy everything back to Chicago. Blue line 76 to home. Easy peasy. So yeah, I got really fortunate with just like all, all and all, the planes being good, no delays, great car obviously, no issues. And yeah, I bet they were pretty, I don't know how like car rental people actually feel

if they actually care when they get your car back after four days and they see 1500 miles on it Corporate's probably not happy the people there probably don't care, but Hey Unlimited mileage you can't you can't give me that and then be upset When I put the unlimited and unlimited mileage, okay? Yeah, that was my trip. And that was this episode.

I'll give a shout out to our sponsors, Home Pride Oregon. If you need your home inspector and essential Oregon, call Stevie's my dad, 541-410-0316, or go to HomePrideAurian.com for a high quality, low-cost home inspection. The Samsung Q2U series, it's got crisp clear audio quality when it got speak, see uses the Samsung.

And our dear friends, cuts by Q. If you need a fresh do, something snappy and you call the experts at cuts by Q. I believe, and I know I say something to this effect most shows, but I believe, if I recall correctly, this this is 190 so the countdown to 200 begins next week with episode 191 I believe is what's happening so next weekend is Labor Day weekend so that's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 we're looking at I believe if I did my math right, the first weekend of November,

which believe it or not, I'm gonna be in New York City for, and daylight savings time ends. That was a jam packed weekend. It could be episode 200. Live from the big apple, we've done a show there before. It could be fun to go back for our 200th show. And actually, I believe three weeks before that, I'm gonna be actually in Beentown proper.

So that would be episode 197, I think. And I'm actually, I have multiple trips to Boston. I'm gonna be in Boston in two weeks. September 11th, the 20th anniversary, you never forget. I don't plan to broadcast from there. Here's why. I wake up in the morning.

I take a Uber, this is for work, to O'Hare. I fly to Boston, I work for about three hours. I take an Uber back to Logan, I fly Chicago, and I get home at like midnight. So that'll be my Saturday. Can't wait. I thanks everyone for listening. we just hit the hour mark. Been a long show, but I wanted to give you the full rundown. It was an adventure. There's a lot of driving, a lot of wildlife,

some cool hikes. Saw some star wars filming locations. I mean, what more could you want? Had some local beer, Coachella Valley, or Coachella Brewing Company was the beer I had in Palm Springs. So yeah, it was a great time. And I got a lot of work emails to catch up on. But next weekend is Labor Day weekend. Don't know the plan exactly yet. But you know I'll be here every weekend without fail.

Just call me the rock of ages. Thanks everyone for listening. That's what I have for you. If you made it this far, I really appreciate it. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or concerns, you can always email us beintompodcast. Yahoo.com. It's beintompodcastyahoo.com and we would love to hear from you. My name is Quinn David Fernos, this was my show, Quinn David Fernos presents the Beantom Podcast. Hopefully,

if you're listening out there, you'll take some time to take a fun road trip adventure of your own in the near future. Thanks everyone for listening. Stay safe, stay sane, stay cool. August is almost over. I'll check in on you next time. Bye everyone. I'm just going to sit here. ndご視聴ありがとうございました