Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - College Boys Trip to Oregon

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

And, we would definitely Bend, Oregon. In this episode, Rhett & Link are reminiscing over their recent trip with their college buddies to the great Pacific Northwest. From ATV riding through pine forests and black sands to going down river rapids altogether on a gigantic paddleboard to all the camaraderie in between, it’s got everything you want in a story. Leave us a voicemail at 1-888-EARPOD-1 for a chance to be featured on the show! It takes two minutes to start saving! Open up a checking account at https://www.chime.com/ear To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Condition supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to Explorevolvo.com. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the roundtable of dim lighting, we're going to be talking mostly about our recent trip to the Pacific Northwest PNW in the house. the home of what I might consider to be the highest concentration of mythical beasts on earth.

You think so, huh? Based on anecdotal evidence alone. I am... I did see a lot of mythical beasts. I am so impressed with the people of the Pacific Northwest. That's a little rap. And it isn't necessarily

because they seem to know who we are and like what we do. But it is mostly that. In great numbers. I would say, when we go back to North Carolina, because we're hometown boys, there are lots of people who are familiar with what we do. But that's just, you know what, does that really count? I mean, you know, it's where you're from. When you go to someplace that you've only been a couple of times in your life.

Well, we've never been to Bend, Oregon. Bend Oregon, which is where we went. Bend Oregon. Bend Oregon, if you say it fast, it sounds like you're telling somebody to bend over again. A second time. Bend to Oregon. Bend to Oregon.

I'm your proctologist, bend to Oregon. I didn't get it, I didn't go deep enough the first time. Hold on, I got to use my other hand. Bend to Oregon. My other hand. My other hand, yeah. Both gloved. Wow.

But, uh... Not other finger, just other hand. I just can't tell you. Now, we knew there was a sign when we, when we very quickly sold out the Seattle shows for the WonderHole premiere. And we did not very quickly sell out the Los Angeles shows. Nope.

Which, by the way, WonderHull still going strong every Sunday. Episode five came out this past Sunday, which means there's one left this coming Sunday. It's already almost over. But the Seattle tickets basically sold to like 9th. 99% in two days. And we were like, well, okay, we haven't been up there in a while.

That's a good sign. Mm-hmm. And then the crowd was electric. They were. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Yeah. Like, it's like a, it was quite a party. We had a lot of fun.

It was great to watch those episodes with them. If you haven't watched our nude scene, episode four, which is we bought a, an unclaimed... I don't even know what we're calling these things. Storage. Storage locker. And we bought an abandoned storage locker. I think is what...

And we found a Lamborghini inside, according to the thumbnail, at least, that we emulated. From all the other people who've bought abandoned storage lockers and not found Lamborghinis, but put them in the thumbnails. Yeah. So, yeah. We could have talked about that last week, but it's never too late to talk about our nude...

We had a nude scene. We had a nude scene. What did you boys become? What does California done to you? Closer, I guess. Willing to do whatever it takes to prove our best friendship. And if that means keeping each other warm while completely naked? Question mark.

The blurring. I think we've got to talk a little bit about the blurring. You know, first time I was a little bit about the blurring. First time I saw the blurred version, I think was at the premiere on that big screen. It was a big blur, but it was also a big screen. Right. So I actually think that the blurs weren't big enough. I mean, yes, everything was covered and pixelated.

But come on, team, they could have blurred more. They could have, they could have blurred lower. Yep. You know, they didn't have to blur the absolute minimum. Yep. They could have implied the need for more blurry. Well, I feel like I can discuss some of the technical details of this, and maybe we would both feel better.

Okay? It is going to reveal something about the nude scene that I think most people who are thinking a little bit probably already know. That we did the tuck. So... If you thought that we literally got naked and I pressed my penis into Link's butt crack or we put our penises together, that didn't happen because this is show business and there is

we don't have an intimacy coordinator. We sort of serve as each other's intimacy coordinator. No, no, no, I coordinate my own intimacy. I don't need any coordination assistance when it comes to my intimacy. We just wanted it to seem like those things were happening. but in the reality of the situation, we put on what is called a dance belt. Dance belt. Which is a flesh... It's not a belt at all.

It's not really. It's just flesh-colored underwear that are way too tight. Well, they... Correct. Because the heinie wasn't out. It wasn't like a jock strap. Was the heinie out?

You know what? Your he was not out. You know what? It wasn't a dance. It wasn't an official dance belt because we've donned dance belts under, like, superhero costumes. Yeah. And they're designed to smooth out, you know, Superman's treasures.

And, you know, and it's... Ice Palace or whatever it's come. And it's for, like, male... It's for, like, male ballerinas. What do you call those? Boy arenas. I don't know. I just call them male ballerinas.

Okay. We're just trying to be... I don't know. Trying to do it right. And it's to cover up the, you know, smooth the bits out. And those are like a thong in the back, like a jack, jack strap. Jack strap. Jack strap, Peter.

So, I don't know why I said the name of the person that I was sort of sounding like. I just should never have done that. I thought you sounded like his wife. Yeah, well, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I kind of sounded like him, too. Okay. But what we had was just flesh-colored underwear, and we did. Yes, we did use a black marker to put pubs on them

because we thought maybe the pubs would show up in the blur. Oh, I treated it like my journal. Yep. I drew an entire... You drew a whole penis. Yeah. On yours. But setting that aside for a second,

let me just say, if you don't know that we have on fleshy tidies, I guess is what they would be called, the beigey tidies. Yeah. I mean, technically they are still dance belts. They are still dance belts? Yeah, yeah.

It's just a full coverage type of thing. But what a proper tidy underwear does for you is it grabs everything and it kind of brings it in close. Very close. But then the blur, if we were supposed to be naked, then it wouldn't be so close. Gravity would be having some effect on it and bringing it down. I don't know how many inches, I'm not going to say. And there might be some floppage and danglage. Yes, but the blur job that was done on us was not...

Was just on the tidy part. And so... Yeah. People think I'm joking. I'm upset. If you look at a profile version of us in that nude scene, you'd be like, well, I would expect a penis to be hanging in that... We should have worn fake penises. Yeah, we should have. That may have been our only chance to wear...

We didn't have a budget for that. Those are really expensive. Anytime you see a dong on TV, it's not real. But it's... And it's... And it's significantly bigger than the dong that's inside the prosthetic. Because it has to go over it.

And also, if you're going to sign up to do a nude scene, give me a big one. That's what you're going to say. Right. I mean, give me a big one. Let me live a little. Let me see what it feels like. You know, that's what all these actors are doing.

But we did, I mean, press our bodies together. And I just wasn't, the main thing I was thinking was, be funny. And then the second thing I was thinking was, don't mess up in a way that you have to do it again. There's a thing that happens in my brain when I'm doing something that would otherwise be difficult. But I am being filmed and it becomes, it feels like I'm living a dream.

Well, I am living the dream, Link. I'm living through a dream. Yeah. The first time that I really registered this was when we went skydiving in season one of Wonderhole. I was like, I should be so scared right now. Yeah. And I was like, I'm beyond scared. I'm like, I'm, uh, I'm like adjacent to scared. And of course, I'm screaming in the video. I'm screaming like a crazy person in the video because that was the joke. It was like, you're going to be so crazy and Link's going to be just with his arms folded. You know, was I scared? Yes. Was I as scared as it seemed like I was? No, I was. acting like I was scared because really what I wanted to do is vomit because I was about to throw up the whole time. Yeah. But so, but you weren't about to vomit when we were pressing ourselves against each other. No. There's two things that happened in that episode. The first thing that happens is, uh, should we just say? I mean, yeah, baby bird. It's been over a week since

the cookie, the cookie test. And I got, I got admit, again, because it was happening on camera. Right. When it and I had zero gag reflex. I think if I was just doing that in person, now you did a gag reflex when I did that to you on the show, but it was because I spit something really nasty into your mouth. You spit a chocolate chip cookie into my mouth, and it just tasted like a chocolate chip cookie, I'll be honest. Yeah.

But then the needs to. Same, same thing. It was, we were, we had, we wanted to achieve something with it that was more than just, oh my God, I can't believe we're doing this, and we hadn't really reckoned with it. But you did legitimately laugh after you baby birded me, and we weren't about to do it again, so we just left it in there.

Yeah. So people knew that you broke. There's nothing wrong with me laughing. There's a few, like, breaks throughout the season of Wonderhole that they don't play as complete breaks. It is the kind of thing that you might laugh at if you were doing it in the bad person, but if you were actually doing it. If I discovered that my dead step-uncle was gay.

I mean, I would laugh at that if I'd discover. that in the moment. And my laugh at you during that scene was very legitimate. Yeah. See? That's what we're able to do. The latest episode is extreme camouflage height and seek. So check that out. We went to an abandoned power plant on the beach of Oxnard or somewhere around. Oxnard. Huge. I want to say 14 stories tall. power plant non-operational but still

a filming location a legal filming location though it's a little dicey and rusty and there are many places where it's rusted out and they just put like a piece of plywood over it

no tetanus thought it was going to happen but it didn't money stress is one of the biggest headaches in life back when we were just getting started there were times we dealt with overdraft fees or waiting for

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wherever you get your podcasts. So we just got back from our annual college buddy trip to Bend, Oregon. First time ever going there. It's our fourth annual trip ever since we reconnected with our boys. Greg, Tim, and Harm, Greg was our first college roommate when we added a third roommate.

And then Tim was our next college roommate when we added a fourth apartment mate. And Harm. Harm was good friends with Tim. But he was never our roommate. There were like two apartments that were friends. And then so that was the connection. and then Harm became one of the boys as well. So we're going to talk to you about that before we do.

I just want to make sure that you've heard that Good Mythical Evening is happening again this year on October 23rd at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific. The times matter because this is live. This is live broadcast to you after you bought a ticket. And that ticket also gives you video on demand. And if you can't watch it live, then you can watch it after the fact. And I can't tell you what's going to happen, but it's going to be space-themed.

And there's going to be inebriation. Intergalactic debauchery. Yeah. It's what we're calling it. So it's going to be a totally different vibe and world. There will be costumes, but they won't be monsters. Yeah. Maybe some people would be.

Maybe some people will be. If you want to get these tickets, go to good mythicaleating.com. You need to do that. There's a 72-hour exclusive 72-hour discount for mythical society members. You can find out about that there. And also, remember that we are going to be in Alamo draft houses around the country of the United States of America. If you want to watch it live in a theater setting with other mythical beasts... Every time I've ever heard...

Drinking yourself, do it. Every time I've ever heard... somebody say that they went to the draft house events, they say it was like one of the best nights that they've had. Because there were a bunch of people who are in this world of mythical beasts. You're all in a theater. You're all drinking. Good food.

In fact, there's mythical themed items on the menu, and the food at the draft house is great. And they just do everything right in that theater. So I think we're going to be on like 19 screens this year. but see if there's one near you and go to it, meet some mythical beasts. I mean, I can promise you that will be a fun night. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And get a designated driver or take a lift home, just like we're going to do when we are done. We chose Bend because every year we learn things that we want to tweak and do different. when we went to Big Sky, Montana last year, we were underwhelmed with the restaurant options. Yeah, sorry, Montana.

As an example. So we were like, all right, we need more of an established town. We'd been to Durango before, which was awesome. Well, the requirements that we loosely discuss are we want an Airbnb where everybody has their own bedroom. We're middle-aged men, working hard, running businesses. You don't want to sleep. We ain't in college anymore. We ain't bunking it up with another dude.

We're not getting in a bed with somebody else. We want our own bedroom. Preferably our own bathroom. That doesn't always happen. And we also want a fire pit. And a hot tub. And a hot tub. Why not?

Because we want to sit down facing each other in a relaxed setting and be able to catch up and spend some yarns. Right. You know, you only get together once a year. I just can't over-emphasize. the importance of a good fire pit. Yeah, it is. For a college boys.

It is the topic. It is the central location of great conversation. We also like this house to be in proximity to a town of some repute. And because a town of some repute has restaurants of some repute. Right. And these boys like to eat. Good food. We like to eat.

You got to have some restaurants for your boys. Yes. And we also like to be close to options for adventure. And I would say even water. Water, you can even say water. Like we were, our Airbnb was on a pond. It was on a pond. And there was a boat on it.

Several boats. Greg and I went out on that boat. Yeah. We got a little, we did a little row, row your boat. You guys went out on the pond and then Greg mooned all of us from the boat for an extended period, at least 90 seconds, more than he needed to. Yeah, I think he was stretching his hamstrings. Okay. With his pants down, which is a way to do it.

Yep. I just think you happen to see it for 90 seconds. Could you have looked away? I think so, but did you? I think not. I was making out details. Making out details. I was rowing towards you as fast as I could while he was doing it.

One of the things that we really like to do when you say water, not just a pond, but we like a nice river. We've done... Flowing water. We've done... There's been a river in all four trips. First year was a whitewater rafting trip that wasn't that impressive

because it was too late in the season and it's just like it was kind of low and we didn't feel like we were going to die and we didn't like that. The second year, we did just a river float. No, second year we went up and not to the crazy river.

We almost died the second year. We felt like we were going to We did, like, class five rapids. Yeah. And it was nuts, and we were wearing wetsuits because it was so cold, and it was crazy, but we all were scared the whole time. It was crazy. And then last year, we got on a river, and it was just the most serene float. Just a tube.

You're just tubing down a float. Tubing down a river. In the middle of nowhere, Montana. Beautiful scenery. But no civilization. No civilization. But Bend has a river, and I think this is the name, why they call it Bend, because the river bends, this big S right in the middle of town. And the thing that the people have been to love to do is to float down this river.

They have made this an art. They have made floating down this river an art form. Of course, there's the companies that you can contact to rent a tube, but then there's the people who have brought their own tubes. We saw. Flamingos. We saw this one thing that was a giant tube almost the size of this room

and it had multiple places for people just to sit down into like the tube with their butt in the river and then we saw another one. And then there was like a swimming area in the middle of it. Oh, a little hot tub type thing but not a little pool with a net on the bottom. A lot of people would have like tandem floats

where you be in, you'd be with your date and then in the middle there'd be like a cooler thing built into the tube built into the tube and that whole tandem thing is really is really good that's one of the things we learned because we did not have any way to lash ourselves together and so there were points we ended up we ended up struggling whenever you would split apart then all of a sudden whoa you've been on the other side of the river and then I wouldn't I wouldn't see goes for 15 minutes. I'd see you, but I couldn't get to you.

Right. For 15 minutes. And we teamed up with some lesbians. Yes, we did. You know us. We love lesbians. Everybody knows. Link loves lesbians.

But I also do. I just didn't get a t-shirt. Lesbians on Rivers is just iconic. And there were a couple of lesbians. And, you know, we just were just like. You're with us now. A beeline, right for them. And then they teamed up with us.

And we were all whole, then we became a big group. Right. And we were going down the river, holding on to each other's rafts, you know, catching up about things, you know, getting the latest lesbian news, at least from that part of the world. And then, but then we got separated, me, harm, and one of the lesbos. They'd said we could call them that. Yeah. No, that's her name.

Their names were both lesbo. They said we could call them that. That's not her name. Shannon and Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe something. Joby. Shannon Haram and I, we got separated. And so we kind of stayed together, and we were trying to get back to the main flotilla.

I mean, and it was moving, but it wasn't like it was rapids. It was just flowing, and it was just hard to move laterally. You were getting, you were ahead of us, and you were getting close to the actual rapids, which we can talk about in a moment. And I wanted all of us to go down together. It was important for you that we all get together. You were like mama-hening at this point.

And I wasn't hearing a word you were saying, by the way. You, especially when you are in an inebriated state, first of all, already, you are always the weakest link when it comes to remembering to hold on to other people. Like, you let go. The circle would never be unbroken. It would always break at link. The weak link was link.

Because I would do other things with my hands. It was like raise a beard of my lips. Yeah, and then you forget what was happening. Give a wave to potential lesbian. And I was, and I said this before we took off. I said, we need to stay together because when we're together, we have a better time. Because what I learned in Montana was

when you were off on that paddleboard by yourself going up and interrupting other flotillas and beginning conversations with strangers, that we were like, well, we would prefer it. if we were all together. You know, we all came to here together. We're having a good time. So I was like...

You were right about this. Let's try to remain together. And if we get apart, let's try to work back together. And we definitely should be together when we go down the rapids because that's when we were going to be making memories together. So y'all were up ahead of us. We were trying to move, I think. But you were going too fast.

And I was paddling trying to catch up, like trying to get down the river. And I'm looking around. and, you know, I just figure you can kind of, we're almost to the rapids and you can kind of see like ripples in the water and like the effects of rocks making like V's and stuff. So I was like, well, all it needs to happen is harm

because Link's not going to listen to me and I'm not going to ask the lesbian to do it. Harm is he needs to get out of the tube and put his feet on the ground and stop everybody. Yeah. So I said, put your feet down. He didn't hear me. I said,

Put your feet down! I'm yelling this across the river. And he looks at me and he's like, so he begins... And I didn't hear Red. I wasn't listening to him, of course. Okay, so tell it from your perspective. So then I look, all of a sudden,

I see harm just like, like, throw a leg over and then throw the other leg over with gusto, like he's about to step down a step. Yeah. And then he just goes, whoosh, like, and I saw, I saw his, like, chin come up, and I saw his eyes get as wide as saucers. His mouth wasn't even closed.

His mouth was open. And then his hat. And then all of a sudden, he's gone, and then his hat's just there. And I'm like, why did you do that? It was a lot deeper than I was. Why did you do that? And then I'm just laughing. And I'm like, well, I guess he was hot.

And I see it from a distance. All I see is I just see him lean over the edge and just completely disappear. And no one on my flotilla even sees it. I'm like, Harm just disappeared. He's under. He's under. His hat isn't under, though.

And it was cold, too. It was so cold. It was shocking. It's not the type of thing that, I mean, the only one that intentionally took a dip was Greg, because Greg doesn't care. And I said, I asked Harm, I was like, did you feel the bottom at any point?

He says, never. I never felt the bottom. I never, we were, it was so, it was probably 10 feet deep. There was no way to get to the bottom. Somehow. It was just so funny to watch, it looked like it was the last time I was gonna see him. And somehow. Like the look of, I'm dying on his face was real.

Oh, and he was fine. He was fine, no. Now, but what it ended up happening that I didn't know, because I had no experience on this river, was that you were about to get to a bottleneet where everybody was lining up to go down the rapids. And it was like everyone was kind of backing up because there's three, areas that you can go in. Under a bridge.

There is the area that you're supposed to go down, which is, you know, rapids. And these rapids are actually artificial. They're man-made. And they have, like, basically these inflatable things that are creating, like, inflatable rocks almost to create rapids. Yeah, it inflates a big pillow. And then on the front side of the pillow, upriver, is like a metal plate. I think it's what they use in the Olympics for the whitewater rafting courses when they make those. Because the plate raises up and then it creates a wave or a V.

And so the far left route was a series of rapids created four tubes. And then in the middle, it's for expert rafters only. And what you will see there is a big V. And if you go down through that on a kayak, then after that, there is a wave that's created. And I think they can change around and inflate different things to make the waves different. But there was a standing wave in the river that then surfers would line up and one at a time jump out and surf the wave. Some people were really good.

There was a guy doing like 360s and just having a ball. There was people learning how to do it. I would have totally given it a shot. I would have worn a helmet because there was, like, concrete that you're standing on. Then you're holding on to the edge of the concrete and trying to stand on the board and then pushing off. And you could like wallop your head or something. Especially if you were like yelling at harm. Step down!

Put your feet down. Put your feet down. And then the third section is the wildlife section, you know, where the birds and the geese are. And the snakes and the swathes. And it's nice and pretty, you know, no humans are going through that. Very cool because it's right in the middle of town and... A bunch of nice houses. You're walking, it's a bridge that you're walking across

and, like, you can stand up there and you can just watch people shooting the rapids. And the rapids, the river is controlled, obviously, by some sort of dam upstream that controls the flow and keeps the level exactly where you want it to be because these people would have these nice houses and then in the back of the house there'd be like a dead. deck and a grill and a hot tub and then all the way down just inches above the surface of the river there would be like a patio or a fake or like a grassy area with like chairs for just sitting on

the kind of thing that if the river the river fluctuates in level this would be flooded all the time and so it's very controlled that's a good point and okay but the rapids the rapids come and And it was me and you and Greg in our cooler raft. By the time we got there, it was the three of us. I was responsible for the cooler raft, not flipping over. I was responsible for the beer in my hand. It didn't look like there was any...

It didn't look like this was going to be a difficult thing. But it was more intense than I would have ever imagined. Yeah. It was pretty awesome. So we had a great time. We had a great time, made friends, we added two more lesbians to our, you know, to the roller deck and...

Rolla decks. No, mine's just a deck. Okay. It's not real. It's like a holodeck. It just is in my mind. All right. But then the next day, so that was all we had planned for the river.

Mm-hmm. But then... Next day we went on a... We toured the Deschutes Brewery. Yes. Which is an old school... I mean, been around for a long time early in the microbreu game, but now they're pretty big.

They're huge. Yeah. But there's still a microbrewery technically, or whatever they call the... It's not bought by a corporation. And, but you can buy it in Costco, apparently. You can. Deschutes beer. But after we finished that, we just started talking.

We were walking around the river, watching other people in there, and we were like, let's go down again. Can we just go down again? And Greg, we knew this, and for some reason, we didn't trust Greg. Greg, who lived the closest to bend and can drive, actually drove there. He brought with him an inflatable paddleboard. He said it was big.

He said it's called the Megalodon. It's very big. But the first day, he was like, you want me to bring the paddleboard? And there was, you know, no one really understood what the Megalodon represented, the opportunity it represented.

So we were like, you know what, don't worry about it. We all have tubes. We've rented them. We'll just do that, Greg. But then the next day... It's a cute little idea you have. Yeah, right.

It's not a little idea. And then the next day, we all had no choice but to break out the board. And Greg was like, I think it's like got a thousand pound weight limit. I think all five of us can fit on it. What? All five of us can fit on his paddleboard? Five men? Some of us are pretty big.

I said, let's do it. So we thought we were going to pump this thing up with the air compressor that hooks up to your car. But Greg didn't bring that. So we used the manual pump. 50 pumps 50 pumps and rotate Everybody had to do 50 pumps To get to 13 PSI

13 PSI is I mean It's real high I mean I thought Greg was You know but you gotta trust Greg Just like you said Yeah always trust Greg So we put

We pumped this thing up It took 20 minutes And we put it in the river And Greg's like We need to take a lawn chair I'm like what You want to put a lawn chair on this thing? He said, yeah. So we put a lawn chair on the paddleboard. He said,

if we had more chairs, I'd put those on there too. Tim sits on in the lawn chair. Yeah. And then... Call it the captain's chair, I guess. It was, uh, harm, Greg, me and you, and then our coolers. Yeah. All on one paddleboard. And boy, we went down the river like that. And I, you know what? I got to say, I think we caused a bit of a scene. Yeah, I think people took notice. There was some jealousness. No one could look at us and not smile. That's what I noticed.

People would see five men on a paddleboard and be like, those boys are just having a time in our lives. There was a lot of, I've never seen anything like that. I ain't never seen anything like that. And then when we got to the rapids, everybody's like, y'all are going down the rapids, he's staying in the chair? Right. We're like, yeah.

And we did. He's got to point it in the right direction, right? It was intense, but we got through. There was a lot of, whoa, whoa, but everybody got through. Tim stayed in the chair, kept his beer in his hand the whole time. I think I ended up in your lap with a cooler. Well, the thing that you did that almost really ruined the fun for me

is you were sitting in front of me. And right as we got to the mouth of the rapids, and all eyes were on us, Instead of what you did is you stood up and bent over and got into like a doggie position with your ass right in my face. And I was like, I don't want this for you. I've discovered that is the most stable position.

Yeah, but it's inconsiderate to the person who's directly behind you. So I was like, don't do that. Sit back down. And you did. And then... Bend over again. And then we went through the rapids

and had a grand old time. You got to use the... other hand, right? Right? It was fun. It was fun. It was fun. It was a great time.

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No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost. delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. And we'd had so much fun until the next day when we went on an ATV trip. We went on an ATV tour unguided, which are the best kinds. Here, take my ATV and do whatever you want with it.

I'll stay here. Trusting, you're going to bring it back. And it's called an ATV tour, but when I I hear ATV, I think, like, four-wheeler, but it's those Polaris razors. You know, it's the side-by-sides. It's like a little car, is what it is. Well, yeah, you could hold four people, and it's got a roll cage. And we rented three of them.

And you're wearing a full helmet. So basically no one had to sit in the back. Because either you were driving or you were the passenger. These things... Well, I think what you did was... Hmm? You just... Y'all all hopped in one,

and then I'm like, well, here I am alone. I got, I was out man out. I got left, well, I got left to my own car. I think we discussed this on a previous earbiscuit that we have done this before. And the time we did it before is when everyone learned what I already knew, which is you do not ride shotgun if Link is driving unless you want to feel like you're going to die the whole time. And so I said that when we showed up last year. I was like, I'll be, I'll ride passenger in, with anyone except Link.

I'm not going to do that. And Greg rode with me. And then Greg looked like as white as a sheet when we got to the first stop. Yeah, so nobody was, nobody row with it. So everybody learned her lesson and we're like, okay, well, no one rides with Link. But that doesn't mean you get to just drive more

than anybody else. It means we have to rotate through so somebody gets, so I got to drive by myself for a little bit. We weren't at Sisters, but we were kind of close to Sisters, which is a mountain. But Sisters was a town and we were there. That's the name of the town. And the name of the mountains.

Yeah, Sisters, Oregon is outside of Ben, and that's where we, like, got those breakfast burritos. Right. At brunchies. Brunchies. Brunchies is good. Shut out of brunches. They got milk bread.

Get yourself apple fritter balls from brunches. It's a little, it's a food truck with some tables outside of it. Yep. Don't sit next to the port-a-potties. Yeah, we might need to move the porta-potties a little bit further. away from the facility. That's the only that we have. Everything else about it is great.

ATVs were awesome. It was, we covered a lot of ground, like going through like these pine forests, and then you start gaining elevation, climbing up different mountain peaks. These incredible machines. This is not an ad for Polaris, okay? But I, it's baffling to me, the engineering that goes into these machines. that makes you feel, and I know this isn't true, I know that lots can go wrong.

But, and when you're in a passenger seat, it feels much more tenuous than when you're driving. Because when you're driving, you're in control. But when you're driving this thing, they go like 60 miles per hour. I got up to 61 time, which is a crazy speed on a trail. Yeah, because it'll drift on you.

Right. But the thing that happens, I only did that when it was like a straightaway and I felt safe, but, I mean, going 35, 40 miles per hour down a single lane thing that's got rocks and who knows what's around the next bend, you just feel like you're in a video game because it's so responsive

and the suspension is so forgiving that you hit these rocks and stuff and it's just like the wheel goes like that, like the wheels are doing this the whole time, but you're like locked in. I mean, it's so much fun. It is fun. You're thinking like you might want to get one.

I don't want to buy one, But I want to rent one again, and I've been looking around the places that you can do it outside of L.A. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and there's lots of desert. There's like a four-hour self-guided trail on the other side of the mountains. Oh, cool. That looks really nice and got really good reviews. The highlight was, I mean, there's all these lakes that you can go to and mountain peaks, but then, and we have four hours.

so if you go to the far end of the route and it's they had GPS mapping programmed in with like the routes that you could take because there's a lot of roads that they recommend you don't take and then you can it was the best ATV experience because they employed the GPS party tracking technology and we had never done that before because what happens

usually is the person in front of you is throwing up so much dust that you're just eating dirt the whole time even though you have goggles and everything so you try to back off but you won't back off too far because you'll lose them and when you get to a fork in the road

the person in the front has to stop let the person catch up so you know we're going left not right but with the GPS I could see we could see each other's location on the thing and give each other space and not have to worry about it And you kind of let the first person kind of figure out where to go and you just all followed. Yep.

And you could even like text through the, and communicate through the GPS system, which was really awesome. I mean, it was great. We get to the far side and it was called, he had mentioned it, the guy who rented him to us was like the black dunes. Black sands. Yeah, I was like, is it going to be a dune? It wasn't actually a dune because it was like, it was an over. It was a couple of, like, open, I would call them, like, meadow areas. They were undulating, but it was all black sand.

And then there were trees. It's like a volcanic. Everything in that area, you know, the three sisters are volcanoes, the big, the big combs. Cone mountains. And so all of the rock, all around this whole area is volcanic rock. And so a lot of it is black. And somehow, in this one section, there's nothing. growing, it looks like somebody came and tore everything down and just dumped like recreational

sand for hundreds of yards in every direction. And then there's like these islands of trees and stuff. And we were just going as fast. Nobody else was there. Now he gives you all kinds of warnings about it because he's like, if you're going to tip over it, you're going to do it there because if you're just going full speed and you just rip it to one side, you're going to roll. And if you roll. I'm going to know it. It's going to, you immediately have to pay me $3,000. He said, and you're going to come back? It's in the thing you just signed. And you just need to tell me, and I'm going to be cool about it, but I am going to charge you $3,000, okay? Per vehicle, that is up. Per vehicle, so don't do donuts is what he said. Now, okay, I listened to

him. I heard that. I heard it when he said it, and you know what? The day before I went on the trip, my therapist told me I was I was talking to my therapist about this trip and I mentioned ATV and and he said well you need to be careful hold on he like he did you told him that you haven't been careful he just knows you as your therapist I think he knows me as my therapist okay well that means he's listening yeah he's a great listener that means he's paying attention yeah he I was like huh my therapist just told me to be on the ATVs, it's like, shit, now I've got an assignment. Right. You know, because I have a problem with wanting to please my therapist.

So now it's like, now I'm like, it's a common thing. Okay, I got to, now I got to, I can't come back and talk about how I like, I'm, I broke a limb or, you know, killed a friend. And then I, no one made a joke about killing a friend, but the guy said the thing you don't want to do is you don't want to kill your friend. Like, that's going to make you feel really bad. Like, that's what the guy who written as the thing said. And I was like, okay, I hear that. I hear that. But if I'm in my own.

So then I'm out there and I'm like, man, I really want to do some donuts out here. And the therapist won out. I didn't. Did you notice that? Well, the first thing I noticed in that respect was, as we were, as well, we were going out to the, as we were going out, you were ahead of me. You were driving. We ended up leaving by accident, Tim and Greg, when we went up to that mountain. Right. And then they ended of going to Black Sand. So for a big portion of the trip, you were in the lead and me and

harm were behind you. I was driving at that time. And I just felt myself, like, I was going as fast as I was comfortable going, but I just was like, you weren't leaving me. And I was like, Oh, Link, he's not pushing it as hard as he did last time. That's the main note I made, I was like, if he's pushing it as hard as he did last time, then I would be having trouble keeping up with him. And I'm not having trouble keeping up with him. It's just like, you were like, we were equidistant

from most of the, for the things. So I was like, hmm, he's really showing some restraint. Therapy. I was like, he's either showing restraint or something is wrong with the truck. That's what I was thinking. You know, it was really tempted to do donuts, but we, I mean, we did, like, some drifting. Because you're also, but not complete donuts.

Because you're also much more likely, like, when you're by yourself, you do go faster. Coming back when I was driving by myself, I was killing the speed. I was going, like, I'm right on the edge of safety, and I would never do this with somebody riding passenger. Because it's just too scary. It's too scary for the passenger because, and there's this thing. built into the dash that you hold on to like this. Like a T-shaped bar. Which makes you feel a little bit safe,

but you can't steer with it. Uh-uh, uh-uh. And you can't break with it. No, but when we were out there, oh, I mean, it was just, it was great. That was cool. And no one even left, no one even had a moment

where all four wheels weren't on the ground. None of us. Because he also said, don't do that. When we got back, we're like, look, all in one piece, no problem we didn't do any roll in we didn't have any problems he was like well the group before you did they rolled it and they didn't tell me either but of course I can tell and I'm already charging them come take a look and then he was like see how they rolled the whole thing

and we were like how often does this happen he said uh once a week like it's just part of his lease with Polaris and like the insurance and stuff is just like all right You're going to get ding the $3,000 deductible or whatever, and I already have the parks, and I'm going to just go ahead and fix it and file a claim, and I have to do it every week. Because people like you are crazy, and you know what?

It wasn't me. It wasn't me. I mean, I saw those guys, two guys, and they were sitting there looking at the car, and it was like leaking something out. And he, he, and Greg told those guys, you should, you should stop and call the guy. Right. Greg gave him the dad advice, the good dad advice.

And they were, and they just kind of looked at him like, uh-uh. And then they just figured it out and they came back. Maybe he won't notice. And they pulled right up and acted like nothing to never happen. And he immediately knew that they had rolled it. He was like, see this, this and this. And he explained what the leak was. It's like when you get upside down, this happens and all this.

He had a demeanor about him, the renter guy, the, I liked it. I liked it. There was no, no, it was like, I'm not bullshitting with you because this is serious. I'm very cool, I'm very cool, I'm very chill. Right. But also, I've had to give this, I know that you're not really taking me seriously about some of these things I'm saying, and so I'm going to say it in a way that makes you listen. Yeah.

I appreciated it. Yeah. I didn't appreciate all the yellow jackets that were swarming us. It was effective. It was effective. It had an impact on me. It worked. That and the therapist.

Maybe, you know, I bet he'd be a good therapist. I should have told him that. Maybe I would have got the discount. They're just, those side-by-sides are so fun. You know, there are places in the country where there are places to do it around here, for sure, and that the desert and the scenery and stuff is very fun. There are places, you know, we've got friends that live in Arkansas. and that's like a hotbed of side-by-sides people lots of people have them and there's just endless trails that go through the woods and stuff I can see how you get kind of addicted to that yeah because it is physically demanding but it's not as physically demanding as some of the other stuff like we were talking about maybe doing a winter get together at some point and like should we go to a ski mountain and I was like you know I'm evaluating my relationship with snow skiing right now

as a man who will soon be 48. And he was already 6.7. And I'm just like, I just don't know. I don't know how much longer. I don't know if I need to ever do it again. What about, you know, what about softball? That seems safe. You could just, you could take up softball.

No, the ball is harder than the name would imply. I mean, do you remember? Jenna, are you re-evaluating your relationship with softball? Um, it kind of, but not really, because that's why I'm getting the surgery, the surgery. Can you tell us the story? Like, tell us the story. Because we don't have a story of personal injury, but this episode needs one. Okay, I would love to be that person.

It doesn't even have to be true. No, no. This is, oh, well, I'll tell the truth. All right. Because this is, yeah. What happened to you? A few weeks. ago, I was on my

Rec League co-ed softball team and it was a playoff game and I was in the outfield as I usually am and there was a ball and I ran full speed after it trying to catch it

as you do. A pop fly? A pop fly. Mm-hmm. It was in foul territory. I was a left field so I was really booking it to try and catch it. And then there was a little divot in the grass that my left foot found and there was a pop and I immediately fell to the ground and said, oh, this is bad. Oh, this is bad. Oh, this is bad. And that was the thing

I kept repeating as like my teammates came up and all the guys on my team were like, what do you need? What do you need? And I was like, I need a minute. Need a minute. Just give me a minute. I know this is bad, but give me a minute. And I took a minute and was able to, like, stand up, and they, like, helped me off the field and gave me an ice pack and a couple ibuprofen and a modello. Are you serious?

A couple of ibuprofen and a medall. Not always the greatest combination, but, okay. Listen, in the moment is exactly what I wanted. Right, good. Pain were you in at this point? Well, I'm assuming a lot. People seemed surprised that I wasn't, like, crying out in pain and that I was still functional. And I just take that as I'm really good at dissociating.

Okay. We can take partial credit for that. Right. No, that was before you guys. That was before you guys. Listen, I was built. Before I worked for you. I was built for disassociation.

Yeah, yeah. Before I worked for you all, I built who I am today, brick by brick, you know. Pain is your middle name? Is that what you mean? Okay. Anyway, so, you know, went and saw the doctors that next week and had to tell. Next week? No, that next day, I started going to the doctors. I didn't go that day because I was like, this doesn't feel like an emergency. I can just go home and elevate it and I sit. Like, I know it's bad. I know it should. see someone, but it's not an emergency bad to me anyway. And when you say go to the doctors, you went to multiple doctors

or is that just something, is that a Tennessee euphemism? It's the TV show. Oh. Yeah, yeah, I went on the doctors. Oh, okay. Is it still happening? Is that show still happening? I don't think so. Wasn't that a Dr. Oz thing? No. Well, it was a spin-off. I don't remember. I don't remember.

But, yeah, so X-rays and then I had got an x-ray first to make sure it wasn't broken and then saw my primary and then he was like, you need an MRI, and it took forever to get an MRI scheduled. Turns out I tore my ACL. Oh, God. Full tear.

Full tear. I've got a lovely orthopedic surgeon. I've getting surgery in a couple weeks. Like, where is that? The ACL is. I know a lot of athletes of all types get these. It kind of goes over the kneecap in a supportive way. So, like, it helps keep the kneecap stable, especially with lateral movements.

So how did stepping in a hole make it snap? Because my knee went a strange lateral. It took a lateral shift that was unnatural to it so quickly because I was running so fast. And that just snapped it. Yeah, it's always something... Did it snap it at an anchor point, or did it snap it in the middle? Well, my surgeon didn't tell me that specifically. I'm not entirely sure.

Because every time you see somebody tear an ACL in a sports injury, you're watching it. And, I mean, sometimes it's crazy and the knee does something nuts. Most of the time, it's just like, this dude was running along and made a quick lateral movement, and then he just fell down. Yeah, yeah. It never is like one of those things really... The knee bends backwards or something. Of course, that would do something, some damage. But sometimes it seems so subtle.

Did you, and you heard a pop? Oh, yeah, yeah, I heard and felt. Can you do an impression of this pop? Was it like the opening of a can? Can we move on? No, it wasn't the opening of a can. I think that would have been more fine. Like that?

This doesn't bother you? Like... What was that song? You don't like talk of blood, but you can take talk of ligaments? Well, I'm uncomfortable, but... but I'm not... I'd rather hear talk of blood

than talk of ligaments breaking. I will say, yeah, the sensation I have in my knee now is a discomfort. Like, I can feel that something isn't in the right place. And I don't like that feeling and I don't like describing that feeling

because I also hate that. I hate that feeling. I hate that more than blood too. I'm just like, it feels... I can tell something's not right inside and I can't... Well, it's painful. That's the thing, too.

And you can still walk. I guess to walk. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have to, and then I have to do physical therapy leading up to the surgery, too, so that my recovery is better. So, like, I've been doing some minor, like, stretching so that I can have full extension of the knee by the time I need surgery. And so that I'm still working those muscles, especially my quad, so that my quad doesn't, like, atrophy. So, yeah. And then what are they going to do?

They're going to go in there and they're going to give you a new one. We've chosen a less invasive kind of surgery where they are using a cadavers ACL, essentially, or Patela. So, like, it's less incisions. Or man. You gonna have a man ACL? I might, I might, yeah, the difference, the difference between the two is zero. Oh, yes, co-ed. Okay.

Yeah, it's co-ed softball, I'm allowed. So it can be co-ed within your own body. Yeah, I can't. That's a co-ed body, yeah. So do you get to choose from an array of cadavers? Who wouldn't that be fine? Like, you know, you grab the ankle and just start moving the knee up and down? No, because it's, okay.

No, it's an organ donor. As morbid as this is going to be right now, Link. So you completely understand this. This is someone, she's going to get someone's knee who is currently alive. Right now it's alive. Yeah. And it's going to die around the time that she is having this surgery. Oh, wow.

Who doesn't currently know that they are going to be a donor of this tissue. Like, it's morbid to think about it? Yeah. Just so you understand. It's not somebody currently sitting in a morgue waiting to, it's somebody who will have died. But do they cart a couple in at the moment? I mean, I just, you know how the fancy restaurants. It's not like that.

It's not tableside. Tableside, ACL. It's like, which one do you want? Yeah. I don't feel comfortable of participating in this conversation. Do they need? It's like choosing a lobster before. Do you need to have someone who's roughly the same height?

No. What about a pig? Why when it could be a person? You seen a pig's legs? You know? You don't want to be. pig knee. Pig heart, but not a pig knee.

I'm sure that is possible, but why would they when there's organ donors and I could have a person's? Yeah, right. Yeah. But anyway, it's the least invasive option because they won't have to take any stuff from me. You get right. You could get it from somewhere else on you.

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, that'll be fun. And then I'm going to be in physical therapy for a while after also. And you've been wearing a brace? I don't have the brace on today. Why is that? Because I'm testing.

The brace doesn't allow me to do all the movements that would be beneficial to my recovery. So if I don't have a, like today isn't a day where I'm running around doing a bunch of stuff. So like I can sit on my desk like here, I'm sitting here, and I can elevate and I can do some stretches. I don't need a brace for those minor things. But I have it at my desk just in case. My brace is here. Well, you've remained very positive. I know that it was frustrating making those appointments

and trying to get everything lined up. Frustrade egg. So, you know, I'll invite, listener, if you've torn your ACL, if you have some hot tips, if you have something that you want to share with Jenna, it's like a hack, like an ACL life hack, call us leave us a voicemail

1-888-8-8-Earpod 1 and to the people of Bend, Oregon and those who love to visit we thank you thank you you were a really, really good time yep

and you were a good town a lot of new construction and also a lot of people who when they would see us would be like what brings you guys to Bend as if you don't understand the beauty of your town.

Yeah. You know, it's like, well, why not bend Oregon? You've done it once. Why not bend to Oregon? We might have to bend Oregon. You know, it's a beautiful place with proximity to beautiful places.

I think if we went back, we would rent one of those places right on the river. Right on the river. And then we would just heckle and jekkel and cackle. We could invite all people. All people. Lesbians, straights. Yeah.

Gays, all people. Yeah. Trans people. Yes. Everybody, we'd invite them into our yard. Right. And we'd give them a couple of ibuprofen and a modello. No, we wouldn't do that.

We're not going to be medicating people. We'd say, you can go for a spin on the megaladon. I don't know. After if they sign a waiver, we get the way, we sign, we sign, we, get a copy of the waiver from the ATV guy. Right, if you roll this thing, $3,000. $3,000, am I turning this board over? Yes, sir, you signed it.

The Megalodon. The Megalodon. So, but now the exercise, in fact, your wife had a suggestion for you that was for us. She was so excited about it. Because she said that she had seen a group of women who were on a trip together. and the way that they decide where they're going to go the following year is everyone writes down where they want to go on a sheet of paper, and then they put it into a hat,

and you pull it out. When you pull it out, you're not going there. And it's the last one standing is where you go. And she was like, y'all should do that. It would be fun. And then we said, do you know how hard it was for us to agree on Bend Oregon? The last thing we want is, right.

Now, I wasn't going to put it exactly the way you put it. put it, because when we began to discuss this with a very small group of five gentlemen, two of which are us, Link said, well, I think my problem is that not everybody is going to have good ideas. I was like, you could have put it, you could have said that.

Right. You could have said that differently. Yeah, I don't want to make it a game to where we have to go to the place with the dumb idea. I don't think it would be, it's that they're bad ideas, is that we end up suggesting a place and then we run it through our decision matrices.

Yeah. And then that's how we decide if it's a good idea or not, you know? Fire pits, floats, lesbians. There has been talk of something international. I don't know if it'll happen. I got to say, I was the one who brought it up. But it might be too big of a commitment. And when I say international, we're talking either Canada or Mexico.

We're not going to go, we're not leaving North America. Yeah. We don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. But that's it. That's what we did. And we made it back all in one piece, and we're glad that you listened. Well, and the last thing I'll say, because a lot of people, when they're like, what are you guys doing here?

And we always say, and we're usually all five of us are together. And we're like, well, you know, we get together with our college friends every single year. And we choose a different place in the U.S. to go. This year, we've been to Oregon. and everyone says something along the lines of if they're older they say oh man that's a good idea I should I should do that you know I think I'm going you can see it on their face that they want to plan a girl's trip trip girls trip guys trip they want to plan a trip with their friends in fact we ran into another group of ladies, and they had gone to high school together.

And they all had hats on, matching hats on. Matching hats. They had not yet put the logo on the hat, which we criticized them openly for. Or we asked penetrating questions about it. Okay. And they said, well, the logo is coming. But the point was, we're like, hey, we're doing the same thing.

We're on a trip too, you know? And I think that- You might ask the question, did you talk to any men on the river? Well, we typically didn't, don't. Yeah, we typically didn't need to. We typically don't. But the thing is, is that making the decision, if you've got a group of friends,

if you've got people that you went to college with or you grew up with, you know, reconnecting with them and they're saying, hey, let's all get together. Get on a megal, here's the thing. It might be a disaster for you. It depends on your friends. If you got friends like us,

it won't be a disaster. It'll be a good time. Yep. So if you got friends you can have a good time with, do it. Do it. Make it happen. And then, right when you're done doing it, begin planning the next one.

Don't wait to the last minute. We're already talking about next year. Girls trip! Yeah, this is Carl. My grandson got this hooked up for me to listen to you on the podcast, and I really enjoy it. I'm used to listen. I like to listen to AM radio.

But now everything's gone away. It's so standing here with the hearing aids that found that the podcasts were the better. And this one here is really good. So this is Carl from Minnesota. Toodaloo.